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I'm very familiar with all the arguments against - but I still want to buy, say, a couple of hundred quids worth and then forget about it for a decade.
All the online guides, Reddit threads etc., seem to be 100% spammed with affiliate links though, and I just can't figure out what my entry route should be.
Seems like the first decision is what sort of wallet you will use - software, hardware, or paper. I'm erring towards buying a Trazor hardware wallet (the basic one), but is this unnecessary?
Then it seems like Kraken could be a good exchange to buy the coin, but really I have no idea.
Any advice much appreciated please.
So, assassination or narcotics purchase?
Actually funding my private island when the bitcoin price hits $140,000.
Now you mention it, I can think of a few people I would quite like offing though 😀
Cheers appltn, maybe I'm overthinking it then.
At least based on the lack of responses to this thread I can be confident it's not jumped the shark.
You can buy Bitcoin using Revolut. It still isn't guaranteed but easier than using Coin exchanges.
I used coinbase when I decided to give it a go a couple of years ago.
Have done very well (and been very lucky) with it all over the past couple of years. I put what I was prepared to ‘lose’ if it all went down the pan in just under 2 years ago when it seemed low to me (as an outsider noob) & cashed out 6 months later - paid myself the original investment back & decided to sit for another drop.
Went back in earlier this year & just about to cash out again. It hasn’t now cost me anything, other than a bit of time - but could all go wrong again tomorrow.
Not sure I would be buying right now - I’d be holding on until the price is half what it is at this point.
Not sure I would be buying right now – I’d be holding on until the price is half what it is at this point.
Unless we never see it again...
Cheers both. Will take a look at Revolut.
Not sure I would be buying right now – I’d be holding on until the price is half what it is at this point.
Some crystal ball you've got there 😉
(You're right of course, all assets are looking very peaky - but with continued quantitative easing and a rapid decline in the value of money, I'm fairly bullish about all asset classes for the next few years - apart from UK stocks that is!)
Some crystal ball you’ve got there
Absolutely! I make no excuses - mine has pretty much been down to gut feel, if I get out now & it keeps going up I’m sure I’ll kick myself.
But then I’m happy with how it’s turned out, can always jump back in again.
BTW - consider ETH also.
I am no expert, but have seen some online stories that some banks are difficult when it comes to cashing in bitcoin, assuming that it is laundered proceeds of crime. Do some research before trying to get you cash out, especially if it is a large amount.
Hence using Revolut as it's part of their service offering.
This is a good interview with vitalik buterin (co-founder of ethereum)
Highly recommend Bitpanda for buying and selling Crypto.
Not sure I would be buying right now – I’d be holding on until the price is half what it is at this point.
This... All the signs are it's about to "boom and bust" again really soon, like it did in December 2017. I bought most of my current stake when it was around £7k, within weeks my investment was worth 30% of what it cost me!
I just left it there though... 3 Years later it's worth more than it cost me, and is appreciating a little too quickly again for my liking (more than 50% increase from 15th October to 15th November!), which means only one thing... It's about to be shorted BIG TIME!!!
Went back in earlier this year & just about to cash out again. It hasn’t now cost me anything, other than a bit of time – but could all go wrong again tomorrow.
I think you've got the right idea... I'll be cashing out soon... It's gonna crash sooner than later, not a case of if but when. I don't want a repeat of last time! I'd rather cash out when it's £12.5k like it is now and be prepared to buy again when it goes down to £2k, than wait for it to break £16k like some are saying it will then hours later I've missed the boat, and don't have anything to reinvest!
Price is at an all time high right now I believe. Though who’s to say it won’t keep rising...
Can recommend Coinbase app on the phone for general trading. Or if you want an offline wallet, Electrum does the job.
Etorro is not a bad app for trading but the spread can be a bit higher than other platforms.
It's a bit to pricey for a buy option in my humble now. And it's a huge gamble anyway but isn't everything. I've got a buy when it was 7k I'm tempted to turn back into cash.
Tulips ECT ECT
Just be aware that any profit you make may be liable for Income or Capital Gains Tax (if you declare it, obvs).
Cryptoassets : tax for individuals
And it’s a huge gamble anyway but isn’t everything. I’ve got a buy when it was 7k I’m tempted to turn back into cash.Tulips ECT ECT
Quite - and at least tulips did something! But that's why I'm talking a couple of hundred quid - if bitcoin tanks next week (or if it doesn't) I'll just leave it there for a decade, at which point it'll have either recovered, gone up or not.
