Donate to Remove ads

Got a credit card? use our Credit Card & Finance Calculators

Thanks to johnstevens77,Bhoddhisatva,scotia,Anonymous,Cornytiv34, for Donating to support the site

Bitcoin start-up advice needed

How to buy, profit and invest in crypto currencies or NFTs
Marky72
Posts: 26
Joined: February 19th, 2021, 9:28 pm
Has thanked: 36 times
Been thanked: 2 times

Bitcoin start-up advice needed

#456364

Postby Marky72 » November 7th, 2021, 7:46 pm

Good evening guys,

I hold a few shares and investment funds but feel that I would like to dip my toe into Bitcoin (only £1500 ish investment). I have used Google and there are so many variables about how to invest it has become confusing … are there any people on this forum who could suggest the steps I take to secure a small portfolio which is as safe as possible? I have read about holt and cold wallets, people stealing Bitcoins etc etc. - I understand that I shouldn't invest more than I could afford to lose. Maybe there are UK companies that people have used to do all the work for them for a small fee? Just putting it out there.

Look forward to hearing from you,

Mark

JohnB
Lemon Quarter
Posts: 2497
Joined: January 15th, 2017, 9:20 am
Has thanked: 678 times
Been thanked: 997 times

Re: Bitcoin start-up advice needed

#456368

Postby JohnB » November 7th, 2021, 8:06 pm

How do you feel about the carbin footprint of Bitcoin?

Urbandreamer
Lemon Quarter
Posts: 3122
Joined: December 7th, 2016, 9:09 pm
Has thanked: 347 times
Been thanked: 1026 times

Re: Bitcoin start-up advice needed

#456448

Postby Urbandreamer » November 8th, 2021, 8:48 am

I can't offer advice, but have been doing my own research and finally bought some Bitcoin at the weekend. (Just £50)

In the UK regulators have been making it more and more difficult to exchange fiat for bitcoin and the reverse, in the way that the Bitcoin community would like. Meanwhile it's easy to do in the way that the state feels comfortable with.

I looked at the costs and the advantages of complying with the state and decided to buy mine through Paypal. The first advantage is that I already had an account hence all the money laundering requirements were already done. It also has a licence to act as a money transfer service.

The disadvantage is that I REALY and I do mean REALY have to trust Paypal. They hold the Bitcoin and if they are hacked I have no comeback on Bitcoin losses. I also can't transfer the Bitcoin or buy anything with it. It just acts as a "investment"/savings account.

An advantage is that, in the event of my death, access to the bitcoin should be easy for my wife. It was also increadibly easy to buy.

UK companies? Well there is London based Revolut, set up by a Russian. Again they act as custodians for your Bitcoin, but you can withdraw it. That means that you can transfer it to a hardware or cold wallet. However you can't put it back! You would need to deposit it with another exchange. Basically they are another custodian, though they do allow bitcoin to be exchanged between their users. It may be worth looking at what other services they offer, as bitcoin is as much an afterthought for them as it is for Paypal.

I've heared a lot about Gemini. The regulators quite like them. However the money laundering loops will make it slow to get started and they are not cheap at all to deposit fiat.

There is no point in my responding to JohnB regarding energy use as he can't read the response. Here is the post where he anounced that he didn't want to read any of my arguments about bitcoin energy use and blocked his ability to consider such arguments (or any other post) from me.
viewtopic.php?p=388704#p388704
I suggest that we should stick to the thread topic, rather than re-hash that debate.
It really should be dealt with in a seperate thread.

XFool
The full Lemon
Posts: 12636
Joined: November 8th, 2016, 7:21 pm
Been thanked: 2608 times

Re: Bitcoin start-up advice needed

#456496

Postby XFool » November 8th, 2021, 11:36 am

...Jesus! :?

