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Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Investor Alley => Topic started by: LaMoustacheFrancaise on September 06, 2017, 08:52:35 AM

Title: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: LaMoustacheFrancaise on September 06, 2017, 08:52:35 AM
Everyone know how cheap Bitcoin used to be and how a few people got quite a good stash by mining it from their house using their good old computer.
Nowadays, I think it is totally worthless to try mining crypto-money by yourself, with the market overcrownded and the cost of all the technicals issues.
It has become a professional job.
I found out that Genesis Mining was offering customers to rent hasing powers from their facilities.
They are having a new program starting soon who offers to mine bitcoin for 30$.
So you are renting basically computers that do the mining for you, and you get the results of the mining for you.
I know that crypto-money might sounds risky but it seems like the trend keeps going up and new moneys are also starting to climb really fast ( Etherum for exemple )
So, Should I try it ?
I want to specify that I'm french and I don't have enough money to invest in a Vanguard fund for now. So I am looking online  for ways to invest the small amount of money I have , that is why I will try to review every possibilities.
Cheers.
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: ketchup on September 06, 2017, 09:07:10 AM
Truly the time to invest in this sort of thing was around March.  I jumped in in May/June (bought a few graphics cards and started mining) and made some good returns, but am gearing up to sell off the graphics cards (for more than I paid) due to returns going down substantially (mining difficulty increases not matching market upswing) and unrelated hardware failure (I was using a repurposed old PC).

Anyone offering to let you essentially buy a bitcoin for $30 seems sketchy as hell.  1BTC is worth $4,552 right now.  If I could legitimately buy 1BTC today for $30 I'd cash out my 401k to do it, sell it all tomorrow, and retire in luxury.
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: Interest Compound on September 06, 2017, 09:30:13 AM
Is it worth checking out stock options? Forex? Penny stocks? All have a similar risk/reward, and all will let you start with as little as $30.

The question you have to ask yourself, if bitcoin mining with the hardware they're giving you is expected to be profitable...why are they giving it up for $30?

Frankly, as long as you're susceptible to schemes like this, you'll likely never get ahead.
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: shotgunwilly on September 06, 2017, 09:36:01 AM
Anyone offering to let you essentially buy a bitcoin for $30 seems sketchy as hell.  1BTC is worth $4,552 right now.  If I could legitimately buy 1BTC today for $30 I'd cash out my 401k to do it, sell it all tomorrow, and retire in luxury.

You misunderstood.  He's talking about a "mining pool" where basically you provide capital, they use it to mine bitcoin, and you get a return.
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: alexpkeaton on September 06, 2017, 10:02:39 AM
Mining only really pays off if the price of bitcoin keeps increasing. But, in that case, you're better off just buying bitcoin directly as a speculative investment.

The reason mining doesn't pay is that competition drives the return down. And some of your competitors don't have to pay for electricity, like those running botnets or abusing their work computers. In the price of bitcoin is flat your expected return is negative. If the price goes up, why not just buy it?
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: ketchup on September 06, 2017, 10:49:36 AM
Anyone offering to let you essentially buy a bitcoin for $30 seems sketchy as hell.  1BTC is worth $4,552 right now.  If I could legitimately buy 1BTC today for $30 I'd cash out my 401k to do it, sell it all tomorrow, and retire in luxury.

You misunderstood.  He's talking about a "mining pool" where basically you provide capital, they use it to mine bitcoin, and you get a return.
Ah.  Got it.  I was actually on the other side of that (selling hashing power on NiceHash) when my mining machine was going.  I had a pretty good thing going when Ethereum jumped in price and hashing difficulty hadn't risen to match just yet.

I agree with other posters though: just buying Bitcoin or Ethereum or whatever probably makes way more sense than trying to play the buying-hashing-power-to-mine game.  And is simpler.
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: waltworks on September 06, 2017, 11:33:31 AM
The more questions I see like this the less I want anything to do with crypto "currencies"... it's about like your shoeshine boy giving you stock tips.

Edit: banner ad on this post: "Invest your IRA in Bitcoin!"

Once I unload these damn tulips and Beanie Babies I'm going all in on crypto, baby.

-W
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: moof on September 06, 2017, 11:39:52 AM
It's a big darn bubble.  Period.  If any of the libertarian fantasies about it start coming true it will get outlawed in more and more countries and become worthless.  China is just the start of this trend.  So if you want to gamble <5% of your cash on hand, go for it, but make no illusion that it is anythung beyond gambling.

Regardless, if you can't scrounge up enough to invest you should not be worrying about returns yet.  Go cut your spending, find ways to grow your earnings, and invest according to your investment plan (oh yeah, go write one down and follow it).
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: Scortius on September 06, 2017, 11:40:42 AM
Agreed, a recent Reddit FI or PF post asked for investment options and a good 75% of the replies were simply 'Buy Crypto'. Sure sounds like the shoeshine chorus is getting louder.
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: ooeei on September 06, 2017, 01:06:14 PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cryptocurrencies

Yeah Bitcoin and a handful of others have done really well if you got in at the start, but there are over 1000 others nobody has ever heard of.

Yeah if you'd gotten in on BTC early and held on you'd be rich. How many people did that? Most people who got in early also sold early. How many people spent a bunch of money mining the "next big thing" and ended up with nothing?

It's a gamble, pure and simple. If you think the prices are going to continue to rise on your preferred currency, just buy some. Paying a company to mine it for you is just a roundabout way of buying it. Keep in mind you need somewhere to store it, and somewhere to exchange it that is reliable. Additionally there are transaction costs to keep in mind, and there's little/no recourse if you get scammed/hacked. There have been more than one occasions where a popular exchange or holding company just decides to shut down and take everyone's money.

Personally I think your money would be just as well spent at a roulette wheel, but it's your call.
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: shotgunwilly on September 06, 2017, 04:04:32 PM
The more questions I see like this the less I want anything to do with crypto "currencies"... it's about like your shoeshine boy giving you stock tips.

Edit: banner ad on this post: "Invest your IRA in Bitcoin!"

Once I unload these damn tulips and Beanie Babies I'm going all in on crypto, baby.

-W

Goodluck with that attitude.

I'll see you in 5 years when the cryptocurrency market cap is in the Trillions and you missed out. 

Blockchain technology is going to be very big. 
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: Tonyahu on September 06, 2017, 04:10:07 PM
The more questions I see like this the less I want anything to do with crypto "currencies"... it's about like your shoeshine boy giving you stock tips.

Edit: banner ad on this post: "Invest your IRA in Bitcoin!"

Once I unload these damn tulips and Beanie Babies I'm going all in on crypto, baby.

-W

Tulips and Beanie Babies have no real use cases. Blockchain technology does and it will radically change the world over the next few years.

You are akin to the people who said "the internet is dumb and will never work".
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: waltworks on September 06, 2017, 07:23:40 PM
Tulips and Beanie Babies have no real use cases. Blockchain technology does and it will radically change the world over the next few years.

You are akin to the people who said "the internet is dumb and will never work".

Once ordinary people are buying/selling actual stuff using crypto currencies in meaningful numbers, I will concede your point. That's not to say any of the existing crypto "currencies" will be involved, of course.

Keep in mind - "currency" only has a "use case" when it's used on a widespread basis for exchange of things with intrinsic value. US dollars are made from paper. They are inherently worthless. But because they are widely used for exchange, they have value. Bitcoin, not so much, as of right now.

People are just buying to hoard/speculate and the scammers have moved into prey on noobs. That is NOT a good sign.

-W
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: the_gastropod on September 06, 2017, 07:42:49 PM
Goodluck with that attitude.

I'll see you in 5 years when the cryptocurrency market cap is in the Trillions and you missed out. 

Blockchain technology is going to be very big.

Well, Paris Hilton is pushing an altcoin (https://twitter.com/parishilton/status/904456098035286016) And Robert Shiller thinks Bitcoin is a classic bubble. (https://qz.com/1067557/robert-shiller-wrote-the-book-on-bubbles-he-says-the-best-example-right-now-is-bitcoin/). I think I'm with the Nobel Prize winning economist on this one.
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: TomTX on September 06, 2017, 07:43:43 PM
The more questions I see like this the less I want anything to do with crypto "currencies"... it's about like your shoeshine boy giving you stock tips.

Edit: banner ad on this post: "Invest your IRA in Bitcoin!"

Once I unload these damn tulips and Beanie Babies I'm going all in on crypto, baby.

-W

Goodluck with that attitude.

I'll see you in 5 years when the cryptocurrency market cap is in the Trillions and you missed out. 

Blockchain technology is going to be very big.

You are conflating to VERY different things.

Here's the equivalent, circa 1987  "Computer technology is going to be very big" and betting it all on Commodore. And WordStar.

Sure, blockchain stuff will probably get very big. However, that doesn't mean that your specific cryptocurrencies (or any current cryptocurrencies) will be worth anything.
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: cantgrowone on September 06, 2017, 10:59:03 PM
You're better off putting that $30 in BTC. It will give you 0.0065563 BTC and cost a few dollars in fees, but you will own it.

I spent $20 on a cloud mining scheme like that in 2014. The company shut down a few months later and I was left with nothing. Let alone, the payback was ~6 months for $20.

