I use Etoro.@Wizcat - You wanna explain to an old man on how this all works...?? I get what bitcoin is and does (loosely)... however havent a clue on how to go about anything
Sent from my Atari 2600
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Bitcoin for pinball
- Thread starter Rus121
- Start date
Sent from my Atari 2600
@Wizcat - You wanna explain to an old man on how this all works...?? I get what bitcoin is and does (loosely)... however havent a clue on how to go about anything
I'm pretty new to this myself, but if you're wanting to buy crypto, there are basically 2 ways - one is to hold the crypto yourself using a "wallet", the other is to buy via a crypto exchange and basically the exchange holds the actual asset on your behalf.
The exchange option is the easiest to set up as it basically involves creating an account and funding it, then using those funds to trade crypto currencies/coins. The downside is that if the exchange goes bust/gets hacked, you can end up losing your money, and it's not protected by the FSA.
Holding the crypto yourself involves you having a "wallet" and storing the assets in this. The upside is that you actually own the asset, the downside is that if you effectively forget your password, or lose the device(s) the asset is stored on, then you lose the money. Keeping your device offline apart from when actually transferring assets effectively remove the risk of it being compromised via malware/hackers.
There are several large exchanges used including Etoro, Coinbase, Kraken etc.. Personally I use Binance as at the time I set it up (August 2020) it had a reasonable reputation, enabled me to fund the account directly with GBP, had a very wide range of trading pairs and has low margins on trades - 0.1% flat rate rather than minimum commission per trade. As my intention was to mess about with small trades to get the hang of the trading platform and as a general learning experience, this made sense to me.
Generally speaking you fund an account via FIAT currency ($, £, €) and use this to buy a crypto currency (e.g. bitcoin). You then use the bitcoin balance to buy other crypto vehicles/alt coins. Some exchanges allow direct funding from FIAT currencies, others you need to first buy a crypto currency via another route, then use this to fund your crypto trading account.
The exchanges are set up with what are called "trading pairs" which basically enables trading of one asset with another, so for example if I had a volume of bitcoin and wanted to use it to purchase Etherium, I'd need an exchange with a bitcoin/etherium trading pair.
In terms of the actual investments, I left around 1/3 of what I put in as bitcoin, and also invested in Chainlink (LINK) and Band (for various reasons including a friend who's been into this for a while). Also ZEC. All 3 (looking at the asset v bitcoin trading price) have generally gone down despite initial positive movement, but due to bitcoin doing well over this period, I'm up around 60% since I started in August.
If you put any significant assets into this, you need a certain mentality as the markets can be very volatile - for example in a 1 week period I've been down by £4k swinging to up by £8k. Whatever you put in, I'd advise that you need to be willing to lose it all as this is a real possibility. The friend I mentioned is a bit of a nutcase but he is motivated by the specific desire to move out of rented accommodation and to buy a house outright (initially a detached in London although this has changed more recently). He originally invested in BAND a couple of years ago, putting his inheritance into it (£90k) - this was a lot as he's a teacher with no other major assets. By February 2020 his £90k had fallen to £30k, but he held onto it. By Late August 2020, this £30k was valued at £980k. Unfortunately for him, he didn't sell, or even dispose of 1/2 his holding. Band then crashed and his £980k turned into around £200k. Due to a recent rally, this is now worth around £450k.
If you're thinking about investing in crypto, I'd suggest to do a lot of reading/research and maybe start small to get a hang of how it all works.
Finally, be aware that if you do make any money from trading crypto, it is liable for capital gains tax, so you'd not pay tax on the first £12,300 profit, and a flat 10% (basic rate tax payer) or 20% (higher rate tax payer) on the remainder. If you did make more than the £12,300 allowance, taking the profit in 2 chunks in March and April would enable you to use 2 years tax allowance, so £12,300 per tax year.
All the above is just what I understand to be the case since starting looking at it less than 6 months ago. Other people will inevitably have differing points of view and opinions and I'm more than happy to be corrected by those with more experience/knowledge...
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You want to make lots of ppl homeless so you can buy a few cheap properties? That seams a little harsh and greedy?
I remember the early nineties when interest rates were 13/14%, nearly lost our flat in London and people were just handing their keys back. Not funny when you both work hard, more than one job and small kids.
Went into the building society with a few grand cash I borrowed, took the receipt straight to Uxbridge county court showed it and saved my flat by the skin of my teeth.
