This thread is a continuation of the original v1 Bitcoin thread.

https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/3051328



An Overview Guide to Investing in Cryptocurrencies in Malaysia (courtesy of @kmarc)


A friendly warning before you proceed
If you're new to cryptocurrencies, then welcome to the world of cryptocurrencies!!! Before you proceed further, if your intention is to invest in cryptocurrencies, please be informed that cryptocurrencies are VERY high-risk high-return investments. If you have the money, you can earn a lot but you can also lose all and CRASH & BURN! You need to do your own research and make up your own strategy including the important exit strategy i.e. when to cut your losses.

In general, for safe conservative investors, it is advisable to allocate not more than 10% of your funds to high-risk instruments such as cryptocurrencies.

Enter AT YOUR OWN RISK and if you lose your money, it is NOBODY's fault but yours! You have been warned!

With that out of the way, let's begin!


TABLE OF CONTENTS

Post #1
1) How to buy cryptocurrencies (bitcoins and altcoins) in Malaysia (using MYR)?
2) How to buy altcoins?
3) Where should I keep my BTC and altcoins?
4) Sending bitcoins/altcoins to exchanges/addresses and wallets
5) Incurred fees
6) What is the current price of BTC or altcoins?

Post #2
1) Grow your money on Poloniex - How to lend out your coins
2) Cryptocurrency market capitalization
3) Cryptocurrency news
4) Forums
5) Important or potential coins
6) Cryptocurrency's progress

Post #4
1) Important advices and tips for cryptocurrencies

How to buy cryptocurrencies (bitcoins and altcoins) in Malaysia (using MYR)?

Note : This guide does not cover obtaining cryptocurrencies through mining.

In Malaysia, using MYR, there are limited options to buying bitcoins (BTC). Unfortunately, at the moment, altcoins can only be acquired using BTC.

Let's start with buying BTC.

You can buy bitcoins from these platforms (click to go to the website):
1) Localbitcoins
2) Remitano
3) Xbit Asia
4) Luno

Important :
Do note that BTC prices in these websites are generally more expensive than the average global price, but you can sometimes get a good price if the seller is desperate to sell. In order to get the best BTC price, it is recommended that you check out the prices on all 4 BTC/MYR exchanges. For example, on 29th April 2017, Localbitcoins and Remitano prices are higher, while Xbit Asia was lower, but the best price was at Luno. The only problem with Xbit and Luno is that you need to login/sign up to see BTC market details, and before you can buy, you need to transfer money to the exchange's bank account first, which will only be reflected in your exchange account after they have processed it.
Also, VERY IMPORTANTLY, if you use any of these websites, it is of utmost importance to activate 2-factor authentication (2FA) for better security.

Localbitcoins
- Peer-to-peer exchange (P2P) where the website serves as a platform for you to deal directly with a seller (or buyer)

- Since you are dealing with a stranger, it is very important to :
----- a) Deal with verified trader who has very good reputation/feedbacks and has done many deals. You can check -------------- their profile by clicking on their ID.
----- b) Ensure they are online
----- c) Read the traders terms & conditions before you trade
----- c) Ensure you can do instant bank transfer especially for different banks and ensure instant interbank transfer is -------------- instant! I usually prefer using the same bank to avoid delays.

- the good thing about Localbitcoins is that you can send messages (and pictures if needed) during your trade. Say you want to buy 1.0 BTC, you click the "Buy" button, indicate the amount you want to buy, and type the message. I usually type something like "Wanna buy BTC. Can proceed?" and wait for them to respond.

- once you have transferred the money, you have to click on the "I have paid the seller" button. The seller will be automatically notified and will release the BTC when he confirms the money is in his bank account. You must NEVER accidentally press the "Cancel trade" button when you have already transferred the money or you will lose your hard-earned cash!!! The "Cancel trade" button is only used when you really want to cancel the trade and have not transferred any money.

- for safety purposes, once you initiate a trade, the BTC is kept in escrow (kept by the website) until the trade is complete. In the event that there are problems with the trade, the BTC will be held until the issue is resolved.

- your BTC is kept in the websites BTC wallet

Remitano
- P2P exchange

- operates similarly to Localbitcoins except you can't communicate with the seller

- your BTC is also kept in the website's BTC wallet.

XBit Asia exchange
- Online cryptocurrency exchange, similar to stock market exchanges.

