Daily Crypto Nooooooz

[indiamikezulu]

Woo hoo!

https://www.altcoin.io

[indiamikezulu]

Beginners' Trading-Class

Model One, which is the one I think everyone thinks is Where The Lambos Are:

You have Bitcoin (your 'pole' coin). You're gonna buy and sell Coin Z. You go to and fro. Easy peasy. Lambo.

If you're good enough, and under certain conditions, okay. You might do well.

Model Two, which is how IMHO you last the distance:

you have Bitcoin as 'pole' coin. But you want to HODL and trade GRS. Okay. [HODL-ing just doesn't mean that you don't trade.]

Now suppose that GRS has just spiked big time. The price is now 'on the back side.' I never ever trade at times like this. I'm just not talented enough.

So, you a l w a y s have a coupla little projects on the side – if nothing else, they stop you chewing on the furniture while you're waiting for GRS to settle.

Okay, you start trading Project Coin X (against Bitcoin) and Project Coin Y (against Bitcoin). You keep watching GRS. You make a little profit. In Bitcoin.

You hold it in Bitcoin. You wait.

You decide that GRS is at 'the bottom' before it starts heading to its next spike. You put in 'tiered' bids to buy GRS (with that Bitcoin): low, lower, lowest.

The bids get filled (at least some). You pull those GRS off Bittrex; and put 'em in the holding-tank. Voila.

[indiamikezulu]

No one here for the Class.

Meanwhile: bullion and cryptos:

I've been surprised at the anti-crypto vehemence of bullion bugs. Do they feel threatened? Do they really think cryptos are a scam?

But they should have noticed just how many many crypto geeks are pro-bullion.

Now, in Ausralia, we got these: https://www.australian-coins.com/collecting-coins/round-50c-piece-value/

I mentioned a GRS-gold price-ticker. And making GRS a 'nation.'

Bullion-crypto trades might be a hobby for many of us. The Australian 50-center is 0.3 of an oz. of silver. No one is gonna counterfeit them. They exist in quantity, and are well known. Certainly the old silver coins – like shillings – are kicking around in many Commonwealth countries.

The members of GRS nation should be involved in this level of merchant activity: trades at markets; trades over backyard fences; trades to introduce bullion bugs to cryptos. And all these putting GRS to use as a currency.

[jjbillabongboy]

Always here for class IMZ


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[indiamikezulu]

Beginner's Class: evaluating exchanges/exchange procedures

Part One

Posts on Reddit etc., readers, reveal that newcomers pay too little attention to The Whole Exchange Thang. Let's poke about at this a bit:

Firstly, your 'exchange-exposure protocol': how many $ worth of crypto might you have on any one exchange at any one time?
Well, that's your business, and there is some 'deeper level stuff that you can ask about (like Bitfinex's OTC-trading floor).

But one rule of thumb might be: could you shrug off the amount you lost if an exchange went down? If you couldn't, then you've got too much on that exchange.

And let's rudely divide exchanges into Tier-One and Tier-Two. That is, the better exchanges, on which you'd risk more, and the not-so-good exchanges, on which you might put only ever a little.

How do you evaluate an exchange?

Okay. v. v. first thing, you create a username and password, and then determine you've got the right site – not a phishing copy thereof – and save that correct-site link. (This is a fairly recent update to my OPSEC. You can bookmark the correct link. The point is to be paying sharp attention to the phishing thing.) Store the correct URL with the other data.

Then sign up. Have a cruise around. (I'm vision-impaired, so dark mode is a big big plus for me.) I truly am not yet sure whether rubbish site-design is a sign of a bad exchange. Kraken has a fine reputation, but its design is appalling.

Then hit the reviews. Of course – as with stuff like the recent Verification kerfuffle on Bittrex – people who are unsatisfied with an exchange WILL post to that effect. Those who are happy likely won't. But I choose to give weight to those unhappy posters.

Why?

Because that what seems wise to me. The stress of having an exchange go wrong is awful, and there are enough good exchanges around (but I pine for the day we move solidly to decentralised exchanges . . . ). So I err on the side of caution.

