[Fortis]

+1 for this thread. I'm so tired of these ridiculously complex explanations of how to get into BTC. IT's like trying to fly a jetplane before crawling.

[jamaicabound]

(07-23-2017 06:59 PM)Bill Brasky Wrote:  

(07-23-2017 05:15 PM)RatInTheWoods Wrote:  

I want to buy bitcoin, but don't see the point if I have to link it to my bank account and give over tons of personal info. Coinbase want all personal details.

If there any way to buy and hold bitcoins easily without identifying yourself?

Yes. Set up a BTC wallet and buy with cash. Go to localbitcoins.com

I don't have a ton of experience doing this however for people trying to dodge taxes your going to be paying possibly upwards of 20% to 30% over spot rate to buy this way so are you really getting ahead of taxes by doing so? FYI if your holding long term capital gains taxes are only 15%.

Buying isn't a taxable event so not sure why everyone is so scared to buy. It's selling you have to worry about if that's your end game is avoiding taxes.

[jamaicabound]

(07-23-2017 10:05 PM)fortysix Wrote:  

How do you allocate cryptocurrencies in your portfolio? Do you view it as a means of preserving wealth (like an insurance policy in case the stock market / dollar goes to sh1t, similar to allocating a portion of your portfolio to gold), or do you view it as a a speculative investment (hoping for 2-10x returns)? Of that allocation, are you putting a certain % into ICOs?

A quick follow-up: I am looking for a solid bitcoin wallet where I can store my bitcoin off the coinbase website. I would prefer something that I don't need to store on my phone (I've lost / had my phone stolen/ numerous times, and I want something else where i can store bitcoin). Any recommendations for keeping something stored on my google drive (so that I can acess/sync it across multiple computers, including having access @ work)?

Buy either a Trezor or a Ledger .

I've heard Keepkey is decent but havn't personally used it. Ledger holds more cryptos than a Trezor however I prefer Trezor as I feel it's more secure and more userfriendly.

[Robert High Hawk]

Is there any time commitment with this subscription? For example, if I join and then for whatever reason decide to take my winnings (or losses), and get out of coinbase, is there any penalty?

Subsequently: Let's say I have it set up for $50 a week, but then I lose my job, and want to suspend the monthly payments, but don't want to pull out my money. Can I leave what I had in there and "coast" until I decide either to add more or pull out?

Thanks for the info.

[SamuelBRoberts]

Yeah you can.

[churros]

(07-25-2017 12:10 PM)SamuelBRoberts Wrote:  

Today's giant downswing is why I said Dollar Cost Average, instead of lump sums, in case anybody was curious.

Can you elaborate? Am liking this introduction to Bitcoin. You should write more datasheets on other basic aspects. +1

[SamuelBRoberts]

Sure.

I'm not going to look up exact numbers, but on that day I think Bitcoin lost something like a quarter of its value. (It has since mostly recovered).
This guide is written for basic investors without a good understanding of the space, who aren't familiar with these kinds of losses and swings. So let's take two hypothetical newbie investors, one who is DCAing and one who is not, and imagine how they would react.

Investor A put in 2,000$ from his savings into bitcoin as a lump sum: "HOLY SHIT I JUST LOST 500$ AND IT HASN'T EVEN BEEN A WEEK," they might say. "THIS INVESTMENT IS CRAP, I'D BETTER TAKE OUT MY MONEY BEFORE I LOSE ANYMORE." Or even worse, they start trying to day trade to make it back up without really knowing how day trading works (And day trading isn't an easy skill to pick up, it's one of the more difficult ones.) They proceed to lose massive amounts of money, have a ton of stress, and just generally have a bad time.

Investor B DCAs 100$ a week; "Huh, I'm out 25$. Well that's not great. Anyway, I wonder what's on TV..."

[churros]

Thanks for the clarification. Does that mean it's a good time to start this DAC stuff, or is the process largely independent of swings because it's an incremental investment?

[SamuelBRoberts]

Yes, the point of being incremental is that you don't have to obsess over it so much, the same way you might make a monthly deposit into a 401k regardless of what the market's doing.

