Post: #1

I have 80% of my net worth in crypto, but that is mostly because the original 20% has grown so much that it now dwarfs my other investments. --RooshV Forum member.


Note: This is not investment advice. How do we know it's not investment advice? Because you're a smart person, right? And smart people don't take investment advice from guys named after 75-year old boats on message boards about banging sluts. If bitcoin crashes and you lose all your money and send me an angry PM, I will laugh at you. (Through tears, since I'll have lost a lot of money too.)


So you want to invest in Bitcoin

Smart guy. You've been reading the threads, or at least hearing the general talk, about how this particular investment is generating absolutely crazy returns. And the real market rise is yet to come: countries like Japan and South Korea have been making it legal. More and more interest is pouring in every day. I was talking with a division manager at a major payment processing company last week and asked him for his thoughts on Bitcoin, and he told me it hasn't even begun to reach the general public's consciousness yet. I'm not going to go too much into whether or not you should buy bitcoin, because this guide assumes that you want to. If not, close the guide and go look at the funny animals thread.

There is now an entire parallel stock market that has grown up around bitcoin and its countless competitors, and it's not unusual for some of the "stocks" in it to see absolutely insane returns that dwarf bitcoin, sometimes even 100x or greater. But that's a dicey proposition, the learning curve is steep, and there's lots of ways to just lose all your money. (Literally ALL your money, if you get involved with margin trading.)

Let's say though, that you're a busy guy, you don't have a financial background, and you don't particularly want to deal with all that shit. You're also a little skeptical about this whole thing: what if the government outlaws it tomorrow? What if the whole thing comes crashing down like the dot-com bubble?

If you're interested, but concerned, there's a smart investment strategy for you called (D)ollar ©ost Averaging, or DACing. It sounds complicated, but it's quite simple. It just means that instead of putting in a big lump sum of money now, every month or week you purchase a little bitcoin. If the price is up, yay! Your investment is worth more! If the price is down, yay! You got more bitcoin! Whichever way it goes, you win, as long as the long term price of the asset increases. (And you think it probably will, otherwise you wouldn't be reading this guide.)

I will now show you a simple, automated, set-and-forget way to buy bitcoins weekly or monthly. You will not be doing trading or transfers. The site you will do it on is FDIC insured, so even if there is some kind of hack on the site, your money will be reimbursed the same way it would be at a bank.

Two caveats before we begin:
1.) If you google Dollar Cost Averaging you'll find a bunch of articles about why it's a bad strategy. These links were written for the stock market, not cryptos. If anyone is seriously interested in why I recommend DACing over a lump investment, PM me or post below and I'll write it out,
2.) The site I'm recommending, Coinbase, has a bad reputation among traders due to slightly higher fees and a tendancy to go offline during periods of high volatility. While I've got my own frustrations with it, neither of these are serious concerns for DACers, who'll just be doing 4 buys a month and forgetting about it.

Step 1
Go to coinbase.com and set up an account. This is a bitcoin exchange, like a stock exchange, and you can use it to turn money into bitcoin, and bitcoin into money, at any time you want. This is what you'll use to buy your bitcoin, and when you want to take it out, It is FDIC insured and has a long history and a solid track record. The account you set up here will handle MONEY, so treat it properly: secure passwords, two-factor authentication if you use it. They'll ask for ID, etc. Give it to them. Link your bank account to it. (Like I said, it's FDIC insured, so the risk of losing your money in a hack is no higher than any standard bank of stock exchange.)


Step 2
Set up a recurring transaction for some amount of money. I do weekly 150$. You do what fits your budget. 100$? 1000$? Skip that 5$ latte you get 3 times a week, and do 15$? Up to you.
It's under tools on the dashboard. Here's a jpeg of where to find it.

Then click on recurring transactions on the menu that appears. Set one up, it's pretty self-explanatory.

Step 3
Now, every week or month, the money will be automatically debited from your bank account into your crypto account. You don't have to think about it or authorize it, though you will get email notifications.


You can check your coinbase account with an app or the website itself. If at any point you decide you want to take some money out, or stop doing this, cancel the transaction.


If you're interested in getting a little more serious, I would invite you to join the Ethereum and Bitcoin threads in the lifestyle section, but even if you're not, welcome to the world of Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency!

Post: #2

I want to buy bitcoin, but don't see the point if I have to link it to my bank account and give over tons of personal info. Coinbase want all personal details.

If there any way to buy and hold bitcoins easily without identifying yourself?

Post: #3

(07-23-2017 05:15 PM)RatInTheWoods Wrote:  I want to buy bitcoin, but don't see the point if I have to link it to my bank account and give over tons of personal info. Coinbase want all personal details.

If there any way to buy and hold bitcoins easily without identifying yourself?

Yes. Set up a BTC wallet and buy with cash. Go to localbitcoins.com

Post: #4

Newbies should use Coinbase. Not meet strangers in person and hand them cash for something they don't understand.

Crypto isn't THAT secret and will be regulated eventually. Enjoy the leeway now. But stop trying to avoid taxes or hide your investment. You have no reason to. It's just as boring as bonds in my opinion.

