Bitcoin
 

Since it's been making the news recently just wondered if any of you guys here have had any experience with it.

I have about 0.3BTC in a wallet left over from when I got some Modafinil a while back.

1BTC hit $1000 dollars this week and some speculators think it could rise much higher. The Chinese and Russians are going nuts for this stuff. There are also other cryptocurrencies such as litecoin and feathercoin which are emerging and performing very well.

I think next year is going to be massive for Bitcoin and its ilk. Were on the cusp of another global meltdown and I believe people will turn to Bitcoin for currency as many fiat currencies will inevitably plunge downwards.

Question is whether to invest in Bitcoins now, speculating them to hit that rumoured $5-$10k mark or accept that that ship has sailed and look to invest in the other currencies such as litecoin?

Change is a coming boys. You mark my words!

$1000 seems way too high but I thought they'd hit their peak at $300, so what do I know

Why do you think $1000 is too high?

Max Keiser on Russia Today speculates they could reach in excess of $10k over the next couple years with litecoin not being far behind. We shall see I guess

litecoins the way

Litecoins will be worth around 1/4 of a Bitcoin and more will be produced. In terms of value once the market has been established I think Bitcoins will hold more value.

But from a speculation perspective Litecoins are around 6-18 months behind the trend of Bitcoins so in that regard I very much agree.

i'm just waiting for a major drop(it happens in these markets from time to time) i'm not sure whether to get into litecoins at around the 25-30 dollar mark or hold out until by chance they get into single digits. My mistake with bitcoins was avoiding peoples advice when they were at the 25-50 dollar mark but my issue with litecoins is they new found high could be short lived as its only been a month. Its pretty high risk in a high risk market already

The litecoin market is massively affected by China right now too. Price drops when China sleeps and rises when its awake. I agree with the risk factor. It's such a brand new market no one really knows how it will perform. That's part of the appeal for me.

Shit dude, that's like over £5k lost into oblivion. The FBI are probably enjoying counting your money now.

To be fair their are some very reputable exchanges and markets being established now making it much more easily accessible. They seem to be working hard to draw the attention away from the darker side of Bitcoin and moving into a more positive light.

Also I think it's always best to use a reputable escrow service where possible.

love to see that headline "government steal drug money- man crash plane"

To be honest this is good news. For me BTC is a long term (2yr) investment. My speculation is that it will gain massive amounts of value when the world's fiat currencies decline in lieu of too much quantitative easing and the inevitable rise in interest rates which will hit global economies hard. People will turn to something that governments cant touch and something that is easy and cheap to transfer, which is a specification that BTC fits.

This news also allows other countries to gain a foothold in the emerging BTC market which China dominated but now seems to have now seceded. The US may jump all over this as they had previously admitted their control of the BTC market was minor compared to China and Russia.

BTC will now be much more affordable to stockpile from what its previous price was, which is great news for long term speculators like myself.

I honestly believe to accumulate and or protect wealth Gold, Silver & Bitcoin are sound investments.

I just read an article by one of my favourite bloggers:
Why You Should Probably Buy Bitcoins - Tynan

And I'm looking in to buying 1/2 a bitcoin... I'll report back.

Good read, I heard about it a while ago, when everyone was going a little crazy about the "gun printers", but never really thought it'd be what it is now. With the issues with the Chinese exchange, I'm still a little apprehensive, but I will be purchasing a small amount just to see where it goes, just waiting on confirmations from OKPay to buy some from BTC-E.

get on dogecoin easy money to be made at the min

Rumours of a Bitcoin merger with Google could send the price through the roof.

Google Is Exploring Bitcoin - Business Insider

It wouldn't be a merger, its just a rumour of the possibility for accepting payments or some level of integration, however Google do have a history of experimenting with new tech and playing with idea's, this isn't however to say that it would be long lived as they also have a history of killing off non-profitable products or services which cause excessive complications. And with bitcoin in such a state of flux I wouldn't expect to see anything for a good number of years, it's value isn't stable enough for any of the big players to put much into it, and when it does get to that stage it's not going to be feasible to make any money on it. By all means its worth getting in at the ground floor, hence the investments but I would believe that all the big bucks have already been claimed.

Also, does anybody else find it extremely difficult to get any real time transactions in the UK?

I bought £250 worth of bitcoins on Sunday through https://localbitcoins.com. From memory I got 0.4675 bitcoins. I paid by bank transfer, it took around an hour.

What do you mean by real time transactions? If you're exchanging bitcoins for other electronic coins, you can use an exchange like bter.com or cryptsy.com and its instantaneous.

