Beginner’s Guide to Exchanges – Part 1

Hola Compadres! It is me u/poop_dragon here with another guide. Today I would like to run through a list of ETH exchanges. This is just Part 1 of this list, and it covers established exchanges. Soon I will post Part 2 and 3 which will go into some other types of exchanges (derivative markets, coin converters, decentralized, and foreign exchanges) Side note, I have given rating to these exchanges based on some comparisons, news, and information which I have found online. Recently, EVERY exchange has been slow/unresponsive in their customer service due to the huge influx of new users. My intention is to help educate new users about the exchanges available. I am not trying to discredit, advertise, pump up, or damage reputations. If you feel something is inaccurate, please respectfully bring it up in the comments. I will be editing as we go. Last thing of note, I have only included the lowest level trading tier to calculate trading fees, which assumes the highest rates. Most exchanges offer lower fees for bigger orders, but I have gone with the assumption that everyone here is not dropping whale amounts of cash.

00 – Concepts and Definitions

• What is an Exchange? An exchange is a digital market place where you can buy or sell one kind of currency for another, whether that be digital or real (fiat) assets.
  
• What is Fiat? Fiat currencies are national currencies which can be represented in hard cash amounts. For example, US Dollars, Euros, British Pounds, Japanese Yen, etc.
  
• What are a Deposit/Withdrawal Fees? This is the price for putting currency in or taking your currency out of an exchange and your associated wallet. In the case of fiat this could be depositing or withdrawing money via bank transfer or credit card. For digital currency, the exchange may charge a fee to send your ETH, in my opinion this should be free, but they have to cover gas fees.
  
• What is a Maker Fee? When you place an order which is not immediately matched by an existing order, that order is placed on the order book. If another customer places an order that matches yours, you are considered the maker. Maker fees are generally lower than taker fees on most exchanges.
  
• What is a Taker Fee? When you place an order at the market price that gets filled immediately, you are considered a taker. In cases of very large orders it is possible to only pay a taker fee for a portion of your order that gets partially filled. The remainder of the order is placed on the order book and, when matched, is considered a maker order. Fees for takers are usually between .1 to .35% on most exchanges.
  
• What are Verification Tiers? Most exchanges will not allow trading without verifying your identity in some way. This can be accomplished through your email, phone number, copies of your passport/driver’s license, bank statements, recent utility bills, etc. Exchanges then allow for higher trading limits depending on how much verifying information you provide.
  
• What is 2FA? This is short for Two-Factor Authentication. In most cases this uses your site password (what you know) and your cellphone (what you have). When logging in you will need to confirm your log in attempt with a code sent to your cell phone. It adds an additional step to prevent someone hacking your account. In my opinion any trustworthy exchange should offer this and you should research the pros and cons of Google AuthenticatoAuthy App/SMS before using it.
  
• What is a DDoS Attack? It stands for Distributed Denial of Service. Usually it is when a series of bots or a botnet which tries to flood the bandwidth or resources of a targeted system. It can cause websites to become slow or unresponsive.
  

01 –Digital Exchanges

Poloniex

• Overview: The highest volume of ETH currently goes through Poloniex, undisputed leader in crypto currency trading. Its popularity comes from the fact that the exchange offers the widest selection of small and alt coin trading. Add to that minimal registration requirements and it is a recipe for lots and lots of users.
• Website: https://poloniex.com/
• Mobile App: No
• Withdrawal/Deposit Fees: No Fiat Deposit/Withdrawals. Minimum Deposit of 1 ETH in Exchange Wallet. Withdrawal fee of .005 ETH when sending to other wallets
• Trading Fees:

Exchange Type	Maker	Taker
All Currencies	.15%	.25%

• Security: Perhaps a red flag here would be the DDoS Attacks this May. This affected Kraken as well, and a lawsuit is being filed on behalf of users who had their positions liquidated. I don’t believe there was foul play, but I won’t speculate either. Less recently, they were hacked and 97 Bitcoin were stolen in 2014. However, they returned all funds to the users, which I believes says something about their integrity.