Next: send an Hello to the Support. Somewhere way back on GRS's Bitcointalk ANN thread, you'll find Livecoin's Support guy dropped in to say hello after I sent an Hello ticket to Livecoin when GRS was first listed there.
Never seen an exchange do that. Pretty classy.
But if Support can't be bothered to provide 'Proof of Life' to a new customer, then I'll go elsewhere.

If you know a crypto geek who uses the exchange, ask them. (If Krypto Guy X trades Coin Y, and Coin Y is listed on Exchange Z, then Krypto Guy X/the community should have some idea. BUT it seems many communities are reluctant to bad-mouth exchanges on which their coin is listed. Sigh.)

Next, run a test: put ten bucks' worth of Bitcoin on the site; buy three GRS; pull 'em off. Just yesterday, I experienced a glitch doing this: Noo Exchange required a 'Confirm Withdrawal' on an email, but the email didn't turn up. For five minutes. I was hunting through spam folders, blah blah blah. Then I cancelled the withdrawal, and tried again. Got TWO confirm-withdrawal emails. Sigh. Not encouraging. I labelled it Tier-Two right away.

[Exchanges NEVER get better. Only ever worse. Interesting general rule.]

Then set up 2FA, and make sure the key is backed up with your username and password etc.

[indiamikezulu]

Part Two


Extra Bit One: you'll hear endless stories about arbitrage. For what my opinion is worth, if you have to ask about arbitrage, you don't know enough to do it. For me, the main concern is exchange-to-exchange transfers, which I rarely do:

if Geek A sends from her wallet to Geek B's wallet, that's a cryptocurrency transaction, as good as it gets. But when you work with exchanges . . . that's different. Exchanges have large 'in-house' systems – like hot- and cold-storage accounts. So if you send from Your Wallet to an exchange address, you're dealing, at their end, with their in-house system. If something goes wrong, you gotta start wrassling with the Customer Support.

But if you transfer from one exchange directly to another, you're dealing with two in-house set-ups. If something goes wrong, you often don't even have a transaction ID.

So I transfer from an exchange to my 'home-base wallet,' and from that wallet on to a second exchange.

Extra Bit Two: 'bottlenecks':

the following happens: you spend some time picking up small amounts of a crypto. Good. Well done, you! Then BAM! The price spikes big time.

Suddenly your Lambo Trader Guy. Get that coin onto your exchanges ('cause sure as hell you haven't had it sitting on the exchanges all this time . . . ).

What can happen is that you successfully sell all that coin at a kick-arse profit, then find that you have far far too much $-value on that exchange – that is, waaaay over your own exchange-exposure limit. You may also have daily-withdrawal limits in place on that exchange. (Big daily-withdrawal allowances are the reason geeks tolerate the risky and intrusive business of undergoing Verifications.)

So, be aware of this. I have, on one occasion, sweated for several days, making notes about my withdrawal statuses on several exchanges, as I 'chunked' coin off in certain limited amounts, to remain under my limits.

[Here's a tip: I bet the GRS members reading here are not trading on as many exchanges as they could be. I bet you're all huddled over on Bittrex. More fool you!! Apart from other benefits, you should have an idea of the following: 'Okay, our Big Exchange is X. Our Small Exchanges are A, B, and C. If I want to sell a lot of coin quickly, 70% goes on X, and 10% each on A, B, and C.]

The Other Concern is a truly truly human one: you have a bunch of your own rules in place, and then the moment things go Big Time, you choose to bend those rules, AND YOU MAKE A HORRIBLE ERROR.

I can only offer the following wisdom, readers:

cryptos are gonna go on and on and on. Good and bad things will happen. (I got a phone call at midnight: 'Put the kettle on. The DAO has been hacked. Ether's price is collapsing!!!!!!!').

Be the tortoise not the hare. The lambo moon sockpuppets are lying scum. It's all much harder than they want you to believe.

Have procedures, follow them v. v. carefully. At all times. Regardless of the provocations to do otherwise.