People exchanging usb sticks for cash
Wow that is scaryI remember the early nineties when interest rates were 13/14%, nearly lost our flat in London and people were just handing their keys back. Not funny when you both work hard, more than one job and small kids.
Went into the building society with a few grand cash I borrowed, took the receipt straight to Uxbridge county court showed it and saved my flat by the skin of my teeth.
People exchanging usb sticks for cash
I remember the early nineties when interest rates were 13/14%, nearly lost our flat in London and people were just handing their keys back. Not funny when you both work hard, more than one job and small kids.
Went into the building society with a few grand cash I borrowed, took the receipt straight to Uxbridge county court showed it and saved my flat by the skin of my teeth.
People exchanging usb sticks for cash
Wow that is scary
My wife bought a flat in west London with her dad in 1988/89. Not only were the increasing interest rates a very major problem, but unknown to them, they bought just as the housing market was going down the tubes. Paid £70k for it and literally 2 weeks later it was worth only £50k, so even just handing the keys back wasn't really an option. Not a good time.
Yeah it was bad, our flat was £52k as it was in Southall. We were from Acton and no way could afford to stay there, prices dropped for our flat to about £32k but we got lucky and rented a house nearby cheap and rented the flat until the price was right to sell in 2000. Lucky for us it worked out in the end because we bought the house we was renting cheap as the owner who had loads of properties died.
Karma.
Her's was in Sudbury Town (just up from Greenford). It also worked out ok in the end, although they had to take in lodgers for several years to be able to pay the mortgage (despite the building society telling them that this wasn't allowed under the terms of the mortgage). Some time after I met her (and we lived in the downstairs flat together with her dad for a few years), we managed to buy the upstairs flat for a bargain price, as the elderly gentleman living there passed away. He was a real character as he used to ride his bike to the local swimming baths to go swimming every day come rain or shine, until one day he fell off, never recovered and died 2 weeks later. He was 94 at the time.
I remember him and his friend Fred telling us about their cycling holiday in Italy when they were younger - they got on their bikes in London, rode to the ferry to France, then rode all the way to Italy and back.
He also once saw Stalin speaking at the Kremlin in the 1930's as he was a member of the British Socialist Party, but had to pose as a Canadian to gain entry to Russia.
We ultimately did up both flats and sold in 2005 just managing to afford to buy a house in Kenton (Harrow) - the original flat ended up going for £160k and the upstairs for £180k.
Edited to add: Prices are mad - the flat that went for £160k has just sold a few weeks ago for £280k!
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Yes - definitely a small world.
I lived around Southall and Greenford for several years - came to London from Yorkshire as a student at Brunel, Uxbridge then got a job at Ealing Hospital (St Bernard's mental hospital before they knocked it down and built flats) doing IT stuff, then worked for the council in Wembley for 20+ years. In Southall I lived on Orchard Ave, Stanley Road, Greenford Avenue, then in Greenford on Greenway Gardens then Costons Avenue near the A40 roundabout before getting married.
Oh it's definitely a bubble. It's just that it's a bubble that repeats every few years. And even if you had bought at the peak of the previous bubble, you'd be sitting pretty a few years later!
There's so much institutional interest now it's going absolutely bananas. Still feels like we're only half way through this run to me yet.
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Deleted member 2463
GME to the moon, "25x your money, get richer quicker"
Bitcoin - bwahahahahahahahaha!
Bitcoin - bwahahahahahahahaha!
I would say the GME activity is a bit different. Some folks are just jumping on it but there is a large social media drive to see if enough folks can owe and hold the shares so the hedge fund that were shorting it either blow or have to pay stupid money.
Yeah thats a whole other situation. Very interesting to follow it while it's happening.
Plus there's a lot of stuff going on there we probably won't ever hear about. Hope some ordinary people made a few quid off it though
Plus there's a lot of stuff going on there we probably won't ever hear about. Hope some ordinary people made a few quid off it though
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Deleted member 2463
thats already happening - hedge funds are in the toilet. but bitcoin was seen as the new money, that would shake up the financial system, and it's a sideshow.
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Deleted member 2463
go on the boards or into the discord or onto twitch. my broker won for me big time on this, third biggest return on stock market.
GME stuff is interesting to watch, that's for sure, but certainly not 25x your money, and I'd not get involved, but it's funny seeing the major hedge fund guys getting a taste of their own medicine.
