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Bitcoin investment

"There have been two key developments since the SEC rejected it in March," he told IBD. "One is the likelihood of a regulated Bitcoin futures and options markets, and the second is that the SEC's changing with the new administration, and its brand-new head of the division

of investment management was a lawyer at the same firm that represented the Winklevoss twins' Bitcoin filing."

Tagged: Macro View, Cryptocurrency, Editors' PicksWant to share your opinion on this article? Add a comment.Disagree with this article? Submit your own.To report a factual error in this article, click here

GuestMemberMaimbolwa MuliwanaClick to flag and open «Comment Reporting» form. You can choose reporting category and send message to website administrator. Admins may or may not choose to remove the comment or block the author. And please don't worry, your report will be anonymous.Steven Hay, I like the generosity you have concerning information in Cryptocurrencies. I must say i have benefited from this. 0 Reply4 days 4 hours ago

While proponents extol the fraud-proof safety of blockchain technology, wallets have proved vulnerable. In the latest mishap, an estimated $280 million of Ethereum ether coins were locked up after a user accidentally deleted the code needed to access digital wallets hosted by Parity Technologies. The freeze affects all multisignature wallets created on Parity after July 20.



Also importantly, the new Shellpoint deal will help ensure NRZ is able to keep covering and growing its big dividend. For perspective, the following chart shows that NRZ has been covering its dividend with a healthy margin of safety.



The blockchain software behind Bitcoin makes the digital currency a method of transferring value, but unlike at, say, a bank or real estate company. With blockchain, those expensive middlemen are no longer needed to ensure a transaction takes place as intended, a protection supplied by the blockchain software itself. The result: faster and cheaper transactions.



To be fair, the shares deserve some premium for the convenience they provide. After all, it's significantly easier to buy a share of an ETF than it is to buy and store your own bitcoin. However, the premium commanded by the fund is way too high for any rational investor to accept.

"I'm not moving money around, I'm letting it sit," Crews said. "For people who can set aside some money and let it sit and have a long-term view, they will take advantage of the fact that once the dust has settled that their crypto money will be worth a lot. I really believe that."

After painstakingly working through my tenets, I’ve researched many of the cryptocoins available today. Based on my personal investment philosophy and this research, I’ve made several investments over the last month. Here’s my positions as of January 11th 2018:

“For GBTC, we have leveraged a third-party custodian, a firm called Xapo,” Sonnenshein said. “There is super intense cryptographic physical security as well as geographic dispersion such that there security model has no single point of failure.”

In our view, there is no way to value Bitcoin. It generates no income, and it pays no dividends. It's also not backed by the gold standard, nor does it receive the "full faith and credit" of the US government (or any reputable government, for that matter). Rather than rolling the dice and hoping to "get rich quick" with Bitcoin, we prefer attractively-valued and income-producing investments. We believe the 10 opportunities described in this article are compelling and worth considering, as we head into 2018.

Finally, every other day I get a question about a site or company that claims to double your Bitcoins, give you insane daily interest on your Bitcoins or help you invest them in some sort of complex and obscure scheme. These sites can be categorized mostly as scams or HYIPs (high yield investment programs).

Hard wallets in the form of flash-drive like devices bring an extra layer of security, by limiting exposure to the internet. They have to be plugged into a computer or phone before they can be spent. Three popular ones, according to Buybitcoinworldwide.com, are Ledger Nano S, KeepKey and Trezor. Just remember, don't lose it, forget your password or fail to back it up, or you might lose your cryptocurrency forever.

Bitcoin is a global craze. Even my barber, who has no idea what a blockchain is, is buying it. Because so many new people are buying it (and so quickly!), it's impossible to accurately value.

It may sound boring to some, but one of the best ways to play small-cap value is with the Vanguard Small-Cap Value ETF. Not only is this a very low-cost ETF, but it is very efficiently managed and it can be used to plug any small-cap value holes that may exist in your personal investment portfolio. This ETF is based on the CRSP research database (which stems from my alma mater, University of Chicago), and I often invest a small portion of client assets in style-specific Vanguard ETFs such as this one.

And just like I said with the premium, management certainly deserves some fee. After all, they are tasked with buying the actual bitcoins and taking appropriate measures to keep it safe. However, a 2% fee is excessive. Commodity ETFs can be found with annual fees of as little as 0.25%.

"It's very unpredictable and very wild, wild west," Morgan said. "But I found that the way is to just consistently buy, don't ever sell, just hold on to it, and just hang on and be prepared for wild swings."

You’d be in good company in that case, anyway. Jack Bogle’s bitcoin investment advice is pretty simple, and blunt: You should avoid Bitcoin speculation “like the plague.” And this is coming from the guy who founded Vanguard, so he knows a thing or two about investments. The other risk to keep in mind if you plan to invest in bitcoin, aside from the overall volatility of the cryptocurrency, is of a cyber attack. Hackers descended on digital currency exchange Bitfinex on Tuesday, less than a week after cybercrooks made off with $70 million in a separate heist.

I asked readers what they thought of the bitcoin frenzy. M.H. from Maryland said he invested $2,500 each in bitcoin, ethereum and litecoin last week after doing some research.

For example, speculation about the Chinese Yuan devaluating has, in the past, caused more demand from China, which also pulled up the exchange rate on U.S. and Europe based exchanges.

Don’t take anyone’s advice about what will happen with the currency, do your homework, learn about Bitcoin and come to a conclusion. Personally I believe we are just starting, but that’s my own opinion and you shouldn’t consider that as investment advice as well.

“I understand how it works, and that the currency is only worth what people think it’s worth,” he said. “But I took money from other investments and decided to take a chance, as this is a very small percentage of our investments.”

Finally, the unique way of buying and selling bitcoins not only contributes to its illiquid nature, but has also contributed to higher rates of fraud and theft through uninsured bitcoin exchanges. While these problems were far more prevalent in years past, it should still be mentioned that none of the bitcoin exchanges have yet established a long business track record.

