(05-09-2017 07:23 PM)CleanSlate Wrote:  Using a credit card simply saves me money over a bank account, and I have the coins immediately instead of waiting 5 days.

https://support.coinbase.com/customer/po...nsfer-fees

3.99% for a purchase with a credit card and 1.49% for immediate purchase with US bank accounts. Even after a 1.5% cashback rate, you're still paying 1% more using a card. Also, if you use your bank account, you lock in the pricing at that time - true, you don't take ownership of the BTC until funds clear, but you'd be getting the same rate as if you bought with a card. No fee on advance deposits either, so that seems like the rock bottom lowest fee option, especially if you transfer funds to GDAX for better buy/sell rates.

You're a smart guy CleanSlate, so I'm genuinely wondering if it's something that I'm missing here? I understand paying a premium for immediacy, especially if you're not really buying that much 1% net isn't gonna kill you. I just don't follow how it can be cheaper for you with a card purchase.

Ok I double checked... I didn't notice that it goes down to 1.49% if I use a bank account. I could have sworn it was different before though. Really strange.

There's a little jew in all of us.

If you guys really want the lowest rock bottom way to buy do this.

1. Send an ACH transfer from Gemini, the limit is $500 per day. It is FREE.

2. Purchase your coin with either a maker or taker order, it doesn't matter. Fees are only .15%.

3. Wait 5 days for your ACH to clear and withdraw coins.

There is no credit card manufactured spending arbitrage hack at play here. The fees simply outweigh the cash back or points.

Anyone having issues transferring money into GDAX lately?

I sent money into GDAX 7 days ago, and it's still pending. Well, on GDAX it says the transfer is complete, but on Coinbase it says pending. Strange.

(05-10-2017 09:16 PM)CleanSlate Wrote:  Anyone having issues transferring money into GDAX lately?

I sent money into GDAX 7 days ago, and it's still pending. Well, on GDAX it says the transfer is complete, but on Coinbase it says pending. Strange.

Yes. I sent in some cash on 5/5 and it's been withdrawn by my bank, but is still in pending.

If you go to https://www.gdax.com/accounts, highlight your USD account, and click on "Transfers" it will show you the status of the transfer. Click the drop down arrow and it gives you the Estimated Payout Date. Mine is 5/15.

So it should take 10 days to send in less than $1000 and get it on the exchange?

Update: the Coinbase dashboard currently reads:

Payout delays
Some users may have experienced delays with purchase, deposit, or withdrawal payouts over the course of the last week. We're actively working to resolve this. For more information, follow our status page by clicking 'read more'.

(05-09-2017 05:52 PM)Skank_Hunt Wrote:  Yes I did wonder where JJG was in this time of high action with so many altcoins being pumped to ridiculous levels. Maybe he decided to take a break from watching crypto markets because it's very stressful when you see coins going 3x, 5x, 10x and you're not on the train. I'm pissed off enough at myself for not getting a couple of these altcoins which I was considering. Even though BTC is going up it has small percentage gains compared to the alts in recent weeks. The alts are down maybe 20% today, but they would have to go down by another 50-70% to revisit levels before the pump, that's how much they have increased.

He's probably rolling around in a pile of money.

Seriously though, he hasn't logged in since talking shit in the Ethereum thread. I really hope no one whined to the RVF mods and got him suspended. He can dish it out, but he can also certainly take it.

(05-09-2017 04:13 PM)Isaac Jordan Wrote:  For the guys trying to time the top of this bubble (and no doubt about it, we are absolutely in a bubble), I'd suggest checking out an exchange (I use Bitfinex) that provides stop loss options.

I'm in pretty major profit right now, so I moved both my bitcoin and ethereum to Bitfinex and set rather loose (~20% below market price) stop losses. This way, when the market tanks, I'll be sold relatively near the top and I can sleep at night without worrying about missing out on gains.

My plan is to simply move those stops up in accordance with price movements, and then tighten them up over the next two weeks. Looks like bitcoin might make a run for $2,000 and with all the good news ether is expecting this month (EEA announcement in particular) I wouldn't be surprised to see it retest $100 and maybe even move past it.

The only thing to watch out for here is, of course, the volatility. Set your stops too tight, and the price could flash crash, stop you out, and then move right back up. As I'm typing this I'm actually watching bitcoin go from $1800 down to $1700 and now back up to $1750, all within about ten minutes. That's why I keep a hefty distance for now, and will only start to tighten those when I think a crash is imminent.

This.

I got fucked over by a flash crash with my ETH holdings. Had my trailing stop 1.5x the daily range below the market price but it got hit. I'm starting to think that trailing stops is not such a good idea after all, as it tightens your stop too much sometimes when there is volatility. It helps when margin positions are open though because god knows crypto can be crazy volatile while you are sleeping.