GoSeigen
Lemon Quarter
Posts: 4351
Joined: November 8th, 2016, 11:14 pm
Has thanked: 1590 times
Been thanked: 1582 times

Re: Bitcoin start-up advice needed

#456519

Postby GoSeigen » November 8th, 2021, 12:34 pm

Marky72 wrote:Good evening guys,

I hold a few shares and investment funds but feel that I would like to dip my toe into Bitcoin (only £1500 ish investment). I have used Google and there are so many variables about how to invest it has become confusing … are there any people on this forum who could suggest the steps I take to secure a small portfolio which is as safe as possible? I have read about holt and cold wallets, people stealing Bitcoins etc etc. - I understand that I shouldn't invest more than I could afford to lose. Maybe there are UK companies that people have used to do all the work for them for a small fee? Just putting it out there.

Look forward to hearing from you,

Mark


Bitcoin is a very widely used currency accepted by one third of the world's largest banks. Just walk into one of them with your £1500 and ask them to give you some bitcoins. It's more or less what I do when I want dollars.

Oh, and do let us know when you've dipped your foot in and then dived in completely. How much do you plan to invest in all, about £100,000?

GS

Urbandreamer
Lemon Quarter
Posts: 3122
Joined: December 7th, 2016, 9:09 pm
Has thanked: 347 times
Been thanked: 1026 times

Re: Bitcoin start-up advice needed

#456527

Postby Urbandreamer » November 8th, 2021, 1:19 pm

GoSeigen wrote:Bitcoin is a very widely used currency accepted by one third of the world's largest banks. Just walk into one of them with your £1500 and ask them to give you some bitcoins. It's more or less what I do when I want dollars.

Oh, and do let us know when you've dipped your foot in and then dived in completely. How much do you plan to invest in all, about £100,000?

GS


The link leads to an earlier post by me taling about cryptocurrency. For the record, if you follow the link you will find that I explicitly state the cryptocurrency Ripple when talking banks. It is also not used for over the counter transactions (OTC), any more than Gold bullion was used in the days of the gold standard (though it was used to transfer value between banks). Back then I believe it was gold coins for OTC transactions. As far as I know, banks outside El Salvador do not exchange Bitcoin OTC, though I would be happy to be proven wrong. Banks in El Salvador have to by law, as banks had to change $'s to gold coins by law in the states at one point.

However thanks GoSeigen. The more people investigate the subject the more informed they will be. Can I repeat what I said in that post and suggest using the power of internet search engines and reading/listening to financial news.

BTW Marky72, the web based spreadsheet package "googlesheets" can be used to access the current bitcoin price for XIRR calculations.
Assuming that you are interested in it's £ value the formula is "=GOOGLEFINANCE("CURRENCY:BTCgbp")"

Can I also agree with GS and request that you let us know how you get on. Though PLEASE don't anounce on a public forum that you have invested £100,000 and that it's in a hardware wallet at the bottom of your sock drawer.

GoSeigen
Lemon Quarter
Posts: 4351
Joined: November 8th, 2016, 11:14 pm
Has thanked: 1590 times
Been thanked: 1582 times

Re: Bitcoin start-up advice needed

#456528

Postby GoSeigen » November 8th, 2021, 1:28 pm

Apologies, I did get mixed up. Bitcoin is passé, invest in Ripple instead.

Good luck.

GS

CryptoPlankton
Lemon Slice
Posts: 786
Joined: November 4th, 2016, 12:12 pm
Has thanked: 1544 times
Been thanked: 873 times

Re: Bitcoin start-up advice needed

#456570

Postby CryptoPlankton » November 8th, 2021, 3:47 pm

XFool wrote:...Jesus! :?

Grealish! :)

Marky72
Posts: 26
Joined: February 19th, 2021, 9:28 pm
Has thanked: 36 times
Been thanked: 2 times

Re: Bitcoin start-up advice needed

#457165

Postby Marky72 » November 10th, 2021, 8:25 pm

GoSeigen wrote:
Marky72 wrote:Good evening guys,

I hold a few shares and investment funds but feel that I would like to dip my toe into Bitcoin (only £1500 ish investment). I have used Google and there are so many variables about how to invest it has become confusing … are there any people on this forum who could suggest the steps I take to secure a small portfolio which is as safe as possible? I have read about holt and cold wallets, people stealing Bitcoins etc etc. - I understand that I shouldn't invest more than I could afford to lose. Maybe there are UK companies that people have used to do all the work for them for a small fee? Just putting it out there.

