Bitcoin splits

[Dex Sawash]

They're set by the literal numbers. If people are selling Bitcoin to people for USD at $3300 on average, then Bitcoin is worth $3300.

Is it an "nah, I'll give you $3250" ... "Make $3275 and it is a deal" sort of thing?
Pure negotiation, or is there some sort of arbiter of today's price?

[Twed]

More of a bunch of websites ("exchanges") sort-of automating the process. Some will work on an offer/request basis ("I want to buy/sell this much Bitcoin for $x", others are more streamlined and just let you buy at a set price. I don't really know the deep mechanics of it all.

[colacentral]

Okay Twed, my body is ready. Walk me through buying Bitcoin and keeping it safe so I don't lose a shedload of money by not writing something down that I should have.

[Twed]

The way I did it: buy on Coinbase (there are probably better options but I'm lazy and they seem professional) and then move them to a Trezor.

[colacentral]

I've read some bad things about Coinbase: poor customer service, some hacks. Is that what Trezor is for? So you can move it out of Coinbase and not have to deal with them anymore?

[Twed]

Yeah, once it's out of Coinbase it's out of Coinbase.

My main issue with Coinbase is how snitchy they are. They WILL tell your government that you have a digital asset that should be subject to capital gains tax, or whatever. Which is fine, they're just proactively snitchy.

[hermitical]

do you have to buy a complete unit?

[Twed]

Nope! You could buy like $5 worth (although you'd lose almost half to fees).

Most Bitcoin transactions look like "send me 0.0004334 Bitcoin please", rather than "that'll be 6 Bitcoin".

[hermitical]

this is one of the main areas where I feel old.
I need one of those OAP IT classes in a local library...

[Twed]

I will walk anybody through any aspect of this to the finest details if they want.

There's honestly no need to feel like you're being left behind. This isn't something that many 21 year olds grasp either. If you don't already have a grasp on concepts like public-key cryptography it's automatically going to seem like an unnatural concept, and then your understanding is reduced to "COMPUTER MONEY" and that's way too intangible and open-ended to mean anything at all.

Cryptocurrencies have a long way to go before they're adopted by the mainstream. I don't know that it will happen unless pushed by a real need.

[olliebean]

I bloody hate bitcoins. Years ago I bought some, and their value immediately plummeted. People were saying the bitcoin boom was over, so I sold them to cut my losses. If I'd held onto them until now, I'd be over £100,000 up.

If I bought them again now, I guarantee tomorrow their value would take another nosedive. But I won't, so they'll probably soar.

[Uncle TechTip]

Did you buy some, olliebean?

https://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-policy/2017/09/bitcoin-ethereum-crash-explained/

Down 25% on two weeks ago. Hot news is that China is blocking all trades by the end of the month. Since the majority of trades are from China, surely they will flood the market very soon and destroy the price.

[Barry Admin]

I saw reports that North Korea are stockpiling them too as a war chest. Had a quick Google, seems they're mining and stealing them like fuck.

[olliebean]

Did you buy some, olliebean?

No, I didn't. Looks like I may have made the right decision for a change. Though if I had bought any, doubtless I'd have done it on September 1st.

[Twed]

It'll go back up. These dips are common. We're back at 3700, that's huge compared to a few months ago. I bought some coins in the dip, now holding almost 2.

[monolith]

The original silk road used to tell you how many bitcoins you'd spent there. I spent close to 2000 on there.

Would be a multi millionaire if I'd held on to them instead.

Still, the drugs got me cunted at least.

Edit: £6455616.05 apparently. Ouch.

[Z]

So this is all abuzz the last few weeks again. Crashing right now by the looks of it.

I find it hard to see how Bitcoin can exceed that peak it hit after the next big crash, the whole system clearly isn't able to handle the level of attention its getting. Ethereum sounds pretty cool but Bitcoin going down would presumably drag all major ones around right now down with it?

[imitationleather]

Just read it's down to $12k from $20k last week. Faaaaakabaaaht. Are we going to see people leaping from tall buildings over this?

I know that transfer times and fees had become a total nightmare in recent months. Also apparently trying to sell it if you have a significant amount is basically impossible now n'all, so all you can do is just sit and watch how much it drops.

I want to go back to 2009 and congratulate my younger self on just doing tonnes of ketamine instead of getting involved in all this.

[BlodwynPig]

12000 dollars isn't much is it

[imitationleather]

12000 dollars isn't much is it

If you bought it at $20k it certainly isn't.

[BlodwynPig]

If you bought it at $20k it certainly isn't.

Oh, it's the price of one bitcoin

[Bhazor]

The biggest problem of course is the only thing people use bitcoin for is buying bitcoins. Certainly its far too volatile for anyone to want to spend them.

[imitationleather]

If you have a load of bitcoins lying around the best thing you really can do now is buy 100,000 pukkas off a DNM and become a drug kingpin. It's the only way out.

[Twed]

Bitcoin is definitely no use as an actual currency. It has that weird status as gold and the other currencies being pegged to it.

This time last month its value was in the 8000s, so people would be very silly to be upset about it being down to 14K from almost 20K (unless they bought then). It'll probably go up again.

I split up my Bitcoin value into other currencies (about nine total) and my strategy is just to keep 1 Bitcoin.

As Z says, other currencies have their value affected by Bitcoin. I woke up technically $10,000 poorer, but you really just have to think "so what" and realise that you never HAD that money to lose. The only way to do this and be sane is to set your goals and for it not to be a tragedy if they don't hit.

Also $14K Bitcoin is a hugely good thing unless you purchased them at a higher price. Let's look back at September:

We're back at 3700

[Twed]

On the other hand, Bitcoin as a network is fucked right now. I promised to send some people $50 worth of Bitcoin for Christmass, and I had to pay $30 in fees. The mempool (pool of transactions that are not yet confirmed by miners) is flooded.

It'll be interesting to see what happens!

[Z]

Which other ones are you most focused on? I see tons of people going on about ripple but I can't see why at all. And is litecoin doing so well largely because of the good name?

Whereas I'm really bullish enough on ethereum that I should buy some when it drops a bit.

[imitationleather]

A joke I just stole:

A boy asked his dad for 1 bitcoin for his birthday.

His dad says "What? $15,554??? $13,560 is a lot of money! What do you need $10,782 for anyway?"

[Twed]

Which other ones are you most focused on? I see tons of people going on about ripple but I can't see why at all. And is litecoin doing so well largely because of the good name?

Whereas I'm really bullish enough on ethereum that I should buy some when it drops a bit.

I threw $200 into Ripple a month ago and it's worth $1250 now. Ripple is stable and backed by big figures. Ethereum, Vertcoin, Bitcoin Cash (just in case), Litecoin, Monero. I bought a random shitcoin called Verge and it shot up in value ($200 became $6000), but I don't think I can even withdraw it.

[Z]

Do you choose them on the basis of the tech behind them or the backing they've got?

This past 6 weeks has surely had a dozen plus of them smaller ones just irrationally soar on account of all the coverage?

[Twed]

Do you choose them on the basis of the tech behind them or the backing they've got?

I have a specific reason for each of them (usually "this has a specific technical quality that none of the others do").