Bit more reading is pointing me towards an electrum e-wallet as Jambourgie suggests. Any issues with Coinbase taking payment in £GBP or is that old news now?
Just be aware that any profit you make may be liable for Income or Capital Gains Tax (if you declare it, obvs).
No danger of that just yet. I am familiar with defusing CGT from shares though, so if my £100 goes up 1500% I'll manage 😉
Price is at an all time high right now I believe.
It's currently just shy of £12.6k and rising fairly quickly...
It hit just over £15k briefly in December 2017 before crashing rapidly... By Feb 2018 it was less than £6k, by April 2018 it was under £5k, then by Feb 2019 it was down to around £2.5k!
Though who’s to say it won’t keep rising…
That's what those who had huge amounts invested in it said last time round, as an incentive to get everyone else to invest... Just before they shorted the hell out of it!
That’s what those who had huge amounts invested in it said last time round, as an incentive to get everyone else to invest… Just before they shorted the hell out of it!
Weird thing.
Vast majority is held by huge whales, who never trade.
The percentage which trades is tiny. Very little real liquidity. If a whale tried to cash out the price would plummet.
Some great info on this topic...i still dabble using Revolut and haven't had any trouble with it.
@Finbar would you know of any forums that offer good advice /insights. I want to know more about this topic, but find it difficult separating the good from the bad!
Weird thing.
Vast majority is held by huge whales, who never trade.
A Bitcoin Whale just shorted $100m yesterday...
@Finbar would you know of any forums that offer good advice /insights. I want to know more about this topic, but find it difficult separating the good from the bad!
I'm the last person to advise I'm afraid, that's why I started this thread on here!
A Bitcoin Whale just shorted $100m yesterday…
At this rate, by the time I've figured out how to buy some, it'll be perfect timing for the bottom of the next market crash 😉
At this rate, by the time I’ve figured out how to buy some, it’ll be perfect timing for the bottom of the next market crash
Given it's gone up £100 per hour since you started this thread, I'd say get your skates on if I were you... It's about to go pop any time soon!!!
Don't know how much longer I dare hold out until I sell!
if bitcoin pops will rest follow?
In general yes they hit the real *value*
Take XRP it's put on maybe 4cents in the last week that will evaporate if bit coin drops.
It's a rigged market with no protection of any sort but so is horsre racing in my opinion. Manipulation is very real and still active.
Companies like ripple and Cardano are trying to look mainstream and have had some sucsess.
Crypto will be a thing but I have no clue on what horse to back in the end.
Well my nerve went about 6:30pm, I cashed out at £12.7k... I only had a few hundred quid invested, but it has taken me more than 3 years to get back to where my initial investment was, and then watching the price go up £100 per hour was a sign if ever there was one!
Coinbase's website has now crashed!!! Yes... Seriously!!!
It’s a rigged market with no protection of any sort but so is horsre racing in my opinion. Manipulation is very real and still active.
It's happening again right now... They tell everyone not to worry, it's going to go up another 20% or so before it actually crashes, then they short the market... It's EXACTLY what happened in December 2017. Then Coinbase et al all crashed because they're not designed to deal with high volumes of traffic (or more likely they're designed specifically NOT to deal with high volumes of traffic), and before people could actually login to get their money out several days later, the value had crashed more than 50% and continued to freefall...
I got out. Invested at about 5.5k a coin earlier this year so have done well. With this and my previous good luck I’m a fair few thousand up overall, so happy with that.
If it takes a tumble I’ll have another punt 🙂
If you look at google trends, it is not at a fraction of the interest it was in 2017, most people aren't even aware of the current price movement, last time it was on the BBC news in the final weeks before it hit the top, not to say it won't drop but this isn't like the last major peak quite yet but think a lot of people will look to cash out who bought way back then and been out of pocket for years
Really interesting read this, my work colleagues all advised to invest and all made a good amount, I decided to much later when I felt confident I knew enough and then like that it crashed....
I’ll be keeping my eye on this thread and there’s been some good advice, I was thinking of buying when it was low but didn’t, I probably will do next time though after reading the advice and tips here
Coinbase for actual BTC
or
HANetf BTCetc Bitcoin Exchange Traded Crypto (BTCE) if you have a normal share / fund account and just want to gamble on price.
Really interesting read this, my work colleagues all advised to invest and all made a good amount, I decided to much later when I felt confident I knew enough and then like that it crashed….
Honestly, IMHO the moment has long gone. I've got a mate who got in early and got out early, at the time he was lording it up that he'd made a few hundred quid. If he still had it and cashed out tomorrow it'd have paid for his house twice over.