Look forward to hearing from you,

Mark


Bitcoin is a very widely used currency accepted by one third of the world's largest banks. Just walk into one of them with your £1500 and ask them to give you some bitcoins. It's more or less what I do when I want dollars.

Oh, and do let us know when you've dipped your foot in and then dived in completely. How much do you plan to invest in all, about £100,000?

GS

Hi there,
Well I meant that I was only looking to invest £1500. I am a fairly novice investor and thought I would add a bit of Bitcoin to my portfolio. I was hoping it would be as simple as purchase some Bitcoin, wait for it to go up in value and then sell it for a profit. However, all these responses seem more complicated than this? Are there any more simple ways of purchasing Bitcoin and then selling it via the same app/means as I bought it? I am based in the UK and walking into a bank to buy/sell Bitcoin is not easy.

TIA,

Mark

Urbandreamer
Lemon Quarter
Posts: 3122
Joined: December 7th, 2016, 9:09 pm
Has thanked: 347 times
Been thanked: 1026 times

Re: Bitcoin start-up advice needed

#457175

Postby Urbandreamer » November 10th, 2021, 9:11 pm

Marky72 wrote: I am a fairly novice investor and thought I would add a bit of Bitcoin to my portfolio. I was hoping it would be as simple as purchase some Bitcoin, wait for it to go up in value and then sell it for a profit. However, all these responses seem more complicated than this? Are there any more simple ways of purchasing Bitcoin and then selling it via the same app/means as I bought it? I am based in the UK and walking into a bank to buy/sell Bitcoin is not easy.

TIA,

Mark


If you are not interested in the ideas behind bitcoin then I suspect that the simplest thing to do is open a Paypal account.
https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/crypto

I found it very simple to invest in bitcoin through Paypal. Once you have an account you can buy and sell through an app, though I have not done so.

Another possibility is Etoro.
https://www.etoro.com/crypto/how-to-buy-bitcoin/
Lot's of info there. I believe that they trade through an app.

I'm not sure that I should be encouraging a self proclaimed novice investor to buy bitcoin though. I think that you should do a hell of a lot more research before you invest that much money. Bitcoin is complicated, even if buying or selling is like falling off a log.

Bitcoin purists would decry either of these options. You might want to investigate why.

Lootman
The full Lemon
Posts: 18685
Joined: November 4th, 2016, 3:58 pm
Has thanked: 628 times
Been thanked: 6564 times

Re: Bitcoin start-up advice needed

#457222

Postby Lootman » November 11th, 2021, 8:26 am

Although I have been investing for 35 years and used to work in the field, I have been wary of Bitcoin etc., and only recently started dipping my toe in it. My reason to do so is not so much the media frenzy as the fact that the smartest people and engineers seem to be entering the field, which is a decent indicator that this thing will continue to grow. I also like the idea of a fungible store of value that governments do not control. With that in mind I have been doing the following (and bear in mind that I am a beginner like you in this field):

Firstly, looking to invest in the "bones" of the companies that support the space. So I have made small investments in Coinbase (COIN), the leading crypto exchange. And in Riot Blockchain (RIOT), one of the biggest miners and which also is a significant holder of crypto.

Secondly we are starting to see ETFs emerge into the space. The first is the US-traded Proshares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO). It invests in Bitcoin futures rather than the coin itself.

Then there is the largest closed-ended fund investing in Bitcoin, Greyscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC). This currently trades at a discount to net asset value but this discount should erode when the planned conversion to an ETF happens.

So my approach is to go for listed securities in the space (GBTC trades over the counter at the moment) rather than in the coins themselves.