But yeah, if you want to exchange for cash its an illiquid market and it takes around an hour. Try:
https://localbitcoins.com
https://bitbargain.co.uk
https://quickbitcoin.co.uk
https://bittylicious.com/‎

https://localbitcoins.com has the option of meeting a seller in person to do the transaction.

Merger was the wrong word for me to use but you make a good point. I seriously think Cryptocurrencies and precious metals will be huge in the next few years considering the likelihood and another global financial catastrophe.

Check out Joe Rogan's podcast with Peter Schiff to get an idea of the potential scale of things to come.

I have also used localbitcoins.com for my transactions and have nothing but good things to say about them.

I hear ya man but to be fair I'd never listen to a Peter Schiff interview for his opinions on the environment. I also think his opinions on the free market make a lot of sense.

Schiff's a businessman and knows business inside out. He accurately predicted the 2008 market crash and has made correct predictions on Forex and stock market movements. A friend of mine has been a Schiff proponent for a long time and cites him for making him a lot of money over the years.

Very interested to listen to the latest JRE podcast. I find Andreas very concise and the guy most certainly knows his shit about Bitcoin.

I've started playing about with mining at the moment, I have 3 pooled workers going at the moment, but none generating anything significant. Currently looking into methods of using pre-paid credit cards and a real time bitcoin exchanges, the mark up between a verified exchange and local bitcoins is interesting, though the risk of being caught up in something untasteful is increased, and I'm really not keep on handing over personal documents that could facilitate identity theft over the internet. I don't care how good your security mechanisms are, you're not that secure.

My friend in china got me some USB ASIC Antminers pretty cheap
useful having friends all over

as a sideline to my Penetration Testing Career
ive got a watercooled 7990 that can mine Litecoins

the actual mining part is a massive money sink.
the currency is in its infancy, its incredibly volatile
think as of this moment its halved in price 1k$ to 500ish$ per BTC

there are 2 things for sure about Bitcoins
1)its a gamble at the moment its just as likely to go up as it is down its like playing roulette
2)there is a definate need for some level of anonymous electronic currency- this need is being driven by the criminal element - however if you commit large enough crimes to get the NSA/FBI interested they can track your coin transactions to you.

so in future some form of cryptocurrency will exist wether its BTC and what value it will stabilise at i dont know
if you were providing a service and accepting BTC would you really stake your home and everything you own on goods you sre selling for a currency that can half in a week ?
no..

Quite true, and as with any type of gambling I would never spend more than I'm willing to lose lose, and as such I don't have a particularly fantastic mining rig, just my standard gaming desktops. In terms of criminal requirement, bitcoon exchanges are clamping down on the anonymous aspect, making the value of the currency directly proportional to how easy it is to extract without leaving a trace. It is still possible to evade the FBI through bitcoin tumbling (albeit difficult) but you have to compare it to the same extent you would do so for traditional currency.

The only possible gain that could be made bears the same risk as stock trading, you're simple trading I'm a different commodity, both could be worthless next week, but also got increase. The only thing I know right now is that unless you have the gear for it, mining is effectively pointless, I have about a few pence right now...

Mt.Gox has filed for bankruptcy, this was one of the biggest exchanges available, I would think this may cause a small hit on the value of bitcoin as some people may lose faith in the currency and attempt to get their money out. Might be a good time to grab a few before it gets stable again.

I hear Bitcoin is now offline?

Bitcoin offline

MtGox apparently owe hundreds of millions of pounds. Clearly that can't be given back to the user without a large decrease in value therefore for the vast majority of users, the stability of Bitcoin, if it does come back online again, would be questionable.

I think you've misquoted the article as it only talks about Mt. Gox going offline. I think it'd be pretty much impossible for the whole of bitcoin to go offline. The price is still around $600 on all other exchanges. As sad news it is about Mt Gox I think bitcoin will be ok.

It's very unlikely to take the currency down altogether due to the sheer size of the network, that article is skewing the perspective a bit to make a better headline, but the price has already started to dip a little bit, with waning confidence in the currency. Overall it will be ok though.

Interesting to find this thread at the top of business/making money

I have been trading crypto currencies since 2012 and I've made a small fortune, I'm also involved in a new start up selling hardware which is going pretty well.

LTC is probably a good long term hold right now IMO, but I tend to urge anyone who will listen, its always worth holding some amount of BTC long term just in case.

When you say "some amount of BTC", how much roughly are we talking about?