Feature	Details
2FA	Google Authenticator Available
Wallet Security	‘Majority’ of Funds in cold storage
Personal Information	Encrypted and Stored Off-Site

• Verification:

Tier Level	Name	Email	DOB	Phone	Address	Official ID	Bank Info	KYC	Limits
Level 1	X	X							$2,000 USD Daily Withdrawal Limit
Level 2	X	X	X	X	X	X			$7,000 USD Daily Withdrawal Limit
Level 3	X	X	X	X	X	X			$25,000 USD Daily Withdrawal Limit
Level 4	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	>$25,000 USD Daily Withdrawal Limit

What is a KYC? It stands for Know Your Customer Documentation. This varies between exchanges. However, like most things, if you have to ask, you probably can’t afford it.

• Customer Service: The biggest difference between Poloniex and other exchanges is was their use of their Trollbox chat feature. However, due to the chat being used more for ignorant comments rather than help it ~is a waste of time~~ has been discontinued. A quick search for customer service reviews from Poloniex shows poor results – extremely long wait times (counted in months not days), withdrawal issues, frozen accounts without notice, and a range of other complaints. Most other exchanges have similar complaints about slow response times, so I think this is a temporary issue. In a press release it was stated their user count rose 600% since January. However, the chronic lack of communication and transparency seems to have some in the community up in arms and should be addressed.
• Bottom Line: Being the biggest fish in the ocean means you constantly have a target on your back. With issues from the DDoS attacks to laggy trading service to poor customer support, it may seem that Poloniex is not worth your trust. But if you are looking to trade obscure altcoins, and do it without many verification hurdles, there really is no other marketplace. Personally I think they are trying their best and I believe they are improving when u/Mike-Poloniex says stuff like this

Bittrex

• Overview: Based in Las Vegas, Bittrex also offers lots of altcoin pairs with no fiat support, similar to poloniex. This allows for faster verification of activating accounts and moving funds. In the past, there were criticisms of the verification process for more some altcoins: some pairs had very low liquidity while other coins were just straight up scams. Especially Deaf Coin, a LiteCoin clone that was exclusively offered through Bittrex was delisted along with 35 other scam coins in February 2015 (compared to Poloniex at 17 removed in 2014). Since then a more thorough vetting process has been applied and it now labels ‘Verified Markets’
• Website: https://bittrex.com/
• Mobile App: No (Perhaps Unofficial Ones)
• Withdrawal/Deposit Fees: No Fiat Deposit/Withdrawals. Deposits are free and Withdrawals vary by coin to cover the gas fee
• Trading Fees:

Exchange Type	Maker	Taker
All Currencies	.25%	.25%

• Security: Positively the team has a solid background in system security – the CEO and top developers cut their teeth at places like Blackberry, Microsoft, and Amazon working in security services. I found no reports of hacks.

Feature	Details
2FA	Google Authenticator Available
Wallet Security	Multi-stage wallet Majority’ of Funds in cold storage
Personal Information	IP Whitelisting restricts trading from new addresses

• Verification:

Tier Level	Name	Email	DOB	Phone	Address	Official ID	Bank Info	KYC	Limits
Basic	X	X	X						3 BTC or less daily
Enhanced	X	X	X	X	X	X			100 BTC or less daily

• Customer Service: The Support Center pledges to answer tickets within 24 hours of submission, but between the hours of 9 to 6. Searching for reviews seems to confirm this, and very few complaints can be found. I find their FAQ, Announcements, and Online resources a little hard to navigate, but it answers almost everything.
• Bottom Line: The complaints about scam coins might seem to damage Bittrex’s reputation, but my take is that no one was forcing people to trade risky assets in the first place. Perhaps it’s a bit negligent to allow trading them, but it’s the responsibility of the trader not the exchange to manage their money. Customer support and security also seems a step above the competition.