This is hard advice to follow when you see recent news of asshole tax cheats of the century Google weasel out of a measly $175million tax debt with a team of lawyers. Whatever.

Be greatful USDT is still a loophole. As it should be while we all figure out how to fairly trade in an entirely new asset class. (That isn't crazy detrimental bullshit like derivatives that brought down the world economy...and no one was punished.)

Post: #5

How do you allocate cryptocurrencies in your portfolio? Do you view it as a means of preserving wealth (like an insurance policy in case the stock market / dollar goes to sh1t, similar to allocating a portion of your portfolio to gold), or do you view it as a a speculative investment (hoping for 2-10x returns)? Of that allocation, are you putting a certain % into ICOs?

A quick follow-up: I am looking for a solid bitcoin wallet where I can store my bitcoin off the coinbase website. I would prefer something that I don't need to store on my phone (I've lost / had my phone stolen/ numerous times, and I want something else where i can store bitcoin). Any recommendations for keeping something stored on my google drive (so that I can acess/sync it across multiple computers, including having access @ work)?

Post: #6

Are there any liquid Bitcoin ETFs or something alike to that? Dollar cost averaging into a speculative instrument for me is no bueno. I've traded futures contracts extensively, I'd never dollar cost average into many of them, just cut losses short and let winners run.

Post: #7

(07-23-2017 11:17 PM)TheFinalEpic Wrote:  Are there any liquid Bitcoin ETFs or something alike to that? Dollar cost averaging into a speculative instrument for me is no bueno. I've traded futures contracts extensively, I'd never dollar cost average into many of them, just cut losses short and let winners run.

Yeah, if you've traded futures contracts this guide isn't for you. This is for people who just want to invest a little into an interesting new technology, without having to learn to be a trader.
No ETFs that I know of though some are in the works.

Post: #8

(07-23-2017 10:05 PM)fortysix Wrote:  How do you allocate cryptocurrencies in your portfolio? Do you view it as a means of preserving wealth (like an insurance policy in case the stock market / dollar goes to sh1t, similar to allocating a portion of your portfolio to gold), or do you view it as a a speculative investment (hoping for 2-10x returns)? Of that allocation, are you putting a certain % into ICOs?

A quick follow-up: I am looking for a solid bitcoin wallet where I can store my bitcoin off the coinbase website. I would prefer something that I don't need to store on my phone (I've lost / had my phone stolen/ numerous times, and I want something else where i can store bitcoin). Any recommendations for keeping something stored on my google drive (so that I can acess/sync it across multiple computers, including having access @ work)?

I think you can do this with electrum wallet.

Post: #9

Nice one Sam.

+1 from me for the effort and the general initative you have taken with crypto.

(07-23-2017 11:17 PM)TheFinalEpic Wrote:  Are there any liquid Bitcoin ETFs or something alike to that? Dollar cost averaging into a speculative instrument for me is no bueno. I've traded futures contracts extensively, I'd never dollar cost average into many of them, just cut losses short and let winners run.

Yes mate, look in to ICONOMI.

It's traded as ICN but you are specifically looking for ICNX, so a 'basket' like a ETF.

They call it Digital Asset Arrays (DAA).

I am also looking forward to this, should be on exchanges on August 1st.

They had their own closed funding and stuff if I am not mistaken so it's already a thing but yet to hit exchanges.

ICNX Page

Quote:The ICNX measures the performance of digital assets that meet certain eligibility criteria. The ICNX DAA constituents and their corresponding weights are updated on a monthly basis or more frequently due to the fast changing environment of the digital assets market. Digital assets currently included in the DAA represent 92% of the total market capitalization of all digital assets.

3% management fee which is considered high generally but for crypto I am inclined to say it's reasonable.

The monthly performance is down thanks to the uncertainty around BTC/Segwit etc. but seems to have bounced back.

You can find their percentage allocation further down the page.

I personally have my own 'portfolio' with a 60/30/10 split of risk; safe/medium risk/high risk-high reward.

They follow a similar pattern, would prefer to see more Factom on there though, massive sleeper in my opinion.

For what it's worth, the ICONOMI team is solid. Also made 3x off their CFI ICO.

Post: #10

Noir, is that basically an index fund for Cryptocurrency?

Definitely a great idea and very safe investment.

Post: #11

(07-24-2017 09:57 AM)NewDayNewFace Wrote:  Noir, is that basically an index fund for Cryptocurrency?

Definitely a great idea and very safe investment.

In layman's terms, yes.

Safe investment? Time will tell but it's definitely spread the risk for you.

Post: #12

I see Iconomi on marketcap as the third largest asset. Are you invested in it?

Post: #13

(07-23-2017 05:15 PM)RatInTheWoods Wrote:  I want to buy bitcoin, but don't see the point if I have to link it to my bank account and give over tons of personal info. Coinbase want all personal details.

If there any way to buy and hold bitcoins easily without identifying yourself?