I mine, but would not put my real money into this stuff. It's too volatile.
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: Kalergie on September 06, 2017, 11:55:50 PM
This is history totally repeating itself. For people arguing that crypto will be the next big thing. I suggest to consider these:

In the early 20th Century, the car was the next big thing. How many of the original car manufacturers are still operational? Did the car become a big thing? Yes!
In the mid 20th Century commercial aviation was going to be the next big thing. How many of the PAN AMs and TWAs are still operational? Did commercial aviation become a big thing? Yes!
In the early 21st century, the internet was the next big thing. How many original Internet companies are still operational? Did the internet become a big thing? Yes!
Today, electric vehicles, solar power, AI and crypto are considered to be the next big thing. Will they be? Probably! How many of today's start-ups will be operational let alone booming in the future? God knows!

Betting on one currency to make it big is like betting on roulette. One of the numbers will win. But how do you know it is your number that will? Buy the whole roulette table. Or better yet, buy VTSAX. :D
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: Michael in ABQ on September 07, 2017, 12:22:45 AM
I still have about a quarter million in Iraqi Dinars I purchased during my deployment in 2004. At the time I paid $200. Guess what it's worth today? About $215.

I knew some guys who bought many times more than I did because the Kuwaiti Dinar had shot up after the Gulf War and they thought the Iraq Dinar would do the same once all the oilfields came back online and the country unfucked itself. Obviously that hasn't happened and probably won't anytime soon so the value of Iraqi currency is pretty much unchanged.

At the end of the day at least I have some interesting looking money that's a nice souvenir to show my kids.



While bitcoin may end up becoming widely used and increase in value, it could also drop precipitously if some other Crypto currency gets adopted by the market instead.
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: ooeei on September 07, 2017, 06:33:40 AM
The more questions I see like this the less I want anything to do with crypto "currencies"... it's about like your shoeshine boy giving you stock tips.

Edit: banner ad on this post: "Invest your IRA in Bitcoin!"

Once I unload these damn tulips and Beanie Babies I'm going all in on crypto, baby.

-W

Goodluck with that attitude.

I'll see you in 5 years when the cryptocurrency market cap is in the Trillions and you missed out. 

Blockchain technology is going to be very big.

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/293053

Which one are you buying?

One of the big problems I see with these types of currencies is there is a finite number of the "coins" or whatever they're called in your currency of choice. Of course this is a big selling point for the people who like them, but that means they're more a commodity than a currency.

They're basically digital gold without near the history, and with much more competition. From a thread on gold: http://fortune.com/2012/02/09/warren-buffett-why-stocks-beat-gold-and-bonds/
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: lifeanon269 on September 07, 2017, 06:50:51 AM
This is history totally repeating itself. For people arguing that crypto will be the next big thing. I suggest to consider these:

In the early 20th Century, the car was the next big thing. How many of the original car manufacturers are still operational? Did the car become a big thing? Yes!
In the mid 20th Century commercial aviation was going to be the next big thing. How many of the PAN AMs and TWAs are still operational? Did commercial aviation become a big thing? Yes!
In the early 21st century, the internet was the next big thing. How many original Internet companies are still operational? Did the internet become a big thing? Yes!
Today, electric vehicles, solar power, AI and crypto are considered to be the next big thing. Will they be? Probably! How many of today's start-ups will be operational let alone booming in the future? God knows!

Betting on one currency to make it big is like betting on roulette. One of the numbers will win. But how do you know it is your number that will? Buy the whole roulette table. Or better yet, buy VTSAX. :D


This is a silly argument. Even though over the long term the companies involved in those markets are dramatically different over time, that doesn't mean that the individuals who invested into those original companies lost out or made poor investments. It's quite the contrary. Those who made original investments into many of the ground breaking companies that forged the industries we have today are some of the wealthiest people even if the markets that make up those industries are unrecognizable from their past selves.

I see a lot of people who claim to agree that cryto-currencies and blockchain technology will be around in the future and even be the next big thing, but then go on to say that bitcoin is a silly investment because we don't know which crypto-currency will be there in the future.

Sure, there might be some obscure crypto-currency that exists today that ends up over taking the market. Is that possible? Sure. Does that make bitcoin (or crypto-currencies in general) a bad investment because of that possible outcome? No way.

The truth though is that there is a lot of safe growth potential in the crypto-currencies that exist today, chief among them bitcoin. There is a lot of innovation as well as a lot of new investment vehicles and options that are being developed every day. In fact, there are even index investments you can now make so that you don't need to be fully invested in any one single currency. So if you truly believe crypto-currencies are hear to stay but don't feel comfortable being invested solely in bitcoin, then there are investment options for that as well.

Bitcoin is here to stay for quite the foreseeable future and I don't see that changing any time soon.
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: ooeei on September 07, 2017, 07:31:12 AM
This is history totally repeating itself. For people arguing that crypto will be the next big thing. I suggest to consider these:

In the early 20th Century, the car was the next big thing. How many of the original car manufacturers are still operational? Did the car become a big thing? Yes!
In the mid 20th Century commercial aviation was going to be the next big thing. How many of the PAN AMs and TWAs are still operational? Did commercial aviation become a big thing? Yes!
In the early 21st century, the internet was the next big thing. How many original Internet companies are still operational? Did the internet become a big thing? Yes!
Today, electric vehicles, solar power, AI and crypto are considered to be the next big thing. Will they be? Probably! How many of today's start-ups will be operational let alone booming in the future? God knows!

Betting on one currency to make it big is like betting on roulette. One of the numbers will win. But how do you know it is your number that will? Buy the whole roulette table. Or better yet, buy VTSAX. :D


This is a silly argument. Even though over the long term the companies involved in those markets are dramatically different over time, that doesn't mean that the individuals who invested into those original companies lost out or made poor investments. It's quite the contrary. Those who made original investments into many of the ground breaking companies that forged the industries we have today are some of the wealthiest people even if the markets that make up those industries are unrecognizable from their past selves.

I see a lot of people who claim to agree that cryto-currencies and blockchain technology will be around in the future and even be the next big thing, but then go on to say that bitcoin is a silly investment because we don't know which crypto-currency will be there in the future.

Sure, there might be some obscure crypto-currency that exists today that ends up over taking the market. Is that possible? Sure. Does that make bitcoin (or crypto-currencies in general) a bad investment because of that possible outcome? No way.

The truth though is that there is a lot of safe growth potential in the crypto-currencies that exist today, chief among them bitcoin. There is a lot of innovation as well as a lot of new investment vehicles and options that are being developed every day. In fact, there are even index investments you can now make so that you don't need to be fully invested in any one single currency. So if you truly believe crypto-currencies are hear to stay but don't feel comfortable being invested solely in bitcoin, then there are investment options for that as well.

Bitcoin is here to stay for quite the foreseeable future and I don't see that changing any time soon.

I hate to break it to you, but anyone buying in today is not an "original investor". Prices back around 2010 were 14 cents for one bitcoin. Today they're $4,000 each. It's the classic risk/reward scenario. People who invested in BTC in 2012 were taking a big leap of faith, because nobody gave a shit about it and it was just as likely to crash to $0 as it was to balloon up. The same thing happens every time it increases in price. Do I keep my BTC or sell out and triple my money?

Will it keep rising to $8,000? Maybe. It might crash back down to $400 too. BTC are a very niche product, even today. They have high transaction costs, sketchy exchanges, and are generally seen as either drug money or some sort of weird internet money thing by the general public.

What will the next cryptocurrency be that has a 300,000% increase in price over 7 years? Your guess is as good as mine. What I can bet you is there will be hundreds that have a 0% increase, or lose money and waste mining resources.

"Safe growth" doesn't exist in non producing assets. Speculative chance does. All it takes is one big exchange being breached and losing a bunch of people's funds for the price to drop, or for a few major countries to decide they don't like it and make it illegal.

Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: lifeanon269 on September 07, 2017, 08:15:55 AM
I hate to break it to you, but anyone buying in today is not an "original investor". Prices back around 2010 were 14 cents for one bitcoin. Today they're $4,000 each. It's the classic risk/reward scenario. People who invested in BTC in 2012 were taking a big leap of faith, because nobody gave a shit about it and it was just as likely to crash to $0 as it was to balloon up. The same thing happens every time it increases in price. Do I keep my BTC or sell out and triple my money?

Will it keep rising to $8,000? Maybe. It might crash back down to $400 too. BTC are a very niche product, even today. They have high transaction costs, sketchy exchanges, and are generally seen as either drug money or some sort of weird internet money thing by the general public.

What will the next cryptocurrency be that has a 300,000% increase in price over 7 years? Your guess is as good as mine. What I can bet you is there will be hundreds that have a 0% increase, or lose money and waste mining resources.

"Safe growth" doesn't exist in non producing assets. Speculative chance does. All it takes is one big exchange being breached and losing a bunch of people's funds for the price to drop, or for a few major countries to decide they don't like it and make it illegal.

Maybe they're not the pioneers of bitcoin back when it was only a few dollars, but those investing today will certainly be see as early adopters in the long run. When bitcoin becomes a $500 billion dollar market (I don't see that not happening at this point), then those putting their money into it today when it is only a $75 billion dollar market will surely be seen as early adopters. Further, from a growth perspective, a $500 billion dollar market for bitcoin by 2020 will give it a value of about $25k. So those early adopters will also be rewarded for their choice.

