I found it amusing that Tesla just recorded record quarterly profit of $432M. Of that profit, $101M was profits from trading Bitcoin. What is wrong with this picture?
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Iām the same.
I avoid it as I just have no clue about how it works or how you can use it - other than transfering it to your neighbourhood arms dealer 
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I know a little as Iāve been looking of late and trying my hand with a teeny bit of day trading. Basically seeing if I can add another skill to the book.
Anyway Bitcoin and Etherium have dumped big time in the last week. Etherium has recovered to reach an all time high while Bitcoin has got a bit stuck at a kind of mid level. That said both are predicted to continue to grow this year. As is Cardano which has some new stuff coming on line which will make it an attractive option. So sticking with them seems logical and advised by a few people Iāve read up on. But itās a crazy market. They basically lost 25% of their value in about 3 days in the last week, before recovering.
I donāt know much on Ripple and Bitcoin cash unfortunately.
It might be worth looking into staking. Especially for Etherium 2.0 but your cash will be locked for 2 years. Staking in other options is a little limited now I think but if you do interest rates far exceed anything youāll get from a bank. The down side being that you want the unit price to also increase.
From the New Yorker magazine;
āAccording to the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index, bitcoin-mining operations worldwide now use energy at the rate of nearly a hundred and twenty terawatt-hours per year. This is about the annual domestic electricity consumption of the entire nation of Sweden. According to the Web site Digiconomist, a single bitcoin transaction uses the same amount of power that the average American household consumes in a month, and is responsible for roughly a million times more carbon emissions than a single Visa transactionā
Is this really a sustainable investment?
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It isnāt a sustainable industry (rather than investment) but I think that is more of a function of how Bitcoin in particular has been set up to operate.
Basically anyone can set up their PC to mine Bitcoin (which is separate from trading and using Bitcoin) which then goes to form part of the blockchain (All computers linked to undertake the accounting tasks). The issue arises from the fact that miners can be paid in Bitcoin for their services. Being part of the blockchain you verify transactions in Bitcoin but your computer also tries to guess a particular 6 figure number problem. Get it right and your get a handsome reward. Basically people have now set up massive computers running 24hrs a day for the sole purpose of mining Bitcoin and trying to solve that number problem. That is where the issue is. There are even calculators on line that will help you figure out your chances or the overall cost to you should you join a syndicate for mining with your home PC.
I cant say how this translates into other coins at the moment as every coin is set up for different purposes, Iām still trying to learn about this stuff myself.
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My biggest risk to cryptocurrencies are national governments. There has to come a day weāre they will crack down.
Be it tax avoidance, money laundering, or simply fiscal control. Thatās why I have not invested.
I kick myself that I didnāt. My brother quit his job to be a full time time cryptocurrency trader. He lost it all three times, but is about to buy a million dollar house with his earnings over the last 4 years or so.
I can see the attraction. But like gambling never bet what you canāt afford to lose.
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Absolutely right. Turkey most recently has cracked down.
I also have a friend that has done well from investing in it. It does sound attractive I must admit and I am drawn to it but Iām only playing with pennies. Thereās no way Iām going in deeper until I understand fully what Iām doing.
Thereās always the option of falling back onto Forex which is less volatile and is regulated
It is gambling though isnāt it?
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Forex is another one I wouldnāt touch with a bargepole.
Forex is not as hard to make money from, the problem with it is getting the timings for when to enter/exit trades are - similar to buys stocks and shares but at a more quickly moving rate. It is also something that takes a lot of time and patience to learn how to trade effectively
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Absolutely right. My fledgling efforts to do the same in Crypto are improving but Iām finding that Iām pretty much limited to one scalping tactic at the moment and even then I get it wrong sometimes ( a lot actually) but the value of my efforts is kind of treading water. I donāt really leave anything going overnight or not being watched without certain safetyās in place.
Thereās massive amount to learn.
Agreed.
Have been learning and using a free demo account for several years, and it is only in the last 6-8 months that it has really started to show me the sort of results where I think I could do it for real.
The problem is to get the sort of cash to trade will take time, so at the moment it is about scalping to pick up any sort of profits to build up my balance
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yeah itās mad. People can get drawn in into the promise of massive profits. This is possible but as you say the up front investment value is needed on top of knowing what youāre doing along with a whole load of balls to ride the rollercoaster. Bitcoin value dropped 25% in 3 days last week. Ouch!!
So my target at the moment is to try and get a little 1-2% profit per day and compound it. Even that is tough at this moment in time on my journey. I also have a little bit thatās been staked.
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When I first started toying with the forex trading idea I came across a forum for trading and one thing that always gets asked is about how much you need to start trading.
What I have learnt is money makes money. So the more you have to start the better chance that youāll likely make money. Plus having time and knowledge helps
Last year or the year before bitcoin dropped from 20+k to 3k then took off again up to 50/60k.Most people who dabble small will look and feel they missed the boat then.
Do most people who invest in crypto really understand crypto or are they just investing to make a quick big buck and do they now look at the next crypto which can do that for them?
If so, which crypto will they look to? Ethereum?
From my experience I suspect they look far and wide and try and make a quick buck anywhere and everywhere they can on the Crypto market. The problem is they invest with emotion or a gut feeling and it invariably goes wrong.
It can be frustrating which leads to bad decisions. Last week Bitcoin dropped from over $64k to $43k which was roughly at a level of support, the price actually dropped lower at one point. It bounced from there and I missed most of it. Itās back to $54k today and kind of steady, has been for the last couple of days. So I missed the opportunity there. Something for me to learn in that I think.
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From my understanding, most people trading Forex lose money, particularly amateurs,. Trading shares is supposed to be much easier.
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Oh definitely, but there are a number of factors that lead to people losing money trading forex, although many would also apply to cryptos and also to stocks and shares. I remember joining a forex forum years ago when I started looking at learing to trade and I came across a thread which spoke about this, and one of the mods actually listed the most common reasons people lose money trading which were.
They are not intelligent enough.
Their psychology is all wrong for trading.
They underestimate the skills required.
They overestimate their own abilities.
They risk money before they have learned how to trade.
They over-complicate their charts.
They over-simplify their charts.
Their heart is just not in it.
They lack the necessary patience and perseverance to succeed.
Their losses are too large in relation to their wins.
They have no tried and tested strategy.
They are not disciplined enough to stick to their strategy.
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I see Forex and Crypto as pretty much the same animal although one is a bit mad, the other a bit more docile.
problem I feel you need is other than knowing what youāre doing is being able to have different strategies for different situations or being able to apply your one strategy in different situations.
Another thing is actually understanding whats feasible and being satisfied with that. For example 2% profit on a day is good going. Donāt try and force for more or go mental when you dont quite get to that level.
That also comes back to having the actual cash in there. Iām looking at a screen now where there are trades of $2k. Switching to Bitcoin there are trades of $25k everywhere. Just saw one for $70k. Damn $107k.
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For those that are playing in trading. Out of interest, do you Short your trades from time to time?