(05-05-2017 06:44 AM)CleanSlate Wrote:  Should I store all my coins in one exchange like poloniex where I can trade in and out of other alt coins, or on GDAX where I can easily transfer in and out of US dollars? Or keep them on both?

I know JJG uses different exchanges, but doesn't that make it harder to keep track of what you bought and what you sold and at what prices?

You are correct that the more places that you keep your money, the more difficult it is to keep track.

I do think that you do want to keep your money in a few places in order to lessen some of the risk if one goes down and you can still trade, if you feel that you need to.

Some of this is discretionary, too. I try not to keep more than double of what I am expecting to trade on the exchanges, but this can become a bit of a slippery slope and sometimes you may end up keeping too many coins on an exchange and run risks with that too.

But, yeah, you are correct, if you are trying to play balls to the wall trading, then you are subjecting your stash to a considerable amount of third party risk to have all of that stash there in order to sell it quickly.. I personally don't want to take such a risk, but I understand why some guys might want to convert to dollars (or to some other coin) quickly when they believe BTC price is going to drop (even if they end up being wrong they might feel safer to have been able to convert some of to another asset or currency).

(05-06-2017 01:18 PM)pants Wrote:  This over and over.
And even if the exchange dont want to scam you. There is also a possibility that they loose their private key where they store most of the coins cold.

I was very skeptical of exchanges. I formated a computer. Generated addresses of network. Saved the private key in a few various locations.

I would also be careful not bragging about how much crypto i got. Lets say you meet up with some members who tries to force you to transfer your money to their address. Its not much you really could do?

These are the kinds of precautions that all of us need to learn to practice, and it is not easy with a budding technology.

For example, if we are going out in a dangerous neighborhood, then maybe we would only want to have a few hundred dollars that are even accessible on our phone or other device.. but we also may want to be able to have emergency funds that we can access too, just in case we need more, for some reason.

There are more and more innovations that provide abilities for guys to hide some of their coins, or cause an additional level of security to access a more secure folder, for example.

(05-08-2017 10:58 PM)pants Wrote:  JJG, what a time to be alive? You are so quiet lately, have this massive bitcoin spike blacked you out?

For different reasons, I had a similar issue during the early March spike.

It can be quite amazing when the prices are rising so quickly, and yeah.. paralysis can ensue, too.

(05-09-2017 12:48 PM)DamienCasanova Wrote:  

(05-07-2017 02:20 PM)Ray Carlton Wrote:  

(05-07-2017 07:44 AM)MaleDefined Wrote:  Wait, what?!?!

Purchases to coinbase through credit cards aren't cash advances?

Could run manufactured spend for points through this method.

I had the same idea, but you have to pay 3% in fee. Quite expensive if you ask me.

You have to pay 3-4% to coinbase and my bank charged me 3% on all charges to coinbase for a foreign transaction fee. So I'm getting hit for 7%, with 1% cashback, Still a 6% fee. And at coinbase the live price is like $25-30 more than the current market price for BTC, so you're getting ripped pretty hard on all transactions.

I've posted about this before. I had accidentally processed a credit card transaction on Circle, and it ended up costing me somewhere between 16% and 20%, and I think that I had even gotten some reversal of some of the charges (because I said it was an accident). It was only a $100 transaction and cost me close to $120.. by the time the additional fees stopped coming in.

(05-09-2017 05:52 PM)Skank_Hunt Wrote:  Yes I did wonder where JJG was in this time of high action with so many altcoins being pumped to ridiculous levels. Maybe he decided to take a break from watching crypto markets because it's very stressful when you see coins going 3x, 5x, 10x and you're not on the train. I'm pissed off enough at myself for not getting a couple of these altcoins which I was considering. Even though BTC is going up it has small percentage gains compared to the alts in recent weeks. The alts are down maybe 20% today, but they would have to go down by another 50-70% to revisit levels before the pump, that's how much they have increased.

Personally, I feel as if my hands are already full with bitcoin and the three alts that I currently own (ETC, LTC and XMR), along with other things that have to happen in life.

You know sometimes I am supposed to be doing other shit, and what happens, the market is moving 5% in a couple of hours and it just becomes quite absorbing just to keep on top of bitcoin that I have on 5 exchanges that are trading.

Earlier today, I said to myself.. fuck.. I need a break.. BTC prices were floating between $1790 and $1840, and I just said to myself that I am going to take a break and let the market play out for a while maybe leave all of my orders and just wait until either below $1700 or above $1920... but then a few hours after I said that, then the price dipped from $1830 to $1760... ..