02– Fiat Exchanges - USA

Coinbase (GDAX)

• Overview: Coinbase is the largest and debatably the most established name in crypto and GDAX is an exchange based on its services. While Coinbase allows users to buy ETH direct at market price through a wallet, GDAX allows limit and stop orders for the more advanced trader. Recently there have been complaints about the site going down and placed orders not going through. I think with the size and reputation to uphold, they will work quickly to fix this problem as they would like to keep their customers from going elsewhere.
• Website: https://www.gdax.com/
• Mobile App: Yes – Coinbase Wallet - Android / iOS
• Withdrawal/Deposit Fees: Free Wallet Deposits possible from Coinbase to GDAX. Fees schedule directly from Coinbase

Country	Credit/Debit	Linked Bank Account	Wire Transfer
Australia	3.99%	-	-
Canada	3.99%	-	-
Europe	3.99%	1.49%	SEPA- Free (€0.15)
Singapore	3.99%	1.49%	-
UK	3.99%	-	SEPA Free (€0.15)
US	3.99%	1.49%	$10 Deposit / $25 With / ACH Free

• Trading Fees:

Exchange Type	Maker	Taker
ETH/FIAT	0%	.30%
ETH/BTC	0%	.30%

• Verification:

Tier Level	Name	Email	DOB	Phone	Address	Official ID	Bank Info	KYC	Limits
Level 1	X	X		X
Level 2	X	X	X	X	X				Crypto Only
Level 3	X	X	X	X	X	X	X		Fiat Enabled
Level 4	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	Higher Fiat Limits

• Security: Interesting Read

Feature	Details
2FA	Google Authenticator, Authy, SMS
Wallet Security	98% Assets in Cold Storage
Personal Information	3rd Party Verified, Secured, Stored Offline
Digital Currency Insurance	Fully Insured by Lloyd’s of London
Fiat Insurance	Up to $250,000 by FDIC
Bug Bounty	Multiple bounties up to $10,000

• Customer Service: Negative reports are abound with Coinbase, going well into last year. Like look what BTC has to say Anyways I feel that they have their work cut out for them if they want to remain a premier service and continue to expand.
  
• Bottom Line:– Coinbase is an established and reliable exchange. It’s worth making the distinction though between Coindesk to GDAX. Transferring between the two seems like an unnecessary step that charges high fees for users not clever enough to see the difference. Fees are very high when buying at market from Coinbase, yet low on GDAX in comparison to other exchanges. Additionally, they seem to have outgrown themselves and some customers seem dissatisfied and quick to recommend their competitors. However, their service extends to a variety of countries/currencies and their mobile app puts them in front the competition. In this way, it is a superior service and is on the forefront of making crypto mainstream.
  

Kraken

• Overview: Supposedly CEO Jesse Powell was inspired by the 2011 bankruptcy of the Japanese exchange Mt. Gox. As he worked as a bankruptcy trustee of what was then the largest crypto exchange, he developed his vision for a secure, well-run exchange site. Kraken then aggressively expanded by acquiring existing companies like Coinsetter (NYC), CaVirtex (Canada), Clevercoin (Netherlands), Cryptowatch (Swiss), and Glidera (Chicago). This has helped the San Francisco based firm to lead the market in ETH to Euro and CAD trading.
• Website: https://www.kraken.com/
• Mobile App: Android - No/ iOS
• Withdrawal/Deposit Fees: .005 ETH Withdrawal Fee. And they really want US customer to sign up for Synapse Pay, which can reduce your fees.

Country	Linked Bank Account	Wire Transfer
EUR	Free	SEPA €5-10 (€0.09 Withdrawal)
US	Free	SWIFT $10 ($60 Withdrawal)
UK	Free	SWIFT £10 (£60 Withdrawal)
CAN	Free	SWIFT Free ($10 Withdrawal)

• Trading Fees:

Exchange Type	Maker	Taker
ETH/FIAT	.16%	.26%
ETH/BTC	.16%	.26%

• Verification:

Tier Level	Name	Email	DOB	Phone	Address	Official ID	Bank Info	KYC	Limits
Level 0		X							No Trading Allowed
Level 1	X	X	X	X					No Fiat, Unlimited Crypto
Level 2	X	X	X	X					Fiat $2,000Day/$10,000Mo
Level 3	X	X	X	X	X	X			Fiat $25,000Day/$200,000Mo
Level 4	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	Fiat $100,000Day/$500,000Mo

• Security: Kraken was also affected by a DDoS attack in May 2017. Afterwards those who had positions liquidated were not compensated and were merely pointed towards the legal page of the website.