Extra Bit Three: 'creep' and 'spinning off': 'creep' is the cool bad thing that happens as you start making profit. You started with 'Right! Never more than 0.5 Btc on Exchange X!' Then you buy/sell/buy/sell/buy/sell – and suddenly you've got 0.85 Btc on that exchange. So, you 'spin off' some profit; but here's where it gets cool:

once you're good at judging how to put bids in 'on the low side,' you have a lot of options. For example, suppose you trade Coin A against Coin B, but you're watching Coin C's price at the same time. Suppose you need to get some $ value off that exchange. Suppose Coin C is looking good to buy into. So you put 0.1 Bitcoin in a buy-bid on the low side of Coin C. Wait a day or two – bam! The order gets filled. Then you can send that Coin C to your Coin C wallet.

There is a splendidly complicated and profitable model of this that you can work with: transfers to hot wallets, to cold wallets, to paper wallets. It's always a matter of judging the flows of amounts of different cryptos, of timing high-side and low-side bids so you can u s u a l l y move PROFITABLY from coin to coin (and then fees become almost totally irrelevant).

And all the while GRS remains 'home base': you trade into it, out of it, around it; but the point of this trading is mainly to increase your swag of GRS, and otherwise to beef up your holdings of other coins.

[indiamikezulu]

BAM!!

'On Bitcoin's rapid rise in value, DiMartino Booth warns,

"To me, Bitcoin is a reflection of panic. It's a reflection of people trying to get money into a safe place knowing the major governments of the developed world have got their printing presses running 24/7.'        http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-11-23/its-global-its-viral-dimartino-booth-exposes-feds-biggest-fear

[indiamikezulu]

https://www.reddit.com/r/altcoin/comments/7eya76/trading_altcoins_that_arent_meant_to_be_currency/

Trading "alt-coins" that aren't meant to be currency

Let's take a wild swing at this question (in this exciting noo age of more-honest analysis . . . )

There's lots and lots of theory here. Some I understand. Some I don't ('cause it's 'classical economic theory'). But let's make this brief:

Two basic models, campers: a 'pure' crypto (with or without the sort of splendid development that GRS has), or a 'crypto with some added ('2.0') function.'

Now check here: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/nxttycoin/

I devved on this coin. Its promise was that it would 'do a currency thing' in a particular environment. Note that even as it is now – face down in a ditch – it could still serve a basic 'currency function.' But that's now irrelevant. It got the 'particular environment' thing completely wrong.

[You've heard of people 'shooting themselves in the foot'? This community shot itself in the head.]

So, a crypto that claims value for some 'promised function' is doomed if it can't get that function to work – and not to pick on Ether, but it's a fine example.

The point is: Ether might eventually increase more in value than GRS. But I truly couldn't care less.

Why? Because its nature makes it so much more vulnerable, as the events of the last year have shown.

But GRS? Well, I have driven people nuts trying to explain my notion of a 'back-stop crypto,' the place where you hold your 'crypto value.' Bitcoin itself is theoretically a 'pure crypto,' but its dev team/community has failed to rise to the challenges (though its success is a complicating factor).

Meanwhile, GRS has become increasingly attractive. It's a pure crypto. But its dev team is leading thousands of other cryptos in the solid-development race. So it's hard to see how it could 'fade away,' as so many other cryptos have: 'back stop' crypto!!

[indiamikezulu]

Bittrex Notice

In case you missed it:

'Removing stale orders:  Effective today, Bittrex will be removing orders that are older than 28 days.  As we've communicated in the past, many of these orders have no reasonable expectation of being filled and clog the order books.

Raising the minimum trade size:  Within the next 2 weeks, the minimum allowable trade value for orders will go from 50,000 Satoshi to 100,000 Satoshi.  We will also require a minimum trade quantity on a per market basis.

Creating minimum tick sizes: Within the next 2 weeks, on a per market basis, we will be instituting minimum tick sizes that are based on the current price of the market.  The target is to have minimum trade sizes that are near 0.1% of the current price.  The current minimum tick size is 1 Satoshi.  For example, Ethereum trades at 0.0577 Bitcoin.  Bids and asks can only be placed in 0.0001 increments.  So the next levels allowable levels on the order book will be 0.0576 and 0.0578.'

