Buy ethereum uk

realdannys

Linton wrote: »

This is just rubbish. A shareholder is a part owner of the company. Are you claiming that Apple for example has no value? Sure it could go bust but then any asset is capable of being lost, going out out of fashion or being outmoded by technology but at least with shares there is a real underlying asset. One cant say that about ethereum or bitcoin. If it, in its current form, doesnt turn into a viable currency it is merely a row of bits of no more value than any other row of bits.

So? There's no point in being a part owner in a company that doesn't exist anymore is there? No Apple isn't going to go bust, but no it isn't going to make you rich investing in it either more - hence it being a longer term low risk investment.

Bitcoin has been a 'viable currency" for years - people do millions of pounds worth of business in it daily. It's a criminals number one choice for a start!

But even if it was just 1's and 0's and had no use what so ever, it still makes your point wrong. Any investment if the asset becomes worthless is worthless. It doesn't matter if it's spoilt wine, a house or a precious metal.

In many case a physical investment could end up putting you in debt and costing you money. A house that ends up failing building regs could be an investment that costs you thousands - all you can lose with a cryptocurrency is the money you transfer into it.

realdannys

fwor wrote: »

Exactly. Imagine being a retailer, quoting prices on your UK website in both Sterling and (say) Bitcoin, while the exchange rate between the two is lurching about all over the place. I can't really see that happening while the crypto-currencies lack any stability.

A good example would be where a retailer sells something paid for in Bitcoin and then 10 minutes later yet another fraud is revealed within Bitcoin's infrastructure and the exchange rate plummets - and suddenly the retailer is out of pocket.

Either the retailer has to become a currency exchange rate speculator, or he has to pay someone to take that risk for him - and that is not likely to be cheap...

Or the retailer just immediately transfer it into the currency they want at purchase. Thus getting the £, $ or whatever amount they require. Which is what Amazon do. You buy things in their original currency amount and pay whatever the Bitcoin eqiv is at that moment in time.

Granted as more places accept it and more users use it - that volatility does level out somewhat. Bitcoin had remained about $400 since 2014 until this last month.

But again, all this stuff has already been answered by big financial websites with far more knowledge than me.

Linton

realdannys wrote: »

There's a very strange suspicion of Cryptocurrencies on here. As if they were just invented yesterday. This is quite old technology now - Asia has invested billions into it. It's the mining side you should be suspicious of (or rather the mining rigs) not the actual currencies.

Crypto currency technology may become important in the future. But by buying bitcoin or ethereum or any of the other perhaps dozens of CCs that may arise in the next few years you arent investing in the technology, you are betting that your particular chosen crypto currency will become predominant.

There are many examples in the say the past 50 years of early implementations of technology and the implementors diappearing pretty quickly once the serious commercial interests get involved.

parking_question_chap

realdannys wrote: »

Haha what?? Thats a guarantee if the bank goes bust, not if you lose your money investing in bad shares!
You've just shown your don't understand what either ISA FSCS is, nor what a Cryptocurrency is - being decentralised there is no need for compensation as there is no main bank holding any asset to go bust.

Yes, I do realise that, it was the point I was making.

I will reword it in a way you might be able to comprehend.

If the company/website you have purchased/stored crypto with ceases trading, or just goes offline not to return, who is going to reimburse you?

Linton

realdannys wrote: »

So? There's no point in being a part owner in a company that doesn't exist anymore is there? No Apple isn't going to go bust, but no it isn't going to make you rich investing in it either more - hence it being a longer term low risk investment.

.......

The benefit of holding shares is that the companies you part own generate profits. You can benefit from the profits either directly by the company paying you dividends or indirectly by the company reinvesting the money to make greater profits in the future. Or in the case of Apple by the company buying its own shares on the market forcing prices up. So yes any company may disappear at some stage in the future but in the meantime you gain real fimancial benefits. That is why shares have a real value - they provide a good chance of future income.

What benefit would I gain from holding bitcoins?

fwor

realdannys wrote: »

There's a very strange suspicion of Cryptocurrencies on here. As if they were just invented yesterday. This is quite old technology now - Asia has invested billions into it. It's the mining side you should be suspicious of (or rather the mining rigs) not the actual currencies.

You need to understand that the technology is almost irrelevant.

The technology is just a tool that anyone could use. I could run my own crypto currency from a computer in my bedroom, but just because it uses the technology, that does not mean it would be worth anything.

It's the trust components that are critical. They need to be completely right, auditable and transparent, and that's where all of the crypto-currencies fail. If there are shadowy figures behind the running of the exchanges, and the verification of mining activities, and if there is no auditing process that can be independently verified then you will not create trust, and it will not be adopted on a wide scale.

You only have to look at the Mt.Gox and other similar incidents to realise that if any of the many processes behind a currency is flawed, the whole currency is undermined. Typically these incidents are process failures (wrong keys used, proper signing procedures not adopted, etc.) and not anything wrong with the technology as such. But that doesn't help - technology flaws are often easy to spot and fix, while procedural issues generally are not. It's where real people get involved that the mistakes and/or fraud happen.

markj113

fwor wrote: »

You need to understand that the technology is almost irrelevant.

The technology is just a tool that anyone could use. I could run my own crypto currency from a computer in my bedroom, but just because it uses the technology, that does not mean it would be worth anything.

It's the trust components that are critical. They need to be completely right, auditable and transparent, and that's where all of the crypto-currencies fail. If there are shadowy figures behind the running of the exchanges, and the verification of mining activities, and if there is no auditing process that can be independently verified then you will not create trust, and it will not be adopted on a wide scale.

You only have to look at the Mt.Gox and other similar incidents to realise that if any of the many processes behind a currency is flawed, the whole currency is undermined. Typically these incidents are process failures (wrong keys used, proper signing procedures not adopted, etc.) and not anything wrong with the technology as such. But that doesn't help - technology flaws are often easy to spot and fix, while procedural issues generally are not. It's where real people get involved that the mistakes and/or fraud happen.

Apply the above criteria to mainstream banks, do they pass the test?

fwor

markj113 wrote: »

Apply the above criteria to mainstream banks, do they pass the test?

Does retail banking in the UK have several centuries of experience of establishing procedures, independent regulatory bodies, government oversight, compensatory schemes, etc.?

Is conventional banking perfect? Of course not - but it has a mass of controls and collective ways of working (in that all UK banks collaborate on security issues) that have been designed specifically at mitigating or compensating for fraud. Do any of the crypto currencies have that?

JohnRo

fwor wrote: »

Does retail banking in the UK have several centuries of experience of establishing procedures, independent regulatory bodies, government oversight, compensatory schemes, etc.?

Nope.

fwor wrote: »

Is conventional banking perfect? Of course not - but it has a mass of controls and collective ways of working (in that all UK banks collaborate on security issues) that have been designed specifically at mitigating or compensating for fraud. Do any of the crypto currencies have that?

They don't need it, they're not a centrally controlled and manipulated fraud on the population of citizens forced to use them.

fwor

If we put aside the value (or otherwise) as an investment and stick with straight utility as a currency, the most damning thing about crypto currencies is that, for the entire time that, for example, Bitcoin has existed, I have never had any reason to think "I wish I had some Bitcoin now".

It simply does not do anything for me that I can't do with any conventional currency.

And the fact that the only big use at the moment for crypto currencies appears to be for illicit/illegal transactions just makes matters worse - because, while that remains true, using it as a currency is likely to attract attention and suspicion.

If it has so little use to me as a means of buying things, why would I even think about buying it as an investment?