Bitcoin (cryptocurrency)

I ended my bitcoin experiment in the same manner as I'd progressed the whole thing, with astoundingly bad timing. My £500 holding being sold for £730 about 2 days before the orange shit gibbons triumph :/
At least you made £230. I bought £493 worth of Eurotunnel shares in 1987 for £7.83 each but after rising to £12.40 they dropped to be worth about 3p after costs soared & were then diluted into something called warrants. You made a 45% gain..not bad.
 
Its a 256bit encryption key so as a hexadecimal code thats 64 characters, or Base64 which is what most passcodes use (the normal 0-9, a-Z and a few special characters) would require 44 characters minimum.
Thanks. I wonder how many people are in their office trying to find one of the 4 million bitcoin passkeys that are lost by typing a variety of 44 characters into differing permutations? £50 grand for each correct answer.
 
Thanks. I wonder how many people are in their office trying to find one of the 4 million bitcoin passkeys that are lost by typing a variety of 44 characters into differing permutations? £50 grand for each correct answer.
The way I understand it this is virtually impossible and nobody knows which keys are lost or not so it can't be reduced to 4 million.

You would have to know the public keys (21 million combinations) and the private keys (totally unknown combinations) multiplied by the possible combinations of the two.

It would surely take a supercomputer thousands of years to get one right.
 
The way I understand it this is virtually impossible and nobody knows which keys are lost or not so it can't be reduced to 4 million.

You would have to know the public keys (21 million combinations) and the private keys (totally unknown combinations) multiplied by the possible combinations of the two.

It would surely take a supercomputer thousands of years to get one right.
Or one of the experts in the match day thread about 10minutes. Thanks for all the info anyway to all blues on the thread. It sounds like a quick way to make money but also to lose money due to security concerns.
 
The way I understand it this is virtually impossible and nobody knows which keys are lost or not so it can't be reduced to 4 million.

You would have to know the public keys (21 million combinations) and the private keys (totally unknown combinations) multiplied by the possible combinations of the two.

It would surely take a supercomputer thousands of years to get one right.
Massive understatement even using quantum computing it would take around 10 quadrillion years. 256 AES is very, very secure.
 
Or one of the experts in the match day thread about 10minutes. Thanks for all the info anyway to all blues on the thread. It sounds like a quick way to make money but also to lose money due to security concerns.
It's a very hard way to lose money (due to security) as long as you don't lose your key. The whole point of the Blockchain is security due to the way it's set up

It's a very easy way to lose money investing in it as it's still not clear what purpose it serves until you can use it for normal purchases. The price swings stop it being a useful store of value and make it a more speculative asset, hoping the value outstrips inflation. It, and other smaller cryptocurrencies more so, are at risk of pump and dump schemes due to the lack of regulation.

There's every chance it'll double or halve in value over the rest of the year and same again next year. For the smaller currencies, you could 1000x. your stake or lose everything.
 
It's a very hard way to lose money (due to security) as long as you don't lose your key. The whole point of the Blockchain is security due to the way it's set up

It's a very easy way to lose money investing in it as it's still not clear what purpose it serves until you can use it for normal purchases. The price swings stop it being a useful store of value and make it a more speculative asset, hoping the value outstrips inflation. It, and other smaller cryptocurrencies more so, are at risk of pump and dump schemes due to the lack of regulation.

There's every chance it'll double or halve in value over the rest of the year and same again next year. For the smaller currencies, you could 1000x. your stake or lose everything.
The security issue is my main concern as any other type of loss is only the same as buying & selling shares on the stock exchange through a broker and thus making money or losing money through speculation.

Like any financial gamble its best not to invest what you cant afford to lose. My experiance in shares is once bitten twice shy but i learned its best not to get greedy and cash out once a bit of money has been achieved.

I only looked into it as i approach retirement age as a gamble into increasing my savings to enable finding a place to live that hasn't got mouldy walls, holes in the ceiling & waste water pipes emptying across my flat roof...in that context its not really a gamble because if i lost everything i could stay here & just live off a state pension & would only lose my savings.

Anyway thanks for all the advice...it sounds like you think its pretty secure...I'll look into these digital wallet companies and see who of them have a 100% record regarding bitcoin purchases & sales.

I wouldnt be interested in using bitcoin to buy products although i did see some interesting information that some governments use certain types of cryptocurrency for a variety of purchases. Reddit reckon 1 bitcoin will be worth about £380,000 by 2030 but i wouldnt trust anything with the word red in it.
 
Thanks. I wonder how many people are in their office trying to find one of the 4 million bitcoin passkeys that are lost by typing a variety of 44 characters into differing permutations? £50 grand for each correct answer.

The way I understand it this is virtually impossible and nobody knows which keys are lost or not so it can't be reduced to 4 million.

You would have to know the public keys (21 million combinations) and the private keys (totally unknown combinations) multiplied by the possible combinations of the two.

It would surely take a supercomputer thousands of years to get one right.

