crypto currency
 

Just wondering if there are any clubs dealing with buying & selling crypto currency in or near The Villages

Don't know enough about it! Evidently it's not Federally Insured... I felt it may be the biggest pyramid scheme of all time.. Our Fed chair doesn't seem to like it.

I am no expert! I do know this, people are making big money on Bitcoin. If you had put $25,000 into this last March, today you could have over $240,000 in Bitcoin. I have friends who have cashed out and made a boatload of money that has made the IRS happy. Of course fee’s n taxes taken out like anything. I have also enjoyed the ride. Mr Tesla put more then a billion dol in Bitcoin and now many institutions have followed suit. I can’t explain it but it is working thus far. Many in the financial world hate it for sure, while little John Doe is getting big profits. I myself didn’t want anything to do with this stuff until friends bought houses and nice new cars off the profit. Every stock has risk. Crypto is very high risk. Tesla went from $72 a share on 3/18/20 to over $800 a share at present! 1 year. If you snooze you loose! Whenever the sky is falling and the market tumbles, then invest! Buy at big discounts so you can reap big rewards. Being smart is the key. With this current atmosphere some companies involved with electric vehicles, solar energy, and the like are going to prosper, so be ready! Study for yourself! Sometimes the big risk is very profitable, but you can loose it

That's kind of the point of Bitcoin.

There is nothing to insure against. No one but you has control of it. It exists on the blockchain and you are responsible for securing the Keys.

Which is a plus and a minus. Keep your keys secure and you have nothing to worry about. Lose the keys and there is no one to call to restore your bitcoin.

I'm not in TV yet, but soon. I do own some crypto and would also be interested if there ends being a Crypto club or one is formed.

Depends on trading platform
 

FDIC does insure the coinbase platform. Just make sure its US based, some are outside the country. Starting to see Bitcoin atk/kiosks in the Villages. Fidelity has started a crypto division as well as Paypal and others.
Bud

I am interested enough to read this thread. I am also willing to admit I makes no sense to me. The dollar is backed by the full faith and credit of the United States. My view that is not worth what it once was but, it still has more real meaning than cripto currency which is backed by nothing.

Some may think it is more stable than the dollar. Clearly it is not.

Making money on cripto currency. This is not the first time in history this has happened.
It happened with Tulip bulbs. Just like cripto some people did make a lot of money.
It collapsed when people started to wonder about the real value of tulip bulbs. Perhaps, like the game of musical chairs. People were left standing with no seat no matter what they had paid to play. It is not even black market currency. The tax man sees all and demands his cut. Losses? The tax man will eat his percentage, not the whole loss up to
I think the number is $3,000.

Good luck if you decide to play this game. Aside, reality the S&P average as of 3/30/21, for the year is up 56.35%.

When setting up a coinbase account they want bank username and password.....can't do it.

crypto club
 

There was a previous thread about crypto that had some good traction with multiple posts for several days. I have actually printed off the Villages Club application and I intend to start a crypto club. I have never started a club before so we will see how this goes!

Cheers,

Dylan

BITCOIN GOES PUBLIC - IPO Yesterday, April 15th
 

It happened and the CEO of Coinbase (a company which specializes in crytocurrency) immediately became one of the richest men in America. Its IPO netted $13,000,000,000 ($13 Billion) dollars after the initial offering.
The company is now valued at $99,000,000,000 ($99 Billion) dollars.

I don't think they required that when I setup my account a few years ago but they definitely complied with the KYC (Know Your Customer) laws.

My comfort level just isn't there yet. The gal at the bank said it would be secure but......ugh.....can't wrap my head around that info being in cyber space.....just yet.

I opened an account at ALLY bank just for trading crypto via coinbase. I am not comfortable giving my main bank details out as well so ALLY fit the bill.

I also use it as a landing space for my Ebay sales since Ebay wants a bank account too.

It's been a great bank, better than my "main" bank. lol. No cost checking and you actually earn a tiny little bit of interest on any money in the account. You can also use it for trading stocks, etfs, etc.

The online and phone tools are super easy.

My crypto is really doing well, shrug. Seems to have almost doubled so far this year. I've got it in a handful of different coins that I think may do well.

I also bought some doge and siacoins (on Kraken) when they were really low. Both of those are doing really well too!

It's all a house of cards, but selling a bunch of Junk on ebay has turned into a nice pile of change for my next 500hp vehicle :).

gain interest on your crypto
 

If anyone is holding any amount of crypto I would suggest moving it off of Coinbase into Blockfi which is essentially a high interest savings account. I am making almost 5.5% on all my crypto monthly.

Shady stuff. I understand it has made many speculators lots of $$, but it is way too intangible for me to commit my hard earned capital to. I am old school and prefer real tangible assets to invest in.

Not saying this applies to anyone in this thread ...

I have a coinbase (& coinbase pro) account and make ACH transfers from my bank to coinbase. I had to give coinbase my banks routing # and of course my checking account #, but I definitely did NOT have to give them the username and password I use to log in to my bank account.

Insurance at coinbase does NOT cover any coins you have stored at coinbase. The only insurance that you have is for U.S. dollars in your account at coinbase.

Correct
 

You protect the crypto using a hardware (cold storage wallet). Because they are not actually coins.
Bud

LOL! man turns down winning lottery tickets because he can't keep it all. Afraid to make extra money because he has to share. . .

Per this belief, one should only make the minimum amount of money which he doesn't share with anyone else. . .

where do these misguided beliefs about making money come from?

That's a hoot. The full faith and credit of the US ain't what it used to be. Federal Reserve founded in 1913 and its subsequent manipulation of our currency has resulted in a 99% decline in the dollars purchasing power. Roosevelt making gold ownership illegal and Nixon taking the US off the gold standard subsequently contributed.