For bitcoin to fall to a value of $400, almost $70 billion dollars would need to exit the market. While that isn't impossible, it would be such a huge drastic change from the reality that is actually occurring in the market today. It is easy for somebody not in the market to think something like that could happen, but if you are actively involved in the crypto-currency community, you understand that the reality of a situation like that happening is on the far extreme end of unlikelihood. Repeating the mantra "what will the next big crypto-currency be, nobody knows" doesn't add any validity to your argument.
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: trollwithamustache on September 07, 2017, 08:46:58 AM
If you want to make money mining, you need cheap power. Need it bad. its also nice to have the tech skills to set up/ troubleshoot your miner and switch currencies you mine if market conditions warrant it.

but you need cheap power.

Realize the could miners are marking up all their costs and letting you take all the risks.
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: lifeanon269 on September 07, 2017, 08:56:05 AM
This is a silly argument. The vast majority of people who invested big in new, unproven technologies through the market lost big.  You never hear about the losers though.  The data looking backward suffers from survivorship bias as well as the belief that the winners are winners because they are smart and not just lucky.

You completely missed the point. My argument wasn't that there weren't losers as well. My point was that even though the markets change drastically over the long term doesn't mean that original investments into those markets were failures. I was arguing against the point that even though many of the car manufacturers of yesterday are gone doesn't mean that investments prior to their departures were poor investments. Markets change for many reasons. Some times companies buyout other companies, some die a slow death, some make it big, yada yada. Essentially the argument made by Kalergie a few posts back was that because we don't know who the winners and losers are, we should refrain from putting any money into groundbreaking technologies. That is what I was referring to as silly and I stand by that statement.

Since it is still in the future, it is correct to state that no one knows whether bitcoin will be overtaken or make a good investment.  To paraphrase Ben Graham, "The future is a closed book." It is not even reasonably foreseeable that bitcoin will remain the primary cryptocurrency.  There are serious flaws (not subject to court jurisdiction, hard forking, exponential energy requirements) with the bitcoin technology that inhibit it being applied as a true currency.  Further, since it is decentralized, there is really no established mechanism or governing body for correcting these deficiencies within the bitcoin regime itself.  The only alternative is to start a new cryptocurrency that incorporates the desired features that bitcoin lacks.  This cuts agains the foreseeability of wide adoption of bitcoin, per se, or any other decentralized crytpocurreny to date.

Exponential energy requirements? Can you explain how it is exponential? On a transaction by transaction basis going forward, it will actually accommodate more transactions per kilowatt of energy used as the technology progresses. Plus, with off-chain transaction capability coming in the future, it will be possible to process millions of transactions using very little energy. Yes, bitcoin is a huge energy hog today, but I don't see it as a long term problem that will inhibit its growth its nor do I see it as a serious like you say it is.

How is hard forking a serious flaw? Hard forking is not a flaw and over time will help the currency grow and be flexible to the demands of the market. Bitcoin is not supposed to be some rigid static code base that never changes. In fact, it is easily argued that any software that is static and rigid will actually be hindered by that fact. Hard forks allow the code base to change according to how the market dictates and if the market dictates that a certain code change be required, then a hard fork will allow the market to decide that. When this happens it is a good thing for the eco-system and the markets in the long term. Don't let media hype with fear, uncertainty, and doubt cloud that fact.

You state that there is safe growth potential with bitcoin.  Safety is most certainly not guaranteed by bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency.  Nothing about bitcoin exhibits, nor about your argument establishes, a safety thesis of bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency.  Safety in the short term is achieved by obtaining assets of stable value in a deep market so that one can be sure that they can be exchanged in the near future, either directly or indirectly, for other desired goods and services should the need arise.  And safety over the intermediate and long term derives from buying assets at a fair price with respect to their intrinsic value so that the investment return keeps up with inflation, taxes, and any fees, thereby providing a reasonable likelihood of having the same or more purchasing power at the end of the holding period.  Bitcoin and other crypto currencies are insanely volatile, so they do not provide a reasonable stable short term value, and therefore are not safe in the short term.   And it is impossible to determine what the intrinsic value of a bitcoin, or any other cryptocurrency, is (they have no book value, they generate no income) and whether one is buying at a fair price with respect to that, and therefore they cannot be said to be a safe long term investment either.

Safety in the short-term is achieved by looking at the trends that are occurring and then realizing that because of those trends, there will undoubtedly be new money flowing into bitcoin over the next several years. Futures and options will allow new investment vehicles for bitcoin. Countries are making strides to adopt and/or legalize bitcoin as legal tender for transactions. Many other countries as also investing a lot of money into mining operations themselves which shows that many governments are looking to secure future bitcoins in their reserves. Contrary to the claim that its mostly used for illicit activity, law enforcement agencies have gone on the record to say that they're actually able to better trace monetary activity in the bitcoin realm than with traditional currencies and that they're seeing a decline in illicit activity in the eco-system as a whole. So yes, when I say it is a relatively safe investment, I say this because I can take an objective look at what is happening across the globe as a whole with regard to the bitcoin market and what trends are occurring. In order for this trend to reverse, we'll not only need to see a complete reversal in these trends, but it would need to happen on a global scale involving numerous governments and businesses across the world. Even when the price isn't moving, you have to realize millions of dollars are flowing into bitcoin at those times due to its inflationary nature currently.

The old "intrinsic value" argument gets tiring. A lot of things that humans place value on have no "intrinsic value", but that doesn't really matter at all. All that matters is whether humans actually value it, not whether or not they value it because of any intrinsic property (whatever that truly means). It can easily be argued that humans value bitcoin because of the intrinsic value that mathematics provide. Bitcoin is a culmination of hundreds of years of mathematical principals that have finally allowed us to create a system that allows humans to take trust out of the equation when trading between each other. These mathematical principals have become the foundation that humans can universally place their trust in so that us human beings don't need to rely upon our naturally untrustworthy nature. To me, that's about as great of an intrinsic value as you can get and I'm betting my money that the world will see it that way in 10-20 years too.
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: ooeei on September 07, 2017, 09:33:10 AM
Maybe they're not the pioneers of bitcoin back when it was only a few dollars, but those investing today will certainly be see as early adopters in the long run. When bitcoin becomes a $500 billion dollar market (I don't see that not happening at this point), then those putting their money into it today when it is only a $75 billion dollar market will surely be seen as early adopters. Further, from a growth perspective, a $500 billion dollar market for bitcoin by 2020 will give it a value of about $25k. So those early adopters will also be rewarded for their choice.

For bitcoin to fall to a value of $400, almost $70 billion dollars would need to exit the market. While that isn't impossible, it would be such a huge drastic change from the reality that is actually occurring in the market today. It is easy for somebody not in the market to think something like that could happen, but if you are actively involved in the crypto-currency community, you understand that the reality of a situation like that happening is on the far extreme end of unlikelihood. Repeating the mantra "what will the next big crypto-currency be, nobody knows" doesn't add any validity to your argument.

Ah, so you have some sort of insider knowledge that tells you it's going to quintuple in value? That's quite the bold prediction, and is backed by approximately 0 evidence.

New investors constantly flood into investments that are rising, until eventually they don't. We've seen this same thing happen with stocks, housing, oil, gold, and every other financial instrument out there. "It's going up so fast, of course it'll keep going up!" There were people preaching this same stuff during the housing crisis, and tech bubble in 2000. "Yeah we missed the early money, but by next year this will be double anyway so jump in! Look at these 20 people who all made a fortune, you can't lose!"

Maybe it won't fall to $400, although less than a year ago it was only $700. There hasn't been a fundamental change in how it works or what it's used for since then, it's all been speculative run up. It's not unheard of for a commodity to drop to prices lower than a year ago. The value of a barrel of oil dropped to less than 1/2 of its previous year value in 2015. Gold dropped to less than 20% of its value from 1980 to 2000. BTC dropping to $2000 or $1000 or far less could happen no problem, it just takes one big event to shake people's faith in it.

That same crazy positivity that caused this huge price increase can turn around very quickly and become negativity that destroys it.



Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: Michael in ABQ on September 07, 2017, 10:29:46 AM
These tulip bulbs are different....
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: shotgunwilly on September 07, 2017, 10:59:55 AM
Goodluck with that attitude.

I'll see you in 5 years when the cryptocurrency market cap is in the Trillions and you missed out. 

Blockchain technology is going to be very big.

You are conflating to VERY different things.

Here's the equivalent, circa 1987  "Computer technology is going to be very big" and betting it all on Commodore. And WordStar.

Sure, blockchain stuff will probably get very big. However, that doesn't mean that your specific cryptocurrencies (or any current cryptocurrencies) will be worth anything.

And I completely understand that. Unlike people who say "cryptocurrencies are fantasy digital coins worth nothing."  Because they clearly haven't looked into the actual technology of them and do not understand what some of them are for.

There ARE a lot of scam coins, worthless coins, coins that will fail. A high percentage of them.  I'm looking at the blockchain technologies that will actually solve real world problems. Not the ones just trying to be the next bitcoin or a digital currency that tries to become the main transfer of money.  That's not what most of these are trying to do. 

