Important advices and tips for cryptocurrencies

1) ALWAYS activate the 2FA security feature (2 factor authentication)
- most exchanges provide 2FA security feature
- it is very important to use 2FA. Hackers can easily gain access to your username and password but if you have 2FA enable, it makes it virtually impossible to hack your account unless they get hold of the 2FA code.

2) 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. Please do not gamble with your life-savings by putting everything into cryptocurrencies. Yes, you might be filthy rich but you might also become bankrupt!
- 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

3) 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

4) 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.

5) 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

6) 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.

7) Ensure you know how cryptocurrency wallet works
- Refer post #10 on "Cryptocurrency wallet FAQs"

8) Cryptocurrency trading runs 24/7, you're body does not!!!
- Do have enough sleep. Cryptos will still be there when you wake up.



This post has been edited by kmarc: Jul 23 2017, 09:26 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: Jun 10 2017, 08:56 AM

Cryptocurrency market capitalization

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

Cryptocurrency's progress

Cryptocurrency market cap:

Date	Market cap	Remarks
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	60 billion	Black Friday - crashed to below 60B
4/6/2017	90 billion	Again!
6/6/2017	100 billion
11/6/2017	110 billion
8/8/2017	120 billion	Deep crash but finally reached 120B after BTC/BCC hardfork
12/8/2017	130 billion
17/8/2017	140 billion
23/8/2017	150 billion
29/8/2017	160 billion
31/8/2017	170 billion
4/9/2017	130+ billion	Black Monday -China outlaw ICO
15/9/2017	97 billion	China outlaw exchanges & ICOs
15/11/2017	210 billion	Double market cap over 2 months mainly due to BTC and BCC
19/11/2017	230 billion	20 billion in 4 days!
23/11/2017	250 billion	20 billion in 4 days!
27/11/2017	300 billion	50 billion in 4 days!
29/11/2017		$10,000 per BTC!
7/12/2017	400 billion	100 billion in 10 days!
13/12/2017	500 billion	100 billion in 6 days!
18/12/2017	600 billion	100 billion in 5 days but crashed after that
3/1/2018	700 billion	Happy new year!!!!

Cryptocurrency market cap graph : https://coinmarketcap.com/charts/

BTC dominance and journey:

16/5/2017 - First time fell below 50%
1/2/2018 - All time low of 36.0%

Note : Bitcoin dominance used to be an important benchmark before the rise of altcoins. Since then, dominance is not important anymore.

Bitcoin's journey to $10,000 per BTC : http://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizin...-10000-bitcoin/

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
11) Bitcoin magazine

Beware of hackers

1) 153k ETH stolen (USD 34 million) - http://www.pcgamer.com/hackers-steal-34-mi...theft-his-week/
2) 40k ETH stolen (USD 10 million) - http://www.coindesk.com/coindash-ico-hacke...ops-10-million/

This post has been edited by kmarc: Jan 4 2018, 07:46 AM

Malaysian law & cryptocurrencies

Malaysia's government stand on cryptocurrencies is still very vague. There's no law regarding this and investors are unsure what type of tax is involved.

The only available "vague" stand is the statement issued by BNM in 2014 : http://www.bnm.gov.my/index.php?ch=en_anno...t&ac=49&lang=en

Other relevant news:
1) Bitcoin magazine - Malaysians warm up to cryptocurrencies : https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/survey...coin-still-top/

2) Bitcoin magazine - Infographic: The Rise of Cryptocurrencies in Malaysia : https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/infogr...ncies-malaysia/

19 Sept 2017
BNM to issue rules on cryptocurrencies by year end : http://www.thestar.com.my/business/busines...X8xfE5jlpmH6.99



This post has been edited by kmarc: Sep 19 2017, 07:50 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.
- Important : From here, you need to click on the coin you want to loan out. Once you select the coin, you can then set your rate and amount.

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!!!!

This post has been edited by kmarc: Jun 10 2017, 09:23 AM

Cryptocurrency glossary

In progress......

Here's a list of basic terms that you should know when you jump into cryptocurrencies. At the bottom, there are references you can check if you need more info. Alternatively, google is your friend you shouldn't forget.

Altcoin - Alternative coins which means other cryptocurrencies besides bitcoin.