The fact there's a limited supply of BitCoin, it can't be manipulated by a greedy government and every transaction is transparent for all to see are reasons why many find it so attractive. Those same reasons are why it scares the hell out of politicians, the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve. No more manipulation? My God, how do you expect a government to survive?......

BTW, the S&P is up around 8% +/- YTD.

It is Coinbase who wants my bank online user name and password when setting up an account......anyone else having a feeling about this? Thanks

Coinbase is the world's largest crypto currency exchange. If they were stealing bank accounts, they'd be sued out of business by now.

That said, I am not worried about Coinbase stealing my banking info. I am worried about providing it and someone else stealing my info from Coinbase.

This is why I created an account at ALLY bank. It's online, free and takes very little time. It's a real FDIC insured bank based in UTAH. I put money in there from my main bank account. I gave that information to Coinbase. If it gets compromised, I'm out a few hundred max until the FDIC insurance kicks in. It doesn't interrupt all the regular deposits and bill payments and such. I.e. it's a buffer. ALLY is also crypto friendly, so sending money to Coinbase won't get blocked, like my regular bank did to me some years ago.

@Malsua I think your solution is a good one, and everything that I've heard & read about Ally Bank has been positive. It just sucks that we've got to jump thru these extra hoops.

Emotionally I'm not comfortable giving 3rd parties my primary bank log-in information, for exactly the reasons you stated, though it truth it's probably very safe.

Oddly, when I created my Coinbase account, I'm 99% positive I was not required to share my bank account # and log-in with them. However, I opened an account at Gemini recently, and there are only two options for linking my bank account with Gemini in order to send money to Gemini--either give Gemini (actually a 4th party--"Plaid") my bank log-in info (user name & password) or have my bank send money to Gemini via old fashion wire transfer (which will probably cost me $25).

Presumably after the first wire transfer I'll be able to send future transfers from my bank to Gemini via free ACH transfers, but man, what a costly PITA!

Generation gap. Don't worry the US has all that gold in Fort Knox Right ??? And a limited of currency printed

When I created my coinbase account back in 2015, I was not required to give them the log in credentials to my bank account.

When I went to actually buy some BTC in 2020, it required the banking credentials which prompted me to get the ALLY account. Even though I already could trade and hold crypto. Clearly the Feds updated identification requirements.

In college I had a professor tell us "Don't invest beyond the sleeping point", if you so much invested you can't sleep, you have too much invested. This is true of crypto currency.

Sounds very reasonable.

imo crypto isn't pure gambling as some seem to think, but it definitely falls on the speculative side of things. At least for now.

For most (especially older) investors, I think anywhere under 5% of networth is the sweet spot. Only invest what you can afford to lose.

If any likes ridiculously speculative alt coins check out ElonGate, a meme coin similar to doge coin, up 127% today
It is really tricky to purchase though, I think you have to go through Binance. There are several youtube video that apparently show how to do it.

And maybe intangible, but so is options wrap around, and many other things on the investment market. The main thing is never put too much of your Capital into any one thing and enjoy life and don't worry

So I'm just tossing this out there as a really quick way to lose $25.00 :)

I just bought 3.6 million safemoons for about 23 bucks.

In a few weeks these are probably going to be on other exchanges, but right now it takes a bit of a process to buy them.

I transferred about $25 of BTC to bitmart.
I bought USDT (Tether)
I used the Tether to buy safemoons.

Understand, you will LOSE this money. This is a sure flop. A guaranteed loser.

It's like dropping a Jackson on the long odds horse. They never win, right?

Anyway, I'm going to Hodl this one for a while just to watch it wither away.

Obligatory Back to the Future reference:
If my calculations are correct, When these babies hit 88 cents, you're going to see some serious ****!

This is a result of the threat to BTC whales by the current administration proposal on capital gains .

If I were sitting on a pile of BTC, I'd be attempting to unwind some of it now at the current rate.

It's also a good time to buy some BTC relative to the recent market, so I bought $100 this morning. heh.

It's all speculative to me, so I'm not particularly worried if it drops back significantly.

It's not a "big" bitcoin loss unless it reaches 75%.

Now that Wall st. is getting in the game it seems like big money is stepping in on these drops.

But it's bitcoin so who the hell knows.

Central Banks and Bitcoin
 

I cam across an interesting theory about how Central Banks view Bitcoin.

The theory is that CB's are happy to have the Crypto market to function as a release valve while the CB's print endless amounts of Fiat currency. Without the Crypto markets all that money ($2 trillion) would be flowing into "real" asset classes like real estate and the stock market thereby inflating bubbles the CB's have difficulties deflating.

Crypto Bubble(s) would seem to have little effect on the real economy unlike things like a real estate bubble.

That's the theory for how they view it now, while they are printing fiat.

If\When they stop printing fiat the theory goes that the CB's will turn on Bitcoin and fight against it.

Not that they'll be able to do anything.

Will the club be involved in the two primary uses of cryptocurrency as a medium of exchange - ransomware extortion and money laundering?

I am with Malsua, I had picked up some Elon-gate, worth way less than a penny and I think I have 1 mil plus of it. It's a silly meme coin like Doge, if the Elon crazies get ahold of this one it would be a healthy pay off, well worth the $250 risk.

This sounds like solid financial advice:

Financial Experts Recommend Inventing Time Machine, Going Back To 2009 And Telling Yourself To Buy Bitcoin | The Babylon Bee

Anyone else enjoying the Ethereum gains right now?

Bull Market Crypto gains - nothing is financially better
 

I am enjoying ALL of my crypto gains! But yes, especially Ethereum.