If anyone is curious about a blockchain that can solve a real world problem, research Factom.  For starters: "Factom provides a distributed mechanism to lock in data, making data verifiable and independently auditable. This simple function is extremely powerful when applied to business transactions and processes. Factom enables people and businesses to use a mathematically provable “notarization” service.  Factom’s use cases span from being used as a shared ledger for multiple parties as a source of truth (secured by multi-signature keys) to creating an immutable, indisputable trail for “proof of process” or “standard of care”"

You will see that the coin tied to it is not designed to be a digital currency, but a reward/incentive for the decentralized "servers" that make the technology work/run.  And it is very much needed in the system.  Now this is just an example, and will Factom be the one that is successful in becoming the standard for the US, or the world, or a certain industry (Mortgages for example have a very good use case for Factom)?  Maybe, maybe not. No one knows.  But you can follow these closely and see if they start to gain traction and start to become successful, or if another blockchain starts to take over, and may be a better investment.  I have a very strong feeling that blockchain will be huge and many good investments will arise from it.  That's not to say that it isn't a gamble at this point. But I'm willing to reduce some risk with diversification and take that gamble with a portion of my money.

Factom had a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop blockchain for a digitized medical record system.

Ethereum has an Enterprise Ethereum Alliance of many organizations and companies getting involved to support and monitor the growth of this blockchain and crypto.  Companies like Microsoft, ING, BP, Intel, JP Morgan, and many more are members because they KNOW that they better be monitoring this technology, as it may become very disruptive. (https://entethalliance.org/members/ (https://entethalliance.org/members/))

So I'm not suggesting you go out and dump money into cryptocurrencies, but if all of these are excited/worried/interested and monitoring this technology... then maybe we should do the same. 
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: lifeanon269 on September 07, 2017, 11:06:30 AM
No, actually nothing really needs to exit the market.  There is not $70 billion actual dollars in the market for cryptos.  Only a fraction of bitcoins are transacted on a regular basis, the rest are hoarded.  But, the price of all bitcoin are quoted as if they could be sold at the last transacted price.  All you need is one large motivated (panicked?) seller to decide they want out and have them sell enough bitcoins -- at any price -- to consume available bid liquidity (which I can assure you is not $70 billion of actual cash waiting to be used for all the bitcoins at a moments notice).  At that point, when everyone inevitably rushes for the exits since there is no actual value to backup the bitcoins, there would be no buyers and the price of individual bitcoins will evaporate, and with it the stated market cap for all bitcoins. $70 billion of actual money would not need to change hands for this to happen.  The value of bitcoins exists only in the minds of those who fancy them.

I agree, but what you're saying is true only in the case where bitcoin were to go to $0. In the example I used where bitcoin were to fall to a value of $400 implies then that there are buyers at the price of $400 and therefore the market depth reaches equilibrium between buyers and sellers at that point. Therefore, given its now new price of $400 there would have likely been about $70 billion that had exited the market, otherwise the agreed upon price wouldn't have been determined by market equilibrium. If there were a large motivated seller(s) that caused a market panic sell, and the market stabilized at $400, then at some point there would need to be buyers at that price to cause the market to stabilize.
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: waltworks on September 07, 2017, 11:08:23 AM
(http://bitcoinprbuzz.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Bitcoin-IRA-PR-Image.png)

(http://s3.amazonaws.com/main-newsbtc-images/2016/12/19010518/bitcoinira-start-today.png)

(https://www.ebitinvest.com/images/slider2.jpg)

(http://www.investinginbitcoinbook.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/book_website_header_240_gray.png)

(http://cdn.goldstockbull.com/wp-content/uploads/bitcoin-value.jpg)

(https://satoshinet.com/images/become-an-investor.png)

No way could this be a fad...

-W
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: Michael in ABQ on September 07, 2017, 11:16:53 AM
I remember someone posting about bitcoin in a forum I frequented about a decade ago. There were distributed mining groups back then and a regular person could actually get a few bitcoins with just using their personal computer. Or just buy them outright as they were trading at somewhere around $20 or less. I remember thinking it was a gimmick back then. Of course odds are even if I had acquired a few I would have sold them long ago before they went up thousands of percent.
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: shotgunwilly on September 07, 2017, 11:42:36 AM
No way could this be a fad...

-W

Since you're so sure, why wouldn't you short the hell out of it?

Bitcoin may die.  Other blockchains WILL be successful.
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: waltworks on September 07, 2017, 12:02:04 PM
Shorting has 2 big problems - timing (you need to know *when* the crash will happen), and limited returns (unless you lever up like crazy). Not something I want anything to do with.

It's far easier to just not buy into speculative insanity and invest in stuff that has actual intrinsic value of some sort (stocks, bonds, real estate). The lazy man's short!

-W
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: Kalergie on September 07, 2017, 01:27:11 PM
Check this out. in Dubai you can buy an apartment with bitcoin. Not sure if this is just a marketing move to get attention.

https://www.khaleejtimes.com/business/real-estate/you-can-buy-this-dubai-property-by-paying-bitcoin
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: effigy98 on September 07, 2017, 01:50:56 PM
Mining only really pays off if the price of bitcoin keeps increasing.

It also pays off to learn about the technology, the hardware, work thru all the problems, learn basic scripting, etc. I have learned so much in just a month of mining, building rigs, etc. It is a good project to push you to learn or refresh skills you would not normally learn. I recommend everyone just build one rig (could be as simple as a single 1050ti $150 video card), get some wallets, mine different coins, really learn about the space so you understand it better so it is not so confusing. There are many random job skills you can learn that can pay you big money outside of crypto and/or just help you with day to day computer issues.
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: effigy98 on September 07, 2017, 02:00:46 PM
I would recommend not investing (gambling) more then a few hundred dollars in bitcoin unless you have maxed all your tax sheltered investment accounts and payed off your debts (with the exception of the house). There is a huge potential for it to take off like nothing we have ever seen before in our lifetime, but there is a good chance it will go to $0 as well so that money you put in should be something you could forget about while holding long and not be too concerned if you lost it.
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: LaMoustacheFrancaise on September 09, 2017, 07:36:08 AM
Thanks everyone for your answers.
I have learned a lot from them and I can now see that investing in mining power from a compagny is not worth the try for the kind of person I am ( a 20 years old lad).
I do still see crypto currencies getting big in the world in the next coming years.
But it is pure gamble to bet on only one type of those currencies, as many of you said, Bitcoin might disseapear in 10 years or lose value. We could also look back at that post in 10 years and see that one bitcoin can actually buy a brand new Audi. Who knows?
Like effigy98 said, I think I might give a try in mining some of those currencies by myself, just for the fun of it.
It will also be an interesting study case for my university diploma, as I am taking economic classes and I need to write a memoir on the history of money.
Does anyone can show me where I could learn how to mine by myself?
Regards.
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: TomTX on September 09, 2017, 03:12:04 PM
Mining only really pays off if the price of bitcoin keeps increasing.

It also pays off to learn about the technology, the hardware, work thru all the problems, learn basic scripting, etc. I have learned so much in just a month of mining, building rigs, etc. It is a good project to push you to learn or refresh skills you would not normally learn. I recommend everyone just build one rig (could be as simple as a single 1050ti $150 video card), get some wallets, mine different coins, really learn about the space so you understand it better so it is not so confusing. There are many random job skills you can learn that can pay you big money outside of crypto and/or just help you with day to day computer issues.

Sure, as a hobby learning to do your own mining with reasonable cash outlay - I have no objections.
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: LAGuy on September 09, 2017, 10:06:16 PM
I'm out here living in Bangkok until next year. EVERY expat/foreigner I come across is either in or getting into blockchain. This is the sort of place that attracts dreamers and scammers, and blockchain is perfect for them. They all think I'm a fool for sticking to my boring stocks. Sure looks like classic bubble behavior to me, regardless of the merits of blockchain technology.
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: Jeferson on September 10, 2017, 02:21:01 AM
wouldn't it be better just to buy few coins? This sounds way too much complicated to me.
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: runbikerun on September 10, 2017, 02:50:26 PM
No way could this be a fad...

-W

Since you're so sure, why wouldn't you short the hell out of it?

Bitcoin may die.  Other blockchains WILL be successful.

"The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent."

If someone could accurately and safely predict when a bubble was going to pop, they could make themselves billionaires. "Should I be shorting cryptocurrencies?" is a question that needs a whole set of requirements to be met in order to be answerable in the positive, and cryptocurrencies being in a bubble is just the first and simplest of those requirements.
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: maizefolk on September 10, 2017, 07:03:00 PM
A number of different exchanges like Bitfinex and Kraken allow short selling. I cannot find recent numbers but I know at one point the annual interest charged on borrowed bitcoins to open short positions was on the order of 2-4%.

Of course you have to trust the exchange to remain solvent and continue to process withdrawals if the price of bitcoin were to suddenly decline radically. ;-)
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: josh4trunks on September 12, 2017, 10:20:48 AM
Here's my bitcoin mining story.