GoSeigen
Lemon Quarter
Posts: 4351
Joined: November 8th, 2016, 11:14 pm
Has thanked: 1590 times
Been thanked: 1582 times

Re: Bitcoin start-up advice needed

#457224

Postby GoSeigen » November 11th, 2021, 8:56 am

Marky72 wrote:Hi there,
Well I meant that I was only looking to invest £1500. I am a fairly novice investor and thought I would add a bit of Bitcoin to my portfolio. I was hoping it would be as simple as purchase some Bitcoin, wait for it to go up in value and then sell it for a profit. However, all these responses seem more complicated than this? Are there any more simple ways of purchasing Bitcoin and then selling it via the same app/means as I bought it? I am based in the UK and walking into a bank to buy/sell Bitcoin is not easy.

TIA,

Mark


Sorry, I was rather sarcastic because bitcoin is a completely unsuitable investment for a novice (or anyone in my opinion).

I'm sure others can tell you the mechanics of how to join the bitcoin scam-o-sphere but my thoughts are:

1. If you want to invest only £1500 why are you doing it all at once? I'm a successful investor with many years behind me and I am still wary of making a mistake. If I wanted to invest £1500, I'd start with maybe £150, then if that works out okay I'd put in another £150 a few weeks or months later, next I'd buy a tranche of £300, after that £450 and finally £750. At the end I'd have put in £1800 and hopefully in a steadily rising fashion so that my early investments are protected by price rises, so that I feel good about them, and the rises confirm my belief that the investment was a good one.

[If you know maths you might recognise the above amounts as the first few terms in a fibonacci series.]

2. One problem with bitcoin and the amounts above is that every trade, buying and selling costs a good £20. That means you've lost more than 20% of your stake just trading in and out. That's insane. Perhaps that's why you think you'll throw caution to the wind and buy the whole lot at once?

3. A novice shouldn't be going anywhere near bitcoin. Apart from anything the entire bitcoin/crypto scene is scam after scam after scam. Even if you purchase without ending up in one of the derivative scams, bitcoin is highly volatile and you could be 30-40% down before you even realise. How are you going to feel about that? Ill tell you how most novices feel about it: they decide they now have the opportunity of a lifetime and put in another £1500. Then when the price hasn't moved for a few weeks (and hasn't fallen) they can't believe their luck getting such a cheap investment and put in another £3000. Then the price falls another 30%, you're now in for £6000 and far under water. And that is having found the bargain of your lifetime! That's novice psychology, nothing to be ashamed of, you'll be in very good company.

And I haven't even talked about the investment case for bitcoin which in my opinion is just a little bit less than NIL. No one has ever shown me where the value of this monster lies. For a sophisticated and experienced investor like me that means I'm happier with the thousands of other worthwhile investments available and I'm happy to let novices play with bitcoin.

4. You haven't given a breakdown of your financial situation so advice you get here will not be tailored to your needs. If you're a novice as you honestly admit, then why not start by investing in some bonds, or at least some bond-like shares or if you want to be adventurous a tracker fund. But for goodness sake don't put everything in at once. Dip your then end of your toenail in, then follow with the rest of the toenail and then the toe.

Good luck.

GS

Mike4
Lemon Half
Posts: 7088
Joined: November 24th, 2016, 3:29 am
Has thanked: 1638 times
Been thanked: 3796 times

Re: Bitcoin start-up advice needed

#457230

Postby Mike4 » November 11th, 2021, 9:35 am

GoSeigen wrote:And I haven't even talked about the investment case for bitcoin which in my opinion is just a little bit less than NIL. No one has ever shown me where the value of this monster lies.


I'm surprised it has taken until now in this thread for anyone to point this out, so thanks to GS for saying.

It strikes me (as a novice investor too) that bitcoin relies on the 'bigger fool' theory to support the price. There is no underlying asset to bitcoin as far as I can see, so it can only be the 'bigger fool' theory at work, where you buy it because you think someone else in the future will pay you more for yours than your just paid for it, if and when you decide to sell, which you surely must otherwise what's the point? You'll be getting no dividend.