- XBit Asia is a bit different from abovementioned peer-to-peer platforms, as you need to first transfer money directly into your "account" in XBit Asia before you can buy BTC.

- Transfer of money is not instantaneous. You need to bank in money to XBit Asia's designated bank account and then email them the evidence. Once the staff confirms your bank in, it will be made available in your "account" and you can then buy BTC. Confirmation can be quite fast but only occur during working hours and working days.

- The disadvantage of XBit Asia is that there are not many buyers/sellers, hence the liquidity is low, leading to larger buy/sell spread prices.

- Your BTC is kept in the website's BTC wallet.

- When you sell your bitcoins, the proceeds are credited into your account in XBit Asia, which you can then withdraw, and the funds will transferred to your Malaysian bank account via GIRO. Withdrawals are processed 3 times a day, on working days only.

Luno
- Online cryptocurrency exchange, similar to XBit Asia.

How to buy altcoins?

As previously mentioned, at the moment, there's no way to buy altcoins using MYR. You have to buy BTC and send your BTC to an exchange that can convert BTC to altcoins.

There are many exchanges available. Take a look at this link : https://www.cryptocompare.com/coins/btc/markets/USD

You can use any exchange but different exchanges have different altcoins. Some unique ones worth mentioning are as below (click to go to the website):

Note : As of 23/4/2017

1) Poloniex
- Poloniex is currently the largest online exchange in terms of overall volume (according to coinmarketcap.com), and it also carries many altcoins. At the last count, around the figure of 80 types of coins!!!

2) Bitfinex
- currently the second largest exchange in terms of overall volume
- only carries Bitcoin, Ethereum (ETH), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Zcash (ZEC), Monero (XMR), Litecoin (LTC), and Dash.

3) GDAX
- carries BTC, ETH, LTC

4) Shapeshift
- a unique platform where you can easily convert cryptocurrencies into the ones you want. With fees of course.

5) Bittrex
- carries even more altcoins than Poloniex
- in terms of volume, it is still very low compared to Poloniex. (as of 23 April 2017, Poloniex has a volume of 70k BTC while Bittrex only has around 7K BTC)
- does not have lending facilities like Poloniex

Personally, if you want to acquire lots of different types of coins, Poloniex would be the best platform for this.

Where should I keep my BTC and altcoins?

Yay! You bought your first BTC or your first altcoin. If you plan to hoard coins with high net worth, it is important to keep them in a safe place.

Here are some articles on coin wallets:
https://www.weusecoins.com/en/find-the-best-bitcoin-wallet/
https://99bitcoins.com/best-bitcoin-wallet-...parison-review/
http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/bitcoin-wallets/

In general, you would want to keep your coins out of reach of hackers and the best way to do that is to keep it offline i.e. your coins are not connected to the internet. Hardware wallet is a very good option. NEVER keep any significant amount of cryptocurrencies in online exchanges, except those that you plan to use for trading.

Currently, there are two hardware wallets that are popular:
1) Trezor - https://shop.trezor.io/
- supports BTC, ETH, ETC, LTC, ZCash, Dogecoin, Dash, Namecoin and Testnet

2) Ledger Nano S - https://www.ledgerwallet.com/products/ledger-nano-s
- supports BTC, ETH, ETC, LTC, ZCash, Dogecoin, Dash and Stratis - Click here for more details

The only problem is that it is quite difficult to get these wallets locally as cryptocurrencies are still not popular in Malaysia. Probably easier next time when it becomes more popular here.

Sending bitcoins/altcoins to exchanges/addresses and wallets

There are a few things you have to keep in mind when you transfer cryptocurrencies:
1) It is not instantaneous. It may take a few minutes to hours!
- take a look at BTC's confirmation times : https://blockchain.info/charts/avg-confirmation-time
- there's a whole lot of issues on this but it is hoped that the long confirmation time will be resolved soon

2) Ensure the address is correct
- This is VERY important. If you send to the wrong address, you WILL lose the coins!

3) Ensure the address is correct for the type of coin
- Also very important. You CANNOT send BTC to an ETH address. Cryptocurrency addresses are not compatible with each other

4) There's a transfer fee for all transfers but it is usually negligible.

