Buy ethereum uk

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  • Theta101
    Theta101 Posts: 140 Forumite
    You could buy the Bitcoin and/or the Ethereum tracker funds in an ISA or SIPP.

    XBT Provider AB Bitcoin Tracker One (BIT-XBT)
    XBT Provider AB Ethereum Tracker One (ETH.XBT)

    I trade them via Hargreaves Lansdown.
  • Hey guys, this is an old but very interesting thread. I too have waited, probably too long to jump on the crypto bandwagon. So much uncertainty and differing opinions. That being said, fortunes are being made as we speak on the many different altcoins out there. Some total bs, some with serious potential. Would love to bump this thread again and see some fresh perspective. Any takers?
  • Right or wrong, Bitcoin, Etherium and a whole host of other coins are here to stay with many more always being developed. Up down, left, right. It's a very volatile and unsteady market and proposition for anyone to even thinking about putting money into. I'm very late to the table but kick myself every other day at the opportunities I have missed, but saying Bitcoin, or any other coin has no Intrinsic value is at best ignorant and at worst just plain dumb. What do you actually mean with GBP/USD having an Intrinsic value? That's an actual laugh...at the expense of the taxpayer.

    Reading through some of the objections towards Bitcoin etc is fine but when people talk about zero intrinsic value and in the same breath talk about GBP or Dollar or whatever currency is a bit crazy. As any person with half a brain knows, fiat currency is as big a scam as the world today has ever seen. Controlled by governments, backed by nothing, meaningless paper. I really believe that there is a change happening and we are right in the middle of it.

    It's fine to stand on the sidelines and hope you were right if it all goes to pot in a few years or you can actually back it and what it stands for. A break from the mold and a much much needed change to the system!
  • fwor
    fwor Posts: 6,806
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    hoganeye wrote: »
    Would love to bump this thread again and see some fresh perspective. Any takers?

    There's not really anything new to be said - a few weeks have elapsed since the last post and as far as I can see nothing material has changed in that time.

    I doubt that fortunes are being made "as we speak" because with the current state of the crypto coin markets there are no big gains being made that I can see. But anyway, once a coin has got through the launch phase it's (less than) a zero sum game, so if fortunes are being made then presumably fortunes are also being lost.

    I suspect that if you leave aside the people with vested interests that want to bump these threads in the hope of generating interest (and thus increasing prices for the coins that they hold), pretty much everyone agrees that cryptocurrency is not really a subject that's relevant to a Savings and Investments board.
  • Aegis
    Aegis Posts: 5,688
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    hoganeye wrote: »
    Right or wrong, Bitcoin, Etherium and a whole host of other coins are here to stay with many more always being developed. Up down, left, right. It's a very volatile and unsteady market and proposition for anyone to even thinking about putting money into. I'm very late to the table but kick myself every other day at the opportunities I have missed, but saying Bitcoin, or any other coin has no Intrinsic value is at best ignorant and at worst just plain dumb. What do you actually mean with GBP/USD having an Intrinsic value? That's an actual laugh...at the expense of the taxpayer.

    Reading through some of the objections towards Bitcoin etc is fine but when people talk about zero intrinsic value and in the same breath talk about GBP or Dollar or whatever currency is a bit crazy. As any person with half a brain knows, fiat currency is as big a scam as the world today has ever seen. Controlled by governments, backed by nothing, meaningless paper. I really believe that there is a change happening and we are right in the middle of it.

    It's fine to stand on the sidelines and hope you were right if it all goes to pot in a few years or you can actually back it and what it stands for. A break from the mold and a much much needed change to the system!

    The "intrinsic" value of £1 is the ability to settle £1 worth of debts to the government, and the knowledge that the value of those debts won't change in GBP terms. For example, if your council tax bill is £1,400 for the year and you elect to split this into 12 payments, you know that each monthly instalment will be £116.67. As most people's earnings and debts will be in the same currency, the certainty of notional debt value is very useful indeed. Given this, if you have £1,400 earmarked for council tax at the start of the year, you know that you will have settled your council tax bill at the end of the 12 month period.

    In addition to that, GBP is inextricably linked to the economy of the UK as a whole, therefore is subject to protection and control by government and the central bank. This allows them to monitor price inflation and try to stabilise the currency using interest rates and supply expansion or contraction. Not a scam, just a currency being used properly.