I was in college, really into linux at the time (still my main operating system along with FreeBSD for servers) and heard about bitcoin mining from a podcast in early 2011, I think BTC was valued around ~$1 at the time. They had an online mining calculator where you could see how much your profit vs power was, which even factored in difficultly increasing and BTC appreciation. I am fairly conservative and always just assumed BTC would not appreciate. If you did assume BTC would appreciate, it was better to just buy BTC. I really did not care about money in college*, I just thought it was cool I could use my computer skills to build a money printing machine.

*I never had a real job until I graduated with my environmental engineering degree. I just got money from parents for food/rent, or took out loans. I was always fairly cheap though, never spent money on anything but essentials. As soon as I graduated I realized I had $40K in debt (which my parents paid half of since they used my loans as well).


So, I bought a 2 AMD graphic cards, for a bit over $200 after rebate and selling a game code they came with. Setup a headless mining server, running Ubunut Linux. It was super complicated at the time to make the server headless since the graphics cards required a graphical interface (X) normally.
I remember there were so many little details I tweaked over the few years I mined. I started with a mainstream mining program written in python. I remember every once in a while, someone would make a breakthrough with the algorithm and efficiency would increase by a few percent.
I overclocked the crap out of my AMD cards, to the point they would cause the graphics card to stop responding. I even setup a monitoring program to watch if my cards all of a suddenly dropped below some ridiculously high temperature, I think around 68C. Since that meant the program shutdown and I needed to SSH into the server to restart it.
Another think you wanted to optimize was your mining party. I switched to one that had some extra features like sending your mining program hints at what was already tried, so it could increase group efficiency slightly.
I eventually found a new mining program, I believe CGMiner. It was written in C, had features to monitor your graphics card for you, and manage the overclock speed which was better then my manual management.

Things worked great for a few years, I think my server made like $1+ a day, which was about double the electricity cost. I would build up my bitcoin and cash them out to amazon gift cards anytime I needed to buy something. At one point I kept my bitcoin in an online wallet that was super popular at the time. They got hacked, and I lost about half of what I had stored there. I think about 7BTC, at the time, probably worth $45 at most. I was sad and vowed to learn how to use an offline wallet. Eventually ASICS were coming out, difficulty was increasing rapidly, so graphics card mining was becoming not worth it. I sold my AMD cards for nearly the same $200 I bought them for on ebay.

In all I think I got paid out about 50BTC from my mining group. What is funny is my miner was lucky and actually was successful minting twice. So if I wasn't in a mining group I would have made 100BTC. I cashed most of this out at around $2-3
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: Cornel_Westside on September 15, 2017, 11:04:05 AM
If you want to mine cryptocurrencies, you should probably not mine Bitcoin. If you do lots of research into which altcoins are

1) still cheap
2) have technology that is unique and will be useful in the future
3) be efficient to mine (kind of similar to #1)

Then you should consider it. Bitcoin mining is basically inefficient for an individual. There are server farms for this whose efficiencies you can't match. There are altcoins that are still relatively cheap to mine. AEON may be a long term bet - it's a lite version of Monero that is still very cheap and efficient to mine, and right now it is priced very low because of some code rebasing that is going on that has caused some to sell. It may not work out, but Monero is one of the top 10 in market cap and it is very slow, so a lite version that is still anonymous has value. But invariably all of the top 10 coins are very inefficient at a consumer level. If you want it to be profitable enough to be worthwhile, you either have to trust in the long term growth of a mainstream coin or to mine a cheaper coin that may not work out. And you can always sell your mined altcoins if you panic about the future.
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: lifeanon269 on September 15, 2017, 11:47:17 AM
If you want to mine cryptocurrencies, you should probably not mine Bitcoin.

...

Bitcoin mining is basically inefficient for an individual. There are server farms for this whose efficiencies you can't match.

The idea that bitcoin mining for the individual isn't possible or efficient I think is completely exaggerated.

The biggest advantages that larger mining operations have are cheap electricity and being able to purchase hardware in bulk, at a discount, and often with prioritized shipping by the manufacture to ensure that they receive them as soon as they're available. Those things don't impact the profitability of my own mining however assuming that my hardware is efficient enough for the costs of my electricity.

Often (but not always), large mining operations are using the same ASICs that an individual would employ, they just chain them together to aggregate their hash rate. So any increase in difficulty due to a rapid increase in computing power across the network will impact a large mining operation just as much as it will impact an individual. It is just that a larger operation might be able weather a period of lower mining profitability better if their electricity costs are lower.

Also, many mining operations often need to sell off their earned bitcoin immediately into the market in order to continue to stay operational over the short term. So their mining profitably becomes directly dependent upon the current price of bitcoin at that time. Whereas an individual will likely have the option to hold their bitcoin for a longer period of time and then turn a once unprofitable mining operation into something that was profitable over the long term well after their mining rig became too inefficient to continue to run.

I run an AvalonMiner 741 at my home. I don't exactly have the cheapest electricity (about 11 cents/KWh). I've been running it for about 3 months and only have about 2 more months before the equipment is paid off. At that point any bitcoin earned will be profits minus electricity costs. I foresee myself running this miner for about 1.5 years give or take. I have actually been about 40% more profitable that I had originally calculated before I had purchased the unit. If I had the electrical circuit capacity in my home, I'd probably purchase another AvalonMiner 741.

Now, is mining more profitable than just purchasing bitcoin and holding it? That ultimately depends upon what happens to the price of bitcoin during the period where mining would take place. In extreme bull markets it is probably better to just buy bitcoin and hold it. However, under more stable market conditions, there is probably less of a clear cut winner between the two.

If someone were to choose to mine bitcoin at their home, one of the biggest pieces of advice I'd give that would have the biggest impact on their profitability would be to look for a brand new efficient miner that is new to market and see if you can purchase it and get one of the first ones. That will get you a head start in utilizing one of the newest ASIC chipsets with the greatest efficiency. Even large server farms won't be able to get huge farms of newly manufactured ASICs as quick as an individual can get a single one online. Getting a month's worth of work out of a brand new miner will give you a good boost in mining profitability over the life of the hardware you purchased.
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: hgjjgkj on September 15, 2017, 12:09:14 PM
LifeAnon, got any resources where to learn more about crypto mining? Was looking to better understand the cashflow breakeven. Would it be possible to do something like purchase old PC equipment and daisy chain them together to mine?
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: TomTX on September 15, 2017, 12:19:56 PM
LifeAnon, got any resources where to learn more about crypto mining? Was looking to better understand the cashflow breakeven. Would it be possible to do something like purchase old PC equipment and daisy chain them together to mine?

For most coins - only if those old PCs have really good graphics cards, and you have really cheap electricity.

First mining was done on a general purpose CPU.

Then it moved to a general purpose GPU with massive parallelization on the chip, speeding up the process immensely.

More and more, mining is going to custom-designed chips (ASIC) that are optimized for mining, speeding up the process further.
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: maizefolk on September 15, 2017, 01:25:00 PM
As TomTX said, efficiency is the key thing to worry about with older hardware.

With good hardware/software for a given coin, the cost of electricity is often going to take 20-50% of the value of the coins mined. So it doesn't take a huge drop in performance per watt (as little as 2x) before you'd be losing money instead of making money.
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: waltworks on September 15, 2017, 03:44:07 PM
(https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/ioywkh6tAUxk/v2/800x-1.png)

Nowhere to go but up!

-W
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: TomTX on September 15, 2017, 06:06:36 PM
(https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/ioywkh6tAUxk/v2/800x-1.png)

Nowhere to go but up!

-W

The top was in!

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/09/bitcoin-and-ethereum-are-cratering/

;)
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: Scandium on September 18, 2017, 11:47:02 AM
I decided to check out some crypocoins. Can buy several from Coinbase.com. Easy to set up account etc, all pleasant so far. Going to buy they charge 4% fee for credit card transaction! And something like 2% for bank transfer, each way! WTF? I know of few other (legit) financial transactions that have such horrendous fees. Weren't cryptos supposed to save us from the scummy rippoff banks?! This seems even worse.. That's not even to mention that the whole balance dropped a few percent within hours of buying.

Furthermore; in order to cash out you have to give your government ID and info. What's the point of an anarchist currency when the government can trance which is mine?!!
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: phil22 on September 18, 2017, 08:12:52 PM
the problem is that coinbase lies at the intersection of cryptocurrencies and the legacy banking system.  the legacy banking system requires you to provide lots of personal info.

you can avoid coinbase and the banking system by meeting someone in person and paying cash for bitcoins, but there are obviously risks there as well.  and if you do that, it'll be harder to exchange back to government currency and pay taxes.  if you plan to never exchange your crypto coins back to gov't currency, and instead just spend it at merchants or craigslist transactions or whatever, then you'd probably be fine with coins purchased in-person.
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: lifeanon269 on September 19, 2017, 06:28:45 AM
I decided to check out some crypocoins. Can buy several from Coinbase.com. Easy to set up account etc, all pleasant so far. Going to buy they charge 4% fee for credit card transaction! And something like 2% for bank transfer, each way! WTF? I know of few other (legit) financial transactions that have such horrendous fees. Weren't cryptos supposed to save us from the scummy rippoff banks?! This seems even worse.. That's not even to mention that the whole balance dropped a few percent within hours of buying.