5) You can always track your transfer. Just enter your receiving address into the link and you will be able to see the status of the transfer : https://blockchain.info/

Incurred fees

Keep in mind that, just like any other investment vehicle, you will be charged some fees when you make a transaction or transfer, depending on the platform you use. Here's how it generally work:
1) Buying BTC - generally free
2) Selling BTC - free or fees charged by platform
3) Sending BTC from one address to another - network transfer fees
4) On exchanges, fees vary.

These are some examples of fees being charged by different websites/platform:
- Poloniex - https://poloniex.com/fees/
- Bitfinex - https://www.bitfinex.com/fees
- Localbitcoins - https://localbitcoins.com/fees
- Shapeshift - https://shapeshift.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/art...-fee-structure-

Examples of fees being charged:
- Transfer from Airbitz mobile app (in phone) to hardware wallet twice - 0.000812 & 0.00045 BTC.
---- If BTC was USD 1000/BTC, that would mean a transfer fee of USD 0.812 & USD 0.45. Do note the difference of fees is also affected by the price of BTC at that time.
- Transfer from localbitcoins to Poloniex -
- Transfer from Remitano to Poloniex -
- buy altcoins from poloniex (direct buy)
- buy altcoins from poloniex (bidding)

What is the current price of BTC or altcoins?

There are a lot of ways to check the prices.
Cryptocompare.com is one of the best sites where you can see:

- prices of any coins across different exchanges : https://www.cryptocompare.com/coins/btc/markets/USD
- overall prices of coins : https://www.cryptocompare.com/coins/#/usd
- and much much more! Explore the website to see the wealth of information it provides.



This post has been edited by wengherng: May 15 2017, 03:10 PM

Grow your money on Poloniex - How to lend out your coins

Before we begin the tutorial on lending, the general rule of keeping your coins safe still applies. However, the disadvantage of keeping it in cold storage is that it doesn't generate money besides price appreciation. You can consider another option which is to lend some of your coins to traders on Poloniex WHILE enjoying price appreciation if any. Do note that you need to have the coins on your Poloniex's account to lend them out.

Lending rates
Let's start with this as lending rates are the main factor why one would want to keep their coins on Poloniex and lend them out.

Lending rates depends on supply and demand. It can fluctuate and swing widely. It can be very low but it can also be very high. Even higher than the rates of loan sharks!

Here are some of the spot rates at the moment:

Coin	Rates
Bticoin	0.1595%
BTS	0.0001%
CLAM	1.2997%
DASH	0.0587%
ETH	0.0029%
XRP	0.0096%

As you can see from the table above, rates also vary widely between coins. Dash previously had a rate of 0.88% when the demand was high. Clam had low rates previously but because it is in demand now, it is at super loan shark rates!

Huh, the rates are so LOW???!!!??!? Before you stomp away upset, do note that the rates are quoted PER DAY (24 hours) and not per year!! For example, if you loan out CLAM for 1%, you will get 1% of clams after 24 hours! In the unlikely event that you can lend out for a whole year, the returns will be 365 days x 1% = 365% return!!!! However, as you will see later, it is almost impossible to loan out for long periods unless you are very very VERY lucky.

The interest generated are the same coins you loaned out. If you loan out CLAMS, you will get CLAMS for interest.

Another thing to know is that the interest starts calculating the moment the loan is taken up. The site updates the active loan every 20-30 seconds and you can see interest being generated. So even if your loan was taken up for only 5 minutes, you will already get some interest although it would be negligible.

Note : I guess it goes without saying that you would need a significant amount of coins and a good lending rate to make lending worthwhile. From observation, it seems bitcoin has a consistent demand with relatively good rates. You just have to calculate the returns for yourself to see whether it is worth your while or not.

Loan duration

Ok, here comes the reason why you won't be getting rich by getting a 365% return.

When you offer your loan, you will need to specify the rate, amount and duration. Default duration is 2 days and the range is 2 - 60 days.

If you lent out for 2 days and the loan is taken up, it doesn't mean that it will be loaned out for 2 days. It can sometimes be returned in a few hours or even a few seconds! This is the main disadvantage of lending, where you need to manually check to see whether your loan is running.

There is a lending bot that can automatically set up loans for you but it is 3rd-party where you would have to give it access to Poloniex to run the loans. I don't recommend it so this guide won't cover lending bots.

Lending risk
As with any loan, there are risk to lending. You can't be going about spraying red paint when your loan is not returned.