So go figure.

I have not touched any of my orders.. I am just waiting a little bit more before I look at them and try to figure out what I am going to do.

If I could have some confidence in my forecast, I would pull all my buy orders and then just wait and buy below $1,700.. but I am too afraid to do that (at least at the moment).

(05-11-2017 12:48 AM)Stun Wrote:  

(05-09-2017 05:52 PM)Skank_Hunt Wrote:  Yes I did wonder where JJG was in this time of high action with so many altcoins being pumped to ridiculous levels. Maybe he decided to take a break from watching crypto markets because it's very stressful when you see coins going 3x, 5x, 10x and you're not on the train. I'm pissed off enough at myself for not getting a couple of these altcoins which I was considering. Even though BTC is going up it has small percentage gains compared to the alts in recent weeks. The alts are down maybe 20% today, but they would have to go down by another 50-70% to revisit levels before the pump, that's how much they have increased.

He's probably rolling around in a pile of money.

Seriously though, he hasn't logged in since talking shit in the Ethereum thread. I really hope no one whined to the RVF mods and got him suspended. He can dish it out, but he can also certainly take it.

I personally believe it is best if we can stay away from personal attacks, and sometimes each of us can be guilty of going a bit far into this - whether we started the fight or not, sometimes it can be difficult to determine who started the fight.

Are you day trading JJG? Or are you putting new money in at this point?

(05-12-2017 01:01 AM)Satoshi Wrote:  Are you day trading JJG? Or are you putting new money in at this point?

Do you really want to have a dialogue and share information about investment strategies or are you merely just engaged in a judgemental gotcha and told you so tactics in order to try to denigrate another guy's strategy?


Even though I describe what I am doing in a considerable amount of detail and I assert that what I am doing works for me and my situation and from time to time, I adjust what I am doing if my situation or my perspective changes.

As you may recall, I have been trading since October 2015.

Also as you may recall, I had felt like I had done a large majority of my initial investment into BTC by the end of 2014. So it took me a year to put in what I considered to be my initial BTC investment.

Even though I had put my initial investment into BTC by the end of 2014, I also put additional money into the system since then by continuing to use dollar cost averaging.. or at least putting money into btc on a regular basis as I have additional investment cash for such.

Dollar cost averaging is a solid method that can be used for any investment, and I have been employing dollar cost averaging with other investments for more than 30 years... so it has been a tried and true method for me, no matter the asset.

Currently in my BTC allocated funds, I remain about 90% bitcoin and 10% dollars - however recently, especially after the latest price rise, I felt like I had too many dollars in that fund - nonetheless, when I begin to feel like I have too many dollars I attempt to buy more BTC on dips in order to rebalance my holdings or to sell less BTC when the price goes up.

The same is true, if I start to feel that I do not have enough dollars (for example on a large correction), I will buy less BTC as the price is dipping and sell more as the price is going up. For example, in late 2016, I continued to think that i had too many BTC - about 1% or more overallocated (i may have been 96% in rather than 95% or something like that) - but as the price continued to rise, the situation corrected itself to allow me more opportunities to sell.

So, yeah, I put more dollars into the system from time to time with extra dollars that I have and continue to follow a kind of dollar cost averaging method. So, for example if I have $300 extra dollars one month, I may go out and spend $100 and then use the other $200 to put into my BTC related funds - which does not necessarily mean that I buy the BTC right away.. depending on if I feel over or under invested.

Good to see you again, JJG. Ignore the troll posts and keep posting.

We may have different views on some altcoins, but you are one heck of a source on bitcoin. Plus, we've been trading bitcoin in some of the best years (2015, 2016) and this thread has been unnoticed for most of this time!

Bitcoin has absolutely routed the indexes. Posters saying it's not a good investment must be out of their mind. Check the stock thread for the biggest LOLs you've ever seen - people boasting about getting a 9% return!

I know that sometimes exaggerations can be attempts to have fun. I know that also sometimes guys really believe some of these ideas that bitcoin is dying because it is losing market share to alts - but let's get a bit real in regards to the current bitcoin situation.

At this time, I think that we could panic if we were to see BTC prices below $700, anywhere within the next several months.

In other words, it would take a whole hell-of-a-lot of loss of confidence to achieve those kinds of numbers below $700 or even below $1,000 for that matter (maybe panic would be o.k. in those circumstances, even with prices below $1k)..

Right now, at the moment, the BTC price trend is upwards, and the current dips that we have been experiencing from the lower $1,800s into the mid-$1,700s tends to support pretty decent probabilities that BTC prices are continuing up... and testing of $2,000 is seeming likely in the coming days or within a week or so if it drags out.