The problem is that no one uses Bitcoin as a stable store of value today. Additionally, Bitcoin is relatively uncorrelated with the US dollar, so it doesn’t act as a particularly useful hedge. Ultimately, I think digital coins will be strong store of values, but this is far, far down the road. At that point, I find that other cryptocoins are just as likely or more likely to act as global store of values compared to Bitcoin.

Earlier this year the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rejected a bid by Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, the twins infamous for claiming that Mark Zuckerberg stole the idea of Facebook from them while they were undergrads at Harvard, to launch a bitcoin-based ETF (exchange-traded fund). The decision from the SEC came nearly four years after they filed for regulatory approval. In the immediate aftermath of this news, the price of bitcoins, which had nearly tripled over the last year, significantly dropped to less than $1,000.

Where do the price and value of bitcoin go from here? Unfortunately, my crystal ball is broken. I personally believe that within a few years, bitcoin could fall anywhere -- from being known as a worthless experiment, to being the greatest disruptive force the financial industry has ever seen.

Grant Sabatier is the founder of Millennial Money, where he writes about personal finance, side hustling and investing. He reached financial independence at the age of 30 and is currently working on his first book for Penguin/Random House, set to be released in 2018.

We continue to own ADX because we believe it continues to have many of the attractive qualities we look for in an ETF (e.g. conservative leverage, relatively low expense ratio, attractive holdings, and a big distribution yield, as shown in our CEF table below). Also, if you are looking for additional CEFs, we also really like some of the REIT focused CEFs right now (e.g. (RQI), (JRS) and (IGR)) because they're offering attractive "double discounts" (i.e. they're attractively discounted versus their NAVs, plus the real estate sector is trading at an attractively discounted price because its conservative nature has been unduly shunned in favor of aggressive growth stocks this year). For your consideration, here is a more comprehensive list of CEFs that you may want to consider.

Like the pre-blockchain startup world, real-life customer feedback is everything. I want a team desperate to get their coin to market. From there, they can interact with real customers and then make technical changes that are likely to lead to meaningful improvements for real customers.

5) I value cryptocurrencies that demonstrate the ability to change direction, pivot quickly and make decisions over cryptocurrencies that emphasize status quo, tradition, and moving wisely but slowly. I recognize this is partly a function of team structure and leadership.

It was announced earlier this month that NRZ is acquiring Shellpoint Partners, and this is a smart move in multiple ways because it will allow NRZ to continue evolving with the evolving industry. Specifically, NRZ is gaining a mortgage servicer and originator. This is huge for NRZ because it allows the business to keep growing. For example, the acquisition will not only give NRZ access to more deals (because they'll soon be able to actually service in-house), but it will also allow NRZ to grow new business opportunities with its origination capabilities.

Maimbolwa MuliwanaClick to flag and open «Comment Reporting» form. You can choose reporting category and send message to website administrator. Admins may or may not choose to remove the comment or block the author. And please don't worry, your report will be anonymous.Steven Hay, I like the generosity you have concerning information in Cryptocurrencies. I must say i have benefited from this. 0 Reply4 days 4 hours ago

The SEC determined that the proposed bitcoin ETF failed to meet these standards because the markets for bitcoins were unregulated. Of course, the primary problem for future bitcoin-based ETFs is that by their very nature, bitcoins will always trade on an unregulated market. It was surprising then, when just a couple of months later on April 24th, the SEC agreed to review its decision on the creation of a bitcoin ETF. In the four months since the SEC's decision to review its earlier rejection, bitcoin prices have rallied an amazing 163%.

If you're a "value player", there are currently some attractive "double discounts" being offered in the high-yield CEF space. The discounts consist of assets that are being undervalued by the market, and the "double discount" stems from the fact that they're being held in closed-end funds ("CEFs") that are trading at unusually large and attractive discounts relative to their net asset values ("NAVs").

"We certainly have concerns for a number of reasons that there could be, potentially, frauds in or around the cryptocurrency markets," said Christopher W. Gerold, chief of the state Bureau of Securities. "Whenever something is hot, you get a lot of nefarious individuals coming out of the woodwork and trying to maximize that and take advantage of people."

Warren Buffett, the billionaire investor and perhaps the most notable figure of all listed here, called bitcoin "a real bubble" on Oct. 26 during a question-and-answer session he hosts every year.

Before getting into specific CEFs, investors should be aware of two important risks involved with CEF investing, in general (i.e. the use of leverage and the commonplace of yields comprised of capital gains and returns, not just dividends and income).

The Bitcoin Investment Trust (NASDAQOTH:GBTC), which essentially functions as an ETF that allows people to bet on the price of bitcoin, recently announced that its shares would undergo a 91-for-1 stock split. This will make the price of the fund much lower, and make it accessible to many more investors. Here are the details of the split, what it means for you as an investor, and what you need to know about the Bitcoin Investment Trust.

MemberMemberSteven HayClick to flag and open «Comment Reporting» form. You can choose reporting category and send message to website administrator. Admins may or may not choose to remove the comment or block the author. And please don't worry, your report will be anonymous.Hi Bertha, I’ve never used the site or heard of it before. I see they have a pretty whopping premium of about $1200 over and above the current price. I also see that they accept Western Union and Moneygram payments (only?) which are both very expensive funding mechanisms compared to bank transfers and other funding methods common on exchanges. I wouldn’t recommind using this site as it’s very expensive. If anonymity is important, it’s better to buy Bitcoin with cash (see our upcoming article on this subject). Furthermore, the site looks very amateruish and might in fact be a scam.… Read more »1 Reply28 days 2 hours ago

KikiClick to flag and open «Comment Reporting» form. You can choose reporting category and send message to website administrator. Admins may or may not choose to remove the comment or block the author. And please don't worry, your report will be anonymous.While reading through this site has already helped enormously, I am still struggling to make a decision. I do little faucets because I think they’ll add up over time, and we are far from the pinnacle of bitcoin value. Is the easiest way to accrue bitcoin investing? Financially we need to invest as little as possible, but are willing to sacrifice a little because we’ve been watching btc all summer. Would you recommend something really newbie friendly like coinbase? It doesn’t seem to be a favorite around here…we definitely don’t have enough for decent mining rig. 1 Reply10 days 15 hours ago

Yet, the Bitcoin Investment Trust ended Dec. 21 with a market cap of $3.03 billion. This double-digit percentage premium has become common for investors. In fact, the premium surpassed 100% with frequency for a few weeks during the summer. The reason for the premium appears to be the improved liquidity offered by the Trust relative to purchases made on a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange. That doesn't in any way justify this exceptionally high premium, but it does help explain why investors have been willingly paying 10% to as much as 125% above the current NAV to buy this more traditional equity.

