For those who want to read the original white paper on Bitcoin from Satochi Nakamoto, here it is:

http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

So, I've opened up an account with Coinbase and I am going to be buying some bitcoins within the next few days/weeks/months. My question for those who already own some is: should I wait for the price to come down a little? It seems the cost is over-inflated to what is has been historically. In your opinions what would be a good cost to start buying in at?

Also, what is a good off-line wallet to store my coins in? I've downloaded Armory but it doesn't seem to be working with my mac. I'd really like to store them on paper in case anything happens to the hard drive I put them on. Does anyone have a good tutorial on how to store the codes on paper?

Thanks for any info.

(12-05-2013 12:38 PM)Farmageddon Wrote:  So, I've opened up an account with Coinbase and I am going to be buying some bitcoins within the next few days/weeks/months. My question for those who already own some is: should I wait for the price to come down a little? It seems the cost is over-inflated to what is has been historically. In your opinions what would be a good cost to start buying in at?

Also, what is a good off-line wallet to store my coins in? I've downloaded Armory but it doesn't seem to be working with my mac. I'd really like to store them on paper in case anything happens to the hard drive I put them on. Does anyone have a good tutorial on how to store the codes on paper?

Thanks for any info.

I'm a fairly Newbie to Bitcoin, also. Accordingly, I am also interested in your questions.

I've explained some of my investment philosophies about Bitcoin (as I'm learning) and my recent experiences with Coinbase in the below posting and in various places in that other thread at:

http://www.rooshvforum.com/thread-21537-...#pid591785

In essence, based on my various information and my current sense, I am planning to be long on Bitcoin, so I am trying to find the best place(s) to employ dollar cost averaging - and the cheapest financial charges and transactional costs and to be able to buy frequently and steadily to build up my portfolio of Bitcoins, with as much as I can afford to lose (while maintaining other investments).

I am looking for cheaper rates and transactional costs than Coinbase, but so far I have NOT found cheaper.

If you are asking RVF guys to predict the Bitcoin market in the short term, such as tomorrow or next week or next month, you are going to get lots of answers and variations - and to me, the market seems too volatile for any clear short-term prediction(s) from anyone, even the supposed experts - unless they happen to have some inside knowledge about something that is going to happen but has NOT become public, yet.

It seems that any news can send Bitcoin prices in one or another direction.. and may NOT even be related to Bitcoins.

Reading that other thread that I already provided and links (if you have NOT already read it) may help for further information.

You may be a little further along than me with wallet experimentations. I spent nearly a week downloading the Bitcoin QT wallet, but i have NOT tried it out, yet.

I also have some coins in BTC-e, but i believe that so far, I am using BTC-e to buy some Alt coins, maybe NOT too many of those alt coins (and to have another location to store some of my Bitcoins, which are NOT too many, at this point).

Investing in bitcoin is like investing in anything else. At the level we are currently most people believe it can go either way short term.

When I found Bitcoin it was at 28USD, I had a hard time finding a way to buy some. And bye the time I found a solution it had already risen to 57USD, should i go in or should i wait for the price to maybe drop down to 40 USD again?

My interest was long term, and in my opinion if Bitcoin was gonna catch on it was going to go way higher. For me it would have been much worse if the price continued to increased and I would continue with my mentalism of, "If it just drop 10%, i am buying in!"

A good way to limit the risk is to never go 100%. Never buy all or sell all at once.

There are already written several good guides on safety. Its key to work on a system free from spyware and key logging software. I would recommend download a linux distro and boot from it every time you handle your wallet.

And make sure you generate your wallet from a safe place.
bitaddress.org is recommended from people in the community.

Download the page on a USB stick.

Generate an address from your linux system while being offline.

Remember to STORE the prive key many places you have control over. I encrypt them using a software called TrueCrypt.

Cheers

Thank you pants. Very helpful info. Security was something that I had not looked into seriously yet (was just trying to understand all the processes, investment etc). Many thanks.

Is anyone making $$ on these mini crashes? I'm trying to find a pattern. (just BTC)

(12-05-2013 03:41 PM)el mechanico Wrote:  Is anyone making $$ on these mini crashes? I'm trying to find a pattern. (just BTC)

Yes, that is the only time I buy BTC.

I'm talking about selling first.

(12-05-2013 03:49 PM)el mechanico Wrote:  I'm talking about selling first.

Buy low, sell when it goes back up???

Doesn't seem too hard to do.

