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Crypto Currency Trading Platforms

mansr said:
There is nothing honest or reliable about anything remotely related to cryptocurrencies.
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Just because you do not understand it doesn't mean it is all a scam.

MUTTY1 said:
The Bank of England are thinking about setting up their own version. It’s not going away but I wouldn’t bet my pension on it currently.
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What the BoE are talking about is a central bank digital currency (CBDC), which is really no different at all to what we have now, except that once cash is entirely removed from society every single transaction will be monitored and if it is decided that you are an undesirable you can be denied transactions and in essence cut off from the system at will.

Bitcoin is fully decentralised, meaning it is not owned or controlled by any single entity. The blockchain that records all transactions on the network is distributed across the whole network. A CBDC will not be decentralised and its blockchain will be wholly owned and maintained by the central bank, which is a very different prospect as it enables them to keep control of it and change it at will.

As for exchanges CoinBase are known to be quite high on the fee front, and PayPal too. I mostly use BitStamp, whose fees are 0.5% on purchases (I haven't checked on sales and have never made one, so do not know how they stack up there, though I suspect they would be similar). Crypto.com state no fees but I find the prices vary slightly from those on other exchanges, effectively building in a fee for them whilst being able to claim there are none. A bit cheeky IMO.
 
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@deebster.
No contradiction. Governments and their agencies will try to gain control of crypto. They can’t allow decentralised control of money. It’s not self-destructed so they are starting to move on it.
 
There are already lots of decentralised stores of money - the best-known is called “gold”.

Central banks aren’t “afraid” of cryptocurrencies any more than they are of Paddy Power. However, the basic concept of a blockchain, the data structure behind cryptocurrencies, has applications within regular banking. Ledgers are the core of banking: banks can create money, but that fact that the money was created needs to be recorded in a way that cannot later be altered. That’s the problem that blockchain solves: if you send me $2 billion, and Alice $2 billion, how can we both be sure you haven’t spent the same money twice? Blockchains are one possible answer.

BTC cannot function as a national currency, because it lacks the necessary properties of a “currency”. The biggest deficiency is ease of exchange: you cannot give someone BTC without expending colossal amounts of resources to do so. One single BTC transaction now requires over 1500 kWh of electricity to verify. (For context, the average UK household consumes 4200 kWh of electricity a year). And the rules of the network require that that energy cost must increase in future. It’s about a million times the energy required to perform a single credit-card transaction.

Also, BTC cannot expand (the mathematics put a hard limit of 21 million BTC), which makes it deflationary. People lose their tokens, preventing transfer of coins, but the system is unable to create new coins. This causes the currency to become more valuable over time, which discourages economic activity.

There are other coins, of course, but all have the same characteristic disadvantages to a greater or lesser extent. “Currency” is really the wrong name for these things - they’re more like property.
 
“BTC cannot function as a national currency, because it lacks the necessary properties of a “currency”. The biggest deficiency is ease of exchange: you cannot give someone BTC without expending colossal amounts of resources to do so. One single BTC transaction now requires over 1500 kWh of electricity to verify. (For context, the average UK household consumes 4200 kWh of electricity a year). And the rules of the network require that that energy cost must increase in future. It’s about a million times the energy required to perform a single credit-card transaction.”

Not so, check out El Salvador who have just moved over to using BTC as their currency. They have a very forward thinking president who is very clued up on these things. I think it is a very brave and bold move and if successful you’ll find many other countries going this way.

They are also utilising the power of their local volcanoes to drive wind turbines to create electricity, making the mining of BTC cheap as chips!

Crypto is very much the future of finance and is here to stay, anyone who doesn’t think so, needs to do their research IMO
 
My view is entirely the opposite.

Any 'currency' that requires ever increasing amounts of power to sustain and create it is doomed to ultimate failure. By simple physics as much as anything else. Imagining that El Salvador is a good example of the future?... words fail me. Make sure you get the right tattoos before you move there!

It is a fools errand, quite simple really to see. Tulips, anyone?

Of course there is 'money' to made along the ride, for some who know when to get 'out' But, of course, their real wealth from crypto is measured not in crypto.. but dollars or other hard currency! How ironic is that!

Because, guess what?..crypto cant be used much in the real world. If every house purchase (say) was made on a crypto blockchain, the world would drop to a slow crawl straight away. And buy your Sainsburys shopping with it and wait while the worlds' computers verify your transaction? Don't be silly.

Blockchain is a clever idea, still looking for a decent application.
 
It's no coincidence that Crypto arrived straight after the big financial crash when the "traditional" banking, etc. system brought things to the cliff edge.

Legacy monetary systems are far from squeaky clean.
 
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JensenHealey said:
My view is entirely the opposite.

Blockchain is a clever idea, still looking for a decent application.
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If you do a bit of research you’ll see how wrong that statement is.