[frozen-ace]

If you are looking at coinbase, looks like you can buy BTC, ETH, and LTC. Do you buy all three or just stick to bitcoin and forget the other two?

Do you think it is best to wait for the chaos to settle from the "fork" before starting?

Do you ever use the limit function? Does it actually work? You could set a buy limit if there was a quick, rapid decrease in the price and buy a lot of coin at a good price. You could also set it to sell if the market starts to decline. You think it would actually execute or would the coinbase exchange be overloaded?

[paulrhizome]

(07-31-2017 02:50 AM)frozen-ace Wrote:  

If you are looking at coinbase, looks like you can buy BTC, ETH, and LTC. Do you buy all three or just stick to bitcoin and forget the other two?

Do you think it is best to wait for the chaos to settle from the "fork" before starting?

Do you ever use the limit function? Does it actually work? You could set a buy limit if there was a quick, rapid decrease in the price and buy a lot of coin at a good price. You could also set it to sell if the market starts to decline. You think it would actually execute or would the coinbase exchange be overloaded?

You might as well pick up small amounts of ETH and LTC but BTC is where the action is at. It's not uncommon for BTC and the alts to go through phases where money flows wildly between them, but BTC remains the safe house for now.

Note that Coinbase is not offering any Bitcoin Cash so if you have any on there now take it out for the moment. I would leave Coinbase alone in general for a week or two. They currently have a major backlog.

[JayJuanGee]

(07-24-2017 02:56 AM)SamuelBRoberts Wrote:  

(07-23-2017 10:05 PM)fortysix Wrote:  

How do you allocate cryptocurrencies in your portfolio? Do you view it as a means of preserving wealth (like an insurance policy in case the stock market / dollar goes to sh1t, similar to allocating a portion of your portfolio to gold), or do you view it as a a speculative investment (hoping for 2-10x returns)? Of that allocation, are you putting a certain % into ICOs?

A quick follow-up: I am looking for a solid bitcoin wallet where I can store my bitcoin off the coinbase website. I would prefer something that I don't need to store on my phone (I've lost / had my phone stolen/ numerous times, and I want something else where i can store bitcoin). Any recommendations for keeping something stored on my google drive (so that I can acess/sync it across multiple computers, including having access @ work)?

I think you can do this with electrum wallet.

Blockchain.info has a decent cloud based wallet that claims to NOT have any control over your private keys, and they have been around for many years with millions of wallets in use.

[JayJuanGee]

(07-24-2017 11:12 PM)CJM Wrote:  

I'm in Canada so credit cards are all they allow. But the other Canadian exchanges are spread horribly and prices are higher so it evens out fairly close by the numbers. Moreso because I get 2% back with the credit card purchases which oddly enough seems like a seriously effectiveness point churning hack. (Disclaimer: I haven't proven personally that I'll receive points but other forums seem to suggest I will).

I have my doubts about whether there is an exact blanket rule regarding how the credit cards are going to treat the situation. I suspect that many of them arte going to treat the matter as a cash advance rather than as a purchase of a good or service, and therefore the rates are going to be a bit higher than 4% by the time you add in all the fees, and many credit cards do not give points to transactions that are categorized as cash advances.

[RedPillUK]

I've been reading about this the last week, I read through the whole Ethereum thread and saw your first posts there asking about cryptocurrency only a couple of months ago, so I'm impressed that you've learnt a lot about this in a short period of time.

You've already started using annoying financial jargon (or talking like an asshole) as El Mech so eloquently put it. Congrats

I just had a couple questions to ask the forum:

Why Coinbase? Will this work with a European bank account? or does it depend on your location? I hear it has the highest transaction fees.

If your money is insured on Coinbase, why is it recomended not to store your bitcoin there?

How can I safely store my bitcoin straight away? I read that hardware wallets are the only way to safely secure your money, but I won't be able to recieve one for a while. Is that the only way to store bitcoin 100% securely? How can I store my bitcoin while I wait for one to arrive that's nearly as safe?