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That said, a stock split like this can affect the share price in other, more indirect ways. Specifically, since more retail investors will be able to afford shares, it could cause volume to spike, and could even put upward pressure on the stock.

But there are some  big bears out there. Jamie Dimon, CEO of J.P. Morgan, earlier this fall called Bitcoin a “fraud.” At a recent investment conference, Dimon said" “Right now, cryptocurrencies are kind of a novelty.” His fear is that when people start to lose money, governments around the world will eventually “shut down” exchanges that trade digital currencies. “It will end badly,” he said. 

If you choose to throw your money into bitcoin in spite of this advice, just know you’re doing so at your peril. The best thing you can do is limit your investment to an amount you can afford to lose, then brace yourself for a long and bumpy ride.

Every time people exchange bitcoin online, the whole network gets updated with the new information, creating new "blocks", i.e. long chains of data for computers to solve.

Most people have their own philosophies and preferences, but they don’t write them down. Writing them out is crucial because it crystalizes your thinking. Tenets are helpful when times are good and indispensable when things get tough. You should debate your tenets heavily with family, friends, and yourself. Below I share five of my cryptocurrency investment tenets:

Second, bitcoins are not traded on Wall Street. They cannot be bought or sold through a brokerage. Instead, one must set up a bitcoin "wallet," which can probably best be thought of as a bank account exclusively for bitcoins. Once this account is set up, its holder can link to a traditional banking account and use those funds in local currency to buy and sell bitcoins.

The more recent problem for NRZ is that opportunities to grow the Excess MSR business have diminished as NRZ has already captured a huge portion of this market, and also the growth opportunities for the Excess MSR business are diminished because the distress of the financial crisis is falling further into the rearview mirror. Further, NRZ's inability to actually service mortgages in-house limited the deals they were able to make (NRZ owned the servicing rights, but they didn't actually service the mortgages - this was outsourced). Excess MSRs have been a fantastic business over the last few years, but as the industry moves forward, NRZ needs to keep evolving, and that's exactly what the company has been doing. Specifically, NRZ is acquiring mortgage servicer, Shellpoint Partners.

DiGiovanni: “I would first have them tell me what bitcoin is, how and by whom it is created, and how its valuation is determined. If they can’t give complete answers to these questions, I would ask why they would ever risk money in something like that.”

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There are other things to consider too. Jeff Vandrew Jr., a lawyer and certified public accountant with offices in Red Bank and Toms River, said cryptocurrencies, especially lesser-known varieties, are quite technical. Outside of Bitcoin and Ethereum, "if you do not have the technical expertise to read a white paper on these different cryptocurrencies, you shouldn't be investing," he said.

The price of bitcoin plunged more than 20% in the last day and is now trading below $9,500, according to Coinbase. Meanwhile Bitcoin Investment Trust (GBTC) has fallen more than 12%. Bitcoin cash, ethereum, and litecoin each slid about 30%.

Bitcoin has been soaring in value at times, but crashing at others. Lauren Lyons Cole, a certified financial planner and senior editor at Business Insider, explains the risks of investing in cryptocurrency. Following is a full transcript of the video.

Litecoin is a good example. Sure, bitcoin has an early mover advantage, but it was created to buy and sell things online securely, which no one is doing right now because the price is so insane and transaction costs are skyrocketing.

But here's the thing about bitcoin, it reveals a very basic investing principle that we all fall prey to and that's that investors tend to be irrational. When bitcoin is sailing high, everyone wants to buy in. But as soon as it starts crashing, people freak out and they start selling.  Successful investors buy low and sell high, but our natural instinct is to feel more comfortable buying when things are good and more comfortable selling when things are bad.

Even industry experts who believe that bitcoin is not a sustainable monetary unit think blockchain technology could radically change the way financial transactions are facilitated in the future. The benefits of this system are that it is transparent, secure, and streamlined, so that there are less parties involved in facilitating each and every transaction. 

Bitcoin is "total insanity" according to Berkshire Hathaway's Charlie Munger. It produces no earnings, and it cannot be valued.This article details why Bitcoin is 'fool's gold," and then reviews ten of our best ideas for income and capital appreciation in 2018.Our top ideas include a retail REIT, a Dog-of-the-Dow, a "double-discount" CEF, small-cap value stocks, a "battleground" high yielder, an attractive MLP, and an income-generating options strategy, to name a few.

Bitcoin arrived on the scene in 2009. The digital currency is created and held electronically. Its value stems partly from the fact that it's decentralized; no single institution or government controls the network. It was developed based on a proposal from a software developer called Satoshi Nakamoto, according to CoinDesk, which tracks cryptocurrency prices and reports on events in the crypto space. Low transaction costs are another feature along with instantaneous transfers.

Bitcoin rules state that only 21 million Bitcoins can ever be created, though the coins can be split into smaller parts. That could make Bitcoin, like gold, an attractive inflation hedge, backers say. There are 16.67 million Bitcoin in circulation now.

Guest001Click to flag and open «Comment Reporting» form. You can choose reporting category and send message to website administrator. Admins may or may not choose to remove the comment or block the author. And please don't worry, your report will be anonymous.Question. Do you invest in bitcoin similar to how you would a stock i.e. buy in anticipation of a price increase then you sell the bitcoin and convert it back to fiat (and you get your profit). Or, if the idea is that bitcoin will eventually replace fiat currency then there would be no point of converting it back to say USD even though the price goes up. So here the idea would be to get some bitcoin now and then have it available in the future when it’s the main form of currency. How do people approach this? -1 Reply12 days 17 hours ago

Like any speculative investment, buying bitcoin at sky-high valuations is risky business. If you’re asking, “Is it smart to invest in bitcoin?” you might do well to heed this advice from billionaire investor Mark Cuban, who told MONEY, “It’s still very much a gamble.” You need to know that your bitcoin investment might lose money. If you’re not prepared to face that prospect, bitcoin investment might not be for you.