Or one of the experts in the match day thread about 10minutes. Thanks for all the info anyway to all blues on the thread. It sounds like a quick way to make money but also to lose money due to security concerns.

Massive understatement even using quantum computing it would take around 10 quadrillion years. 256 AES is very, very secure.

Fun fact. You can buy a small device that literally tries to guess bitcoin keys.

And there are millions of stories out there of people losing their access one way or another, or scammers offering to act as brokers / custodians and disappearing.

Man has two guesses to unlock bitcoin worth $240m - BBC News https://share.google/wtUbhfjx7fKLywBp5
 
The security issue is my main concern as any other type of loss is only the same as buying & selling shares on the stock exchange through a broker and thus making money or losing money through speculation.

Like any financial gamble its best not to invest what you cant afford to lose. My experiance in shares is once bitten twice shy but i learned its best not to get greedy and cash out once a bit of money has been achieved.

I only looked into it as i approach retirement age as a gamble into increasing my savings to enable finding a place to live that hasn't got mouldy walls, holes in the ceiling & waste water pipes emptying across my flat roof...in that context its not really a gamble because if i lost everything i could stay here & just live off a state pension & would only lose my savings.

Anyway thanks for all the advice...it sounds like you think its pretty secure...I'll look into these digital wallet companies and see who of them have a 100% record regarding bitcoin purchases & sales.

I wouldnt be interested in using bitcoin to buy products although i did see some interesting information that some governments use certain types of cryptocurrency for a variety of purchases. Reddit reckon 1 bitcoin will be worth about £380,000 by 2030 but i wouldnt trust anything with the word red in it.
It's nothing like buying shares - that is buying a part of a company that should be a productive asset, the other is buying into the greater fool theory.

I'd class buying individual shares are pretty risky - you may find the next Nvidia, Tesla, etc or the next LastMinute.com. Index trackers are far safer over a long term but aren't going to blow up to give incredible returns over a short period.
 
You can now buy Bitcoin inside an ISA in the UK in an ETP.

It’s as straight forward as buying stocks and shares, no private keys to worry about.
Thanks. I've always wondered though what happens when your investment increases past the isa threshold i.e.the limit for 1 year is £20,000.....any interest earned is allowed to be added to that years isa allowance...but what if you buy a bitcoin for £20k (yes i know its much dearer) & it increases to a value of £80k would the tax man allow you to keep that inside your isa or could they tax it as earnings. I know bitcoins are classed as taxable income by hmrc but not sure if it is if inside an isa.
 
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Thanks. I've always womdered though what happens when your investment increases past the isa threshold i.e.the limit for 1 year is £20,000.....any interest earned is allowed to be added to that years isa allowance...but what if you buy a bitcoin for £20k (yes i know its much dearer) & it increases to a value of £80k would the tax man allow you to keep that inside your isa or could they tax it as earnings. I know bitcoins are classed as taxable income by hmrc but not sure if it is if inside an isa.
That would be no different than an ETF increasing in value. Anything in an ISA is protected from tax on dividends or gains
 
I got into this relatively recently, but have studied it carefully, read up, learned and dramatically improved my understanding.

I have come to the conclusion that anyone with any spare money that they can afford to keep invested for a few years, should be buying at least a small amount of bitcoin. Why? Because there is an extremely low risk of a significant loss and a very high likelihood of a huge gain. It's simply a very sound bet.

There's structural reasons why the price is likely to rise dramatically over the next few years, and whilst it's trading at around £57k per coin today, I think a 10x return over the next 5 to 10 years is odds-on. I suggest you're going to see between a 25% and 60% annual return on your investment (with ups and downs along the way of course).

Even if you just buy like £10/month, over 10 years that's £1,200 invested which is IMO going to turn into between £5k and £25k by the end of year 10. It's a no brainer I think.
 
The UK government is implementing new rules to ensure crypto users pay taxes on their crypto transactions. Starting January 1, 2026, crypto service providers must collect and report user details to HMRC, which will use this information to track and tax crypto gains. This move aims to collect unpaid taxes and close the tax gap in the crypto industry.
 
I got into this relatively recently, but have studied it carefully, read up, learned and dramatically improved my understanding.

I have come to the conclusion that anyone with any spare money that they can afford to keep invested for a few years, should be buying at least a small amount of bitcoin. Why? Because there is an extremely low risk of a significant loss and a very high likelihood of a huge gain. It's simply a very sound bet.

There's structural reasons why the price is likely to rise dramatically over the next few years, and whilst it's trading at around £57k per coin today, I think a 10x return over the next 5 to 10 years is odds-on. I suggest you're going to see between a 25% and 60% annual return on your investment (with ups and downs along the way of course).

Even if you just buy like £10/month, over 10 years that's £1,200 invested which is IMO going to turn into between £5k and £25k by the end of year 10. It's a no brainer I think.
Ahahahahahaha
 
XRP bought 18 months ago , my £2k is currently worth about £750

I decided when i parted with my £2k that i may never see it again so always saw it as a gamble

Who knows if ill even get my money back never mind make profit
 

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