I'm not entirely sure what the risks are or how high the risk is. I have asked this in Poloniex and they say that the risk is minimal because they have certain safeguards. For one, the coins you loaned out cannot be transferred out of Poloniex. Even if you loaned out 1 BTC and the price of BTC crashes, it is still one BTC that will be returned to you!

So, lend at your own risk and don't throw red paint at my house if something happens!


Poloniex lending facility

Ok, let's get down to actual lending out your coins. I only have experience with Poloniex so we will only cover Poloniex.

On Poloniex, you'll notice 3 sections/tabs - Exchange, Margin and Lending.



Click on the Lending tab to go to the lending page.

A word of advice : Don't ever go to the margin tab. Very risky to play margin trades.

This is what you will see on the lending page.



1) My Balances
- This is where you can view your balances across all 3 facilities - Exchange, Margin and lending
- It only shows the available amount of coins. If you have open orders or coins under loan, it will not be shown in the total.
- You can also see the type of coins you can loan out. At the moment, only 12 coins can be loaned out.
- From here, you can select the coin you want to loan out.

2) Quick transfer
- This is a quick feature to transfer your coins between the 3 facilities
- In order for you to loan out your coins, you have to first transfer the coins from Exchange (that's where your coins probably are at the start)
- If you don't transfer any coins to lending, you won't be able to loan out anything.
- Likewise, if you finish lending and want to sell off the coins, you would have to transfer them from lending back to exchange

3) Loan
- This is where you offer your loan
- You have to enter the rate, amount and duration of loan
- "Auto-renew" is if you want the loan to be listed again once the loan is given back. It is actually not a useful feature as loan rates seldom stay at the same rate for long.
- Once you have set your loan parameters, you can click the "Offer loan" button and it will be displayed in the "Loan Offers" table.

4) Loan offers
- This is where all loans are being offered
- If you want your loans to be taken up fast, you would have to set a lower rate. Basically competing with each other to loan out the coins.

5) Loan demands
- This is where all loans are requested
- If you don't want to wait, you can just offer at the requested rate and it will straight away match
- Loan demand rates are usually much much lower then ongoing rates

6) My open loan offers
- You can see your open loans here i.e. loans that you have offered by not yet loan out

7) My active loans
- Here's where you can see the loans that are taken up
- If you see the first line, I have loaned out XRP at a rate of 0.0097% with an amount of 2221.2508. Duration is 2 days with auto-renew turned on. Up to that time, the interest is 0.00034912 XRP.

That's it! You are now ready to put up your loan!

Loan history/records
This is how you can see your loan history.

Under "Orders" tab, select "My trade history & Analysis".



This will bring you to the following page.



From here, you have two options (as indicated in the picture):
1) Download the excel file containing all your loan records
- easier to use this feature as you can sort out your loans and sum it up in excel

2) Show your "Loan earnings"
- Will show you all your loans in a table
- This is not easy to see as you can't sort it out. I already have 29 pages of loan history!!!
- The easier way is to select the coin you want to analyse then click the analyze button.

Take a look at my analyzed loan earnings of CLAMS. It shows that I have earned 49.7 CLAMS with fees in total. Fees are 15% so you can roughly calculate your net profit by subtracting 15% from the total.



Note : This is the place where you can see your trade history too.

Lastly, do remember that lending is not without risk but I think the risk is negligible. Again, if you lose your money, don't blame me!

Happy lending like the loan shark that you are!!!!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cryptocurrency market capitalization

1) http://coinmarketcap.com/
- Good place to see overall cryptocurrency market cap and each individual coin market cap.

Cryptocurrency news

1) Coindesk
2) Bitcoin news
3) Cryptocoin news
4) Cryptonews
5) Coin Journal
6) The Merkle - Crypto news
7) Bitcoinist
8) CoinFox
9) Coin News Asia
10) Finance magnates

Forums

1) Bitcoin (and altcoin) forum

Important or potential coins

Note : My opinion only.


Ethereum
One of the coins that will probably become popular soon

1) Ethereum homepage
- learn all about ethereum and the projects built on the platform

2) /r/Ethereum
- Fundamental news related to Ethereum ecosystem. Core developers conduct meetings on the first and third Fridays of each month so users can view the entire conversation or read the transcripts provided.

3) /r/ethtrader
- Price related discussion and future movements.
there's this weekly newsletter that summarizes all the Ethereum related events for your viewing pleasure.