If your completely new Coinbase is probably the easiest option and the safest way to not get scammed.

Coinbase will not report on you til you conduct over 20k worth of transactions/trades.

The alternatives are localbitcoin and Craigslist unless you want to run around in circles buying a gift card to put on a site to then move to another site to then move to another site just to buy your coins, its a huge hassle and confusing as shit. That said do you really want your first Bitcoin transaction to be sitting across from a seasoned Bitcoin user and you handing him cash? Someone could easily scam you if you don't know what your doing.

Any legit exchange that's going to let you use your card is going to have to be a money transmitter and is going to have to follow KYC and AML policies.

FYI, oftentimes when buying on localbitcoins your paying a pretty large markup.

Post: #14

(07-23-2017 10:05 PM)fortysix Wrote:  How do you allocate cryptocurrencies in your portfolio? Do you view it as a means of preserving wealth (like an insurance policy in case the stock market / dollar goes to sh1t, similar to allocating a portion of your portfolio to gold), or do you view it as a a speculative investment (hoping for 2-10x returns)? Of that allocation, are you putting a certain % into ICOs?

A quick follow-up: I am looking for a solid bitcoin wallet where I can store my bitcoin off the coinbase website. I would prefer something that I don't need to store on my phone (I've lost / had my phone stolen/ numerous times, and I want something else where i can store bitcoin). Any recommendations for keeping something stored on my google drive (so that I can acess/sync it across multiple computers, including having access @ work)?

There's maybe 3-4 reputable hardware wallets out there but the main go to ones are the Trezor or Ledger. I personally have the Trezor and love it. The ledger won't be shipping until Sept 4 at the earliest unless you wanna pay $300 plus on Amazon.

If you don't want to buy a hardware wallet Electrum is probably one of the most recommended lite software wallets.

Post: #15

I'm in Europe, so I just tried signing up for Kraken. They have an insane amount of ID verification required in order to start buying. Aren't there any easier ways to do this? If I'm DCA-ing, I can't count on finding a local guy and buying with cash every month. I thought BTC was supposed to be easier and more anonymous...

Post: #16

It is easier and more anonymous. Once it's yours you can do whatever you want with it, and no one will know.

It's fiat (normal) currency that's slow and cumbersone and requires a ton of paperwork, which is why when you're doing transactions in it, it's a PITA.

Post: #17

Anyway I can buy cryptocurrency just using a credit card or prepaid debit card without going through all the verification (deposits on account verification)?

Post: #18

You said to link a bank account. It also allows for credit card payment. Can I still set up an auto payment with a credit card that works the same way?

Great info btw, really appreciate it.

Post: #19

Should be able to yeah

Post: #20

You pay 4% "convenience fee" for credit cards, so that might not be the best option.

Post: #21

I'm in Canada so credit cards are all they allow. But the other Canadian exchanges are spread horribly and prices are higher so it evens out fairly close by the numbers. Moreso because I get 2% back with the credit card purchases which oddly enough seems like a seriously effectiveness point churning hack. (Disclaimer: I haven't proven personally that I'll receive points but other forums seem to suggest I will).

Post: #22

Rhyme or Reason pointed out that the proper acronym is DCA not DAC. Whoops!

Post: #23

(07-24-2017 11:21 AM)NewDayNewFace Wrote:  I see Iconomi on marketcap as the third largest asset. Are you invested in it?

I have ICN coins, yes.

I reckon the team is solid and it's a great idea.

Post: #24

Here's a brief primer I wrote for Iconomi if anyone is interested:

ICN: Iconomi
Market Price: $2.99
Market Capitalization: $259,740,240

Details
Czech based bitcoin exchange, allows users to exchange ether and euros easily. Their system is based on funding investment projects.

The ICO is to launch the Open Fund Management (OFM) platform for this main objective. Two investment types which are Coin Traded Funds and Coin Managed Funds. Investors invest into either of those two funds and also earn dividends from profit generated by Iconomi.Essentially a platform for investors wanting to invest in a new way that they weren’t able to before for internet based companies. They are marketing towards disruptive technologies for investors to invest in. Investors provide the funds for the projects within the platform for returns and dividends.

The main objective is to launch the OPM for two financial instruments the CTF and CMF. The OPM is to have their own investment funds and investors invest into these funds to get a return. It is based on Ethereum smart contracts and the sharing of management fees to reduce costs. Also has features for tracking your portfolio and market data.

CTF – is managed automatically on predetermined rules and is based on market forces. The services will monitor all sources to provide market forecasts to provide a return. This will have the added benefit of lower risks and lower price volatility.
CMF – managed by team of experts that have a higher risk for investors give better returns.

It’s an alternative way of investing compared to traditional markets e.g. an index fund. They are highly liquid, listed on exchanges and are transparent through the practises. Have released an IOS app and financial report in Q1 2017 shows earnings and payouts to investors.

Edit: From writing that and checking the price now it has increased by $1 (in a space of 2 months)

Post: #25

Today's giant downswing is why I said Dollar Cost Average, instead of lump sums, in case anybody was curious.