Bitcoin however is also interesting to see how it goes. A lot of large organisations are putting significant money into it as it is being seen as a store of value along the likes of gold given the tendency for countries to print more and more FIAT currencies.
Having said that, it was interesting to see significant changes in the price of Bitcoin just on the back of Elon Musk changing his Twitter header adding "#Bitcoin" which resulted in a 20% price rise yesterday.
Personally, given this was likely to be a temporary spike with no underlying reason (such as Paypal buying into it big time), I sold my (small) holding following this and will buy it back shortly as the price drops. Not 25x your money but 20%+ in a couple of days isn't too bad....
It IS all a bit of a lottery though!
A little off topic, but whilst mentioning Elon Musk, watching the Starship SN8 and now SN9 development and launches is frankly really amazing - what SpaceX is doing is moving space travel/exploration ahead at an amazing pace. I still can't get over the boosters from Falcon rockets landing vertically on landing pads, and even more incredible, on recovery ships. It's like Flash Gordon from the past but in real life. Awesome!
Also some of his future plans around self driving cars and home charging/battery stations potentially providing an income to owners puts a slightly different light on the business model going forward.
Interesting times.
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Ok - fair enough if you got in early, but what I was meaning is not following the recent hype/publicity.
Bitcoin and SpaceX stuff I still stand by though!
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Deleted member 2463
learned a lesson though - getting money into a brokerage account in the US these days is a nightmare.
You're not kidding. Even getting cash into/out of crypto exchanges is proving a challenge. My normal bank (HSBC) announced without warning the other day that they were blocking all transfers to/from crypto exchanges. So it seems ok for them to block access by normal people, but they themselves are happy buying over $20Billion of crypto, and also facilitating large scale money laundering and ponzi schemes....
Despite being a customer for 30 years, I'm royally p**sed off, so have opened a Co-Op account on the basis they do allow transfers (for now)....
Preventing money laundering, and protecting their customers from potential fraud and significant losses due to the volatility of crypto prices (whilst happy to engage in crypto dealing themselves).
Bunch of hypocritical w**kers.
I'm still waiting on the outcome of an official complaint, but fully expect some weasley worded rubbish in response.
HSBC preventing money laundering!The same HSBC that was profiting from an international criminal scheme even while on probation for having served murderous drug cartels and other criminals. HSBC admitted in 2012 that it had helped dirty money flow through its branches around the world, including at least $881 million controlled by the notorious Sinaloa cartel and other Mexican drug gangs.
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The same HSBC that was profiting from an international criminal scheme even while on probation for having served murderous drug cartels and other criminals. HSBC admitted in 2012 that it had helped dirty money flow through its branches around the world, including at least $881 million controlled by the notorious Sinaloa cartel and other Mexican drug gangs.
Yep - the same HSBC that was fined $1.9Billion for enabling money laundering...
When I asked them how I was supposed to transfer back from Binance exchange the same money they had enabled me to transfer to Binance 5 months earlier, they said, "use another transfer method into another UK bank and then transfer it to your HSBC account". They were unable to advise further on what "another transfer method" would actually be. Also fat chance I'd be actually transferring it ultimately back to HSBC.
So much for loyalty - I originally joined Midland Bank in 1988 before HSBC took them over.
Previously been ok with their service, but at the start of lockdown in April, they blocked both my debit and credit cards when trying to order a pizza for delivery from Pizza Hut. I had to contact them to find out what the problem was. Seems they have a non-customer focussed and high and mighty attitude to dealing with their customers.
As information for anybody having these type of issue, here's a link to the current state of UK banks and their stance on crypto currency transfers.
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Deleted member 2463
Hmm I didn’t know about that thanks for posting it - I wonder if that’s what made it difficult for me. I couldn’t Xfer directly from first direct - I have a US bank account though so was able to route it through that but even then I couldn’t transfer more than 5K in a day. Years ago I transferred $20K for a stock tip I got without batting an eye lid and the getting the proceeds back was easy.
My trade should finalise/clear on Monday and then the fun of getting the cash back will begin. Think I’ll phone FD before I start the process just to check what BS I might face.
My trade should finalise/clear on Monday and then the fun of getting the cash back will begin. Think I’ll phone FD before I start the process just to check what BS I might face.
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Deleted member 2463
yeah i was just thinking of that as I do last years tax return!