Another attractive income-generating strategy we like to utilize is income-generating put option sales. This is a strategy where we sell out-of-the-money put options (to generate immediate income) on stocks that we'd like to own, especially at a lower price. If the price falls and the shares get "put" to us - we're happy to own them, and if they never get put to us then we're happy to simply keep the income we generated for selling the puts in the first place.

Broderick ColeClick to flag and open «Comment Reporting» form. You can choose reporting category and send message to website administrator. Admins may or may not choose to remove the comment or block the author. And please don't worry, your report will be anonymous.Great! I love this but have one more tip to add: You gave amazing highlights for great trading. Really, investing in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dash, Litecoin, and more is a huge chance to make money but one should also take care to chose His/Her entry points wisely. Initially when i started trading on Cryptocurrency i’ll come on youtube, watch some videos for guidelines and trade but those where Not my most profitable trade. My best trade this year was an ETH breakout trade. Hit my target within 24 hours and had a 1-7 risk-reward ratio. Thanks to Mr… Read more »0 Reply17 days 1 hour ago

Using virtual currencies comes with risk. Their value goes up and down — sometimes sharply — depending on demand. In addition, payments made with virtual currencies aren’t reversible and don’t have the same legal protections as some traditional payment methods. Once you hit send, you can’t get your money back unless the seller agrees. That’s why it’s important to know who you’re buying from and what policies they have regarding refunds, returns and disputes.

Regulation is also a double-edged sword for bitcoin. While it's had clear wins in Japan and the U.S., it was also banned in Morocco this November, and remains illegal in around a half-dozen countries. What's more, China cracked down on domestic cryptocurrency exchanges and put the kibosh on initial coin offerings, which is how new cryptocurrencies are brought to market. Regulation could just as easily close as many doors as it opens for bitcoin.

Hi Bertha, I’ve never used the site or heard of it before. I see they have a pretty whopping premium of about $1200 over and above the current price. I also see that they accept Western Union and Moneygram payments (only?) which are both very expensive funding mechanisms compared to bank transfers and other funding methods common on exchanges. I wouldn’t recommind using this site as it’s very expensive. If anonymity is important, it’s better to buy Bitcoin with cash (see our upcoming article on this subject). Furthermore, the site looks very amateruish and might in fact be a scam.… Read more »

Verizon is the "Top Dog" among the "Dogs of The Dow" with the highest dividend yield, currently 4.4%. And despite the negative narrative against Verizon (i.e. the competition is catching up to Verizon's network which will put pressure on the company's premium pricing advantage), Verizon still has a few really good things going for it. For starters, the company still generates enormous cash flow from operations, and the board of directors demonstrated continued confidence by declaring the 11th consecutive annual dividend increase just a few months ago. Not to mention, analysts are forecasting continued strong earnings growth, as shown in our table above.

Try thinking of investing in bitcoin as you would buying a lottery ticket. It only costs a dollar, but you could win big. However, as historically shown with commodities, the odds are good that you’re going to lose money compared with a low-cost, diversified investment.

Just because exchanges like Coinbase have $200 million in venture funding and a nice shiny marketplace doesn't mean that they can't get hacked either. Because there is no central governing body guaranteeing your bitcoin, if you lose it, it can be difficult to get back. If it gets stolen, then you are out of luck. Hacks will continue to happen.

SheetsClick to flag and open «Comment Reporting» form. You can choose reporting category and send message to website administrator. Admins may or may not choose to remove the comment or block the author. And please don't worry, your report will be anonymous.Honestly the money you spend on mining will not be worth the payout during these volatile times. What’s best now is investing in the other cryptocurrencies that are shooting up as of the last few days like verge and ripple. Just educate yourself on the benefits of alternative cryptocurrencies at: **link removed** For example, ripple has a faster transaction speed than bitcoin AND litecoin -1 Reply30 days 17 hours ago

There are a few primary concerns surrounding bitcoin that potential investors should be aware of. First, it is not backed or regulated by the good faith of a government or other entity. This stands in stark contrast to the dollar, yuan, pound, and other forms of currency used around the globe. So, many people view bitcoin as something akin to Monopoly money, because it is neither a fiat currency nor is it based on something of tangible value like gold. In other words, a bitcoin is worth exactly what people perceive its worth to be. While, in a sense, this is true of any currency, the value of a bitcoin is much more fickle than other forms of currency because of its unregulated nature.

Hey, Well, it depends on the person. You are free to take whichever approach best suits you. Personally I hold and accumulate but occasionally cash in small amounts when I feel price is especially high and likely to come down. I then use these for necessary purchases and certain luxuries. It’s hard to give you any more specific advice without knowing your financial situation.

Before we begin, I want to get something out of the way – Bitcoin is not a company or a stock, it’s a currency. If you still don’t understand what Bitcoin is, watch this video. So when you want to invest in Bitcoin you are basically buying the currency. However, there are also some other forms of investing in Bitcoin.

Among regulators' other chief concerns: The potential for cybersecurity breaches at trading sites, many of which are overseas, or on investors' own systems containing the crypto coins they purchase. There's also the unregulated nature of the investments and the susceptibility to volatile swings in price which makes them unsuitable for most investors, especially those investing for long-term goals or retirement.

An easy way to get started is to set up an account with a Bitcoin exchange, such as U.S.-based Coinbase, which allows you to purchase Bitcoins with money from your bank account or credit card. And just as the New York Stock Exchange is a place where you can buy and sell stocks, such as Apple or Amazon, these exchanges will let you trade cryptocurrencies.

But, you may be asking, growth to what? The answer is becoming a significant part of the global money supply. In 2017, all the crypto asset markets combined equal half a percent of the world's M2 money supply, and we are at approximately 1 percent of the world's population as users. This is an equivalent adoption level as 1996 for the internet.