If you could manage to sell when it reaches about $1100 or $1200 and then rebuy at ~$800 and you do that a few times you would be making a fucking killing.

(12-05-2013 03:30 PM)pants Wrote:  Investing in bitcoin is like investing in anything else. At the level we are currently most people believe it can go either way short term.

When I found Bitcoin it was at 28USD, I had a hard time finding a way to buy some. And bye the time I found a solution it had already risen to 57USD, should i go in or should i wait for the price to maybe drop down to 40 USD again?

My interest was long term, and in my opinion if Bitcoin was gonna catch on it was going to go way higher. For me it would have been much worse if the price continued to increased and I would continue with my mentalism of, "If it just drop 10%, i am buying in!"

A good way to limit the risk is to never go 100%. Never buy all or sell all at once.

There are already written several good guides on safety. Its key to work on a system free from spyware and key logging software. I would recommend download a linux distro and boot from it every time you handle your wallet.

And make sure you generate your wallet from a safe place.
bitaddress.org is recommended from people in the community.

Download the page on a USB stick.

Generate an address from your linux system while being offline.

Remember to STORE the prive key many places you have control over. I encrypt them using a software called TrueCrypt.

Cheers

Pants: I agree with your investment strategy.

b]Regarding security[/b] I'm NOT disagreeing with you that there may be some NEEDS for security measures. Nonetheless, you gotta admit that if regular people have to take a bunch of security measures, such as the ones that you describe to safeguard their Bitcoins, then this Bitcoin thing is NEVER going to take off. Regular people need this to be easy... they cannot even program their VCRs (back in the day).

We need user friendliness with any of these kinds of money things, otherwise the masses are NOT going to begin to use this payment system and these Bitcoins are going to remain a nitch group of people and thus the value of Bitcoins will decline.

I am still learning about what security measures that I am going to need to take ... from a Mac, and I hope that I do NOT have to take as many security measures as you seems to be taking.

i partly agree.

But remember Bitcoin is a child, and it got tons of child sicknesses.

In the future there will pop up hardware wallets, specialist electronics to be used for storing Bitcoins. This will make it much easier for the everyday consumer.

In the meantime I would operate with two wallets, one for spending and one for storage.
On the small one I use for day to day transactions I would not go through all this security.

i partly agree.

But remember Bitcoin is a child, and it got tons of child sicknesses.
Internet in the beginning was the same way. Filled with scammers.

In the future there will pop up hardware wallets, specialist electronics to be used for storing Bitcoins. This will make it much easier for the everyday user.

In the meantime I would operate with two wallets, one for spending and one for storage.
On the small one I use for day to day transactions I would not go through all this security.


If you never done it before, creating a linux partition on a USB is much less work than you would assume. Its basically plug and play.

(12-05-2013 04:34 PM)pants Wrote:  If you never done it before, creating a linux partition on a USB is much less work than you would assume. Its basically plug and play.

Plug and play to me means that I plug in a USB flash drive, and I can go to a drop down menu that I could create another partition - or to reformat the USB drive. Is it that easy?

Or could a guy create a separate partition on his hard drive for that purpose, too? I'm NOT that concerned about my machine being hooked up to the internet, so long as there were a separate partition securely holding my bit coin wallet.

NO matter what, people, including me, get lazy, and we want easy, peasy, if possible.

If you chose not to use Linux, I bet you are still 99.99% safe.
Its just that in my opinion I would feel more relaxed using a fresh system, no spyware that could have found the way in.

I did not watch the entire video, but this youtube video seems to fairly good.





Where every you send bitcoin, make sure you have the private key, unless you are actually paying someone of course...

A good rule of thumb, never delete a private key.

What's everyone preferred way to buy them - and to turn them back into cash?

I'm also curious what you all think of mining bitcoins?
https://products.butterflylabs.com/

Specifically, this service:
https://products.butterflylabs.com/homep...power.html


I had a few bitcoins this summer, and didn't think about them till recently when I logged in and was shocked how high they'd gone up.

It made me want to get more, but I'm waiting for a dip that might not happen till later.

Mining seemed like a cheaper long term investment, but I'm still looking into it.

Butterfly Labs is (likely or at least mostly) a scam. Some have indeed received their orders, many have been waiting since the last crash in april...

The CEO has been convicted of mail fraud (~25$ M).
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=110805.0

Considering lots of ppl bought & never got their ASICs (yet), I'd be cautious. Very cautious. Remember: time is factor. Every passing month you need better equipment for the same (i.e. amount BTC mined in pool) return on computing power.