Furthermore; in order to cash out you have to give your government ID and info. What's the point of an anarchist currency when the government can trance which is mine?!!

Bitcoin itself is capable of lower fees and non-identifying pseudo-anonymity characteristics. But exchanges are institutional organizations that must meet certain government regulations or they'd be shutdown by the government. Also, since they're a business, they must make money somehow to stay afloat.

If you want to purchase bitcoin without going through an exchange and giving up your identity, then you'll have to either give a service or good and be paid in bitcoin, mine for bitcoin, or purchase bitcoin from someone peer-to-peer. To facilitate the latter, you can use a website called LocalBitcoins that will connect you with other people selling bitcoin. However, you'll usually pay a little higher price premium for the additional anonymity it provides.

If you don't care about anonymity and you just care about not paying such a high fee, you can use GDAX which is a open market exchange where buyers and sellers meet. Fees are lower or non-existant depending on the trades you make. If you have a Coinbase account, then you also have a GDAX account (same company). I'd suggest making your trades on GDAX if you don't like the fees of Coinbase.
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: effigy98 on September 19, 2017, 03:59:48 PM
I just started with GDAX, and am enjoying the lower fees and more importantly, lower prices then my coinbase purchases.
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: Scandium on September 20, 2017, 12:35:13 PM
I decided to check out some crypocoins. Can buy several from Coinbase.com. Easy to set up account etc, all pleasant so far. Going to buy they charge 4% fee for credit card transaction! And something like 2% for bank transfer, each way! WTF? I know of few other (legit) financial transactions that have such horrendous fees. Weren't cryptos supposed to save us from the scummy rippoff banks?! This seems even worse.. That's not even to mention that the whole balance dropped a few percent within hours of buying.

Furthermore; in order to cash out you have to give your government ID and info. What's the point of an anarchist currency when the government can trance which is mine?!!

Bitcoin itself is capable of lower fees and non-identifying pseudo-anonymity characteristics. But exchanges are institutional organizations that must meet certain government regulations or they'd be shutdown by the government. Also, since they're a business, they must make money somehow to stay afloat.

If you want to purchase bitcoin without going through an exchange and giving up your identity, then you'll have to either give a service or good and be paid in bitcoin, mine for bitcoin, or purchase bitcoin from someone peer-to-peer. To facilitate the latter, you can use a website called LocalBitcoins that will connect you with other people selling bitcoin. However, you'll usually pay a little higher price premium for the additional anonymity it provides.

If you don't care about anonymity and you just care about not paying such a high fee, you can use GDAX which is a open market exchange where buyers and sellers meet. Fees are lower or non-existant depending on the trades you make. If you have a Coinbase account, then you also have a GDAX account (same company). I'd suggest making your trades on GDAX if you don't like the fees of Coinbase.

The anonymity was kinda the point of BTC, at least IMO. I was thinking what if I need to flee the country quickly and avoid the (US) government. (Started after watching "making a murderer"). How do you take money with you? With >$10k cash at an airport you'll likely be pulled over in most places. I figured BTC could be an option. But if the government can see anytime you buy it then it's useless! Might as well be any regular (highly volatile) bank account. I struggle to see the point of BTC the more I look into it. I want libertarian freedom-money to buy drugs, hookers and assassins! I guess that is US dollar bills..

Sounds like peer-to-peer exchanges is the way to go. But bit of a hassle. And how easily could you exchange $100k+ worth of in a short amount of time? This might be the one case where gold is the best way to go..
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: lifeanon269 on September 20, 2017, 12:49:24 PM
The anonymity was kinda the point of BTC, at least IMO. I was thinking what if I need to flee the country quickly and avoid the (US) government. (Started after watching "making a murderer"). How do you take money with you? With >$10k cash at an airport you'll likely be pulled over in most places. I figured BTC could be an option. But if the government can see anytime you buy it then it's useless! Might as well be any regular (highly volatile) bank account. I struggle to see the point of BTC the more I look into it. I want libertarian freedom-money to buy drugs, hookers and assassins! I guess that is US dollar bills..

Sounds like peer-to-peer exchanges is the way to go. But bit of a hassle. And how easily could you exchange $100k+ worth of in a short amount of time? This might be the one case where gold is the best way to go..

If you're fleeing the country, then what do you care about what the US government says? They can't take your bitcoin even if they know you have it. If you're fleeing the country, I'm assuming you're fleeing to a country that won't extradite you back.

Frankly, bitcoin is probably the best global option for fungibility of your wealth. You don't have to actually take anything with you at all. Therefore there is nothing to confiscate during an escape from the country. All your funds are stored on a globally accessible blockchain. Therefore you can then just access your funds once you arrive in the other country and either spend the bitcoin directly or exchange it for local currency.

Gold? How would you ever move gold out of the country? How would gold be treated any differently than any other asset or currency as you leave the country? Unless you have a private jet that you can escape in. Is the gold already stored in another country? That's still a ton of risk since it would still be difficult to move that to another country if you needed to in a hurry.

You can still purchase bitcoins through an online exchange that follows KYC/AML laws and then launder it easy enough. Laundering bitcoin and other crypto-currencies is extremely easy. Then you could just say you lost your bitcoin and were never received any capital gains on your purchase.

I fail to see how you fail to see how bitcoin is predominantly better at hiding money than other fiat currencies and assets are.
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: Scandium on September 20, 2017, 01:05:58 PM
The anonymity was kinda the point of BTC, at least IMO. I was thinking what if I need to flee the country quickly and avoid the (US) government. (Started after watching "making a murderer"). How do you take money with you? With >$10k cash at an airport you'll likely be pulled over in most places. I figured BTC could be an option. But if the government can see anytime you buy it then it's useless! Might as well be any regular (highly volatile) bank account. I struggle to see the point of BTC the more I look into it. I want libertarian freedom-money to buy drugs, hookers and assassins! I guess that is US dollar bills..

Sounds like peer-to-peer exchanges is the way to go. But bit of a hassle. And how easily could you exchange $100k+ worth of in a short amount of time? This might be the one case where gold is the best way to go..

If you're fleeing the country, then what do you care about what the US government says? They can't take your bitcoin even if they know you have it. If you're fleeing the country, I'm assuming you're fleeing to a country that won't extradite you back.

Frankly, bitcoin is probably the best global option for fungibility of your wealth. You don't have to actually take anything with you at all. Therefore there is nothing to confiscate during an escape from the country. All your funds are stored on a globally accessible blockchain. Therefore you can then just access your funds once you arrive in the other country and either spend the bitcoin directly or exchange it for local currency.

Gold? How would you ever move gold out of the country? How would gold be treated any differently than any other asset or currency as you leave the country? Unless you have a private jet that you can escape in. Is the gold already stored in another country? That's still a ton of risk since it would still be difficult to move that to another country if you needed to in a hurry.

You can still purchase bitcoins through an online exchange that follows KYC/AML laws and then launder it easy enough. Laundering bitcoin and other crypto-currencies is extremely easy. Then you could just say you lost your bitcoin and were never received any capital gains on your purchase.

I fail to see how you fail to see how bitcoin is predominantly better at hiding money than other fiat currencies and assets are.

My assumption was that since my ID is tied to coinbase they would shut down my account, or at least be able to trace the BTC. I'm a bit unclear how it works, but assume that if I then cash out somewhere else they could trace it. But yes if I'm in a place with no extradition they couldn't do anything about it. It is likely thought that a similar exchange in that country would also abide by the same ID rules and getting BTC>cash would be hard. Bitcoin is basically part of the global money system, with all the same rules/restrictions.

I don't have that much wealth, so gold plan was to buy some pieces of ~$30k-50k jewelry and wear/pack it through customs. Nothing totally unusual about that, and can even be hard to tell a $50 watch from a $10k one.
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: lifeanon269 on September 20, 2017, 01:26:00 PM
My assumption was that since my ID is tied to coinbase they would shut down my account, or at least be able to trace the BTC. I'm a bit unclear how it works, but assume that if I then cash out somewhere else they could trace it. But yes if I'm in a place with no extradition they couldn't do anything about it. It is likely thought that a similar exchange in that country would also abide by the same ID rules and getting BTC>cash would be hard. Bitcoin is basically part of the global money system, with all the same rules/restrictions.

I don't have that much wealth, so gold plan was to buy some pieces of ~$30k-50k jewelry and wear/pack it through customs. Nothing totally unusual about that, and can even be hard to tell a $50 watch from a $10k one.

Well the best practice is to generally not store your bitcoin on the exchange since you generally don't own the private key to your bitcoin there anyway. The saying goes "Your keys, your bitcoin. Not your keys, not your bitcoin."

So once you purchase your bitcoin on the exchange, then just move your bitcoin to a private wallet where you own your keys. Now nobody, no organization, no government could ever steal your bitcoin from you.

They'd be able to trace the transactions you just did, but if you launder the bitcoin it becomes infinitely more difficult. You could also easily exchange bitcoin for a more anonymous currency (monero) and then just exchange it back again for bitcoin to a new address. But even if you don't launder it, if you're in another country that won't extradite you, what do you care if the USA can trace the bitcoin on the blockchain?