FOMO - Fear Of Missing Out

FUD - Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt

HODL - Hold on for dear life

ATH - All time high (refers to cryptos reaching new highs)

Moon

Shilling

Whale


References:
http://bitcoinafrica.io/2017/05/10/cryptoc...-trading-terms/
https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@spaghet...al-currency-101
http://blog.julioruiz.net/100terms-to-unde...cryptocurrency/
https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@snapat/jargoni...urrency-related
https://www.coinpursuit.com/definitions/

Important or potential coins

Note : These are my opinion only. Unfortunately, most of these coins have gone up a lot so if you're still interested in the coins, you have to really do your research and think seriously before deciding.


Ethereum

Refer to WooTz's guide on ethereum, post #11. He's the expert in ETH and you can ask him if you have any questions.


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
7) https://www.inc.com/brian-d-evans/blockchai...and-amazon.html
8) An investment of at least 1-2 years : http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/sia-takes-cloud-g...storage-1625126
9) Sia announces Obelisk ASIC miner : https://www.reddit.com/r/siacoin/comments/6...s_full_details/
10) Sia encrypts and stores files for a fraction of the cost of AWS S3 : https://f-a.nz/gist/sia-encrypts-and-stores...cost-of-AWS-S3/
11) Sia receives 400k grant : https://sia.tech/2017grant/
12) Sia could disrupt cloud market : http://wireless.sys-con.com/node/4127259

Siacoin database regular update : https://consensus.siahub.info/

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/
18) Insane comprehensive write-up on Ripple : https://files.acrobat.com/a/preview/746e9c4...f0-9237f2cceb13
19) Ripple leaping into China : http://www.cryptoquicknews.com/ripple-xrp-leaping-china/
20) Ripple teams up with American express!
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/16/american-ex...n-platform.html
http://fortune.com/2017/11/16/amex-payment...ple-blockchain/
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/2017...siness-Payments

Good references

Blockchain for dummies (IBM Limited edition) : https://public.dhe.ibm.com/common/ssi/ecm/x...IM12354USEN.PDF

This post has been edited by kmarc: Nov 16 2017, 10:28 PM

Cryptocurrencies - Is it a big bubble ready to burst?

I have always wondered why bitcoin or any altcoin should have a rising value. Why can't bitcoin be just USD 10 or 20 or 100? Why does it need to increase in price where some even predict USD 100k a coin!!??!! The most famous true story is the guy who bought a pizza with 10,000 bitcoins. Now one bitcoin is worth around USD 2.8k and soon, you'll probably use one bitcoin to buy 10,000 pizza.

I guess the same can be said about gold, diamonds or any asset deemed valuable. To me, it is human nature to put a value on something which increases in price when demand outweighs supply.

Whatever the case may be, it is possible that we're in the biggest bullrun in the history of mankind or we're in the biggest bubble of the century. I sincerely hope that we're in the former scenario and have not reach the latter.... yet. As with any bullruns, there will come a time when a major correction occurs and everything crashes. Ride the bull but be prepared to bail out.

Some even go to the extend of saying that cryptocurrencies are all a scam. Only time will tell.

I like this picture, the possibility of cryptocurrency bubble, which reminds me to be cautious in this new crazy cryptoland where anything is possible:


Source : Techcrunch.com

In terms of cryptocurrency valuation, the same article addresses the question well : https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/07/what-the-...ncy-valuations/

Here's another good article showing the relationship between bitcoin/cryptocurrencies and our world's money : http://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-big-i...tive-2017-06-21



The picture shows you that the amount of money in cryptocurrencies is still relatively small. If it were to pop, crash and burn now, it will probably be the smallest bubble to burst!


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

Cryptocurrencies – Is it a Ponzi scheme?

Contributed by our forumer Enigmatic.

I had been spending the last couple of days breaking down Ponzi schemes by attributes, translating it to a mathematical model, in hopes of finding provable similarities with cryptocurrencies. After all, it looks like cryptocurrencies are fueled on the necessity of new purchases for price increases, hence the association of it in likeness with Ponzi schemes.

First of all, definition just for entirety’s sake: an “investment” generating returns for (older) investors using the revenue intake from new investors. Apart from fresh intake of funds from new investors, the “investment” may or may not have a business activity for revenue stream. Usually comes with an abnormally high promised return paid in a controlled manner over an agreed time period.

