Quote: (12-03-2017 08:53 AM)Leonard D Neubache Wrote:
a) Is it reasonable to run all your trading through a smartphone.
I am averse to using smartphones apart from checking my balance (will explain later).
Smartphones are off-putting because:
- I can't fit as much information on a mobile phone screen as a monitor/laptop screen
- It takes longer because it's easier to do on the computer
- Most exchanges don't have apps
- I don't feel technologically comfortable on a smartphone, my PC has a bunch of measures against phishing, malware, etc. that my smartphone probably doesn't have
- I wouldn't even jerk off on my smartphone so why use it to transact high amounts of money?
If you just buy some BTC/ETH or whatever tickles your fancy, you won''t need to use a smartphone, you will just be checking prices.
I use my smartphone to check my balances that I input myself (no transactions occuring) on an app such as Blockfolio or Delta. That just lets me put in x amount of BTC, y amount of ETH and track it over time. They have the grand majority of coins and it's easier to just open the app and have the info appear instead of a laptop or whatever.
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b) Have the markets become buy/sell intensive to make money or can you still drop some cash in something like bitcoin, forget about it and see good returns in 6 months to a year.
It's a bit of both to be honest.
You could invest in certain currencies/coins that are underpriced and sell them after they make a decent profit but it's generally speculation.
Trying to day-trade is tough considering you're going up against whales (people who have enough volume and $$ to drive prices up or down for their profit) or trading bots which automatically set buy and sell walls to slow down or increase momentum.
This is a difficult speculation to make. If I answered this a month ago, I would tell you that I think 2018 will see growth in other cryptocurrencies which may beat BTC on a %.
I still believe this but good ol' BTC is doing well. People overestimate the penetration of BTC because I think that anyone who is financially savvy will buy in sooner or later. Thing is, financially savvy people aren't exactly in high supply as a lot of them don't have money to invest in BTC.
You can definitely just hold BTC with confidence considering:
- its gains aren't always mutually exclusive to other cryptocurrencies and trading due to it's sheer market cap %
- it's outperformed trading and holding other currencies thus far in the past 6 months; your portfolio would have a higher % ROI if you just held BTC over the past 6 months than the majority of coins. e.g. ratio of BTC to ETH/LTC/XMR
- most of the fiat entering the cryptocurrency market is to Bitcoin and gives it brilliant liquidity and a lot of buying power to drive price up. A lot of newcomers are impatient and don't bother to time an entry or look at cycles.
- BTC is deflationary. There will be 21 million BTCs ever mined, we are currently at approximately 16.7 million mined so far. The reward that is 'mined' is
halved every 4 years. Given that it's demand is increasing and it's supply is increasing, theoretically it makes sense. All BTCs will be mined by 2140.
There's a few more reasons but you could definitely just hold BTC if that's all you want to do.
That being said, this current growth is due to BTC 'overcoming' internal politics between mining groups, certain standards they aimed for, disagreements and a whole bunch of drama.
As it's a 'small community' its scrutinzed much more than any other market (commodities, bonds, stocks whatever) that it's price can fluctuate a lot.
A lot of the mining 'cartels' also have a lot of weight to throw around and this is unhealthy for the future of it. I read an article claiming that all mining will be centralized within 2 or so years given the current trajectory. It's the climate change of Bitcoin.
There's plenty of interesting and fantastic technologies out there so it's worth a research as you could hold ETH, NEO, XMR or a whole array of other things instead.
BTC is the original gateway drug though and it's price will only go up on a long enough scale. There's lot of talks of a bubble forming (within a bubble even) so perhaps look at the prices and consider if it's reasonable or not. Don't put money into it that you're not willing to lose.
I'm not sure of your familiarity with this topic so let me know if the above makes sense.