It's not an "investment" in the true sense of the word. It's a gamble, a punt on how other people will think in the future, and what they will do in the future. Nothing more. A real investment is the placing of your capital in a company by buying its shares, where your capital is used by the company to buy assets which earn real life profit which gets shared out annually amongst the investors, and this is the basis I think, of Lootman's suggestion in his post earlier. A modern day version of the trope about how the people who made solid money out of the USA gold rush, were those making and selling the picks and shovels not those doing the digging.

Just my (perhaps naïve) view of the cryptos.

absolutezero
Lemon Quarter
Posts: 1505
Joined: November 17th, 2016, 8:17 pm
Has thanked: 542 times
Been thanked: 653 times

Re: Bitcoin start-up advice needed

#457237

Postby absolutezero » November 11th, 2021, 9:56 am

Lootman wrote:Although I have been investing for 35 years and used to work in the field, I have been wary of Bitcoin etc., and only recently started dipping my toe in it. My reason to do so is not so much the media frenzy as the fact that the smartest people and engineers seem to be entering the field, which is a decent indicator that this thing will continue to grow.

In my view, there is a bigger risk to having NO Bitcoin than there is having a small amount (up to £5,000 say).

Urbandreamer
Lemon Quarter
Posts: 3122
Joined: December 7th, 2016, 9:09 pm
Has thanked: 347 times
Been thanked: 1026 times

Re: Bitcoin start-up advice needed

#457238

Postby Urbandreamer » November 11th, 2021, 9:59 am

GoSeigen wrote:2. One problem with bitcoin and the amounts above is that every trade, buying and selling costs a good £20. That means you've lost more than 20% of your stake just trading in and out. That's insane. Perhaps that's why you think you'll throw caution to the wind and buy the whole lot at once?

GS


While we disagree on the case for bitcoin, I agree with the rest of your post apart from the above.
Costs vary, A LOT.

It also depends upon how you get exposure. I bought £50 worth using paypal's website and paid £51.15 so costs of £1.15. The money left my bank account through my debit card.

Had I used Gemini, the debit card transfer alone would be 3.5%. So £1.75, before I actually bought any bitcoin.

Of course were I to use my A J Bell account to buy £50 worth of shares in a bitcoin miner that would cost me £9.95 which is also less than £20. However it''s a flat fee and would be the same were I to invest £1500.

Ps, I would regard buying shares in a bitcoin miner as an investment. I do not regard buying bitcoin in the same light. It's either speculation or inflation protection, depending upon your view on such things.

Lootman
The full Lemon
Posts: 18685
Joined: November 4th, 2016, 3:58 pm
Has thanked: 628 times
Been thanked: 6564 times

Re: Bitcoin start-up advice needed

#457240

Postby Lootman » November 11th, 2021, 10:02 am

Mike4 wrote:
GoSeigen wrote:And I haven't even talked about the investment case for bitcoin which in my opinion is just a little bit less than NIL. No one has ever shown me where the value of this monster lies.

I'm surprised it has taken until now in this thread for anyone to point this out, so thanks to GS for saying.

It strikes me (as a novice investor too) that bitcoin relies on the 'bigger fool' theory to support the price. There is no underlying asset to bitcoin as far as I can see, so it can only be the 'bigger fool' theory at work, where you buy it because you think someone else in the future will pay you more for yours than your just paid for it, if and when you decide to sell, which you surely must otherwise what's the point? You'll be getting no dividend.

It's not an "investment" in the true sense of the word. It's a gamble, a punt on how other people will think in the future, and what they will do in the future. Nothing more. A real investment is the placing of your capital in a company by buying its shares, where your capital is used by the company to buy assets which earn real life profit which gets shared out annually amongst the investors, and this is the basis I think, of Lootman's suggestion in his post earlier. A modern day version of the trope about how the people who made solid money out of the USA gold rush, were those making and selling the picks and shovels not those doing the digging.

Just my (perhaps naïve) view of the cryptos.

