kurtster wrote:
I just don't have the stomach / wallet for the volatility.  Stocks drive me crazy enough.

 rgio wrote: 
I dumped it a couple of days ago and on the plus side.  Saw this coming.  It is the money that I previously mentioned that is on hold.  And it is still on hold after a phone call to PP.  Allegedly being released today.  We'll see. 

On the other 3, I'm still up over all.  Litecoin is going bye, bye when it recovers a tad.  Nothing there.  Clearly more risk than reward.  I'll keep the BCH and ETH for now with an eye open and an ear listening.

Kurt.... let me do you a solid.  Don't look at Bitcoin prices today.

 rgio wrote: 
Indeed.  I've been watching business news since Cavutto was in diapers on the Nightly Business Report on PBS way back when. Rukeyser, et al.  I learned about all the cyclicals.  In metal it was silver that was range bound and corruptly manipulated and predictable to a point.  I've been watching FOREX all these years, too.  I remember right before the Daimler Chrysler merger, Daimler made more money in FOREX than the car business.  Musk just made a boatload on Bitcoin in the FOREX way.  Like I said, I'm too old, broke and done for the white knuckle ride anymore.  The Big Dogs run Bitcoin now and other than using it as a form of currency there is nothing for the little guy.

Its seems to me that crypto is less likely to be electronically manipulated in the buying and selling part than equities.  Sure they can be talked up and down, but the reaction time is much slower and easier to keep out of trouble on a downturn.

But the main reason I brought this up was that Pay Pal was an option for the everyday little guy like me to get in and out fairly simply.  Broke / poor people have very few options to make money with money like the more affluent of you all.  I tried Betterment as suggested here.  Big nothing burger.  I haven't looked at it in 6 months and its probably down not up.  

I went and got a wallet and like you found it too hinky to go through with it.  PP brings a level of security to it now.  You can buy in for as little as $1, horse around, play, learn and decide.  If you have PP you can do this.    I'm on PP a dozen times a day anyway with my record thingy so there it is.

Sure, you can just as easily go broke with crypto as anything else. 

I've got 6 months to see what I can do with this little nut before I have to use it and give it back.  Maybe with a little bit of luck the curve will be more upward than downward going forward from now.

And the hold on the sale money is over 24 hours old now.  Seems unreasonable to be this slow.  We'll see how long it actually takes.

The change machine at all the stores will somehow convert your pennies to bitcoin
if you want and the filtered water machine at the supermarket will accept BC as well. 
I made 200 bucks profit from $600 of my stimmy on coinbase and got out. 
Not enough to buy one share of their IPO - but, hey, free money, right?
Paid my electricity bill. Almost.

 kurtster wrote:
In the fall of 2016 I had multiple discussions about Etherium with a co-worker.  Bitcoin was already volatile (relatively speaking), and he was sure Ether was the best option.  I investigated the wallets available and the issues around security and theft....and it just all felt a bit dirty.  Simultaneously, I had a friend whose just-out-of-college son was mining for Bitcoin full time.  He seemed more like a lazy kid looking to stay home and play video games while "working" than someone ahead of any curve.

I decided to buy and worked my way through setting up a wallet.  I was basically ready to go, but I just couldn't get comfortable.  I dragged my feet a month or so, and Ether went up about 50%.  I was planning to buy 1,000 Ether originally, but the increase (as I recall it) would have cost me about $4k.  I got busy and distracted and never went back to it.  Ether was selling @ $11.

It's easy to look back and do the math...$11k would now be over $2M.  What's missing in the conversation is that Ether went to $1,400 a few years ago and then returned to below $200.  When you're holding....when do you get out?  How much of the 1,000 would I still own?

I have grown very skeptical of all investing.  I follow certain companies that I like over time and often see no reason to moves.  I think a stock like Tesla is mostly driven by hyper-aggressive quants who are trying to drive profits through manipulation and momentum.  That's always been the game, but now people are using machines that can react and move in time measured in thousands of a second.  I remember discussing the business plans around a trader building a microwave network from Cleveland to NYC so they could execute trades faster.  The cost was astounding to me, yet the ROI for them was huge.  It was bringing an AR-15 to a thumb-wrestling match, and the idea was to remove your thumb just before the count of 3.

My guess....They will come down a great deal again.  When friends and family all talk about their making money in Crypto, it's time to watch.  As Warren says..." be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful".

So here we are.  Coinbase did their IPO and away we go with crypto ETF's.

