Euler wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2017 8:28 am
Bitcoin and particularly blockchain tech feels like a place I should be but it also feels like the wild west.
A lot of people made money in the wild west!
I had the pleasure of meeting you recently at the master class. I asked you about Augur project as an alternative to trading exchanges and you said you had actually met the people developing it! but you werent aware of teh crypto currency It was built upon called Ethereum. Just over a year ago i went looking for the next cryptocurrency that could be big as i was determined not to miss out as I came close to buying bitcoin. I came accross ethereum. Below is an e-mail i sent to a friend at the time to convince him it would be worth investing.
Ok mate here's some stuff you should read. This first video is the best I have seen about blockchain technology. It explains the capabilities of the technology and uses bitcoin as an example. You should instantly see why the technology is big in terms of how it saves on bureaucracy through cheap cost affective automation. It doesn't go into the techno bable about exactly how the block chain functions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIVAluSL9SU
The problem with bitcoin as far as I can tell is that whilst the the block chain technology allows for a lot of the things described in that video, what Ive read suggests the code for bitcoin does not
easily allow for such things and bitcoin would probably need adapting to realise blockchains full potential. The video does state that bitcoin is the tip of the iceberg and its right. Ether on the other had appears to be the first mover in realising the potential of the blockchain technology. Now a good video on putting ether in layman's terms is hard to come by, Its very new, but here is the official one
https://www.youtube.com/user/ethereumproject
That doesnt explain it simply enough though. I would recommend you watch the following on a music company called Ujo from the recent Ether devcon. The guy is not a techy and the way in which his company is looking to use ether is something everyone can understand and instantly see the benefit of. Its also something that only a blockchain can achieve and something that a lot of musicians would want to take up as the middle man is cut out. From this video you should be able to imagine this technology deployed in several different industries and then you will get why this is a big thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFSknHNquOQ
Now you will notice one of the the sponsors in the background is Microfsoft. Big players are taking the technology and ethereum seriously. that make me want to buy. Below is a video from UBS who were also at the Devcon and explain the use of the blockchain for smart bonds. Sadly unless you know what your looking for you wont realise why this cant take place on other systems or what the benefits are (the ujo video is better for that). But UBS being interested is also very reassuring. The guy in this presentation does allude to the ability to cut out paying agents and also talks about an escrow capability being built into the smart bond (block chain in combination with ether is allowing for this as far as I can tell). Its an automated feature than takes place with the same click of the button that allows for the bond purchase.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kKsouPSr1k
Here is a link to the official ether web page
https://www.ethereum.org/
Most of its meaningless to you and me but scroll right down to the bottom and you will see a list of companies currently developing DAPPS (the is Decentralised applications) for the ethereum blockchain. Two of my favourites are gnosis and argur which are basically betfair for blockchain. When you gamble on sports or anything a booky takes a percentage of all money in the market which is called the overround. that is basically how they win whether you win or loose. Google it if you want to understand how it works but basically its a fee you pay to them for them being a market maker, much like the spread in stocks and shares trading but its less transparent. When betfair launched its "Marketplace" in the early 00's it pissed of the bookies because it allowed you to match bets directly against someone else and cut out the market maker thus reducing the overround (basically the spread is reduced as punters charge one another a lot less) but betfair would take a cut of the winnings in the form of a percentage. In the same way that betfair disrupted the traditional booky model I can see these DAPPs disrupting the traditional bookies even futher and betfair as betfair wont be able to tax the winnings and the overround on the DAPPS should remain low. Betfair do massively tax winnings of high earners too.
My absolute favourite is Slockit though. Go to their page and watch their video. Its not so much the business idea im interested in I could take or leave that its the way in which they are using the blockchain to effectively issue shares in a company without any need for the companies traditionally involved in an IPO and without any need for a stock exchange of any sort. Very interesting stuff. im going to buy some of these "shares" just for the hell of it when they are released.
Buying Crypto Currencies;
Get a Fidor smart account
https://www.fidorbank.uk/?amc=search.fi ... 7254.36913
and a Kraken account
https://www.kraken.com/help/faq
Youll need a scanned passport/driving licence and a bank statement within the last 3 months for both. get Tier 3 verified on the Kraken account for full functionality. You transfer money to Fidor as you would transfer money online in any other way but you must inclued an id in the description to get it done quick. You then transfer money via SEPA or SWIFT (I cant rember which it is but theres only one option) from FIDOR too Kraken. Fidor charge £2.50 for this and Kraken I think charge 0.19% for the transaction. Once the money is at the Kraken exchange you selected the currecny pair you want to trade which will be GPB/ETH for ether coin and make the transaction. Kraken will again charge a 0.16% fee. It took me a while to figure out this cheap way of getting the cryptocurrencies.
The simple gamble is that if all this takes off and ether is the platform for all this the currecny should massively appreciate over the next few years. ITS IS A GAMBLE DO NOT INVEST MONEY YOU CANT AFFORD TO LOOSE. Simple psychology, this is a purchase like buying a holiday or new shoes. You do not expect to get this money back. If you do then great but if you dont then fine, you wouldn't expect to trade your shoes in four years later because they didn't work out.
I haven't had time to go over the bitcoin lending platform but its called bitjam if you want to look at it its a lot more self explanatory than this. I really would appreciate any questions they always help me focus and refine my understanding of it all. Somewhere I have a list of all the ethereum videos from devcon 1 and i think devocn zero but I cant find it atm