For example the NHS are using Blockchain tech in their COVID-19 fight.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/19/uk-...to-track-coronavirus-vaccine-temperature.html

LONDON — Two hospitals in the U.K. are actively using blockchain technology to help maintain the temperature of coronavirus vaccines before administering them to patients.

The National Health Service facilities in South Warwickshire, England, are using tech developed by U.K. firm Everyware and U.S. organization Hedera Hashgraph. Everyware uses sensors to monitor equipment in real-time, while Hedera is a blockchain consortium backed by the likes of Google and IBM.
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richardg said:
Selling and buying....1500kw to sell seems exsessive.
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yes but the compute power needed to verify transactions in a decentralised system can be massive.

energy consumption is only an issue if the the source is non-renewable
 
AIUI crypto is traded in Tether, a private digital currency or ‘stablecoin’ that usually trades one-for-one against the dollar.

Ironic that the popular investment thesis for Bitcoin revolves around being a solution to central bank currency debasement, yet Tether can seemingly create new stable coins with questionable backing to the dollar.

"a $5,000 increase in its price on 6 October 2021 was attributable to a single $1.6 billion purchase of Bitcoin with Tether. It is reasonable to assume that Tether issuance is still a significant determinant of Bitcoin price movements."

More:
https://www.economicsobservatory.co...tcoin-risen-fallen-in-the-past-day-week-month

Blockchain technology is for real; I smell a rat with crypto trading in its current form.
 
Gingerbeard said:
“BTC cannot function as a national currency, because it lacks the necessary properties of a “currency”.

Not so, check out El Salvador who have just moved over to using BTC as their currency. They have a very forward thinking president who is very clued up on these things. I think it is a very brave and bold move and if successful you’ll find many other countries going this way.

They are also utilising the power of their local volcanoes to drive wind turbines to create electricity, making the mining of BTC cheap as chips!

Crypto is very much the future of finance and is here to stay, anyone who doesn’t think so, needs to do their research IMO
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Er… have you done the maths behind the gamble? Take Bitcoin City: the bond issue is premised on BTC hitting a unit price of $1m in five years time and staying there. Bukele has been elected to run a largely bankrupt and is running out of options to get his hand on foreign currency to repay debt and pay for imports. By pushing people to use the Chivo wallets and minimising transaction costs, Salvadoreans overseas spend their forex to buy BTC to send to relatives and by going through Chivo, the gov’t holds on to the forex. I’m not saying it’s a scam, but certainly it’s an “alternative way of funding” the nation’s coffers. Something similar will happen to the City bond. Note also the interesting perk that holding $100k worth of bonds for five years grants you Salvadorean citizenship, presumably so you can move to Bitcoin City and pay only VAT.
I’m a firm believer in Central Bank management and regulation of payment systems, and of Central Bank independence. Moving to link your economy and monetary policy to a highly volatile asset that is still gaining its feet, is not a clever move; CBDCs are likely to be the future of “national currencies”. If you want a pretty decent example of one in action, have a look at the Bahamian Sand Dollar.
 
Amber Audio said:
If you do a bit of research you’ll see how wrong that statement is.

For example the NHS are using Blockchain tech in their COVID-19 fight.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/19/uk-...to-track-coronavirus-vaccine-temperature.html

LONDON — Two hospitals in the U.K. are actively using blockchain technology to help maintain the temperature of coronavirus vaccines before administering them to patients.

The National Health Service facilities in South Warwickshire, England, are using tech developed by U.K. firm Everyware and U.S. organization Hedera Hashgraph. Everyware uses sensors to monitor equipment in real-time, while Hedera is a blockchain consortium backed by the likes of Google and IBM.
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No... you are making my point.... there can be uses for blockchain for good - this could be an example. Bitcoin et al are not. I suppose there is a technology argument...coin transactions teach the world to use blockchain for better or real world uses - rather like in the early days of the internet the porn industry is claimed to have pioneered online payment systems which ultimately give rise to today's online payment systems and online shopping systems.
 
JensenHealey said:
No... you are making my point.... there can be uses for blockchain for good - this could be an example. Bitcoin et al are not. I suppose there is a technology argument...coin transactions teach the world to use blockchain for better or real world uses - rather like in the early days of the internet the porn industry is claimed to have pioneered online payment systems which ultimately give rise to today's online payment systems and online shopping systems.
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You posted “Blockchain is a clever idea, still looking for a decent application”

There are lots of “decent applications” using blockchain technology already in use.

Do you understand the difference between a Blockchain and a Cryptocrrency?
 
Absolutely. Which is why I say that Cryptocurrency will be, ultimately, a busted flush. It is not far removed from a pyramid scheme.

Blockchain - can be useful. Killer app? Not yet - but maybe it will be just used in a load of important but smaller applications.
 
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