I haven't figured out the answers to these questions yet myself this week so I can get started, and now the price of bitcoin has reached an all time high... ugh. So that's why I sound a little desperate to get the answers right away.

Also I still can't see THAT much benefit in Dollar Cost Averaging. Compared to investing in one lump sum it normally performs worse. Is it because this market is so unpredictable and volatile? Why do it? Why not wait til you get a decent price and invest in one go? I was going to invest in one go but with this recent rise in the price of Bitcoin, I'm actually considering DCAing.

[SamuelBRoberts]

(08-05-2017 01:45 PM)RedPillUK Wrote:  

Why Coinbase? Will this work with a European bank account? or does it depend on your location? I hear it has the highest transaction fees.

FDIC insurance and simple recurring deposits. The fees are higher but in my mind the "set it and forget it" aspect is worth it.

Quote:

If your money is insured on Coinbase, why is it recomended not to store your bitcoin there?

I don't know who recommended that or why, but...
1.) Coinbase/Gdax can have issues during periods of high volatility.
2.) With hardforks like the one we had last week you might not get your money for a while.

Quote:

How can I safely store my bitcoin straight away? I read that hardware wallets are the only way to safely secure your money, but I won't be able to recieve one for a while. Is that the only way to store bitcoin 100% securely? How can I store my bitcoin while I wait for one to arrive that's nearly as safe?

I think if you're a casual the money is safer on Coinbase than in your house. If you want to have it for yourself, look up "paper wallet" if you want long term storage, or just use Electrum Wallet on a computer you feel is secure.

Quote:

I haven't figured out the answers to these questions yet myself this week so I can get started, and now the price of bitcoin has reached an all time high... ugh. So that's why I sound a little desperate to get the answers right away.

This new ATH marks the start of a new season in bitcoin. You're getting in at a wonderful time.

Quote:

Also I still can't see THAT much benefit in Dollar Cost Averaging. Compared to investing in one lump sum it normally performs worse. Is it because this market is so unpredictable and volatile? Why do it? Why not wait til you get a decent price and invest in one go? I was going to invest in one go but with this recent rise in the price of Bitcoin, I'm actually considering DCAing.

Up to you. Like I said, this is a "set it and forget it" guide for guys who want to be in Cryptocurrency but don't want to take the time, or suffer the inevitable initial fancial losses that come as you learn. So it's easy mode. You're sacrificing potential profits at the cost of reliability and the ability to make a hands-off investment.

[frozen-ace]

^^

Regarding FDIC insurance, it appears to only apply to actual USD, and not bitcoins. So if you load up $10,000 USD into coinbase and let it sit there, that is covered by FDIC insurance. Now if you convert to bitcoin, the bitcoin is not covered by the FDIC. So the major selling point of FDIC insurance isn't actually that great...and they also say it only applies to residents of the United States, which does not appear consistent with the FDIC's own language.

Once you have bitcoin, that is covered by an insurance policy against a systemwide hack. An individual hack is not covered (i.e. Someone guesses your password and gets in and takes your coin, that is excluded from coverage).

Also, in regards to the insurance policy above, they say that digital currency stored ONLINE is insured. Then they say 98% of their digital currency is stored OFFLINE.

So one has to ask, does the insurance policy cover all the coin, or only the 2% of coin that is kept online?

https://support.coinbase.com/customer/en...e-insured-

[churros]

Sorry for the newb question. But if is value of bitcoin is this high, why is it still a good time to invest?

[SamuelBRoberts]

I'm just going to respond to that with a selection of laughing man gifs.

[JayJuanGee]

(08-08-2017 04:15 PM)churros Wrote:  

Sorry for the newb question. But if is value of bitcoin is this high, why is it still a good time to invest?

[https://snag.gy/fQNuW8.jpg[/img]

With dollar cost averaging, you do not try to predict the short term price changes; so you pick an amount that is comfortable for you and then you invest that amount on a periodic basis, as OP suggests.