Sure, price dynamics can change, too, but I am describing what seems to be our current trend in bitcoin - even if people do not believe 5% to 10% gains are enough, I think guys are too greedy if they expect higher returns (even if they do have potential to get higher returns elsewhere if they can time the matters properly in those elsewhere places).

(05-12-2017 07:12 AM)SunW Wrote:  Good to see you again, JJG. Ignore the troll posts and keep posting.

We may have different views on some altcoins, but you are one heck of a source on bitcoin. Plus, we've been trading bitcoin in some of the best years (2015, 2016) and this thread has been unnoticed for most of this time!

Actually, you are correct that trading that had bullish assumptions really killed in 2015 and 2016 in bitcoin and could have really achieved phenomenal numbers during that period - just like in 2014, those who were trading bearish trends did really well in 2014 (one of the only years that bears could have made a killing in bitcoin).

I have no problem with anyone attempting to achieve some greater returns in alts, but I still think that it would be prudent for guys to give serious consideration to how much of their portfolio they want to place into such gambling. I personally would not put more than about 10% in that direction, but I still can understand and accept how some guys might have personalities in which 20% to 40% could be reasonable. I have harder times relating to higher allocations, but that is probably where we have disagreements in our ways of thinking about the level of risk - and whether a gambling methodology can pay off.

I do understand, as well, that some guys, with experiences with gambling methodologies do have some techniques that they can employ to protect from some of the risk or even to siphon off profits to balance out losses.

(05-12-2017 07:12 AM)SunW Wrote:  Bitcoin has absolutely routed the indexes. Posters saying it's not a good investment must be out of their mind. Check the stock thread for the biggest LOLs you've ever seen - people boasting about getting a 9% return!

Exactly... we need to put some of this into perspective, and really if you can achieve 9% returns over the long term you are doing really well. Cryptos do certainly allow for quite greater returns, but there also may need to be safeguards in place as well in order to attempt to achieve some consistency with returns.

Bitcoin is new, and alts are even newer, so it is difficult to measure any kind of long term consistent return with any of the cryptos - although there is a bit of a better chance to make such measurements in bitcoin, since it has been around longer than a large majority of alts. There are a large number of alts that have less than a 1 year life, and alts that are 2-3 years old are considered old foggie alts...

Here's a thought exercise that maybe you could attempt to think through privately or even answer publicly... I have given some answers concerning my own current thinking, at this moment.

What are the odds of a dump beginning within the $1,750 to $1,900 range?

55% down / 45% up ?


What are the odds of a dump that starts after going within the $1,900 to $2,000 range?

45% down / 55% up ?


What are the odds of a dump that starts after going within the $2,000 to $2,200 range?

40% down / 60% up ?


What are the odds of a dump that starts after going within the $2,200 to $2,500 range?

60% down / 40% up ?


What are the odds of a dump that starts after going within the $2,500 to $3,000 range?

53% down / 47% up ?


What are the odds of a dump that starts after going within the $3,000 to $4,000 range?

51% down / 49% up ?


What are the odds of a dump that starts after going within the $4,000 to $5,000 range?

75% down / 25% up ?


Unless we happen to be a real giant manipulator (and even those guys might be lacking confidence), we should be considering odds of direction, no? Surely, sooner or later we gotta go down - yet if we make it past a certain price threshold, we have to recalculate the odds of up or down within that new price range, no?

For example, think about it. Right now, the odds of going into the $4k to $5k price range within the next 6 months is probably less than 10% - however, if we were to get passed $4k, then the odds of going either up or down within that $4k to $5k change to about 25% that we could continue up from there, no? Getting there is one thing that has a lot of obstacles, but once we get there, our odds have fewer components (because we are already mostly there).

I don't know about these odds and the BTC price is unpredictable. I wouldn't have thought it would go to $1800 now.

But what about the scaling issue? Segwit? Hardfork? I haven't seen any new news about this.

(05-12-2017 08:32 AM)CleanSlate Wrote:  I don't know about these odds and the BTC price is unpredictable. I wouldn't have thought it would go to $1800 now.

Part of my point is that we have to make our investment based on our own view of the odds.

If I say that currently the odds are 55% down and 45% up, then hopefully I attempt to bet accordingly.

However, if the price goes in one direction and gets past $1,900, then the odds for me shift to 45% down and 55% up. I am just saying that I prepare for either direction with a little bit of a preference in one direction or another, and if the price passes a certain threshold, I recalculate for myself (and I just happen to not mind sharing those views within the thread).