4) Week in Ethereum


Blockchain-based Decentralized storage
1) https://www.smithandcrown.com/distributed-c...-cloud-storage/
2) https://themerkle.com/maidsafe-vs-sia-vs-storj/

Siacoin
1) http://sia.tech/
2) https://forum.sia.tech/
3) Good news! https://cointelegraph.com/news/sia-integrat...ralized-backend
4) https://nextcloud.com/blog/introducing-clou...-and-nextcloud/
5) MLG capital review : https://capital.mlgblockchain.com/sia-tech-profile.html
6) Host profit maximization thread : http://forum.sia.tech/topic/1037/host-prof...mization-thread

Ripple (XRP)

1) https://ripple.com/
2) https://www.xrpchat.com/
3) Good read on ripple (and bitcoin and ETH) : https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/internationa...nna?published=t
4) https://www.forbes.com/sites/madhvimavadiya...e/#6a35c05a79f1
5) http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/2017...ons-Join-Ripple
6) https://ripple.com/insights/q1-2017-xrp-markets-report/
7) https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/ripple-targ...market-bitcoin/
8) https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/ripple-unve...alized-bitcoin/
9) http://bitsonline.com/ripple-india-bank-retail-payments/
10) http://www.newsbtc.com/2017/05/13/ripple-c...ledger-upgrade/
11) https://ripple.com/insights/ripple-to-place...tal-xrp-supply/
12) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ripple...4b0b28a33f62915
13) Kraken - XRP can convert directly to fiat (USD, CAD, EUR, JPY) : http://blog.kraken.com/post/160806705967/k...-for-ripple-xrp
14) Bitfinex XRP/USD XRP/BTC trading : https://www.bitfinex.com/posts/204
15) Valuation model for XRP : https://www.xrpchat.com/topic/5280-valuatio...le-the-company/
16) Next-generation cross-border payments (presentation) (XRP addressed at 42:10) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzScsRNsoT0
17) http://www.coindesk.com/interoperability-b...ferent-ledgers/

Cryptocurrency's progress

Cryptocurrency market cap:

25/4/2017 - 30 Billion
3/5/2017 - 40 Billion
8/5/2017 - 50 Billion
17/5/2017 - 60 Billion
21/5/2017 - 70 billion
23/5/2017 - 80 billion
25/5/2017 - 90 billion
26/5/2017 - Black Friday - crashed to below 60B market cap
4/6/2017 - 90 billion (Again!)
6/6/2017 - 100 billion

BTC dominance:

16/5/2017 - First time fell below 50%

Malaysia news

http://www.nasdaq.com/article/survey-malay...on-top-cm798146

This post has been edited by kmarc: Jun 7 2017, 07:56 AM

I do hope you already placed your first order for a hardware wallet. Can't go wrong with Trezor and Ledger Nano S.

Don't lend out too much yeah, exchange can always encounter black swans and you could be in deep trouble.

Also, between you and me. The founder himself already drop massive hint on imminent ETH price spike.



Judging from the March 3rd core developer meeting, we know two crucial thing, first thing is Metropolis fork is targeted for end of June.

Second bombshell is this, they are going for hybrid POW/POS implementation first and gradually transition to full POS within a year.

You see that DASH vertical price chart? That's coming for ETH. In 2017 no less.

No matter what's the price of ETH after the ETF, your main goal is to stack more and HODL all the way.

The list of supporting fundamentals are simply too solid to ignore.

Important advices and tips for cryptocurrencies

1) Cryptocurrencies are VERY HIGH RISK investments
- You can get 1000% in a short time but you can also lose 1000% very fast
- Only investment the amount you are willing to lose
- If you cannot stand losing 20%, 30% or even 100%, cryptocurrencies is not for you. Do look at other investment instruments
- For safe investors, it is advisable to only allocate 10% of your total investments to high-risk instruments like cryptocurrencies

2) Decision to buy or sell is yours and yours alone
- Do not blame others for your actions
- There will be a lot of rumours and chatter floating around so you have to decide yourself and take whatever action you think is necessary

3) Study and do research
- It is important to know what you are getting into
- Read on the coins you are interested in and judge for yourself whether you want to invest in it
- There are links above on cryptocurrency news. You can also google for more information.