Since prices tend to fluctuate a lot in bitcoin, I tend to recommend a weekly allotment rather than a monthly allotment.

Similar to OP, I am also a big proponent of dollar cost averaging, and there are ways that you can supplement dollar cost averaging by saving some portion of your funds to attempt to time the dips.

Merely because there has been a large increase does not mean that it is a bad time to begin to invest, as you seem to imply with your question, but there are a large number of strategies that you can employ (and amongst the best of those strategies is dollar cost averaging especially if you time horizon is longer term and you can hold out long enough to experience the price appreciation - even if there is a significant dip during the process and it takes a bit of time for your holdings to return into the black).

[Mat_hieu]

Thank you for this excellent thread. Too bad that we can't to dollar cost averaging with kraken.

[JayJuanGee]

(08-12-2017 06:17 AM)Mat_hieu Wrote:  

Thank you for this excellent thread. Too bad that we can't to dollar cost averaging with kraken.

I think that you are morphing (combining) the concept of Dollar Cost Averaging and automatic scheduled buying.

In other words, you can engage in Dollar Cost Average buying where ever and however you want, including Kraken. Yet, there are services, such as Coinbase that have some functions that are kind of like banks, and therefore you can schedule your various functions, such as regular buying, and they take a fee. That is really easy for people to set it and forget it, and as long as the asset goes up in the long term, you will be in gravy from such a system and not having to think about it too much - maybe look at it once a month or once a quarter-ish.

Personally, with bitcoin, I would recommend having a bit more active of an approach that could be combined with something that includes the regular buying on coinbase - but to each their own. I understand some folks may only want to invest $15 a week or something like that, and they really don't want to think about it... and that's o.k. too for that person... and should work out in the longer term, including 5-10 years down the road when they look at their funds and their longer-period returns.

[kbell]

I can't get coinbase to see that I have an bank account. I input all the information and its saying no accounts found.

[JayJuanGee]

(08-13-2017 03:47 PM)kbell Wrote:  

I can't get coinbase to see that I have an bank account. I input all the information and its saying no accounts found.

Well maybe it's is a support ticket issue, unless if you can figure out that you are inputting your information incorrectly.

Usually the process of linking a bank account is pretty straight forward. You make the request to link by putting in the information, then they send you the two deposits in 3 business days or so and then you confirm the amounts, and viola, account is linked... however, if they are not recognizing your account, then that is a strange issue, unless you are just attempting to input the wrong numbers.. it is usually the routing numbers for the bank and then your routing numbers for your account.. so you need to make sure that you place the correct numbers in the correct spot, and it should work.

[kbell]

So its not the username and password you use for the bank site? The problem happens after it ask a security question where I started the bank account. That's a trick question since I started it in another bank which was bought out by the current bank. There are only two places I could started it in and both don't work. I created the account when I was in college in a different state but I could have sworn I created it in my home state.

[JayJuanGee]

(08-13-2017 04:42 PM)kbell Wrote:  

So its not the username and password you use for the bank site? The problem happens after it ask a security question where I started the bank account. That's a trick question since I started it in another bank which was bought out by the current bank. There are only two places I could started it in and both don't work. I created the account when I was in college in a different state but I could have sworn I created it in my home state.

Your issue might be beyond my paygrade and experience, so you may need to go through coinbase support, unless another guy has experienced some similar issue.

From what I understand you have already created your coinbase account, and you are trying to link a bank account as a payment method, and for whatever reason your bank is either not on the list or the information that you are providing, which seems to be the login information for your bank account and password that allows coinbase to more immediately link to your account might not coincide with online bank account bank because of the name changes of the bank or some other glitch.

They used to require you to verify two deposits, but that would take a few days, but some systems have allowed you to log into your bank account through coinbase and that expedites the verification process - but they also might allow you to do the slower method if the expedited method is not working for you?

In the end, you might need a coinbase customer support person to help you out if you cannot get the coinbase system to recognize your bank.... the other option is if the system allows you to just do the slower and old fashion system where you just put in your account information and then when you receive the deposits you are able to verify the account in that manner?