By the way, I also did not believe that the odds were so great that the price would go from $890 to $1890 without hardly a correction. But once we are here, we have to reconsider the situation based on where we are at and how we got here and what we believe the future to be including the impact of various outside forces and fundamentals.

(05-12-2017 08:32 AM)CleanSlate Wrote:  But what about the scaling issue? Segwit? Hardfork? I haven't seen any new news about this.

Apparently, the market does not believe those factors as important as the people would have thought.

In the past, I also had asserted that those factors are overinflated by the press and by the FUDsters.

The fact of the matter is that we don't really know, there are positive and negative developments and some of those get more press than others and some of them are maybe a bit less fundamental than they are made out to be.

The value that bitcoin brings is likely beyond some of these issues that are supposedly crippling it.

Also, as mentioned several times by me, and probably by others, the scaling debate has been the OMG exaggeration since the mid $200s, and the price went up more than 8x.

You gotta consider too that sometimes FUD is spread in order to cause perceptions of undervalue and in order to trick people out of their coins. If in the end you have fewer coins than you would have had, then maybe the FUD has achieved a considerable amount of its objective and then when you finally jump in (at $4k for example), they will start to sell.

Anyhow, I think that part of the point is that we take some of this with a grain of salt and still figure out our own allocations whether that is 10% BTC or 40% BTC or 80%BTC or whatever other allocation is comfortable for us.. and maybe adjust from time to time in ways that are not too focused on attempting to predict with too much precisions in black and white ways because the truth of the matter has been that it is always difficult to predict.. but we have seen since about November 2015 (that was the shoot up from $200 to $500) ongoing and amazing bitcoin performance and ongoing and amazing upwards price pressures, in spite of the spreading of FUD.

We got further confirmation of the upwards price pressures in about May 2016 when BTC prices went upwards and past $500... and yeah, manipulators would have liked to have kept prices below $500, but they were not able to retain it below $500 and have not been able to get it to go down since then. That's called ongoing and upwards price pressures that continue to this day, in spite of some of the nonsense FUD spreading that may trick people out of their coins by causing them to sell or causing them not to allocate enough in the BTC direction.

Are we going back to $890? It is possible, but does not seem too likely in the near future.


By the way, I don't think any of us thought that $1,800 was going to be likely too quickly.

When we were at $890, I would have placed $1,800 at less than 15% in the coming 6 months, and even SunW had a fairly bullish prediction but he was suggesting such price by the end of the 2017. Of course, none of us know, and even when such bullish exponential scenarios occur, we still may have considered them to be possible and within our prediction of possible. But once they occur, then we have to reassess what we consider to be possible and account for their occurrence, whether we consider such occurrence to be a bubble or an indicator of possible further UP.

Either way, I doubt that BTC prices are currently in a place to level off.. not at this price point.. we are likely to have up and down before we have leveling off.. which direction is coming first, is difficult to predict, and at this point, I give a slightly greater chance for down.. but I would not be surprised either way.

Surely, the Bitfinex withdrawal situation is taking a long time to resolve.

The below thread reflects on an announcement that Bitfinex made today, which is largely just saying that they have the same problem, but they are are going to allow one time withdrawals of fiat (anticipating still that they are going to be able to resume "normal" operations in the near future).

https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/...ls_update/

^ Pretty good prediction. BTC and ETH are plummeting. Not to suggest they won't rebound later today, but BTC is currently down $175 on the day.

Check out the Vault 7 thread, there is an encrypting ransomware demanding BTC for decryption. Either the recent explosion BTC/$ was influenced by this, or the bubble will get pumped even more.

(05-12-2017 01:57 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  Surely, the Bitfinex withdrawal situation is taking a long time to resolve.

The below thread reflects on an announcement that Bitfinex made today, which is largely just saying that they have the same problem, but they are are going to allow one time withdrawals of fiat (anticipating still that they are going to be able to resume "normal" operations in the near future).

https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/...ls_update/

Thanks for bringing this up JJG. Bitfinex users have been limited to crypto-only deposits and withdrawals for several weeks now, and I imagine given the exchange's history the inability to move fiat must have caused quite a bit of discomfort in anyone who had been using the exchange.

If you've been watching prices go up and up, but you've been unable to cash out for a month, and then suddenly you're given the option...well, I'm not surprised people are taking this opportunity to withdraw fiat.

If that's the situation though, then this latest correction is more of a case of weak hands exiting the market. I imagine there will be some very excited Chinese/Japanese folks waking up in a few hours eager to grab some (relatively) cheap coins. So maybe as the Bitfinex news trickles out we'll see a sustained drop, followed by a new run up to $2k.

Or this is the beginning of the crash and we're on our way back down to ~$1,000. At this point neither would surprise me.