This growth has pushed mainstream institutions to take notice and capitalize. CME Group, the world’s largest options and futures exchange owner, announced it would offer Bitcoin futures by the end of the year. That move would give Bitcoin a level of credibility that established currencies have, and also provide an infrastructure for developing exchange-traded funds (ETF). Money manager VanEck recently developed indices to track a group of cryptocurrencies’ movements, which could be used to develop index funds. And Mike Novogratz—a former manager at the hedge fund Fortress Investment Group who says he has 10% of his net worth in cryptocoins—recently estmiated it would be six to eight months before investment firms start to offer cryptocurrency products, like ETFs, to their clients. When they do, he added, it will make the buying process easier, allowing for the price “to go much higher.”

GuestMemberCryptoInvestorClick to flag and open «Comment Reporting» form. You can choose reporting category and send message to website administrator. Admins may or may not choose to remove the comment or block the author. And please don't worry, your report will be anonymous.Guys check out the profitability of the BTC contracts on Hashflare, with the enormous rise of btc the returns are very high! Hashflare had to do maintenance due to the increasing traffic on Hashflare, a lot of people are buying these contracts now so get in before they’re sold out. Hasflare website: **affiliate link removed** 0 Reply1 month 6 days ago

GuestMemberRoger KalterClick to flag and open «Comment Reporting» form. You can choose reporting category and send message to website administrator. Admins may or may not choose to remove the comment or block the author. And please don't worry, your report will be anonymous.hi there, anybody have experience with E-toro? 0 Reply1 month 6 days agoMemberMemberSteven HayClick to flag and open «Comment Reporting» form. You can choose reporting category and send message to website administrator. Admins may or may not choose to remove the comment or block the author. And please don't worry, your report will be anonymous.Hi Roger, Yes indeed. Check out our full article on eToro here: eToro Bitcoin Trading Review 0 Reply1 month 6 days ago

And since blockchain and cryptocurrencies offer various layers of anonymity, they are seen as attractive to those living in countries where transfer of wealth is restricted. Detractors say cryptos also draw drug dealers, money launderers and tax dodgers along with legitimate investors.

Joseph Stigliz, former chief economist at the World Bank and now a professor at the Columbia University said on Nov. 29 he believes digital currencies should be controlled by the government, calling bitcoin’s price increases unsustainable.

Attempts have already been made to attempt to value cryptocurrency networks, taking inspiration from other trading tools. NVT Ratio is another invention of mine. This works like bitcoin's PE Ratio, indicating when BTC price has outstripped fundamental value.

Bitcoin is a global craze. Even my barber, who has no idea what a blockchain is, is buying it. Because so many new people are buying it (and so quickly!), it's impossible to accurately value. When the price of anything fluctuates 20-30 percent in one day, it's obviously unstable, so you could lose all of your money very quickly. Especially if you need your money in the next year, don't buy bitcoin. With the insane short-term fluctuations, bitcoin is short-term gambling, not investing.

Regarding return of capital, investors should understand that many CEFs generate some of their income distributions via a "return of capital" instead of simply via dividends and income. For example, if the fund appreciates more in value (i.e. generates more capital gains), then it may pay a higher distribution (sourcing some of the distribution payments from capital gains). For this reason, we believe CEFs are often more appropriate for income-focused investors simply because they can provide steady, convenient, high income payments for investors focused on income.

However, Bitcoin is not an "investable" asset. Specifically, NYU Stern Professor, A. Damodaran, does an excellent job explaining how Bitcoin is not an income-generating asset that can be valued, but rather Bitcoin has characteristics of a currency that can only be priced.

"There's certainly a lot of bullishness about bitcoin and cryptocurrency, and that's the case with bubbles in general. The psychology of bubbles fuels it. You just become more convinced that it's going to work. And the higher the price goes, the more convinced you become that you're right. But it's not going up because it's going to work. It's going up because of speculation."

Not many investments engender the differences in opinion that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies create. It’s that volatility, and uncertainty about the technology’s long-term viability, that breeds whirlwind days. The currency has turned evangelists and hackers into paper millionaires overnight, while others see it as a fad, doomed to fade as countries add regulations onto what’s currently a stateless, bankless Wild West of payment tools.

Institutional investors, and some of the wealthiest individual investors, already have some options for playing the cryptocurrency market. Through mid-October, 84 new crypto hedge funds that invest in the currencies have emerged, up from 11 in 2016, according to cryptocurrency research firm Autonomous Next. As the numbers suggest, however, these funds don’t have much of a track record. And many of these hedge funds charge hefty management and performance fees (often 2% of assets annually, plus 20% of any profits), eating into returns.

1. It's impossible to actually value bitcoin Bitcoin is a global craze. Even my barber, who has no idea what a blockchain is, is buying it. Because so many new people are buying it (and so quickly!), it's impossible to accurately value. When the price of anything fluctuates 20-30 percent in one day, it's obviously unstable, so you could lose all of your money very quickly. Especially if you need your money in the next year, don't buy bitcoin. With the insane short-term fluctuations, bitcoin is short-term gambling, not investing.

Here’s how the scam works. You are looking to purchase bitcoin, so you search online. You find a legitimate-looking website offering to mine the cryptocurrency for a fee. Unlike dollars, pesos or yen, bitcoins are not backed by a government or distributed by a central bank. Instead, bitcoins are created on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network through a process called “mining.” The website asks you to pay upfront, and bitcoins will be transferred into your account. However, after you make the payment, nothing happens. Attempts to reach anyone at the website prove futile.

Another billionaire investor Carl Icahn, also the founder of Icahn Enterprises said in an interview on Dec. 1 that bitcoin looked like a bubble to him, comparing it to the Mississippi land bubble just prior to its collapse.

SummaryBitcoin is "total insanity" according to Berkshire Hathaway's Charlie Munger. It produces no earnings, and it cannot be valued.This article details why Bitcoin is 'fool's gold," and then reviews ten of our best ideas for income and capital appreciation in 2018.Our top ideas include a retail REIT, a Dog-of-the-Dow, a "double-discount" CEF, small-cap value stocks, a "battleground" high yielder, an attractive MLP, and an income-generating options strategy, to name a few.