From this, we could make a very simple model of a Ponzi scheme as such, optimistically assuming there is a business activity providing a revenue stream to maintain the scheme for as long as possible:

Intake of new funds = Fr
Payout of funds = Fp
Time starting from 0 (t >= 0), so at any point of time we’d expect both intake and payout
Business revenue = Fb
Total liquidity = CL, where CL = Fr + Fb

From here we could already very quickly deduce if t(Fb) > t(Fp), then the business is making a profit hence sustainable and legitimate. If payouts from CL results in a negative t(CL - Fp) < 0, where Fb < Fp then this fully is a Ponzi scheme relying on new fund intake to survive.

From this model, if we could fit in the attributes of cryptocurrencies exchange-of-hands we could determine at what stage it would be a Ponzi scheme. However:

1. Intake of new funds. When new funds of a Ponzi scheme is being taken in, this adds to a pool of liquidity such that CL = Fr + Fb. On the other hand buy orders does not add to any pool and instead provides a difference which indicates the increase (or decrease) between previous price and new price.
2. Payout of funds. When a payout of a Ponzi scheme is initiated, this deducts on liquidity CL with Fp. Again, the same problem arises, sell orders does not add to any pool and this is derived as a difference instead.
3. Time is consistent between both models.
4. No liquidity of the same sense for cryptocurrencies – It’s a market supply-demand curve.

From here we can clearly make the differentiation that – As the attribute CL does not exist in a cryptocurrency market, it is not possible for it to fail the same way as a Ponzi scheme in which t(CL – Fp) < 0. There could be a huge negative difference between the previous and new price, but never to a point where the price is below 0. On the other hand price increases are fueled by speculative worth where the “greater fool theory” applies, so we could look objectively from this perspective to see if this could result in a crash/bubble, and what happens to the “last greatest fool”.

In summary, instead of showing attributes akin to a Ponzi scheme, cryptocurrencies show attributes closer to the stock market/penny stocks, driven by fundamentals (equivalent to investigating the industry, NAV, P/B of a company) and crowd speculations. I may expand more about bubbles and the greater fool theory in relation to the cryptocurrency market on a later date, but not now.

This post has been edited by kmarc: Jun 24 2017, 12:52 PM

Cryptocurrency wallet FAQs

For cryptocurrencies, there are many types of wallet:
1) Desktop wallet
2) Mobile wallet
3) Online wallet
4) Hardware wallet - Trezor, Ledger
5) Paper wallet

In general they all work on the same principle so I will be concentrating mainly on hardware wallet and I will use bitcoin as an example.

FAQs on hardware wallet:

1) It DOESN'T hold any bitcoins

2) It only holds the private key that enables one to manipulate the bitcoins on the blockchain.
- without the private key to the address that holds the bitcoin, there is no way anybody can touch the bitcoins on a particular address

3) You can lose the physical hardware wallet but you won't lose your coins if you have the recovery seed to the private key.
- If the wallet is lost or spoilt, you just have to get another hardware wallet, use the recovery seed to create back the private key, and you're good to go.
- Note : Hardware wallet usually comes with PIN number so it is usually ok even if your lost hardware is found by someone else

4) Recovery seed is the MOST important thing in your whole bitcoin setup.
- Remember that if you lose your hardware wallet, you can still recover your coins if you have the recovery seed
- Remember that what you are recovering is the PRIVATE KEY that enables you to manipulate the coins on a particular address. Your recovery seed is not recovering any coins.
- However, if you lose your hardware wallet and ALSO your recovery seed, you lose everything.


5) If someone got hold of your recovery seed, they can steal your coins from right under your nose even if you kept your hardware wallet in the bank vault!

6) You can use your hardware wallet on the most virus-infected malware-infested computer and you are still safe
- The good thing about hardware wallet is that the private key contained inside the hardware wallet cannot be extracted. No virus, trojan or malware can get access to the private keys.
- This is in contrast to online or desktop wallets as hackers can gain access to the files that store your private keys.

7) Make sure 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!!!

8) 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

This post has been edited by kmarc: Jul 23 2017, 12:04 PM

Yippee! My BTS loan almost finished. Earnings so far is 230 BTS coins. Lent out at 0.73%. At current rates, that's about USD 80-90 past 2 days.