Yes, it is likely that the exchanges in any foreign country will also follow KYC/AML rules, but if that new country becomes your home country, what do you care if the main goal was to get it out of the original country?

Also, if the gold plan was to use jewelry, I'd be more afraid of losing my money through the inaccuracy of jewelry valuations when you arrive to your new location than losing your money to the government. You may say that it is a $50k watch, but if the local pawn shop is only willing to give you $20k for that watch then you just lost a ton of your money. You won't have that problem with bitcoin. Generally 1 bitcoin will have roughly the same value anywhere in the world.
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: Scandium on September 20, 2017, 01:50:03 PM
My assumption was that since my ID is tied to coinbase they would shut down my account, or at least be able to trace the BTC. I'm a bit unclear how it works, but assume that if I then cash out somewhere else they could trace it. But yes if I'm in a place with no extradition they couldn't do anything about it. It is likely thought that a similar exchange in that country would also abide by the same ID rules and getting BTC>cash would be hard. Bitcoin is basically part of the global money system, with all the same rules/restrictions.

I don't have that much wealth, so gold plan was to buy some pieces of ~$30k-50k jewelry and wear/pack it through customs. Nothing totally unusual about that, and can even be hard to tell a $50 watch from a $10k one.

Well the best practice is to generally not store your bitcoin on the exchange since you generally don't own the private key to your bitcoin there anyway. The saying goes "Your keys, your bitcoin. Not your keys, not your bitcoin."

So once you purchase your bitcoin on the exchange, then just move your bitcoin to a private wallet where you own your keys. Now nobody, no organization, no government could ever steal your bitcoin from you.

They'd be able to trace the transactions you just did, but if you launder the bitcoin it becomes infinitely more difficult. You could also easily exchange bitcoin for a more anonymous currency (monero) and then just exchange it back again for bitcoin to a new address. But even if you don't launder it, if you're in another country that won't extradite you, what do you care if the USA can trace the bitcoin on the blockchain?

Yes, it is likely that the exchanges in any foreign country will also follow KYC/AML rules, but if that new country becomes your home country, what do you care if the main goal was to get it out of the original country?

Also, if the gold plan was to use jewelry, I'd be more afraid of losing my money through the inaccuracy of jewelry valuations when you arrive to your new location than losing your money to the government. You may say that it is a $50k watch, but if the local pawn shop is only willing to give you $20k for that watch then you just lost a ton of your money. You won't have that problem with bitcoin. Generally 1 bitcoin will have roughly the same value anywhere in the world.

Ok, I read some about "offline"/private wallets now. Looks interesting, need to check more. Sounds like that could be an option.

Issue in new country would be exchanging back to real (i.e. usable) currency. If they all require gov reporting the long arm of the US treasury could shut down any account with my name. They were able to bully Swiss banks to reveal their customers after all.. Any country that works with, holds etc USD is susceptible. Would likely have to use peer-to-peer on black market exchanges.

Yes there are certainly problems with moving and selling jewelry. The cost/loss would likely be high. 
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: effigy98 on September 20, 2017, 02:27:31 PM
Treat money on an exchange as something that will eventually be stolen, lost, hacked, regulated out of existence, etc.

Best bet is to print out a paper wallet or get a hardware wallet like a ledger which is pretty user friendly.
https://www.ledgerwallet.com/products/ledger-nano-s
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: maizefolk on September 20, 2017, 03:26:58 PM
+1 to the feedback already given. If you're leaving your money at an exchange, you aren't going to get many of the benefits of bitcoins. For that you have to move them off the exchange, to one or more wallets where you control the private keys. You can do several hops to new wallets if you like. Or use coin tumbling services (although recent evidence suggests these may not be as secure as you like). Or even a detour from bitcoin to monero or zcash and then back to bitcoin, which breaks the trail entirely.

Your post highlights a lot of real, practical issues with using bitcoin today. From a theoretical perspective a lot of these are really issues with the interface between bitcoin and dollars, and I'd say the costs and hassles of the USD:BTC interface sound about equivalent to the USD:EUR or USD:RMB interfaces, so the problems are more a result of the dollar side than the bitcoin side. But I realize that's not any actual practical help. *shrug*
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: Scandium on September 22, 2017, 12:51:28 PM
Your post highlights a lot of real, practical issues with using bitcoin today. From a theoretical perspective a lot of these are really issues with the interface between bitcoin and dollars, and I'd say the costs and hassles of the USD:BTC interface sound about equivalent to the USD:EUR or USD:RMB interfaces, so the problems are more a result of the dollar side than the bitcoin side. But I realize that's not any actual practical help. *shrug*

Pretty much. You can't use cryptocoins to buy food or pay taxes. So pretty useless for day-to-day use. IMO they're just a novelty for would-be anarchist and libertarians, or speculators. It's like "investing" in gold; it has no inherent value. Except this doesn't even exist and can be taken by russian hackers. Cool! ..

To use them (to survive, not just buy stuff on Newegg) you have to exchange for USD and the you're into the traceable monetary system anyway.
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: lifeanon269 on September 22, 2017, 01:32:13 PM
Pretty much. You can't use cryptocoins to buy food or pay taxes. So pretty useless for day-to-day use. IMO they're just a novelty for would-be anarchist and libertarians, or speculators. It's like "investing" in gold; it has no inherent value. Except this doesn't even exist and can be taken by russian hackers. Cool! ..

To use them (to survive, not just buy stuff on Newegg) you have to exchange for USD and the you're into the traceable monetary system anyway.

I'd argue that it isn't bitcoin's purpose to be used as an anonymous everyday currency.

First off, if you're looking to use bitcoin to pay taxes, then taxes are always associated with an individual or business, so what does it matter if you are forced to go through an exchange to convert BTC to USD to pay the taxes owed associated with my identification with a given government?

I think bitcoin's ultimate purpose is to facilitate global exchange of value without requiring a third-party. It is a broad definition that has benefits that extend beyond minor use-cases. At the moment, if you want to send money to someone globally, it absolutely requires the use of a trusted third party and often more than one and often requires the conversion between foreign currencies. The fact that is necessary gives these third-parties a lot of control and the ability to charge substantial fees to do so.

Bitcoin is global and decentralized. There may come a time where you can purchase food with bitcoin locally, but its main use and biggest benefit comes from its use on the global stage. The more global our economic system becomes, the bigger the need for something like bitcoin.

With that also comes freedom. That means I can just pick up today and leave and go somewhere else anywhere in the world and not have to worry about transferring any funds of any kind from one institution to another to ensure that my wealth comes with me. That's an immense amount of power and is a power that is extended to everyone, not just the wealthy.

So I think bitcoin's greatest strengths come not from its pseudo-anonymity, but from the freedoms it provides. I don't think this freedom of wealth is a quality of bitcoin that should be overlooked. The refugees of the future won't need to worry as much about hitting the reset button on their wealth when fleeing.
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: Scandium on September 22, 2017, 01:47:04 PM
Pretty much. You can't use cryptocoins to buy food or pay taxes. So pretty useless for day-to-day use. IMO they're just a novelty for would-be anarchist and libertarians, or speculators. It's like "investing" in gold; it has no inherent value. Except this doesn't even exist and can be taken by russian hackers. Cool! ..

To use them (to survive, not just buy stuff on Newegg) you have to exchange for USD and the you're into the traceable monetary system anyway.

I'd argue that it isn't bitcoin's purpose to be used as an anonymous everyday currency.

First off, if you're looking to use bitcoin to pay taxes, then taxes are always associated with an individual or business, so what does it matter if you are forced to go through an exchange to convert BTC to USD to pay the taxes owed associated with my identification with a given government?

I think bitcoin's ultimate purpose is to facilitate global exchange of value without requiring a third-party. It is a broad definition that has benefits that extend beyond minor use-cases. At the moment, if you want to send money to someone globally, it absolutely requires the use of a trusted third party and often more than one and often requires the conversion between foreign currencies. The fact that is necessary gives these third-parties a lot of control and the ability to charge substantial fees to do so.

Bitcoin is global and decentralized. There may come a time where you can purchase food with bitcoin locally, but its main use and biggest benefit comes from its use on the global stage. The more global our economic system becomes, the bigger the need for something like bitcoin.

With that also comes freedom. That means I can just pick up today and leave and go somewhere else anywhere in the world and not have to worry about transferring any funds of any kind from one institution to another to ensure that my wealth comes with me. That's an immense amount of power and is a power that is extended to everyone, not just the wealthy.

So I think bitcoin's greatest strengths come not from its pseudo-anonymity, but from the freedoms it provides. I don't think this freedom of wealth is a quality of bitcoin that should be overlooked. The refugees of the future won't need to worry as much about hitting the reset button on their wealth when fleeing.