As some of y'all may or may not know, you can now buy and sell crypto at PayPal.  You cannot spend it directly from PP, yet, but you can trade with mouse clicks once you are all set up.

Like most of everyone who has been paying attention to crypto's it has been a most interesting story.  I did some metal trading through Monex about 5 years ago for awhile and did not really enjoy it all that much.  Too much white knuckle time watching all the other commodities, interest rates and not to mention geopolitical shit.  But I learned a lot, especially about commodities and for all intents and purposes crypto is just a commodity.

With PP you have a choice of 4 different ones including Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Etherium and Litecoin.  So WTF, I jumped in a month ago.  I was quickly up 25% overall across the 4 and it held through the IPO until Turkey made their declaration and the Fed spoke up.  They all quickly retreated and I'm presently up about 10%, which in a month ain't bad.  Had I known what was actually driving the price up I would have sold and waited for the drop and by back in.  I didn't go in looking to do anything like this, just bought it for a position and go long and see what happens.

Now that I have lived through this cycle and much more aware of the nutz and bolts, I sold Bitcoin.  The ship has sailed on that as it is really too late to get in as a little guy, unless you actually want to use it for buying and selling things as a currency.

Of the remaining options I have concluded that the best choices going forward are Bitcoin Cash and Etherium as far a solid growth is concerned.  Litecoin is nice but doesn't do anything.  We seem to have bottomed out for now with the likely hood of another sharp downturn unlikely and this is a prime time to get in as a reasonably safe parking place for cash over the long term as opposed to CD's or a savings account that doesn't pay squat.  With the ease of access, should something go nuts, bailing can be done quickly enough to save the nut at the very least.  The buying and selling spreads seem to be within reason, too.

So I have 1 Etherium, 2 Bitcoin Cash and 2 Litecoins.  The Litecoins are so cheap that if they should go up, yee haw, but the if they go down, so what in the big picture.  I'm kinda hoping / expecting that Etherium and Bitcoin Cash are going to do the same thing as Bitcoin did and do the exponential thing and I have enough in to benefit.  I remember the conversation not so long ago when Bitcoin was at $4000.  I think this is the same point for these two choices.

The money for the sold Bitcoin has a hold on it and I'm waiting to see how long that takes to clear.  Otherwise, it is all real time with you in full control.

Anyway, if you have a PP account, this is what you can do with it.  Thought that I would share my experiences for any who may have been wondering about doing it themselves.

Cheers !

Links to good live charts.  With commentary and links to more info.
.
https://www.dailyfx.com/ether-eth   you can get 3 here

https://www.tradingview.com/symbols/BCHUSD/  this one for Bitcoin Cash

 rhahl wrote: 

 ScottFromWyoming wrote:
 
I bet there are security firms offering to crack the system for a portion of the proceeds

Bitcoin investors may be out $190 million after the only guy with the password dies, firm says

 rhahl wrote: 
If man is still alive. If woman can survive, they may find...

What is going to prevent this from happening, exactly?

 Steely_D wrote: 
as with any investment

understand the story (business model, competition, risk, volatility, time frame, etc.) and have a strategy (entry, exit, dca, etc.)

 islander wrote: 
I compared notes with a friend last night. We both bought and sold a long time ago. His brother didn't. Half a million in profit so far. Sheesh.

 Steely_D wrote: 
One of my old sales guys was always working weird scams. One day he came up with a customer that wanted to pay in bitcoin, and went on and on about how great a deal it was, and the margin we would make on his payments, and how I would look like a fool to the board of directors if I passed on such an opportunity.  I told him we would take them, but we would use the bitcoin to pay his commisions first and then see what was left over. He declined to sign the deal.
This was far enough back that bitcoin was well under $1,000.  I tracked it for about 6 months and with the fluctuations then, we would have been about even money over 'real' dollars. Interesting, but it's a risky speculation. The block chain technology is good, but I don't think it's going to be a great place to be investing or storing money.

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
Yep. Depending on when people bought in they're either happy or not. Here's a longer term graph.

 Steely_D wrote: 
Still double what it was 6 months ago, no?

Rout in progress...

 Steely_D wrote: 
Now its down to 3209.  I thought about buying in 4 weeks ago for a couple hundred when it was about 3800 just to get my feet wet right after the split.  Never did.  Bunch of crap came up and it went to the back burner and I forgot about it. Now I'll have to watch how low this goes and maybe think about it again.  

I see that the day just closed at 8 pm EDT.  Hmmm.