Matt brought his love of teaching and investing to the Fool in 2012 in order to help people invest better. Matt specializes in writing about the best opportunities in bank stocks, REITs, and personal finance, but loves any investment at the right price. Follow me on Twitter to keep up with all of the best financial coverage! Follow @TMFMathGuy

As of recently, investors can also buy bitcoin futures, which has only added to the hype surrounding it. Bitcoin investment sites are struggling to keep up with the surge in demand.

This makes many cryptocurrencies much more like commodities, since there’s a finite supply, like with gold or oil. “It’s difficult to look at Bitcoin as a currency,” because of this supply issue, says Maher. And the limited supply is one reason for Bitcoin’s volatility. (That could change some day if more institutions embrace the asset.)

But with an investment like bitcoin, no one really knows where it's going to go. It could go to $150,000. But it could also go to zero. It's a highly risky and speculative investment. When you're investing in the stock market, it's a little bit easier to – it's still not easy, but it's a little bit easier to stomach the drops when they happen. Because, historically speaking, we know the US stock market goes up about 8%, on average,  per year.  Some years there are big swings up, some years there are big swings down.

These datacenters are warehouses, filled with computers built for the sole purpose of mining Bitcoin. Today, it costs millions of dollars to even start a profitable mining operation.

Bitcoin is a digital payment system with no intermediaries or banks; it was invented by a person or group using the alias Satoshi Nakamoto, and released as open-source software in 2009. The U.S. Treasury has categorized it as a decentralized virtual currency though some believe it is best described as a "cryptocurrency." OxfordDictionaries.com helpfully defines cryptocurrency as "a digital currency in which encryption techniques are used to regulate the generation of units of currency and verify the transfer of funds, operating independently of a central bank."

Unfortunately, due to the fact it's currently the only bitcoin trust of its kind out there for investors, traders have driven the price of the GBTC way above the value of the bitcoin it holds. In fact, the GBTC trust has consistently traded at a 50 percent premium to its assets under management.

Perhaps its biggest attraction is that its supply can't be increased or decreased at the whim of a controlling entity. Similar to gold and other precious metals, Bitcoins can be "mined," but it's done by using computing power in a distributed network. And like gold, Bitcoin supply is limited. And it's headed toward terminal creation.

Believers in Bitcoin say it’s the money of the future, a digital alternative to the dollar or euro or yen. Non-believers say it’s not real money. After all, you can't dig into your pocket and pull one out like a $10 bill.

Worth noting, the company has a standby equity commitment on hand if it needs extra cash to support its business (and the big distribution payments to investors). However, the company explains it is not currently needed, and the relatively colder winter we've been having so far (versus the last two years) helps ensure the company will have plenty of cash flow generated by operations.

If you do decide to buy bitcoin, I encourage you to buy responsibly. Don't buy using more than 1 percent of your net-worth, and be honest with yourself: Bitcoin is a gamble, not an investment. It's super risky and there are far better places to invest your money securely for both the long- and short-term.

Jordan Belfort, the “Wolf of Wall Street,” backed up Jamie Dimonon on Sept. 27 after the latter’s infamous “fraud” comments. Bitcoin hovered around the $3,910 mark throughout the day.

Even as the existing payments system in developed countries becomes ever more convenient and secure, the space is still littered with middle parties taking a small amount from each transaction. These players include payment processors, payment networks, issuing banks, and acquiring banks. The dream of bitcoin and other monetary systems based on blockchain technology is for payers to be free of these inherent costs of exchanging currency for goods.

With all the buzz about bitcoin, more people are now considering it as an investment opportunity. But with anything new and complex, con artists are there to take advantage. BBB scam tracker continues to receive numerous complaints from consumers fooled by phony bitcoin investments and who are often losing thousands of dollars.

They'll need what the industry calls a wallet to store the private keys that give access to cryptos. Major exchanges offer soft, or hot, wallets for customers. Such wallets are available for desktop computers and mobile devices and include Bitcoin wallet, Mycelium, Xapo and Blockchain, according to Coindesk.

Most of the time, you’ll be a lot better off if you choose a long-term investment strategy that isn’t quite so volatile. You should also diversify as much as you can; this way, you won’t lose your shirt if one particular investment falls apart.

If you're new to the bitcoin craze and you're thinking about investing, the first thing you have to do is figure out what it is. If you can't explain what bitcoin is to your mom or your neighbor and why you're investing in it and why you think it's a good investment, then it's too soon for you to put your money in.

Bitcoin uses blockchain technology to record its transactions. Essentially, the blockchain is a publicly distributed ledger for certain financial transactions. It is currently mostly used for bitcoin, but many believe it could be used in a wide variety of financial applications in the future.

Some investment pros say it’s a new asset class, no different from a stock, a bond or an ounce of gold, and that it has great investment promise. Skeptics say it’s not an investment because there’s no good way to value it.

GuestMemberBroderick ColeClick to flag and open «Comment Reporting» form. You can choose reporting category and send message to website administrator. Admins may or may not choose to remove the comment or block the author. And please don't worry, your report will be anonymous.Great! I love this but have one more tip to add: You gave amazing highlights for great trading. Really, investing in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dash, Litecoin, and more is a huge chance to make money but one should also take care to chose His/Her entry points wisely. Initially when i started trading on Cryptocurrency i’ll come on youtube, watch some videos for guidelines and trade but those where Not my most profitable trade. My best trade this year was an ETH breakout trade. Hit my target within 24 hours and had a 1-7 risk-reward ratio. Thanks to Mr… Read more »0 Reply17 days 1 hour ago

Steven HayClick to flag and open «Comment Reporting» form. You can choose reporting category and send message to website administrator. Admins may or may not choose to remove the comment or block the author. And please don't worry, your report will be anonymous.Hey Kiki, Have you read our guide to earning Bitcoin? It mentions several ways to make money which I think will be better than faucets: How to Get Bitcoins – A Guide to Earning Bitcoins Fast and Free in 2018 Signature campaigns and the like could work out for you, assuming you have some spare time for them. As for a good exchange to start, you’re right that Coinbase isn’t too popular among more serious / old-school Bitcoiners. Although Coinbase has a nice interface for newcomers, they’ve pulled quite a few objectionable moves over the years. There are plenty of… Read more »1 Reply10 days 1 hour ago

That fear didn’t last long. Over a subsequent two-day span, investor sentiment reversed and the price jumped up 18% from its lows; by Thanksgiving, Bitcoin had soared to new highs.

