Crypto Currency ??

MouldyOldDough

I understand what crypto currency is - its a "virtual" currency

But I can't understand how people can make a fortune / loss investing in it

and what is the equivalent in £'s or $'s to "mining" ?

is it "printing your own currency ?

Could someone explain to me in simple terms ?

flaneurs_lobster

You buy a widget for x pounds.

Some time later you sell the widget for y pounds.

If y is greater than x then you've made a profit.

If y is less than x then you've made a loss.

PS: it's not investing.

eskbanker

Money is made or lost essentially by speculating on price movements.

Mining doesn't really have a direct equivalent in fiat currency terms, but is perhaps more analogous to mining for gold.

Albermarle

It is a bit like gold, or any commodity.  The price changes due to supply and demand, sometimes very quickly following a global event, economic issues etc. If you can buy low and sell high, then you make money, and of course the reverse is true.

km1500

crypto is a virtual currency and you can think of each coin as a number that is very difficult to create and takes a lot of computer power

mining is running lots and lots of very very powerful computers using an awful lot of electricity to find the next number and therefore create a 'bitcoin' which has value

ps this is an analogy if you really want to know then Google how bitcoins are created

GeoffTF

Crypto does not have any practical use, except for criminals to make untraceable payments. It is worth what people will pay for it. Lots of people like to gamble on the price.

jimjames

MouldyOldDough said:

But I can't understand how people can make a fortune / loss investing in it

Exactly the same way that people make money on other currencies but they are generally more stable so millions are required to leverage the change of a few percentage. Cypto is far less stable meaning less use as an actual currency but easier to speculate with smaller amounts.

eskbanker

One other thing - crypto tends to be quite an emotive subject for many, and threads on the subject usually polarise pretty quickly, so don't be surprised if some consider the above posts to be unduly negative and symptomatic of 'boomers' who just don't get it, and so on, and the thread descends into the traditional endless tit-for-tat bickering about whether there's any intrinsic value, blah, blah, blah....

flaneurs_lobster

eskbanker said:

One other thing - crypto tends to be quite an emotive subject for many, and threads on the subject usually polarise pretty quickly, so don't be surprised if some consider the above posts to be unduly negative and symptomatic of 'boomers' who just don't get it, and so on, and the thread descends into the traditional endless tit-for-tat bickering about whether there's any intrinsic value, blah, blah, blah....

Oh no it doesn't..........

ColdIron

Albermarle said:

It is a bit like gold

But gold still exists when the electricity goes off

jimexbox

I'm reading 'number go up' about crypto. The funniest chapter is the NFT boom. Incredible folk would actually pay for such nonsense. Each to their own I suppose.