Cryptocurrencies
 

Any of you use them? I did at the start but got out of it back when bitcoin was $40 a piece.

I am getting back into it now with this latest market crash.

Discuss.

Not bitcoin, however it's one of the many competitors...who just scammed all their customers and shut down taking all their money. There is no consumer protection from scams from any of these outfits, so if your account is hacked and they pull all your money out...you would lose it all. It's not like banks where the FDIC protects the consumers from fraud.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbR1SXIje1U&

My son was mining Bitcoin and Litecoin with his gaming computer back when Bitcoin were $10 each. He also mined 2.7 million Dogecoin the day they came out.

He sold one of the Bitcoins for $20 and some more when Bitcoin hit $1000 but he still has a handful of coins worth a few thousand. I wish I had put $1000 into Bitcoin when it was $10 but knowing how it was back then - wild wild west doesn’t come close - it would have been like giving $1000 to a random guy on the street and telling him to pick you up some groceries and deliver them to your house next week.

Lol it wasn't quite that bad but you aren't far off. I probably mined 50 bitcoin back in the day. Yes I am kicking myself for not keeping them.

I have a couple thousand in Litecoin and Ethereum but I once I made my money back, I took out my initial investment and left the rest to grow or fail as it wishes.

Just a big pyramid scheme

Back in September our Quick Books data was encrypted and held for ransom. Payment was demanded in bitcoin. I new right then I needed to buy all I could, wish I would have.

They did the same thing to Charlotte NC

We all wish we invested some money into it. You know what they say, hindsight's 20/20. There still are opportunities out there even today though. But it's a lot harder to tell which currency will take off.

I heard about bitcoin a few years back from friends in Europe and never bothered to invest since it was so volatile. Who would have thought it would have blown up like it did. It still is a big risk and who knows where it will land, I definitely don't trust all these random "coins" popping up for sure but I have a few friends who "mine" for other companies which isn't so bad.

Can some one explain these to someone who knows nothing about them. This is the third thing this week Ive read about them and have no idea what it even is and why are they valued ?

Thanks in advance

I actually wrote a comprehensive beginner's book about crypto to help people understand it better. There's a lot of information out there right now and 2018 should be a great year.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1549803972

Ever set up a miner?

I just got 2 GTX 1060's mining

Congrats, that's a good investment. Which coin are you mining?

I've mined Litecoin and Vertcoin since they're script-based. I have a tiny ASIC card running an LTC miner, but i've stopped recently to focus more on trading.