In a nutshell, Triton is a growing industry leader with distinct competitive advantages (e.g. lower costs, more extensive coverage) as the industry recovers from significant cyclicality challenges. And Triton's stock price is on a strong upward trajectory as the economy continues to boom and management expects the stock price to keep rising until the dividend yield falls to a level consistent with industry peers (they're NOT planning to cut the dividend, but mathematically as the share price rises, the dividend yield falls). We wrote about Triton in detail in this report (including risks, opportunities, and other important considerations). And if you are an income-focused value investor, Triton is worth considering.

For traders that want a traditional bitcoin exchange, BitStamp may be a better option. With BitStamp, you are trading with other users and not the company, which only acts as a middleman. Liquidity is higher and you can almost always find another person to take the other side of your trade. The fees start at 0.5% and go all the way down to 0.2% if you have traded over $150,000 in the past 30 days.

Unfortunately, that’s not the case for bitcoin, gold, “Forex,” commodities or fine art. These sorts of investments do not generate cash. Instead, investors can only hope they rise in value with the price of inflation.

Notice: Information contained herein is not and should not be construed as an offer, solicitation, or recommendation to buy or sell securities. The information has been obtained from sources we believe to be reliable; however no guarantee is made or implied with respect to its accuracy, timeliness, or completeness. Authors may own the stocks they discuss. The information and content are subject to change without notice.

What to told them is that I don't come from Wall Street, and I'm not a formally trained analyst. My background comes from the world of emerging tech and startups, hence my view and analysis tend to be outside the box.

Other versions of this scam target investors trying to convert bitcoin to their local currency. For example, one consumer used a service to exchange bitcoin for U.S. dollars and transfer the money into a PayPal account. However, the transaction didn't work as planned.

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Further still, the latest reversal of "net neutrality" is a positive for Verizon, even though many people are afraid to talk about this for political reasons. Verizon put out an interesting video on its views on net neutrality earlier this year, and it's worth a view. The ruling basically gives Verizon the ability to manage its business more prudently, in our view.

"No guts, no glory," said Kyle Brendle, house promoter at The Stone Pony in Asbury Park. He has made a "very modest" investment, which he described as a "purely speculative action."

Sticking to our small-cap value theme (Triton, above, is arguably a small-cap value stock), small-cap value is poised for strong performance in 2018, and this is an allocation that we believe should be considered for most equity portfolios. Not only does small-cap value have a long history of outperforming other styles (e.g. growth, large cap), but small-cap value has been underperforming in recent years, thereby making now an even more attractive opportunity to invest, in our view. And economically speaking, if the economy remains strong, so too should small-cap value stocks surge ahead as the recovery strengthens.

However, earlier this month, shareholders of the Bitcoin Investment Trust must've assumed Christmas came early. Grayscale announced that it had assigned a third party to liquidate the bitcoin cash tokens it received as a result of the summertime fork in bitcoin into two separate currencies: bitcoin and bitcoin cash.

It’s too early to say whether Novogratz is right. But the currencies’ popularity is generating more interest in the high net worth space. John Maher, an advisor and CIO at CCR Wealth Management, says that he now has numerous clients coming to him, asking about how to invest in the currency. Meanwhile, UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti recently told Bloomberg that the wealthy have shown an increase in curiosity, even if they haven’t bitten on the investment.

After much deliberation, in this post, I’ve decided to share my holdings with you. Perhaps more importantly, I’ve decided to also share my underlying philosophy. As a reminder, I know nothing. None of this should be construed as investment advice, and you should do your own research before making any investments. I would be financially okay if I lost all of my invested money: you should make sure you could survive a total loss before investing any funds.

Citing risk  and a need to “proceed with caution,” Bitwise co-founder Hunter Horsley says it makes more sense for investors to be able to buy a basket of cryptocurrencies to reduce risk through diversification. His firm's new fund will track the biggest cryptocurrencies, like the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index tracks the largest U.S. stocks.

Traditional currencies aren’t a vehicle that most mainstream “retail” investors own. You don’t take a large stake in Euros, for example. State-sponsored currencies tend to move with inflation while the primary goal of long-term investing is to beat inflation. Some mutual funds own positions in currencies as a way to hedge against the impact of exchange rates on their returns, but the currencies are seldom used to actually generate returns.

Bitcoin exchanges. Bitcoins can be purchased through exchange operators dedicated to cryptocurrencies, as well as traditional operators such as the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and the Swissquote Bank, among others.

If you've heard about Bitcoin, it's mainly from startling headlines about its 1000% gain this year. Or maybe the news of it trading above $11,000, making it the most valuable player in the mushrooming space for so-called cryptocurrencies. Or because Wall Street skeptics call it a “fad,” a “fraud” and a “speculative bubble.” Or because Bitcoin bulls say it is a misunderstood new asset class that has a lot of potential.

If you like the ideas included in this article, consider accessing our members-only version within The Value & Income Forum. The members version includes ten additional attractive opportunities (one for each of the ten categories listed above). And unlike this version (where we only own 4 of the 10), we currently own 8 of the 10 additional ideas in the members-only version (and we're close to investing in the other two).

Also, the recent Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will most likely result in a significant decrease to Verizon's tax bill (this is a good thing for investors). Verizon's effective tax rate ("TTM") was recently 33.5%, and the new tax law has a max corporate tax rate of 21%. This will strengthen Verizon's business and its dividend, and it makes Verizon a more attractive investment. Overall, if you are an income-focused contrarian investor, Verizon is worth considering.