(12-06-2013 06:32 AM)Maciano Wrote:  Butterfly Labs is (likely or at least mostly) a scam. Some have indeed received their orders, many have been waiting since the last crash in april...

The CEO has been convicted of mail fraud (~25$ M).
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=110805.0

Considering lots of ppl bought & never got their ASICs (yet), I'd be cautious. Very cautious. Remember: time is factor. Every passing month you need better equipment for the same (i.e. amount BTC mined in pool) return on computing power.

Yikes! Thanks for the heads up. I emailed them a week ago, and they still haven't gotten back to me. Good to know.

I've heard good things about their equipment, but I'll get it used or ebay if I really decide to go for it.

Any other suggestions on bitcoin mining?

(12-06-2013 10:46 AM)runsonmagic Wrote:  

(12-06-2013 06:32 AM)Maciano Wrote:  Butterfly Labs is (likely or at least mostly) a scam. Some have indeed received their orders, many have been waiting since the last crash in april...

The CEO has been convicted of mail fraud (~25$ M).
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=110805.0

Considering lots of ppl bought & never got their ASICs (yet), I'd be cautious. Very cautious. Remember: time is factor. Every passing month you need better equipment for the same (i.e. amount BTC mined in pool) return on computing power.

Yikes! Thanks for the heads up. I emailed them a week ago, and they still haven't gotten back to me. Good to know.

I've heard good things about their equipment, but I'll get it used or ebay if I really decide to go for it.

Any other suggestions on bitcoin mining?

https://www.kncminer.com/
They have delivered before. 13.000$ is a lot but there is group buys on bitcointalk.com. I put some bitcoins on on that. Will see how it goes. Also mining contracts is another way. I got 266GH from http://e-pickaxe.com/. Will see if I get my payout tomorrow I can put them as 100% green.

friheten can you explain buying production in more detail? So you buy hash production and whatever gets mined is yours right? Would love to find out if it works out for you. Fascinating.

im really debating getting out. on the last btcs i purchased at 1000 im at a loss. but i purchased 2x at 300 so theres a net positive.

but more and more the govts are doing everything they can to sabotage it - baidu has just been pressured by the Chinese govt to denounce btc.

The only thing that is theres a lot of smart money that keeps it supported, although this smart money is very risky too since it's all those tech VCs.

(12-06-2013 12:17 PM)samsamsam Wrote:  friheten can you explain buying production in more detail? So you buy hash production and whatever gets mined is yours right? Would love to find out if it works out for you. Fascinating.

Yepp that's about it. I made some posts about it in the other bitcoin tread, have a look there. Got my second payment today from http://e-pickaxe.com/ so I can say that thay are green. Got 2.2BTC in total back, I put in 10.11BTC so will go break even sometime in January I think. Also have a look at the group buys of ACIS rigs over at bitcointalk, I put some BTC into the new KnC miner Neptune. How much profit it gives will be unclear until I know when it delivers, but it should me good.

Regarding the price ATM I think we see a lot of weak hands letting go of coins right now. Many people will see the price dip and in next week the price will go to new all time high after new fiat comes to the exchanges. It got so much attention now and lots of people know about it.

(12-07-2013 01:06 AM)friheten Wrote:  I put some BTC into the new KnC miner Neptune. How much profit it gives will be unclear until I know when it delivers, but it should me good.

Holy crap that is over 10K! I just googled it. Wow, hope it works out! Glad to have guys like you on the board who know what they are doing.

Really short guide to mining.

To earn money from mining you need to consider several factors
- Cost of mining equipment
- cost of electricity
- Risks of investing in mining equipment(Will they deliver when they say they will?)
- Future hashrate(how many other people are mining?)
- Value of bitcoin.

Lucky there are calculators for the theoretical part.
http://www.bitcoinx.com/profit/
Problem is future hashrate and value of bitcoin is highly unpredictable.

Scroll down this page to have a look at the developing "Difficulty". Its adjusted to the current network strength every now and then.
http://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty

To predict future hashrate you need to get an overview of the fabrics creating mining equipment, how much they create and when it will hit the market.

(12-05-2013 03:58 PM)username Wrote:  If you could manage to sell when it reaches about $1100 or $1200 and then rebuy at ~$800 and you do that a few times you would be making a fucking killing.

the problem is coinbase takes 5 biz days to deposit the coins in your account from the moment of payment. so you have that 5 days risk that you can't sell.

any solutions?