You guys should do some lending but please don't spoil the market. Some people just put a bunch of coins at 0.0001% for weeks, making lending not worth it at all.

BTC loan rate at the moment still not too bad, at 0.13-0.17%.

USD right?

Nice. Really tempting......

Maybe I should just reward myself and upgrade my card while using my 1070 for mining.... no no... wait for vega first......

No urgency. Besides I can't even source the appropriate motherboard and risers locally! I'm quite happy with my auto-cruise coins and lending at the moment. I'm just thinking that mining will make my involvement in cryptos complete.

On other news, ETH at 350!

Yup, Sibu. I usually buy parts online and can built rigs from scratch but since this is going to be 24/7, it's better to source locally. Warranty would be a headache.

Nice but I'm still not comfortable with cloud mining. Maybe when I'm out of ideas next time....

Nope but they can order if I wanted it

Some but not much. It depends on the lending rate and how much you lend out. A lot of coins are stuck at 0.0001% because some whale got nothing to do and put thousands to millions of coins at that rate.

I just checked my BTS lending history. Made 380 coins so far. Most of the time very few coins but past 2 days already 200+ coins. Depends on rate and demand.

Nice video and informative! That's what I need.

Goldfries, you should open a mining thread in hardware section!!!

If your purpose was to reduce the euphoria or discourage mining, you were successful! I think I will hold on my plans for mining and become loan-shark first.

This post has been edited by kmarc: Jun 12 2017, 06:41 PM

Damn, this is the second time ETH made a run and causes altcoins to drop. Even BTC dropped. I'm not used to this new scenario and there goes my strategy of deep sea fishing when BTC makes a run.

Hmmmm... another correction in progress?

Really missed trollbox.....

Wow! Even though I think ETH will rise further, I have never dumped so much into one coin at one shot! Especially at such prices. Do be careful and hope you profit from it.

Good morning guys!

Today cannot be ..... can only be ..... but still

Not a good day for cryptos. Market cap dropped slightly below USD 110 B due to correction. I noticed correction seems to happen when BTC or ETH reaches a certain price. Notice correction when ETH went past USD 100, 200 and 400. This time a double whammy with BTC reaching 3000 and ETH going past 400.

My ETF cryptofolio on Polo dropped about 20% in value (due to multiplier effect of BTC drop) but looks like coins are recovering. As usual, my strategy is HODL and not be affected by these "minor" corrections unless there are really bad news. And getting loan shark rates for BTS again.

Here's an insane comprehensive review on XRP, I still believe it will go higher but it is my opinion only : https://files.acrobat.com/a/preview/746e9c4...f0-9237f2cceb13

This post has been edited by kmarc: Jun 13 2017, 06:37 AM

I don't dare do anything at the moment as I feel insecure in these uncertain times. Mainly because ETH shot up so much. Also my BTC all locked up in lending.

BCN huh? Hmmmm.... I have been eyeing BCN and burst for quite some time. Has dropped quite a bit. Will read up on them again but I better start counting my ETF coins.... probably reaching 50 types of coins.....

Oh ya, I'm the crazy ETF Hodler so please don't follow me..... One day I will post up all my coins collection!

This post has been edited by kmarc: Jun 13 2017, 06:55 AM

My feeling is ETH will overtake BTC in market cap soon.

I'm still not comfortable with such ICO. The bancor ICO was insane. So much money pumped in for a yet to be proven business model. Incredible!

I think a lot of recent ETH multimillionaires are diversifying their holdings. That's why so much actually went to bancor and probably other new ICOs.

I bought DBG at 65 sats. Sold off 10% a couple of times when the gain was more than 1000+% but still have about 1000+% of initial capital.

Was looking at burst and bcn then noticed BTC lending rate at 0.45%. Straight away loaned out whatever BTC left. So no trading today, continuing my loan shark activities.


Either seller unwilling to sell or they would be making a lost if they sold lower. Some probably waiting for BTC prices to go up.

As above. That's why I seldom buy BTC now. I feel the premium is too ridiculous. Instead, I'm just selling a bit of my green coins to generate BTC.

This post has been edited by kmarc: Jun 13 2017, 10:32 AM