The best way to make serious wedge on cryptocurrency requires a time machine. Mining it is a fool's errand unless someone else is paying for your electricity and trading it, well, you might as well hop over to a wheel in Vegas and put it all on black.
If you've got a couple of hundred quid to invest, I'd be buying Lego.
For a couple of hundred quid then yeah go with someone like Coinbase, takes most of the hassle out it (obviously there's fees involved though).
It's a total lottery so looking at it as a small gamble is fine, looking at it as an investment would be stupid IMO.
Companies like ripple and Cardano are trying to look mainstream and have had some sucsess
For Ripple at least it didn't help it's value, I bought £500 worth of it (at what turned out to be it's peak :p ) hoping Visa processing contracts would come through but it all fell through and that £500 is now about £220
HANetf BTCetc Bitcoin Exchange Traded Crypto (BTCE) if you have a normal share / fund account and just want to gamble on price.
This strikes me as the safest way to go. You can buy this price tracker in your ISA, there's almost no spread, no need for cold wallets or any of that jazz, and if you use a UK based broker like Trading 212 (no transaction or inactivity fees) then up to £85k is backed up by the FSCS.
Was using Revolut but they have a 4% spread plus have none of the other benefits listed above (ISA, FSCS).
If not sure what the price will do there's no shame in a partial sell. I just sold 25% at US $17k.
Bitcoin still not really "useable". Even the new PayPal wallets will charge a 2% fee for using it. So still not perfect by any means. Yet. But going the right way and cannot be printed unlike the rapidly-weakening GBP we all hold and never talk about.
Companies like ripple and Cardano are trying to look mainstream and have had some sucsess
Not sure if the Ripple moment has passed. I bought about £2k 3-4 years ago and then it went mental. I was sitting on £40k+ profit but didn't cash out, thinking it was just the start but also it was convoluted back then. Worth about £2k now...
I think ETH would be a safer bet for going mainstream.
If you’ve got a couple of hundred quid to invest, I’d be buying Lego.
And at least you get something to keep you busy if the market crashes.
Sillysilly, caspian, thanks. There's also the XBT ETF (well, ETN) which is available via Hargreaves.
HANetf BTCetc Bitcoin Exchange Traded Crypto (BTCE) if you have a normal share / fund account and just want to gamble on price.
This strikes me as the safest way to go. You can buy this price tracker in your ISA, there’s almost no spread, no need for cold wallets or any of that jazz, and if you use a UK based broker like Trading 212 (no transaction or inactivity fees) then up to £85k is backed up by the FSCS.
Bitcoin still not really “useable”.
Can't see it ever being anything more than a speculative oddity.
It's too volatile / illiquid to be a real currency of any sort.
Finally just bought in. £71 / 0.0049 bitcoins worth.
I am assuming that money is essentially gone, but now I've learned just about enough to have a punt in good time if there's another crash.
Floating between 22.8k usd right now. How often are you checking the price OP?
It's amazing what you can get delivered to your house these days. Fans of dried herbs would do well to search littlebiggy 😉
Floating between 22.8k usd right now. How often are you checking the price OP?
I keep a closer eye on the Dow 😉 - don't even know how much I'm up by (or if someone's hacked my wallet yet...!).
@finbar - you should be up by about 70% now right?
I'm just gutted I didn’t buy any back in March this year.
anyone fancy taking a punt on when it’s going to stop climbing?
It's gone BONKERS!
Who knows when it will stop?
If you ever follow Crypto Twitter (like the Twitter accounts of the Winklevoss Twins or Michael Saylor), it is very disturbing. They hype it like it's guaranteed to hit 500k in the future.
I'd be concerned that people are putting money in that they can't afford to lose, putting it in bitcoin instead of a pension, even borrowing to buy bitcoin based on these recommendations.
If a banker came out and said the kind of moronic garbage that these guys do about BTC, they'd be in prison!
That said, it is going bonkers up at the moment, and with the miniscule amount I have - I'm HODLing for now!
yeah, I tend not to follow crypto-Twitter - it just seems to be full of people hyping or pulling it down. No middle ground whatsoever.
It’s interesting that it’s being reported on the bbc again - I remember back in 2017 with the last big peak that it was all over the news. Makes me wonder if it’ll go the same way this time or just keep climbing.
either way, it’s far beyond the point of being able to be used for daily transactions. It’s just a speculative investment now
it is very disturbing. They hype it like it’s guaranteed to hit 500k in the future.
There was a time they hyped it like it was guaranteed to hit $5k. Then $10k. etc
History says there will inevitably be a dip, but when it hits $500k that dip will be almost irrelevant. Buy and HODL.