I think that everything you say there is correct. And yet it might not necessarily matter.

The fact is that for any instrument or security, what determines the price is not any fundamental value, but rather the balance of supply and demand. That is not to say that anything, like Dutch tulips, can be priced without reference to some sense of real worth. But rather that it is routine for a market price to be placed on instruments that either cannot be objectively valued (gold, diamonds, start-up companies). Or else can be valued but it may be futile to do so, e.g. every value investor in equities who has under-performed despite claiming that X is over-valued or under-valued for years "by the numbers".

I will admit that this "impossible to value" argument had me convinced until recently. But these coins are gradually being admitted into mainstream markets. The idea of "digital gold" makes crypto more analogous to gold than tulips.

GoSeigen wrote:1. If you want to invest only £1500 why are you doing it all at once? I'm a successful investor with many years behind me and I am still wary of making a mistake. If I wanted to invest £1500, I'd start with maybe £150, then if that works out okay I'd put in another £150 a few weeks or months later, next I'd buy a tranche of £300, after that £450 and finally £750. At the end I'd have put in £1800 and hopefully in a steadily rising fashion so that my early investments are protected by price rises, so that I feel good about them, and the rises confirm my belief that the investment was a good one.

[If you know maths you might recognise the above amounts as the first few terms in a fibonacci series.]

I freely admit that I don't know anything about maths. But I have taken the same approach to you, i.e. gradually building positions over time. Except that I buy more when it goes down and not when it goes up. My reasoning is that BTC and its derivatives are highly volatile and, at any point in time, there is a 50/50 chance it will go up or down. It's a coin toss. The pattern so far is wild swings up and down, which of course nobody can predict.

So pound cost averaging into positions makes sense, as so far all the price evidence is that this will continue to behave like a yo-yo, and you want to capture and take advantage of that volatility. Whilst betting that crypto will become more adopted over time.

Mike4
Lemon Half
Posts: 7088
Joined: November 24th, 2016, 3:29 am
Has thanked: 1638 times
Been thanked: 3796 times

Re: Bitcoin start-up advice needed

#457254

Postby Mike4 » November 11th, 2021, 10:26 am

A bitcoin anecdote.

I know someone who says they were given 37 bitcoin, right at the start of the project. She watched in amazement as they climbed in value and she eventually sold the lot at what she perceived to be a utterly lunatic high of approx £3,500 each. She bought herself a brand new narrowboat to live on with the cash.

Bad move with hindsight. What are they now? £30k-ish each?

GoSeigen
Lemon Quarter
Posts: 4351
Joined: November 8th, 2016, 11:14 pm
Has thanked: 1590 times
Been thanked: 1582 times

Re: Bitcoin start-up advice needed

#457255

Postby GoSeigen » November 11th, 2021, 10:28 am

Lootman wrote:
GoSeigen wrote:1. If you want to invest only £1500 why are you doing it all at once? I'm a successful investor with many years behind me and I am still wary of making a mistake. If I wanted to invest £1500, I'd start with maybe £150, then if that works out okay I'd put in another £150 a few weeks or months later, next I'd buy a tranche of £300, after that £450 and finally £750. At the end I'd have put in £1800 and hopefully in a steadily rising fashion so that my early investments are protected by price rises, so that I feel good about them, and the rises confirm my belief that the investment was a good one.

[If you know maths you might recognise the above amounts as the first few terms in a fibonacci series.]

I freely admit that I don't know anything about maths. But I have taken the same approach to you, i.e. gradually building positions over time. Except that I buy more when it goes down and not when it goes up. My reasoning is that BTC and its derivatives are highly volatile and, at any point in time, there is a 50/50 chance it will go up or down. It's a coin toss. The pattern so far is wild swings up and down, which of course nobody can predict.

So pound cost averaging into positions makes sense, as so far all the price evidence is that this will continue to behave like a yo-yo, and you want to capture and take advantage of that volatility. Whilst betting that crypto will become more adopted over time.