Sorry, not convinced. How is moving the currency exchange from, say USD>EUR over to USD>BTC>EUR any better? Like you say one can't use BTC for everyday transactions, so you'd need to convert it to the local currency at some point. And you get paid in local currency, so you'd have to convert up to BTC first. Aren't you just adding a step in the conversion process? And a step with a 2-4% fee in each direction! How is this an improvement? I've used Transferwise to convert and pay a fraction of a percent, and it's a single conversion. Not to mention that BTC could drop 20%+ in value during the conversion. I know of few other legit currencies that are that volatile.

not have to worry about transferring any funds of any kind from one institution to another to ensure that my wealth comes with me.
How does this work? Do you keep all your wealth in BTC at all times? Personally my wealth is in Vanguard funds, since that earns a return.. So I'd need to liquidate, then convert to BTC. Then convert back? Everything is online now. I could flee to country X, set up an account, then log into my old bank in the US and transfer it all over. (unless you're fleeing the law as I mentioned above). I don't see this as a huge problem.. Maybe if you're in some failing society, but then I don't foresee how buying BTC will be easy either.
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: lifeanon269 on September 22, 2017, 02:23:42 PM
Sorry, not convinced. How is moving the currency exchange from, say USD>EUR over to USD>BTC>EUR any better? Like you say one can't use BTC for everyday transactions, so you'd need to convert it to the local currency at some point. And you get paid in local currency, so you'd have to convert up to BTC first. Aren't you just adding a step in the conversion process? And a step with a 2-4% fee in each direction! How is this an improvement? I've used Transferwise to convert and pay a fraction of a percent, and it's a single conversion. Not to mention that BTC could drop 20%+ in value during the conversion. I know of few other legit currencies that are that volatile.

How does this work? Do you keep all your wealth in BTC at all times? Personally my wealth is in Vanguard funds, since that earns a return.. So I'd need to liquidate, then convert to BTC. Then convert back? Everything is online now. I could flee to country X, set up an account, then log into my old bank in the US and transfer it all over. (unless you're fleeing the law as I mentioned above). I don't see this as a huge problem.. Maybe if you're in some failing society, but then I don't foresee how buying BTC will be easy either.

I guess I'm not following what argument you're trying to make anymore. Originally you argued that you didn't like the fees that the exchange (Coinbase) was issuing, so I recommended GDAX which charges zero to negligible fees (most Exchanges have lower fees than Coinbase). Then you argued that you didn't like that ID was required to set up an account when I then showed you that you can set up an offline wallet without and various ways you can launder it easy enough and the possibility of using P2P exchanges. You then argued that you'd likely simply use jewelry as a form of monetary transmission when I argued that valuation would likely take more from you than any government and how a bitcoin offline wallet would be a good solution for that. You then claim that bitcoin is too volatile and can fluctuate in price even though you'd be willing to accept a much larger price fluctuation with regard to jewelry valuation. You then argued about needing to sneak the money out of the country and now you're arguing about how you could easily just go to another country and set up a simple bank transfer...

I'm not so sure it is worth trying to go back and forth on varying points with you because at this point it is clear you have a bias that prevents you from seeing all the points I've laid out for you so far. I feel like the varying arguments you've brought up makes it seem like you're doing so just for the sake of dragging the argument out to no end.

No, I do not keep all my wealth in bitcoin. Like you have I funds stored in many other investment accounts. The point I was making though was that with whatever wealth someone has stored in bitcoin, that wealth is global and it is stored on the decentralized blockchain, not in some account that is controlled by a third-party that requires your trust.
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: Scandium on September 22, 2017, 02:36:59 PM
Sorry, not convinced. How is moving the currency exchange from, say USD>EUR over to USD>BTC>EUR any better? Like you say one can't use BTC for everyday transactions, so you'd need to convert it to the local currency at some point. And you get paid in local currency, so you'd have to convert up to BTC first. Aren't you just adding a step in the conversion process? And a step with a 2-4% fee in each direction! How is this an improvement? I've used Transferwise to convert and pay a fraction of a percent, and it's a single conversion. Not to mention that BTC could drop 20%+ in value during the conversion. I know of few other legit currencies that are that volatile.

How does this work? Do you keep all your wealth in BTC at all times? Personally my wealth is in Vanguard funds, since that earns a return.. So I'd need to liquidate, then convert to BTC. Then convert back? Everything is online now. I could flee to country X, set up an account, then log into my old bank in the US and transfer it all over. (unless you're fleeing the law as I mentioned above). I don't see this as a huge problem.. Maybe if you're in some failing society, but then I don't foresee how buying BTC will be easy either.

I guess I'm not following what argument you're trying to make anymore. Originally you argued that you didn't like the fees that the exchange (Coinbase) was issuing, so I recommended GDAX which charges zero to negligible fees (most Exchanges have lower fees than Coinbase). Then you argued that you didn't like that ID was required to set up an account when I then showed you that you can set up an offline wallet without and various ways you can launder it easy enough and the possibility of using P2P exchanges. You then argued that you'd likely simply use jewelry as a form of monetary transmission when I argued that valuation would likely take more from you than any government and how a bitcoin offline wallet would be a good solution for that. You then claim that bitcoin is too volatile and can fluctuate in price even though you'd be willing to accept a much larger price fluctuation with regard to jewelry valuation. You then argued about needing to sneak the money out of the country and now you're arguing about how you could easily just go to another country and set up a simple bank transfer...

I'm not so sure it is worth trying to go back and forth on varying points with you because at this point it is clear you have a bias that prevents you from seeing all the points I've laid out for you so far. I feel like the varying arguments you've brought up makes it seem like you're doing so just for the sake of dragging the argument out to no end.

No, I do not keep all my wealth in bitcoin. Like you have I funds stored in many other investment accounts. The point I was making though was that with whatever wealth someone has stored in bitcoin, that wealth is global and it is stored on the decentralized blockchain, not in some account that is controlled by a third-party that requires your trust.

Those were separate discussions. You changed the subject to the purpose of BTC, other than my flee-the-law fever dream. I was kinda done with that so ok, i'd like to hear how BTC can be used legally. You said:

"I think bitcoin's ultimate purpose is to facilitate global exchange of value without requiring a third-party. "

Intriguing. But like I said I don't see how it helps. I'm not being difficult. It's just every time I go through how BTC will help/improve this or that I can't get it to work. Maybe I'm just too stupid? Help me understand.. So you mention a fee-free exchange, cool that helps. But how is it not just an extra conversion step?

Assuming you make your salary in USD, you invest in vanguard (in USD). How can bitcoin help you as a global currency? In what scenarios is it worthwhile?
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: maizefolk on September 22, 2017, 03:42:52 PM
Your post highlights a lot of real, practical issues with using bitcoin today. From a theoretical perspective a lot of these are really issues with the interface between bitcoin and dollars, and I'd say the costs and hassles of the USD:BTC interface sound about equivalent to the USD:EUR or USD:RMB interfaces, so the problems are more a result of the dollar side than the bitcoin side. But I realize that's not any actual practical help. *shrug*

Pretty much. You can't use cryptocoins to buy food or pay taxes. So pretty useless for day-to-day use. IMO they're just a novelty for would-be anarchist and libertarians, or speculators. It's like "investing" in gold; it has no inherent value. Except this doesn't even exist and can be taken by russian hackers. Cool! ..

To use them (to survive, not just buy stuff on Newegg) you have to exchange for USD and the you're into the traceable monetary system anyway.

Well I'd argue the difference is that there's no technical reason bitcoin (or other cryptocurrencies) couldn't be used to buy food or pay taxes, it's just a question of adoption. That makes it fascinating to me from a nerdy perspective, particularly because adoption for paying for actual stuff does appear to be growing (more outside North America than inside) but then again I'm not pushing buying cryptocurrencies as an investment.

If anything I'm pushing learning about the technology behind cryptocurrencies as an investment.
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: phil22 on September 22, 2017, 04:27:28 PM
Assuming you make your salary in USD, you invest in vanguard (in USD). How can bitcoin help you as a global currency? In what scenarios is it worthwhile?

this is off-topic for a thread about mining, but you're right bitcoin isn't "useful" for those of us in the US who plan to continue using the existing financial system the way it is.  putting US dollars into Vanguard online works well enough.  cryptocurrencies will allow other developments in money.  as an analogy: cryptocurrencies are to money as the internet is to newspapers.

for some present-day uses/scenarios (especially for people outside of the US/Europe): there was a thread about this (https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/bitcoin-and-other-crypto-currencies-are-they-useful/msg1644108/#msg1644108).
Title: Re: Is it worth it checking out investing in crypto-mining?
Post by: lifeanon269 on September 23, 2017, 09:26:34 AM
Those were separate discussions. You changed the subject to the purpose of BTC, other than my flee-the-law fever dream. I was kinda done with that so ok, i'd like to hear how BTC can be used legally. You said:

"I think bitcoin's ultimate purpose is to facilitate global exchange of value without requiring a third-party. "

Intriguing. But like I said I don't see how it helps. I'm not being difficult. It's just every time I go through how BTC will help/improve this or that I can't get it to work. Maybe I'm just too stupid? Help me understand.. So you mention a fee-free exchange, cool that helps. But how is it not just an extra conversion step?

Assuming you make your salary in USD, you invest in vanguard (in USD). How can bitcoin help you as a global currency? In what scenarios is it worthwhile?

Rather than me trying to explain the importance of bitcoin (which I'm probably not doing the best at), here is an excellent article from a while back by Marc Andreesen that covers the topic very well. I think it is an excellent read on why bitcoin is such a breakthrough in technology and the benefits it can provide society.

https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/01/21/why-bitcoin-matters/ (https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/01/21/why-bitcoin-matters/)