Feature	Details
2FA	Google Authenticator, Master Key Available
Wallet Security	Majority Assets in Cold Storage
Personal Information	PGP Encrypted Emails, Global Settings Lock
Digital Currency Insurance	Maintain Full Reserves
Bug Bounty	Multiple bounties

• Customer Service: The Kraken subreddit is a bit of a ghost town, but a couple of the staff including the CEO pop in from time to time in other subreddits. Even a year ago though, there are reports that the average response time is 2 to 3 weeks. For how quickly they have grown, it seems their customer support has not kept pace.
• Bottom Line: Kraken’s website is well-organized and their policies for verification, security, and support are very clear. Their fees are reasonable for depositing, withdrawing, and trading. The recent hack and complaints about service have made some doubters recently, but the exchange has maintained its status. Its added quite a few altcoins too which increases its usefulness.

Gemini

• Overview: This is a newer exchange started in 2015 by the Winklevoss Twins (Yes, those twins, the ones from that Facebook movie). It is registered in New York State and is FDIC Insured.
• Website: https://gemini.com/
• Mobile App: No
  
• Withdrawal/Deposit Fees:
  

Country	Linked Bank Account	Wire Transfer
USD	Free	Free

• Trading Fees: There is a lot of complicated stuff written about rebates and other stuff, but basically it is this.

Exchange Type	Maker	Taker
ETH/ALL	.10-.25%	.25%

• Verification:

Tier Level	Name	Email	DOB	Phone	Address	Official ID	Bank Info	KYC	Limits
Individual	X	X	X	X	X	X	X		None - Except for ACH

• Security: According to their website, security seems to be taken seriously.

Feature	Details
2FA	Google Authenticator, Authy Available
Hot Wallet Security	Hot Wallet Hosted by Amazon Web Services
Cold Wallet	Stored in 2 tiers of cold and 'cryo' multi-sig storage
Personal Information	Encrypted in Transit and Stored Offline
Digital Currency Insurance	Fidelity bond by 'top-tier insurance company'
Fiat Insurance	Up to $250,000 by FDIC

• Customer Service: The one thing that stands out about Gemini is their customer service. Seriously reddit search this and you will see 5 recommendations for every complaint. Even with the huge influx recently, users have been praising their response time and professionalism.
• Bottom Line: Before the rush of new users, I saw people criticize the liquidity of Gemini, saying that it was too small of a market compared to the larger exchanges. Now their smaller size seems to be paying off because it has helped them offer better customer service. I personally dislike their user interface (their charts are very limited), that the website is geared towards BTC, and that fiat deposit clearance times are longer (3-5 compared to 1-3 days). However, they deserve credit for running an above average exchange with a clean track record thus far.

03– Fiat Exchanges - Hong Kong

Bitfinex

• Overview: Based in Hong Kong, Bitfinex is a OG in the crypto game. In 2014, it was the largest exchange in terms of USD/BTC, but in August of 2016, Bitfinex was the victim of the second largest hack in crypto history. Reeling from losing almost 120,000 BTC (worth about $70 million), they came up with a solution to issue BFX tokens, worth dollar-for-dollar the amount lost. These tokens would then be bought back by Bitfinex from those who lost their assets. They successfully bought back 100% in April 2017, essentially paying back all outstanding IOU’s. Expensive Lesson. Bitfinex also recently had to suspend USD withdrawals due to a conflict with remitting money with Wells Fargo Bank. This has caused currencies to inflate on their exchange and force users to take out Tether USD (which Bitfinex has a considerable stake in) to transfer to another exchange and then sell. However, Tether also is in a quagmire of legal/financial trouble and cannot be counted on as reliable. This has caused lots of users to abandon the exchange in search of safer waters.
• Website: https://www.bitfinex.com/
• Mobile App: Yes – Android / iOS
• Withdrawal/Deposit Fees:

Country	Credit/Debit	Bank Transfer	Express Bank Transfer
ALL	-	.1% ($20 Minimum)	1% ($20 Minimum)

• Trading Fees:

Exchange Type	Maker	Taker
ETH/ALL	.10%	.20%

• Verification:

Tier Level	Name	Email	DOB	Phone	Address	Official ID	Bank Info	KYC	Limits
Individual	X	X	X	X	X	X (2)	X	X	No Stated Limits

• Security:

