cryptocurrency

[Aj14]

Looking to test the test the waters of cryptocurrency for the first time understanding this may be a high risk investment but somewhat safer than bitcoin.
Just as bitcoin is at all time lows, so is cryto XRP, Hex.com etc.
Anything I may be missing before I invest in these two specifically or should i just stay away and continue with my traditional investments?
I just figured this is the place to ask as most all our BBC members I seen on lakes across the country must be investing in something I'm not.
Thanks

[TampaJim]

Bitcoin is the most "stable" in my opinion. And I don't own any, won't own any, shall not recommend any ... green eggs, green ham.

[boneil]

Many people say they understand that something is high risk, but many don't understand what happens when they loose half their money or maybe all their money. They don't really appreciate the risk that it could go to zero. They could be in a situation where they can't access their money.

And I question your understanding of the risk since you think bitcoin and XRP are at all time lows. Maybe you don't mean All time lows, just this year. You could lose 99% of your investment 3 times and still not be at the all time low for bitcoin of .00099.

Nobody has been able to convince me why any of these coins have any value

[motomania]

A couple of good books to read before putting money into anything. Yes I said, Books……….not ‘crypto bro’ clickbait YouTube videos……..avoid that crap like the plague.

Millionaire Next Door, Layered Money and The Bitcoin Standard………preferably in that order. First 2 are easy reads……..last ones s bit dry, but informative.

No such thing as get rich quick. Not even in crypto; don’t fall for the hype. Slow and steady wins the race in investing…………..and Millionaire Next Door does a good job of showing you……..with research; that the people you see with all the high dollar toys; most have mountains of debt. Don’t get pulled into consumerism by all the ‘stuff’ you see that everyone else has. It’s a trap.

[NitroZ7]

A couple of good books to read before putting money into anything. Yes I said, Books……….not ‘crypto bro’ clickbait YouTube videos……..avoid that crap like the plague.

Millionaire Next Door, Layered Money and The Bitcoin Standard………preferably in that order. First 2 are easy reads……..last ones s bit dry, but informative.

No such thing as get rich quick. Not even in crypto; don’t fall for the hype. Slow and steady wins the race in investing…………..and Millionaire Next Door does a good job of showing you……..with research; that the people you see with all the high dollar toys; most have mountains of debt. Don’t get pulled into consumerism by all the ‘stuff’ you see that everyone else has. It’s a trap.

The Aspirational Rich. Fake it till you make it. They are all over South Florida.

[TampaJim]

... the people you see with all the high dollar toys; most have mountains of debt. Don’t get pulled into consumerism by all the ‘stuff’ you see that everyone else has. It’s a trap.

Couldn't be more accurate. Sure, there are folks with $ stacked deep, high and wide, but they're not common.
My step grandfather taught me the value of saving as a teenager. And he encouraged RE investments always.
Compound interest, passive income, tax deferment ... there are your focal points, not pumped Ponzi schemes.

[Aj14]

Thanks guys.
Most of my investments are locked into real estate but was just thinking about testing the waters with different types of investments.
I do appreciate all advice as Bitcoin and any type of crypto is completely foreign to me.
I have been speaking with many who are highly invested in cryto and I'm just thinking about slowly investing but with much caution.
In the meantime, I will just have to keep passing you guys with those nice boats.
Thanks again

[TampaJim]

A good litmus test ... Warren Buffett won't touch it.
RE is good, they quit making it a long time ago.

[Jeff La]

I invested a small sum of money in XRP. I liked the technology and couldn't find a way to invest in just the technology so I bought the crypto. I only put enough in it to say if it disappears it won't hurt me in any way. It's a gamble but it's a chance I took. Don't invest if you cant lose it all. I was fortunate and bought in around a quarter, so technically I'm not losing money, but it can disappear at any moment.

[Aj14]

I invested a small sum of money in XRP. I liked the technology and couldn't find a way to invest in just the technology so I bought the crypto. I only put enough in it to say if it disappears it won't hurt me in any way. It's a gamble but it's a chance I took. Don't invest if you cant lose it all. I was fortunate and bought in around a quarter, so technically I'm not losing money, but it can disappear at any moment.

Exactly what I just did.

[boneil]

I invested a small sum of money in XRP. I liked the technology and couldn't find a way to invest in just the technology so I bought the crypto. I only put enough in it to say if it disappears it won't hurt me in any way. It's a gamble but it's a chance I took. Don't invest if you cant lose it all. I was fortunate and bought in around a quarter, so technically I'm not losing money, but it can disappear at any moment.

Could you explain to me what you mean by you like the technology? Whats the technology?

[motomania]

Could you explain to me what you mean by you like the technology? Whats the technology?

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Anything that has an identifiable development team, marketing team, board of directors, etc is concerning……… they can disappear with funds or change the direction of the ‘project’ or whatever, at the drop of the hat. And that’s assuming those actual people are indeed, real people. Tons of altcoins ‘dev teams’ have turned out to be fictitious.

To answer your question boneil………..well, I can’t. Too many crypto bro/hype men out their posting whatever they feel like (accurate or not) about altcoins to even make sense of the alts.

[boneil]

Serious question.

Because of increased energy prices, and because I believe there will be forced mandates to stop mining in some areas, there will be less mining. What does that do to price and what does that do to functionality of bitcoin and others.?

[KP1923]

Attached pdf file is a good resource if you want to understand Bitcoin vs the others.....

[Jeff La]

Could you explain to me what you mean by you like the technology? Whats the technology?