At the time, bitcoin was worth still around $4,000. Since then, he's taken aim at bitcoin in a few more occasions, which sparked a wave of comments from Wall Street figures.

If volatility continues it's on its 9-year downward trend, we should also see bitcoin price stability near fiat FOREX levels. This means grandma can have a USD savings account earning 1 percent per year, or she can have a BTC savings account earning 1 percent per week at similar risk profiles.

For Americans, Coinbase has an option to link your bank account to your Coinbase wallet. This makes future payment transfers easier. The company also offers automatic bitcoin buying at regular intervals. For example, say you want to buy $50 in bitcoins every 1st or 2nd of the month, right after you get your paycheck. You can setup an auto-buy for that amount on Coinbase. Take into account a few caveats before you start using this service. If you issue an automatic buy order, you will not have control over the price at which the BTC is bought. Next thing to note is that Coinbase is not a bitcoin exchange, you are buying/selling your coins directly from the firm, which in turn has to source them from other buyers. This creates issues or delays when executing orders during fast market moves.

On my blog Millennial Money, I've received over 100 emails from readers asking about investing in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. I was even talking to a reader last week who told me he put his entire life savings into bitcoin, buying in at around $11,000. That's a terrible idea.

GuestMemberGuest001Click to flag and open «Comment Reporting» form. You can choose reporting category and send message to website administrator. Admins may or may not choose to remove the comment or block the author. And please don't worry, your report will be anonymous.Question. Do you invest in bitcoin similar to how you would a stock i.e. buy in anticipation of a price increase then you sell the bitcoin and convert it back to fiat (and you get your profit). Or, if the idea is that bitcoin will eventually replace fiat currency then there would be no point of converting it back to say USD even though the price goes up. So here the idea would be to get some bitcoin now and then have it available in the future when it’s the main form of currency. How do people approach this? -1 Reply12 days 17 hours agoMemberMemberSteven HayClick to flag and open «Comment Reporting» form. You can choose reporting category and send message to website administrator. Admins may or may not choose to remove the comment or block the author. And please don't worry, your report will be anonymous.Hey, Well, it depends on the person. You are free to take whichever approach best suits you. Personally I hold and accumulate but occasionally cash in small amounts when I feel price is especially high and likely to come down. I then use these for necessary purchases and certain luxuries. It’s hard to give you any more specific advice without knowing your financial situation. 0 Reply11 days 23 hours ago

Because Bitcoin is on the internet, they are even easier to steal and much harder to return and trace. Bitcoin itself is secure, but bitcoins are only as secure as the wallet storing them.

When you invest in bitcoin (or gold, or oil, or other commodities, or any other currency, or fine art), you are betting the farm on price appreciation alone. Or rather, you’re betting that the price of bitcoin will go up compared with the U.S. dollar. What this means is, bitcoin is different from more conventional investments like stocks, bonds and real estate. That’s because conventional investments offer the chance to generate cash.

"I think it is perfectly asinine to even pause to think about them… It's bad people, crazy bubble, bad idea, luring people into the concept of easy wealth without much insight or work. That's the last thing on Earth you should think about… There's just a whole lot of things that aren't going to work for you. Figure out what they are and avoid them like the plague. And one of them is bitcoin. … It is total insanity."

MemberMemberSteven HayClick to flag and open «Comment Reporting» form. You can choose reporting category and send message to website administrator. Admins may or may not choose to remove the comment or block the author. And please don't worry, your report will be anonymous.Hey, Well, it depends on the person. You are free to take whichever approach best suits you. Personally I hold and accumulate but occasionally cash in small amounts when I feel price is especially high and likely to come down. I then use these for necessary purchases and certain luxuries. It’s hard to give you any more specific advice without knowing your financial situation. 0 Reply11 days 23 hours ago

On average, economies grow. A growing economy can raise the demand for goods and services. This can cause prices for said goods and services to increase. Moreover, entities issuing currency usually "print" more currency. This devalues that currency, requiring more of the same currency to be required for the same good or service.

AmeriGas is the largest propane distributor across the US, with operations in all 50 states. It's organized as an MLP and it offers a big growing distribution yield, currently 8.3%.

Request Network is a platform specifically focused on the payments space (built on top of Ethereum). While the sized of the tokenization of assets space (e.g. ICO) is almost incalculable, the payments space remains enormous. Request Network is a big team bet. As a product leader, I value team organization a lot. I’ve studied the core developers of many of the top blockchain coins, and find that most projects are being run relatively poorly compared to more traditional software development projects today (partly a function of decentralization of blockchain teams). Many teams don’t have updated visions or project plans and as a result miss deadlines and seem to be prioritizing things no one wants. Request Network strikes me as agile, able to pivot quickly, and ruthlessly focused on user growth and customer experience. (I love the bi-weekly updates.). I also immensely value their time in YCombinator, the top startup incubator in the world.

One of the bigger concerns with investing in bitcoin is the possibility that it could be dethroned as the king of all cryptocurrencies. We're seeing more than 50 new virtual currencies, along with their underlying blockchains, brought to market each month. Given that the barrier to entry is so incredibly low, it's certainly not out of the question that a superior blockchain or payment facilitator emerges in the coming months or years.

The economy has been booming since President Trump was elected, and there is reason to believe it will continue (e.g. tax cuts, low unemployment). And as long as the economy keeps booming, there are specific small-cap industrial stocks that will likely keep booming right along with it.

Roger KalterClick to flag and open «Comment Reporting» form. You can choose reporting category and send message to website administrator. Admins may or may not choose to remove the comment or block the author. And please don't worry, your report will be anonymous.hi there, anybody have experience with E-toro? 0 Reply1 month 6 days ago

The following week on Nov. 2, CEO of Credit Suisse Tidjane Thiam, weighed in on the topic at a press conference, where he noted that bitcoin’s ability to facilitate anonymous transactions made it a challenge. At the time, the cryptocurrency was floating around the $7,000 mark.

For example, one income-generating options trade that has been working well for us is selling put options on Simon Property Group. Simon has been a "battleground" stock as it fights against the negative narrative that the internet is going to put all brick-and-mortar stores out of business (Simon is a retail REIT).