4) Have a proper strategy and do not trade with emotions
- It is imperative that you have a proper strategy. DO NOT buy cryptocurrencies blindly
- Your strategy can change as you go along but it is important to stick to it
- Do not trade with emotions.
- Have a cut-off level where you might want to sell off your coins if it is making huge losses. However, for good coins, they will usually recover after a drop.
- Don't fall in love with a coin and hold it even if there are bad news on the coin

5) Don't keep too much money on exchanges
- There are many instances where exchanges were hacked and investors' money were lost
- Only keep the amount you want to trade on exchanges. Transfer out the rest, preferably to a hardware wallet.

6) Ensure you really secure your hardware wallet by activating passphrase.
- Remember that the 24-word recovery seed is the most important thing. If somebody stole it, they can just use a hardware wallet together with the recovery seed to gain access to your coins EVEN IF your hardware wallet is in a bank vault!
- Besides physically hiding the recovery seed all over the place, another easier method is to activate passphrase for your wallet
- With passphrase, even if somebody stole your 24-word recovery seed, they won't know or can't see the hidden wallet
- Refer the scenario below

Hardware wallet	24-word recovery seed	Passphrase	Remarks
Lost/Stolen	Safe	Not set	Coins are safe, just buy new device and recover
Lost/Stolen	Lost/stolen	Not set	Say bye-bye to your coins!
Safe	Lost/Stolen	Not set	Say bye-bye to your coins if seed stolen!
Safe	Lost/Stolen	Activated	Coins are safe, take steps for new seed
Lost/Stolen	Lost/Stolen	Activated	Say bye-bye to your coins!

Ledger passphrase guide : http://support.ledgerwallet.com/knowledge_...sphrase-options
Trezor passphrase guide : https://doc.satoshilabs.com/trezor-user/adv...d_settings.html

7) Make your hardware wallet 24-word recovery seed is inaccessible
- Remember that the 24-word recovery seed is the most important piece in your whole hardware wallet setup
- Below are a few tips:
----- a) Keep the recovery seed in a safe place e.g. safe deposit box
----- b) Instead of just writing down the 24-word in sequence, you can rearrange them so that they are out of sequence. Of course, if you do that, you have to remember the rearrangements! Example would be like switching word 1 and word 2.
----- c) Divide the 24-word in different sections and hide it at different places
- Those are just some examples. How you make the 24-word recovery inaccessible is entirely up to your creative imagination. Just make sure you remember how to unscramble your genius creativity!!!

This post has been edited by kmarc: May 21 2017, 08:34 AM

Why you should consider getting some good altcoins

I want to discuss on the multiplier effect of bitcoin and why you should also get some good altcoins.

Before that, here are some advertisements..... I mean disclaimers. I am only 3+ months in cryptocurrency and I have no TA or FA skills. However, I have super NA skills. If you don't know the meaning, in stocks, TA is technical analysis where you analyze charts to make smart trades. FA is fundamental analysis. NA is .... noob analysis. I am not in the financial sector and am not a pro-trader. Just a normal guy and the following is only my opinion. You should do your own research and buy the coins which you think is good. Lose money don't blame me!

In terms of investing in cryptocurrencies, these are the coins you must consider:
1) Bitcoin - this is a no brainer. From the trends, it looks like it will go up more, until bad news comes along
2) ETH - world wide web 3.0. It has great potential and will probably go to great heights too

Now here comes the interesting thing. Besides investing in just bitcoin and ETH, you should consider putting a percentage of coins in other good altcoins that is paired to BTC. Pairing to BTC means that the coin doesn't have a fiat value by itself. It's value is paired against BTC and is expressed in a ratio. For example, if ETH/BTC is 0.1, it means that ETH has a value of 0.1 compared to BTC (i.e. 10% of BTC's value). Again, I'm may be seen as bias as most of my funds are in altcoins. I only have 0.5BTC in my hardware wallet.

Anyway, the reason I recommended good altcoins is as follows:

1) Diversify you investment. I guess this applies to any investments in general
2) Some altcoins can go ballistics with thousands of percentage gains!
3) Most altcoins are paired to BTC, resulting in rise of BTC actually multiplying the effect of the rise in altcoins. This is what I want to concentrate on.