And . . . (sigh) I feel it's right to mention this: there are still Reddit posts about the Verification screw-ups on Bittrex. Okay, it may be small numbers of people, but it seems it's still going on.

And: woo hoo! We got a recommendation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wBMXm7lTAE&feature=youtu.be

Also: https://www.coindesk.com/online-bank-swissquote-launches-bitcoin-exchange-traded-product/ -- the relevant term here is 'co-option,' a political principle in which the radicals get drawn into co-operation with the guys they were originally opposed to. So, banks and governments can oppose cryptos (which won't work, and they know it . . . ); they can 'run in parallel' by creating e-fiats; or they can co-opt.

[indiamikezulu]

Make a nice cup of tea. Head to the garden. And sit and quietly and thoroughly read this article:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-11-25/could-italys-banking-crisis-drag-down-mario-draghi

[indiamikezulu]

http://money.cnn.com/data/world_markets/se_composite/

The Shanghai Composite is a bell-wether. It was the one I pored over during the whoopsie several years ago. What you're looking for, guys, is a pattern: chunky red dip — that's reality. Then Big Green Uptick that takes the market to j uuuuuuuu st above where the red started — that's the Government 'Plunge Protection Team' preventing price-discovery with funneeee munnneeeee.

[indiamikezulu]

'There is a chance that as the price raises to these scary heights, the regulators could come smashing down.'

https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoins-rollercoaster-ride-is-starting-to-get-scary

So, after four and a half years, we're openly discussing What Brought Me to Cryptos in The First Place.

The point here is not how 'blockchain' can be embedded in the existing economy. The point is not how much money some folks are making with speculative trading.

The point is the combination of (a) the terminally corrupt and incompetent nature of the present banking/government/economic system, and (b) the arrival at that time of an instrument that allows ordinary people to abandon that system.

As the financial crisis just burns on and on, as more and more articles make the connection between the hard-capped nature of (some) cryptos, and the steady 'debasement' – 'watering down' – of government money, an unholy struggle will become huge and public: some governments at least will try bizarre and clumsy tactics to try to stop cryptos, and these tactics will backfire, convincing skeptical folks that they need to get into cryptos.

Conclusion? Same one as last time: no matter how crazy the situation gets, no matter how far the price of cryptos may fall, buy and securely store units of quality cryptographic currencies. The government simply can't win this war.

[indiamikezulu]

 'even as warnings multiply that the largest digital currency is an asset bubble.'

http://www.smh.com.au/business/markets-live/markets-live-bright-start-ahead-for-asx-20171128-gzus12.html


Don't care!

What? You don't care if Bitcoin's price falls fifty percent?

Read my lips: no!

How come?

We've seen Bitcoin's 'dominance' swing between 98% and about only 40%. We seen the price spike and crash and spike and crash.

What ultimately matters is the number of GRS you hold/trade/use. It helps to conceive that you are involved in a tech phenomenon as much as a financial activity.


  ' 'Tis the season, it seems, of "official" economic forecasts, and the more that roll in, the more depressing they get. Last week it was the Office for Budget Responsibility, which sharply downgraded its productivity assumptions, and therefore its growth forecasts, for the wider UK economy. This week, it's the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which has chimed in with even bleaker predictions than the OBR.'             

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/11/28/forecasters-ignoring-certainty-another-recession/


The Talking Heads are having a harder and harder time keeping the system 'levitated.' If some craziness pulls a hundred or a hundred and fifty billion out of cryptos, don't worry: some crazinesses will send it right back.

[indiamikezulu]

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-11-29/about-sensationalist-bitcoin-electrical-consumption-story

[indiamikezulu]

A continuing rise in price will bring much increased hacker interest to cryptos.

Government 'cryptos' – China, Russia – must be understood for their potential to confuse the situation for some time.

Finally, there are geeks in my camp who see the complexity of the 2.0s – quite apart from the drama with shonkey ICOs – as a problem (which makes GRS, as a '1.5' crypto, a nice choice).