    Cryptos really don't have any of the advantages of a fiat currency or an asset-backed currency. They're an interesting demonstration of technology, but I predict the future of them will be much smaller then the die-hard advocates would like (e.g. cryptos are never going to fully replace all current currencies with decentralised ones).
    I am a Chartered Financial Planner
    Anything I say on the forum is for discussion purposes only and should not be construed as personal financial advice. It is vitally important to do your own research before acting on information gathered from any users on this forum.
  • grey_gym_sock
    grey_gym_sock Posts: 4,508 Forumite
    fwor wrote: »
    I doubt that fortunes are being made "as we speak" because with the current state of the crypto coin markets there are no big gains being made that I can see.

    well, i'm making money form cryptocurrencies!

    i haven't bought any of the coins, of course :)

    but i hold some shares in IG group, who reported record revenue in the quarter to 28 february:

    "Client trading in cryptocurrencies accounted for 11% of revenue in the period (Q3 FY17: 1%), however, cryptocurrency trading by clients has slowed markedly since the end of January."

    (for more detail: https://www.investegate.co.uk/ig-group-hldgs-plc--igg-/rns/third-quarter-revenue-update/201803220700055172I/ )

    this reminds me of the idea that the best way to make money from a gold rush wasn't to be 1 of the large number of people looking for gold, but to supply equipment etc to that large number of people.

    in some ways, cryptocurrencies are very like gold:

    as investments, i don't think much of either.

    some of their proponents think they would be better currencies than the "fiat" currencies we now use. and/or that they definitely will replace "fiat". in fact, they'd both be vastly worse currencies than "fiat". and fortunately, that's very unlikely to happen.

    OTOH, cryptocurrencies do involve some interesting technology. unlike gold.
  • JohnRo
    JohnRo Posts: 2,887
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    The problem crypto is trying to solve isn't 'money', it's ultimately about tackling the cesspit of omnipotent privileged crooks committing the world's greatest fraud.
    It may well not succeed in such a world, controlled and run by privilege, corruption and greed but it's not going away either, no matter how much cursing and condemnation the flat earthers throw at it.
    'We don't need to be smarter than the rest; we need to be more disciplined than the rest.' - WB
  • grey_gym_sock
    grey_gym_sock Posts: 4,508 Forumite
    JohnRo wrote: »
    The problem crypto is trying to solve isn't 'money', it's ultimately about tackling the cesspit of omnipotent privileged crooks committing the world's greatest fraud.
    It may well not succeed in such a world, controlled and run by privilege, corruption and greed but it's not going away either, no matter how much cursing and condemnation the flat earthers throw at it.

    if the problems are various kinds of corruption in banks, and the effective impunity of their top management from criminal penalties, and banks lending for speculation instead of for productive investment, then cryptocurrencies are just not relevant to that. yes, i expect there will be uses for the crypto which we don't know about yet, but it's just solving the wrong problem. banks are OK at maintaining central ledgers of transactions - their failings lie elsewhere.

    also, even if the aim isn't to "solve" money, if the means by which cryptocurrencies might solve problems with banking would involve most people switching from using fiat to using cryptocurrencies, then it does matter that the cryptos would be disastrously bad as currencies. and it's not going to happen, because
    1) (e.g.) sterling is the most sensible currency for people/organizations in the UK, who will have to pay their taxes in sterling, to use; and
    2) there is a huge advantage in everybody in each country using the same currency as one another.

    OTOH, if cryptocurrencies can solve problems with banking while only being adopted in niche areas, without displacing most use of fiat, then it doesn't matter that they're not well designed as money.

    i really don't know what your reference to "flat earthers" is about. cryptocurrencies are not an obvious advance on fiat currencies. they have some niche uses, and more may be found. they're not a replacement for fiat, which is the best form of general-purpose currency known.
  • thenewcomer
    thenewcomer Posts: 140
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    here is me hoping that its value will continue to go down. i will enter the market at its lowest lol
    Aim to retire by 45.
  • Aegis
    Aegis Posts: 5,688
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    edited 9 April 2018 at 8:21AM
    here is me hoping that its value will continue to go down. i will enter the market at its lowest lol
    Your problem is going to be identifying when the lowest point is. In investment terms, this is often referred to as trying to "catch a falling knife" because of the very high likelihood of pain if (or when) you get it wrong.

    In the example of cryptocurrency, look at bitcoin. In December it was trading at $20k per coin, whereas lately it's been sub $7k most times I've checked. How do you work out whether it's at the lowest point for the next few years or just temporarily stable before plummeting to, say, $60 per coin?

    The trouble is that there's just no value peg of any sort with cryptocurrency, so there's no way to sensibly value either a coin or the currency as a whole.
    I am a Chartered Financial Planner
    Anything I say on the forum is for discussion purposes only and should not be construed as personal financial advice. It is vitally important to do your own research before acting on information gathered from any users on this forum.
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