Say bitcoin is at USD 1000 and an altcoin is altcoin/BTC 0.010 (face value of USD 10). Now, say BTC rises 10% to 1100 and altcoin/BTC doesn't change at 0.010 (zero % increase). Because the altcoin is paired to BTC, the value of altcoin has also increased! Now it is USD 11! Now in the same scenario, if the altcoin ratio increased 10% (i.e. 0.011) and BTC increases 10%, the actual value is multiplied by BTC's increased i.e. 0.011 x USD 1100 = USD 12.1. (1.1 x 1.1 = 1.21)

Here's a clearer picture:

BTC same, altcoin 0.010 = altcoin value USD 10 (1.0 x 1.0 = 1.0)
BTC increase 10%, altcoin 0.010 = altcoin value USD 11 (1.1 x 1.0 = 1.1)
BTC increase 10%, altcoin increase 10% = altcoin value 12.1 (1.1 x 1.1=1.21)

As you can see, if both BTC and altcoins rises, the gain from holding altcoins is much greater than holding BTC alone! Even if BTC rises and the altcoin drops, the value might not change much depend on how much the rise is against the drop.

Another real-life example is my own holdings, say CLAMS. I first bought clams at 74000 sats on 13/3/2017. At that time BTC was around around USD 1200. Now clams is about 220000 sats. In terms of gains, my clams would have gained roughly 297%. However, note that BTC is now roughly USD 2500. So:

Initial buy, say 100 coins clams: 100 x 0.00074 x USD 1200 = USD 88.8
Profits if BTC is USD 1200 now: 100 x 0.00220 x USD 1200 = USD 264 (297% gain)

Now here comes the great thing, BTC has gain 208%! (USD 2500/1200 x 100%)
So, my 100 clams is worth : 100 x 0.00220 x USD 2500 = USD 550 (619% gain!)(2.97 x 2.08 = 6.19)

So if were to hold only BTC, I would have gain a good 208%. Not bad. However, because I hold clams that is paired with BTC, my gains is actually 619% instead of just 208% for BTC or 297% for unpaired clams!!!

Of course, the above only holds true if the trend of the past 3 months continues. Meaning:
1) BTC is still slowly rising
2) BTC sudden rise leads to a sea of discounted coins to pickup!
3) Once BTC stabilize, altcoins recovers or even gain much more.
4) In most instances, altcoins gains outnumber altcoin loss in terms of percentage and number of coins (i.e. more green coins most of the time and higher percentage gains rather than loss (e.g. 50% gain but only 30% loss)

Do note that this multiplier works both ways, meaning if BTC were to drop together with altcoins, BTC will multiply the effect of altcoins drop.

I'm not exactly sure what would happen if there were sudden bad BTC news as I have not gone through a "Mt Gox" scenario.Due to this noob observation, I am of the opinion that to get greater gains, one should consider some good altcoins. For newcomers, be patient and wait for good discounts.

Again, this is just my observation and I do not know what will happen in the future. Invest safely and hope everybody makes money from cryptocurrencies!



This post has been edited by kmarc: May 27 2017, 10:18 PM

It does support ETH.

https://blog.trezor.io/trezor-integration-w...2e08#.p5gdc0jiq

Already ordered Trezor on Day 1 of my cryptocurrency journey. Backorder and they haven't sent mine yet!

I bought it because of bitcoins without knowing about altcoins. Checking back, Trezor only support these coins : Bitcoin, Litecoin, Namecoin, Dogecoin, Dash and Testnet. No ethereum support. Anyway, happy that it supports Dash. Maybe I should just buy all the coins that Trezor supports.

Ok, at least I now know POW/POS means proof-of-work and proof-of-stake although I don't know what they actually mean. Google later......

I'm convinced! Have been loading up on ETH slowly while awaiting SEC decision. Frankly speaking, I actually hope that the first ETF would not be approved, leading to a fall in bitcoin/altcoins prices so that I can buy in more. As in my original intent, I was aiming for the 2nd ETF. Man, this wait for SEC decision is torturing!!!! The only thing I can't figure out is why would SEC wait until the last minute to reject it? Makes no sense.......

Thx!

Bookmarked and awaiting my Trezor!!!

This post has been edited by kmarc: May 27 2017, 10:08 PM

Been really busy with work these days, so I don't really have much time for research and forums, unfortunately.
Would be great if everyone could help out, and I can edit the 1st post as you suggested.
What kind of updated information are you thinking of?

