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Crypto Trading for the Uneducated

Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2021 5:06 am
by Jezza13
So thought I'd start dabbling in a bit of crypto trading but, being only possessed with the most rudimentary grasp of the practice, i'm hoping there'd be a fellow forumer (is that a word?) or two who care to point me in the right direction as far as broadening my crypto horizons are concerned.

just looking for some sites that give good tips on how to trade, what to avoid, terminology so forth & so forth, & to do it using basic language. I don't do Social Media, so looking for anything on YT as well as reputable web sites & newsletters, subscriptions etc.

Already got a couple of accounts open & threw a little cash on 0x on Friday just for S&G's & it seems to be doing ok ATM. Also keeping an eye on another coin that, from what i've watched on YT, could do well if the USSEC decides to leave it alone.

So if there's any crypto moguls among our ranks who'd be kind enough to point a newbie in the right direction it'd be muchly appreciated.

Re: Crypto Trading for the Uneducated

Posted: Fri Jan 21, 2022 6:39 am
by stockmans
Hi. I can advise you to read the book Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Trading for Beginners: Novice to Expert 3 Books in 1 Mark Zuckerman, Scott Clem. In general, there are a lot of free videos on YouTube that you can use to easily understand the basics and trends of the cryptocurrency market.

Re: Crypto Trading for the Uneducated

Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2022 6:29 am
by Alienturnedhuman
I know a 2 hour video in the age of TikTok is a big commitment, but ultimately a negligible one for anyone wanting to invest any sizeable quantity of assets.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g

Re: Crypto Trading for the Uneducated

Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2022 12:19 am
by Jezza13
Thanks for the advice Stockmans & ATH. I'll check both out.

I invested a few grand in early last year & was lucky enough to triple my investment very early on. I quickly withdrew my initial put in so i've been playing with house money for most of the last 12 mths.

I tried being cute & played the market a little but found I was chasing my tail so I just picked a few what I thought were promising ventures, as well as of course Bitcoin, & have been hodling & going with the flow, which is currently rapidly backwards ,ever since. I'm also starting to reinvest a little of my hard earned bit by bit to, what I hope anyway, take advantage of the recovery to come, if & when it does.

It's a bloodbath out there ATM but what goes down must go up..... right?

Re: Crypto Trading for the Uneducated

Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2022 5:04 am
by Alienturnedhuman
Jezza13 wrote:
Wed Jan 26, 2022 12:19 am

It's a bloodbath out there ATM but what goes down must go up..... right?
That's not a guarantee. Crypto is just another bubble, like the app bubbles and dot-com bubbles before them.

Crypto is not going to go away, just as apps and websites continue to be a thing today, but they have left the domain of the very early (and lucky) adopter success stories and are now the domain of the establishment.

Crypto is now in that transition, and while it may see assume long term applications for transferring money, or unique tokenisation for open and distributed systems - the explosive growth period is almost certainly at an end.

All you own with crypto is a string of bits and - just like money - the only reason this has value is the agreement between humans that it has value. As crypto becomes more mainstream it will become both more regulated and less scarce. It is no surprise that during the pandemic that its value rose as people with disposable income had nowhere to spend it, and they didn't know which economies were going to come out on top by the end of it. It was essentially digital gold reserves. Maybe if Ukraine and Taiwan kick off World war 3 there will be another sharp rise while people wait out to see which power ends up in charge of the ashes - and I wouldn't put it past the cryptobros to start wishing for WW3 just to boost the value of their digital portfolio - but in a stable economy crypto is just another tool. It is a public, zero trust ledger, although even elements of that are seriously erodes with modern crypto as they move from proof of work systems to less computationally hungry, but therefore less trustworthy, models.

NFTs are even more dubious. For starters, like crypto, all an NFT is is a string of 1s and 0s. That's the token, and it is tied to something (often, incorrectly, said to be something like an image, ie a piece of digital art) and the analogy is that the nft means you own the original and any one who saves an identical copy is just in possession of a copy.

But an NFT isn't linked to a picture, as an image requires a lot more data than can be fitted into the NFT. The NFT is linked to a link. That link will usually be to a picture. So what you have bought is a token associated with a link (often a web URL, but can be others) on one block chain. There is nothing to stop someone else minting an NFT on a different Blockchain, or a different link to the same image or whatever. It's all perfectly legal within the rules of a blockchain. Some systems may build an later on top of this (but this would be outside of then Blockchain) to check stuff like this doesn't happen, but it's important to stress that is independent to the block chain and it would be possible to add stuff to the block chain that that in human terms already existed on it (unless a Blockchain moves to a private, non proof of work system where the systems minting the coins are in a closed system and they are required to audit the tokens as not using tricks to insert a duplication, and even this would never be foolproof)

And this is only dealing with the technical side of it. Owning a nft of something doesn't grant ownership in the real world so long as crypto is not regulated. Sure, someone could write a contract that says "whoever owns this crypto token owns the rights to this image" but in doubt that would stand up to legal scrutiny if challenged in court. For example, if I bought the rights to a piece of art, and that contract had the nft clause, but then a malicious smart contract from a completely different nft transfers everything in my digital wallet to another individual - I don't think this would be recognised as change of ownership by the courts of any serious country. At least while crypto is unregulated. If it became regulated, then malicious smart contracts would be made illegal, and that presents a problem because undoing the actions of smart contracts is not a trivial thing - it either involves rolling back the Blockchain (which is against the while philosophy of the thing, but also impacts any other transactions made since) or picking apart the smart contract to see what parts of it were illegal/ errors - or adding a note to the block chain to invalidate the original token (which is a fudge of the system) and issuing a new token for the artwork and issuing it to the victim. None of these solutions are in keeping with the philosophy of the Blockchain, but they also are not accomplishing anything that isn't already being done, they aren't solving a problem other then to give the illusion of ownership.

Re: Crypto Trading for the Uneducated

Posted: Sat Jul 16, 2022 2:33 am
by kleefton
What a terrible year its been for crypto. First the terra luna collapse and then a few days ago celsius filing for chapter 11. I remember last year i was looking to invest with celsius but they are not allowed to operate in my jurisdiction. What i thought was a nuisance became a blessing. There are many people who lost their life savings in celsius. Not sure why people would ever risk their life savings but…Truly tragic event there. But i guess another painful reminder that “not your keys not your crypto”. Move your coins to a cold wallet.