Although, as a mate pointed out a long time back, by the time it's worth $500k, that value may be irrelevant as BTC will probably be it's own currency by then. PayPal are starting to enable BTC transactions, right?
I like this from Warren Buffet...
“If you buy something like a farm, an apartment house, or an interest in a business,” Buffet once said. “You can do that on a private basis. And it’s a perfectly satisfactory investment. You look at the investment itself to deliver the return to you. Now, if you buy something like bitcoin or some cryptocurrency, you don’t really have anything that has produced anything. You’re just hoping the next guy pays more.”
Sums it up for me, but appreciate there's others who see it differently, here's Michael Saylor on bitcoin, it's gibberish to me, but hey ho he's doubled his millions in months!
"#Bitcoin is Digital Gold - Harder, Smarter, Stronger, & Faster, Cyber Hornet Theory, Active & Organic Defenses, Fragility of Chinese Walls & Gatekeepers, Darwinian Response & Network Evolution, Smart Money, Monetary Force & Acceleration, Fast BTC Energy."
Revolut is a sensible way to go if you want to buy Bitcoin.
I was sitting on £40k+ profit but didn’t cash out, thinking it was just the start but also it was convoluted back then. Worth about £2k now…
A Bitcoin is at its highest ever price. This is makes no sense whatsoever.
Without checking back, I think I wrote that.
<span style="font-size: 0.8rem;">I was talking about my Crypto portfolio, which was 90% XRP (rather than BTC) and that went over 10x the value I'd bought in at very quickly. If I'd put the same value into BTC then instead, I'd be looking at a similar value now I guess.</span>
@finbar – you should be up by about 70% now right?
@justinbieber - I've bought a bit more in intervening weeks so not quite that much. I think I've put in about £900 and it's 'worth' about £1400 at the moment. Will probably be down a similar amount in a month or two!
Which method did you decide on to buy in with?
@lotto - kraken.com . It has minuscule fees (0.26% on trades) and seems as legit as things get in crypto-world (i.e. kind of okay-ish!).
You need to upload two kinds of photo ID (passport/driving licence) and it takes a day or two to get your account approved. Then you can transfer in money in £GBP from a UK bank account with no additional charges. All very user-friendly
PayPal are starting to enable BTC transactions, right?
Only in the US so far but it will be coming worldwide, they bought a large volume in December
So I was dollar cost averaging daily using BTCE / HANetf BTCetc Bitcoin ETC on Trading 212.
Worked so nicely but now it looks like it’s going to get pulled due to regulatory issues for retail investors.
Anyone else find a very cheap way of buying small amounts daily / weekly cheaply?
Coinbase are legit but super expensive to dollar cost average BTC. Never tried Kracken but looks less legit than Trading212 / Coinbase.
Kracken has been around a while. Etorro is expensive but legit and looking to get listed on the US stock exchange according to the web.
I've been on etorro for over 4 years
Coinbase are legit but super expensive to dollar cost average BTC. Never tried Kracken but looks less legit than Trading212 / Coinbase.
If you like coinbase, have you tried coinbase pro? It has much cheaper fees.
The regulation change is rubbish as no longer any way that I am aware of yo buy within an ISA wrapper
Awesome cheers, moving to pro.
So Binance charges 0.1% per transaction, less if you use their own coin, BNB
That seems a better deal to me, or am I missing something?
I've got a binace account too,like you typed cheaper if you use their own token the full fat pc version is horrible but the phone version is nice and simple to look at.
Even if I were happy to ignore the obvious concerns about rampant fraud, money laundering and manipulation, I wouldn't put money into Bitcoin on environmental grounds (and I'm not much of an environmentalist). At the last count, global Bitcoin mining was using as much electricity as Belgium, and yet has absolutely no discernible benefit.
I always recommend David Gerard's blog to anyone who's interested in Bitcoin.
I wouldn’t put money into Bitcoin on environmental grounds (and I’m not much of an environmentalist). At the last count, global Bitcoin mining was using as much electricity as Belgium, and yet has absolutely no discernible benefit.
I don't disagree, but equally I haven't seen any comparative stats comparing the environmental impact of bitcoin to (for example) gold mining or the activities of BAT or BAE systems, who most people have shares in sitting in their pension schemes, etc...
vs chopping down trees / oil for production and transport of notes or the millions of staff globally within the banking industry... TBF would be interesting to see a decent analysis of environmental impact each format has. From what I hear most of the BTC mining is done on the back of cheap hydro in China.