Just logged in to Poloniex several minutes ago and saw a huge drop in my ETH, and I was like WTF?! and then realised that I was looking at the BTC/ETH price, and the price drop was because BTC had just recently had a tremendous spike.
Phew......!

What would you recommend as a decent, secure online wallet for ETH, assuming that I do not want to buy a hardware wallet at the moment?
Mine does not support ETH.

Sure, I think I will create a simple guide on cryptocurrencies. The problem with me is that when I start doing guides, it will get longer and longer and longer (see my old guides). Will get started ...... one day....

Yeah, I was there to witness the dramatic increased in BTC price. Something like USD 150 in mere minutes. I guess if EFT is not approved, it will go the other way as fast too!

The other good thing is ETH and DASH could hold their ground during BTC spike. The rest of altcoins dropped like crazy......

Anyway, I unloaded about 15% of my BTC, converted to tether USD in poloniex. This is in anticipation of a no go on the ETF...... cannot tahan already.. need to go to sleep....

This post has been edited by kmarc: Mar 11 2017, 01:14 AM

You can create a paper wallet with MEW

Or create a multisig wallet contract with the Ethereum wallet

But must make sure your PC got no keylogger and spyware.

You need to safeguard both wallet passwords and the keystore file itself.

I guess the difficulties of storing these coins without a proper hardware wallet would deter some from venturing into crytocurrencies. Maybe more adoption when the tech matures more and there are more hardware wallets that supports multi currencies.

And so it has come to pass, BTC ETF was not approved by SEC. And ETH doing well!!!!

From my reading, target price for BTC now predicted to drop to around USD 850 - 900. I probably will start accumulating again when it falls below 1k.

It's going to be interesting to see how ENS perform on pi day.

There are over 1.1 billion websites today, assuming they only bid 1 ETH each, it won't be enough to even cover 10% at current supply.

This could be 100 times the size of DAO in a single smart contract.

Stay tuned.

Edit: ETH/BTC is up 16%, ETH/USD is up 8%

If this carries on towards raiden we'll have officially flipped for good.

This post has been edited by WooTz: Mar 11 2017, 08:18 AM

Yeah, exciting times although I don't understand the ENS either! Just hope to buy ETH and see it go to the moon.

BTC is not dropping as much as I expected. Will see how it goes today, maybe dump my USDT into ETH while waiting for BTC to drop more.

Now my main concern is security. I searched around and coinbase BTC & ETH wallet seems promising. Do you have any experience with this wallet?

Seriously, I need to get more DASH on Poloniex. The lending rate is currently 0.1378% every 2 days!!!! Correction. The rate is quoted for a 24-hour period! Ooohhh, I'm so excited!!!!!

This post has been edited by kmarc: Mar 11 2017, 01:43 PM

ENS basically let you share your

0xC834bF2d475a25.....dg4w contract/wallet addresses

by letting you bid on something like "WooTz.eth" instead

The ETH gets locked into the smart contract until a new challenger appears, which you'll need to defend with a higher bid.

I only use Coinbase wallet to buy/sell, hardware wallet all the way.

This post has been edited by WooTz: Mar 11 2017, 01:45 PM

I see. Interesting.

Yeah I know. My hardware wallet not here yet!!!!

I just sat through a DASH dash! Didn't managed to get more DASH before it shot up but loaded a bit more of ETH.

As I have mentioned earlier, man-made craziness. The drops and spikes are more exciting (or scary) than the stock market!

As I mentioned before, in the weeks leading up to the SEC decision, the BTC prices have been greatly volatile, and as the vast majority of the community had already expected a rejection from SEC for the ETF, the prices of BTC had already factored that in......which means that it is unlikely that the prices will drop so drastically to USD 850 - 900.

I had to consciously stop myself from jumping on the bandwagon and buying Dash......I envy the people making quick bucks due to the crazy hikes recently, but I just could not see the real reason behind the hikes, and had no confidence in the sustainability.
As I am more of the paranoid type of investor, I think I will just stick to BTC and ETH.
I wouldn't be able to handle the heart attacks.

may i know u guys use which exchange? is poloniex legit and safe? please recommend me a good one

Dash has gone completely bananas.

And I'm thinking ETH will be next to moon.

Maybe. Who knows. Until smart-contract for Bitcoin RSK come in play http://www.rsk.co then I'll decide to buy ETH or not.