Feature	Details
2FA	Google Authenticator, Twilio Available
Account Security	New IP Addresses locked for 24 hours, require verification and detection
System Security	Hosted and Backed-up on Linux, protection from DDoS
Personal Information	Email encryption with OpenPGP
Wallet Security	Only .5% of funds are stored in hot wallets

• Customer Service: I actually think that Bitfinex has one of the cleaner websites out there. The security features have toggles that allow you to customize your account security. Also their Support Center, Knowledge Base, and Blog Posts seem a little more complete than some of the other exchanges. Searches show some complaints of unprofessional behavior when completing support tickets, but the mod over at bitfinex seems pleasant. Anyone with personal experience please feel free to contribute here.
• Bottom Line: It would be almost impossible to recommend this exchange due to recent developments. Until this withdrawal issue is fixed at least, probably don't count on this exchange. That said the reliability of Bitfinex is tougher to judge because it has been around longer. In crypto terms, it is a dinosaur. Whether that tarnishes or glorifies their record is up to you to decide. I believe the handling of BFX started as a clusterfuck and ended up showing some resilience. Their deposit fees are a little high in my opinion, but they do offer a mobile app to justify the price.

EDIT : Thank you to u/Ginger_Bearded_Man for the suggestion. Bittrex has been added.

December 22nd Picks: XRP(CB), NXT(airdrop), WAVES(**NG Activation & Promo), TNB(Promo), TRX(Promo), MCO(Christmas News “CN”), PAY(CN), BAY(CN)
JakeIstheCryptoKing (reddit, Instagram, and Twitter: JBTheCryptoKing) asked if I'd submit this for him because Altcoin was removing it instantly for some reason? This is NOT my post but his and because he's been so cordial to correspond with I decided to post it for him! Follow him below. Anyone know why I can post it but he can't?! He's made great posts this week...)
Yesterday and last night were fun ones! Depending on what time you checked your portfolio it may have been up 10% or down 30%. I personally think there was significant manipulation holding the crypto market down as a whole yesterday, while it prepares for the rally from Christmas Eve – End of January (conferences planned every weekend across the globe). I posted days ago predicting XRP would be added to CB as my favorite pick and was significantly disappointed when BCC was chosen over it. However, CB promised multiple currencies in Q1 of 2018 so XRP I believe is still a candidate (XMR too). The market agrees with me hence the 100% increase in the last 48hrs. I am still recommending buying and holding XRP, even at the $1.00 price point (my original recommendation came when it was under $.5). The price spiked to over $1.40 yesterday and this type of volatility can make you wealthy on 30% day trade margins, or 100% buy and holds. XRP is one of the few currencies that functions well with banks, is being tested by multiple banks in Japan and by Mastercard with positive news from all thus far. Buy and hold.
NXT dropped slightly with the market yesterday even though their airdrop was supported by Bittrex and is valued at approx. $1.40 per coin. The airdrop is valued at more than the underlying coin currently meaning NXT will have to appreciate to a minimum of $1.40, likely $2.00+ with news that Poloniex or another exchange is also supporting the airdrop. We have a week before the airdrop and I expect extreme appreciation of most altcoin prices over the holidays. NXT should be trading at a minimum value of the airdrop $1.40- $3.00 (upper limit). I hope everyone picked up some NXT at $.90 last night (trading at $1.10 right now)!
MCO still has me and many other anxiously awaiting the news they’ve promised to release on the 24th. I expect it to continue to produce gains of 10-15% leading up to the 24th with a likely pop leading up to the announcements and a significant climb if the surprise announcement is positive! (on Christmas eve how could it not?).
PAY and BAY have Christmas surprises coming and both are near completion of many of their projects. What could the surprise be? The suspense alone should be enough to drive the prices up 20% minimum in the next 3 days.
WAVES has their NG activation today (supposedly) stay tuned for that as it should increase the price per coin leading into the airdrop and Binance contest listed below. The NG activation greatly increases the speed in which transactions take place (a key factor of coin functionality, why XRP is so successful right now).
BINANCE CONTESTS EXPLAINED: WAVES, TNB, TRX Binance is holding 3 contests, 2 based on trading volume and 1 based on accumulation. All 3 games/promotions will drive significant trading volume of their underlying coins, in turn driving the value of the specific coins higher for the next 3-10 days depending on the specific promotion. I think this is an ingenious way for Binance to get new traders involved while holding free promotions!
WAVES’s promotion is based on how much you buy and accumulate (sales and withdrawals are counted against you). With an airdrop coming at the end of the month and NG activation in 36 hours I expect the next 4 days to see significant upward trending price movement (prediction: 10% per day).
TRX and TNB’s promotion is based on total trading volume with the leaders approaching 1000BTC, but there are still plenty of prizes for smaller traders (sharing 4million TRX or 2million TNB for example). The sheer demand to exchange huge volumes to get more entries creates a game like atmosphere increasing the price for the next 4 days (only 4 days left in the promotion). I expect to see a nice price jump the next 48hrs. Not to mention it is down 40% from today’s highs to still be slightly up overall today (good time to get in).
I think owning either of the three (not to play the game) but as a buy hold strategy for the 3 days while many individuals play the game is a must! If you enjoy day trading it these three are having 15-30% swings daily and you can take part in the game!
THESE ARE SOLELY STRATEGIES I USE IN THE CRYPTOCURRENCY MARKETS BY NO MEANS AM I TRYING TO PROVIDE INVESTMENT ADVICE. I DO OWN SOME OF THE LISTED CURRENCIES FOR THE REASONS I’VE STATED.