Okay, quick background: a fibonacci series is one in which each term is the sum of the previous two. The classic sequence starts thus:

1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, ...

The interesting thing about this is that it's widely used by natural processes in nature [and the internet is full of information if you want to know more]. Just to make up an example: a seed germinates in early spring. The weather got warmer and there was a rain shower. Seed said I think spring is coming. So it put out a single leaf. It still has plenty of energy for more leaves and could put out 19 all at once if it wants to, but it starts with one. If a frost comes only one leaf dies and it starts again. But a few days later the leaf is still there and the sun comes out so it puts out another leaf. Then next warm days it grows two leaves, then three, five, then as the plant gets bigger eight and so on. The key point is that nature has found that a fibonacci progression is an optimal speed of growth treading the line between risk and safety. By the time our plant starts growing large numbers of leaves it has convinced itself that spring has properly arrived.

So some investors try to adopt the wisdom of nature/evolution in their investing. That's the only rationale behind fibonacci. I find it works well. I try not to average down because that for me is a sign that I was wrong or early. Like the plant perhaps we just had a very warm day but lots of winter is still ahead. With investing we know the summer will be a long one so we don't have to rush in the first blush of spring. There will be time enough...

That said, I don't decline to average down at all: two factors I take into account are passage of time (which is much more important than change in value: the old patience thing) and a sufficient fall to make further risk worthwhile (usually a fall of somewhere round 50%).

GS

GoSeigen
Lemon Quarter
Posts: 4351
Joined: November 8th, 2016, 11:14 pm
Has thanked: 1590 times
Been thanked: 1582 times

Re: Bitcoin start-up advice needed

#457260

Postby GoSeigen » November 11th, 2021, 10:34 am

absolutezero wrote:
Lootman wrote:Although I have been investing for 35 years and used to work in the field, I have been wary of Bitcoin etc., and only recently started dipping my toe in it. My reason to do so is not so much the media frenzy as the fact that the smartest people and engineers seem to be entering the field, which is a decent indicator that this thing will continue to grow.

In my view, there is a bigger risk to having NO Bitcoin than there is having a small amount (up to £5,000 say).


This is an absurd statement. Why bitcoin and not one of the other 20,000 or so crypto coins? Or Millions of other assets in the world? Yes if you are focused on one thing and in your mind bitcoin is about the only asset that exists outside your current portfolio perhaps it makes sense. But in a broad and balanced context it doesn't. And since when is £5,000 a small amount? For a very wealthy person it might be small... Outside of their home the average person has a very modest wealth.

GS

Lootman
The full Lemon
Posts: 18685
Joined: November 4th, 2016, 3:58 pm
Has thanked: 628 times
Been thanked: 6564 times

Re: Bitcoin start-up advice needed

#457265

Postby Lootman » November 11th, 2021, 10:39 am

GoSeigen wrote:
absolutezero wrote:
Lootman wrote:Although I have been investing for 35 years and used to work in the field, I have been wary of Bitcoin etc., and only recently started dipping my toe in it. My reason to do so is not so much the media frenzy as the fact that the smartest people and engineers seem to be entering the field, which is a decent indicator that this thing will continue to grow.

In my view, there is a bigger risk to having NO Bitcoin than there is having a small amount (up to £5,000 say).

This is an absurd statement. Why bitcoin and not one of the other 20,000 or so crypto coins? Or Millions of other assets in the world? Yes if you are focused on one thing and in your mind bitcoin is about the only asset that exists outside your current portfolio perhaps it makes sense. But in a broad and balanced context it doesn't. And since when is £5,000 a small amount? For a very wealthy person it might be small... Outside of their home the average person has a very modest wealth.

Maybe it makes more sense to talk about allocations in percentage terms.

At this point I am less than 1% allocated to crypto and, moreover, that allocation is viewed as part of what I would devote to gold, which itself is no more than 5%.

One of the attractions of crypto is that even small investments can yield worthwhile gains. It would be idiocy to bet the farm on any of this.


Return to “Crypto and NFTs”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest