The Cryptocurrencies Thread

[lordxizor]

My understanding is that you don't actually own the crypto you buy on Robinhood. Everyone I know says to never use it to buy crypto.

[cramx3]

My understanding is that you don't actually own the crypto you buy on Robinhood. Everyone I know says to never use it to buy crypto.

I know, I'm not entirely sure if the fees for trading on coinbase make it worth it though, especially if I'm not just holding like I was for so long. 

[lordxizor]

My understanding is that you don't actually own the crypto you buy on Robinhood. Everyone I know says to never use it to buy crypto.

I know, I'm not entirely sure if the fees for trading on coinbase make it worth it though, especially if I'm not just holding like I was for so long. 

Do you know how Robinhood makes money off crypto sales? I know some other platforms essentially subtract the fees from the value of the coin, so it looks like you're not paying fees but you actually are getting less than you could for your money. Everyone is making money off of you somehow. You're using Coinbase Pro, right? Way lower fees than regular Coinbase.

[cramx3]

My understanding is that you don't actually own the crypto you buy on Robinhood. Everyone I know says to never use it to buy crypto.

I know, I'm not entirely sure if the fees for trading on coinbase make it worth it though, especially if I'm not just holding like I was for so long. 

Do you know how Robinhood makes money off crypto sales? I know some other platforms essentially subtract the fees from the value of the coin, so it looks like you're not paying fees but you actually are getting less than you could for your money. Everyone is making money off of you somehow. You're using Coinbase Pro, right? Way lower fees than regular Coinbase.

I was not using Pro and my understanding is that robinhood makes money off interest from your uninvested cash in your account.  I haven't read anything that says they make money off trading crypto directly.

[ReaPsTA]

My understanding is that you don't actually own the crypto you buy on Robinhood.

Correct. You can't withdraw to your own Wallet.

Look what Robinhood did with GME stock. Do you trust them to hold onto your assets?

[cramx3]

My understanding is that you don't actually own the crypto you buy on Robinhood.

Correct. You can't withdraw to your own Wallet.

Look what Robinhood did with GME stock. Do you trust them to hold onto your assets?

Yes, now that the GME stuff has passed I actually lean towards Robinhood protecting more than it hurt (retail traders, not the big boys). And as someone who sold my BTC, I have all that cash so I'm not entirely sure what the value of your wallet truly is.  I'm not saying there is no value, but is the value higher than the trading fees from other apps?  I paid a decent sum to sell my BTC in coinbaise.  I've got no issue with the fee for long term holds.  But if you want to buy the dips, I don't see the point in paying the fees.

[cramx3]

After saying I was going to buy and hold BTC, I sold it all off when it was around 40K today.  I'll buy back in when it drops to 30k next week 

Well BTC dropped to 29k at one point today, I strongly considered putting my money that I pulled out last week back in, but I'm just very skeptical right now.  China is shutting down a lot of miners.  Seems like a lot of negativity atm around crypto and ETH is tanking.  I may just throw this extra cash into the ETFs I have that are consistent performers and stay out of crypto for a bit.  Someone is going to lose a lot of money and I don't want it to be me.  Also my car is having issues so that cash may come handy for fixing it so I'm definitely glad I pulled out last week.

[kirksnosehair]

Slightly off topic but there is a series on Netflix called "Startup" and it's all about this girl from the 'hood who creates her own crypto-currency called "GenCoin" and it's really good.  There are 3 seasons and I just burned through the first full season (10 episodes @ 45 minutes each) this past weekend. 

[lordxizor]

I'm continuing to buy BTC despite it going down in value. I believe it will come back up at some point. Could be years before it pays off, but I'm going to stick with my plan of getting to 5% of my investments in crypto. My plan for now is 60% BTC, 30% ETC, and 10% a handful of other alts.

[cramx3]

I'm continuing to buy BTC despite it going down in value. I believe it will come back up at some point. Could be years before it pays off, but I'm going to stick with my plan of getting to 5% of my investments in crypto. My plan for now is 60% BTC, 30% ETC, and 10% a handful of other alts.

What I noticed is that I had actually gotten up to 10% of my portfolio as crypto when I told myself I wanted to keep it at 5%.  I'm still holding my ETH because my losses on it are so high that I don't want to bite the bullet and just let it ride out.  So selling the BTC made sense for me to keep me in line.  I'm not against buying back in, I'm just so skeptical and need to keep myself in line with the rules I'm putting in place for myself.

[vtgrad]

I'll echo what Lord said and suggest Coinbase Pro over Coinbase... the platform is much easier to deal with imo and the fees are lower in my experience (though they have increased).  I've been with Pro since it was GDAX and I have no complaints.

Personally, I'm letting my ETH ride as well, I think it may come back this year as well as BTC.  Look at all of the neg news that BTC (and ETH for that matter) has absorbed in the past week and stabilized above $30K.

I was thinking of letting go of some of my TSLA because I know the Q2 results might be painful because of BTCs dip, but I just can't let it go yet.  I'm still in the money with TSLA and NIO and my gut tells me not to bet against Musk.  Just look at what TSLA has forced Ford to do... Musk will push innovation across all brands I think. 

[MinistroRaven]

Seems that BTC, ETH and others are starting to good look again.

[MinistroRaven]

Anyone here wants to purchase ETH?
It might help me a lot.

[Cool Chris]

You mean purchase it from you?

[MinistroRaven]

You mean purchase it from you?

Yes, I have some ETH (not a huge sum) I received as payment for a website I built, and I applied to coinbase to sell it but was denied as my passport is expired, and in any other platform, I have tried to KYC me I get the same response because the passport is not valid.

[Cool Chris]

I will PM you later tonight.

[MinistroRaven]

I will PM you later tonight.

Thanks!

[ReaPsTA]

My understanding is that you don't actually own the crypto you buy on Robinhood.

Correct. You can't withdraw to your own Wallet.

Look what Robinhood did with GME stock. Do you trust them to hold onto your assets?

Yes, now that the GME stuff has passed I actually lean towards Robinhood protecting more than it hurt (retail traders, not the big boys). And as someone who sold my BTC, I have all that cash so I'm not entirely sure what the value of your wallet truly is.  I'm not saying there is no value, but is the value higher than the trading fees from other apps?  I paid a decent sum to sell my BTC in coinbaise.  I've got no issue with the fee for long term holds.  But if you want to buy the dips, I don't see the point in paying the fees.

I somehow didn't see this when you initially replied.

If you're only looking at it as an investment product I guess what you're saying is okay. Though I trust Robinhood even less after the court documents came out showing that they were indeed talking to Citadel during the GME blowup (this was the null hypothesis anyway, but proof is still better than not).

[cramx3]

My understanding is that you don't actually own the crypto you buy on Robinhood.

Correct. You can't withdraw to your own Wallet.

Look what Robinhood did with GME stock. Do you trust them to hold onto your assets?

Yes, now that the GME stuff has passed I actually lean towards Robinhood protecting more than it hurt (retail traders, not the big boys). And as someone who sold my BTC, I have all that cash so I'm not entirely sure what the value of your wallet truly is.  I'm not saying there is no value, but is the value higher than the trading fees from other apps?  I paid a decent sum to sell my BTC in coinbaise.  I've got no issue with the fee for long term holds.  But if you want to buy the dips, I don't see the point in paying the fees.

I somehow didn't see this when you initially replied.

If you're only looking at it as an investment product I guess what you're saying is okay. Though I trust Robinhood even less after the court documents came out showing that they were indeed talking to Citadel during the GME blowup (this was the null hypothesis anyway, but proof is still better than not).

I've been buying and selling BTC the last few weeks on the dips and making some profits.  Doing that without fees is the way to go IMO. 

[Phoenix87x]

Just got into Bitcoin this year. Made like $500 bucks so far.

How does that play into tax time. Do I declare it? How much does the government Take?

[ReaPsTA]

Just got into Bitcoin this year. Made like $500 bucks so far.

How does that play into tax time. Do I declare it? How much does the government Take?

*DISCLAIMER I AM NOT AN ATTORNEY OR A PROFESSIONAL IN THE TAX INDUSTRY AND THIS IS NOT ADVICE. THIS IS MERELY MY OPINION FROM HAVING PAID TAXES ON CRYPTO MYSELF MULTIPLE TIMES*

Cryptocurrencies are taxed as property. When you buy a lot of crypto you establish a cost basis for a certain amount of it plus fees. When you sell that lot of crypto, you have to pay capital gains taxes on the profits (sell value - sell fees - buy fees - buy value = profit). This seems simple, but....

 - If you sell only part of a lot of crypto, you have to pay taxes on that partial lot based on the crypto's value at time of sale, but then when you sell the rest of the lot, you then have to pay taxes on the remainder of the lot at the different value of the crypto at the time of the second sale
 - Crypto for crypto trades are not considered like kind of exchanges. IF you sell BTC to buy ETH, you have to pay taxes on your BTC profits then establish a new cost basis of your ETH
 - If you receive crypto as a gift, as payment, or from an airdrop, that also must be taxed when you sell/use it. I do not have any solid knowledge on how you calculate the cost basis for this
 - One good thing is, if you lose money on a crypto you can count it as a capital loss

There are different websites that will calculate crypto taxes for you. And you should be able to find one that exports into a format that can be imported by TurboTax (what I used last year) or some other tax software. If you buy multiple bunches of crypto then make a sale, it should in theory sell off that lot that gives you the lowest capital gains taxes.

One final note - This has been the system for paying crypto taxes for a few years. But, with the government paying so much more attention to it, I'd take a look at the IRS guidance to see if they updated it (which you should be doing every year anyway).

[Phoenix87x]

Oh, ok.

Very good info. Thanks

[lordxizor]

Do you guys use a wallet for your crypto or do you just keep it in an exchange like Coinbase? If you use a wallet, what are you using? I think I'm getting to a dollar amount in crypto that I'd like the added security, but don't really know where to start.

[Tomislav95]

Do you guys use a wallet for your crypto or do you just keep it in an exchange like Coinbase? If you use a wallet, what are you using? I think I'm getting to a dollar amount in crypto that I'd like the added security, but don't really know where to start.

I keep them on different exchanges because I don't have that much, only started like 50 days ago but better late than never. If I had more I would probably use wallet like Exodus or just keep them in separate specialised wallets (I do that for ALGO now because governance ).
What bothers me is that gas fees for coins like ETH are so high I don't think I'll ever have enough of them to justify transfering.

[Phoenix87x]

Bitcoin has been trending down recently. Any thoughts on how low of price would be good to do a buy in would be?

[Anguyen92]

All right.  So I'm thinking about getting into Bitcoin for various reasons. I need a dummie's guide to buying Bitcoin and need a good understanding of any fees (from websites or for purchasing a wallet) I may incur if I take this plunge.  Where do I start?

[ReaPsTA]

All right.  So I'm thinking about getting into Bitcoin for various reasons. I need a dummie's guide to buying Bitcoin and need a good understanding of any fees (from websites or for purchasing a wallet) I may incur if I take this plunge.  Where do I start?

Are you in the United States?

Bitcoin has been trending down recently. Any thoughts on how low of price would be good to do a buy in would be?

(disclaimer not financial advice not a financial advisor just my personal opinion)

If your goal is to be a trader I don't know.

If your goal is to buy and hold over the long term, and you want to buy, then the best time to buy was yesterday. If not then, buy today.

When you look at any asset over the long term, even over a period of years, there are usually a few specific days that account for most of the growth. It's possible that the price is down today because a bunch of margin traders are having to fold and it will bounce back over the next couple days. Or it could keep going down but if you're a buy and hold investor then you need to have the strength to hold when it's tough.

[XeRocks81]

a real deep dive into this stuff. 

https://youtu.be/YQ_xWvX1n9g

[Cool Chris]

My cryptocurrencies are so far down from the middle of 2021 I am afraid to look. But they are still up over 100% from when I bought in. And I am still in for the long haul.

[Anguyen92]

All right.  So I'm thinking about getting into Bitcoin for various reasons. I need a dummie's guide to buying Bitcoin and need a good understanding of any fees (from websites or for purchasing a wallet) I may incur if I take this plunge.  Where do I start?

Are you in the United States?

Yep, in the US.  Would that mean I would have to jump through more barrier to get into it or no?

[ReaPsTA]

All right.  So I'm thinking about getting into Bitcoin for various reasons. I need a dummie's guide to buying Bitcoin and need a good understanding of any fees (from websites or for purchasing a wallet) I may incur if I take this plunge.  Where do I start?

Are you in the United States?

Yep, in the US.  Would that mean I would have to jump through more barrier to get into it or no?

Sorta. US has Know Your Customer (KYC) laws and de facto listing requirements that make crypto harder to buy than in other parts of the world. But if you want to trade stocks you also need to go through KYC, so it kind of is what it is.

If you're this new you're probably best off buying on Coinbase or Gemini. Coinbase is more popular. I think Gemini is a bit cleaner. Both are ultimately fine. Fee schedules are below:

https://help.coinbase.com/en/exchange/trading-and-funding/exchange-fees
https://www.gemini.com/fees

In terms of wallets, you should never pay for a software wallet. There are multiple free options - https://cryptotrader.tax/blog/best-crypto-wallet

[Anguyen92]

All right, cool.  I'll look into these links.  Thank you.

[cramx3]

My cryptocurrencies are so far down from the middle of 2021 I am afraid to look. But they are still up over 100% from when I bought in. And I am still in for the long haul.

Yeah it's been rough lately. I've been buying more BTC over the last couple months as it dips but it just keeps dipping. I'll probably buy some more soon to keep holding.

[Phoenix87x]

After months of total confusion, I think I finally was able to wrap my head around what an NFT is this morning 

[ReaPsTA]

After months of total confusion, I think I finally was able to wrap my head around what an NFT is this morning 

Everyone can download a JPEG of the Mona Lisa but the actual piece of art is only located in one place.