Xrp has a slightly different way they use the blockchain technology. It's been quite some time since I did the research (so take what I say with a grain of salt) but their speed to rectify transactions is what attracted me. That and the fact they really arn't trying to circumvent tracking. They are actually trying to commercialize it so transactions through banks and businesses that generally take days is done in minutes.

https://www.elikot.com/xrp-vs-bitcoin/ This better explains it.

[Buckman]

I agree with Jeff LA. Only put in what your willing, or can afford to loose.

I bought in to bitcoin recently with the lower prices because I won $1k on a local radio station and decided I would put half of the winnings in bitcoin. If I loose it I still have $500 more than I started with as I put the rest in savings. I know $500 is a lot of money to most people including myself, so if bitcoin rebounds enough I will pull out my original investment and let the rest ride as long as I can. I will definitely never put any more than I already have in bitcoin, but I had to give it a shot with the free money!

[fluke1987]

I've been in crypto for about a year now. A lot of learning curve to it if you don't know what you are doing...which was me at the beginning and I did lose some money. Kind of a given considering everything was at all time highs last year.

Now is probably a great time for first time buyers to get in as a lot of the coins are at significantly lower prices now.

I would recommend looking at a few of the top 25-50 coins and put your money there. Dollar cost average in...don't throw a big chunk on it at once unless you know your hitting it at a good price. A centralized exchange like coinbase.com is what I use and makes trading easy. I would not suggest moving any coins to wallets, or decentralized exchanges to swap for altcoins because you will get charged "gas fees", which are fees charged by the computers processing the buys and sells on the blockchain. Some gas fees can be upwards of $200 or more if exchanging during a timeframe when traffic is highest.

Currently, the mainstream tokens that I'm invested in are Bitcoin, Ethereum, Avalanche, Matic (Polygon), Decentraland and Cronos (Crypto.com). Bitcoin and Ethereum are solid bets and will come back at some point. Others I will be looking at getting into are Solana, Cardano, XRP, DOT and The Sandbox. Bitcoin pretty much drives the market, some drive the blockchains like Ethereum, Solana and others. Some deal with the Metaverse like Decentraland, Matic, The Sandbox and Avalanche.

CoinMarketCap.com is a good database of all cryptocurrency as well...

[motomania]

I've been in crypto for about a year now. A lot of learning curve to it if you don't know what you are doing...which was me at the beginning and I did lose some money. Kind of a given considering everything was at all time highs last year.

Now is probably a great time for first time buyers to get in as a lot of the coins are at significantly lower prices now.

I would recommend looking at a few of the top 25-50 coins and put your money there. Dollar cost average in...don't throw a big chunk on it at once unless you know your hitting it at a good price. A centralized exchange like coinbase.com is what I use and makes trading easy. I would not suggest moving any coins to wallets, or decentralized exchanges to swap for altcoins because you will get charged "gas fees", which are fees charged by the computers processing the buys and sells on the blockchain. Some gas fees can be upwards of $200 or more if exchanging during a timeframe when traffic is highest.

Currently, the mainstream tokens that I'm invested in are Bitcoin, Ethereum, Avalanche, Matic (Polygon), Decentraland and Cronos (Crypto.com). Bitcoin and Ethereum are solid bets and will come back at some point. Others I will be looking at getting into are Solana, Cardano, XRP, DOT and The Sandbox. Bitcoin pretty much drives the market, some drive the blockchains like Ethereum, Solana and others. Some deal with the Metaverse like Decentraland, Matic, The Sandbox and Avalanche.

CoinMarketCap.com is a good database of all cryptocurrency as well...

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careful with those alts...........interesting historical data visualized here.

Data visualisation: 118 coins plotted over time this is why HODL altcoin indexes don't work (woobull.com)

[Bassin08]

How Crypto Currency works … in layman’s terms.

Not long ago a merchant found a lot of monkeys that lived near a Village. One day he came to the Village saying he wanted to buy these monkeys. He announced that he would buy the monkeys at $100 each.

The Villagers thought that this man must be crazy. How can somebody buy stray monkeys at $100 each?
Still some people caught some monkeys and gave it to this merchant and he gave $100 for each monkey.This News spread like wildfire and people caught monkeys and sold them to the merchant.

After a few days, the merchant announced that he will buy monkeys at $200 each.

The lazy villagers also ran around to catch the remaining monkeys! They sold the remaining monkeys at $200 each.

The merchant then announced that he will buy monkeys for $500 each!

The villagers start to lose sleep! They caught 6 or 7 monkeys, which was all that was left and got $500 each. The villagers were waiting anxiously for the next announcement.

Then the merchant announced that he is going on holiday for a week, but when he returns, he will buy monkeys at $1000 each! He also said that his employee will be in charge, and would take care of the monkeys he bought pending his return. The Merchant went on holiday.

The villagers were frantic and very sad as there were no more monkeys left for them to sell it at $1000 each as was promised by the merchant. Then the merchant’s employee contacted them and told them that he would secretly sell them some monkeys at $700 each. The news spread like wildfire. As the merchant promised on his return that he would buy monkeys at $1000 each, they would instantly achieve a $300 profit for each monkey.

The next day The villagers queued up near the Monkey Cage. The employee sold all the monkeys at $700 each. The rich bought monkeys in large lots. The poor borrowed money from money lenders and bought the rest of the monkeys. The villagers took care of their monkeys & anxiously waited for the merchant to return! However nobody came! Then they ran to find the employee. However he was not to be found!

The villagers then realized that they have been duped buying the useless stray monkeys at $700 each, and were now unable to sell them!

This Monkey Business is now known as Bitcoin! It will make a lot of people bankrupt and a very few people filthy rich in this kind of Monkey Business. Now you know how it works.

[boneil]

I did not see that coming