Hello Everyone! Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve likely heard all about BitCoin, LiteCoin, Ethereum and a whole host cryptocurrencies. As cryptomining profitability fades underneath increasing difficulties and the rising cost of mining machines, the world is dazzled by the utterly insane profit margins to be made in TRADING cryptocurrencies. This typically leads the average Joe to look into and, likely, invest some money into the cryptocurrency market. And, as time progresses (especially if profits are being made), one inevitably must make a choice to use a trading bot or not.
Now, I’m not trying to sell you one way or the other. My goal here is to take one of the newest and seemingly most profitable of the numerous trading bots out there, Profit Trailer, and break down getting the bot installed and running. There are numerous guides to Profit Trailer Installation and all of them are good. Crypto Gnome has some excellent information at https://github.com/CryptoGnome/Profit-Trailer-Settings/wiki/Setup-Guide. I’m not trying to knock him or anyone else with a guide out there. BUT………….
There are a few things that, in the course of installing this bot for a family member who has gotten on the crypto wagon in a big way, I noticed were lacking in the main set of guides. This being that not one of them had been designed with the true noob in mind. Each assumed a level of knowledge and discourse that can ( and would) leave a newbie cursing the fact they just spent .03 of a Bitcoin on something that refuses to even start.
Anyway, the point is, if you don’t have a tech savvy person handy, you could be left with, at best, the program downloaded but unable to start it or at worst, out a nice chunk of your crypto because of failing to understand EXACTLY what is needed to make the bot operate. Any suggestions on how to make this guide more complete, such as adding specific exchange instructions would be most appreciated.
Have an account at either Bittrex, Poloniex or Binance ACTIVE! I have read horror stories regarding buying this bot and installing it without having your account open and logged into. Just in case there is truth to them, better to be safe than sorry. Open your account of choice ( we used Binance so that is the exchange that this guide refers to. ) Use the account interface to create TWO(2) sets of API keys. One will be public, one will be secret in each set. You will notice that, at least on Binance, that each set of keys will have 2 permissions checked and one, withdrawals, unchecked. This is as it should be. If for some reason the withdrawals permission is checked, delete the key and start over. I would suggest that, for ease of use sake, you label each of the sets of keys. The first should be labeled (yourexchange)Default and the second should be labeled(yourexchange)Trading. This will help you recognize which keys are which later in the setup process. Copy these into a Notepad file, Word file, write them on your bedroom walls in blood, just keep BOTH SETS OF THESE API KEYS SAFE! Anyone with these keys has access to your exchange account. The first key will be initially used when you buy the Profit Trailer bot. The others will be used when you set up Profit Trailer. Ensure that you have JAVA 8 installed and running on your computer. It is extremely important that it be JAVA 8 and not 9. Profit Trailer WILL NOT WORK WITH THE JAVA 9 JRE. This problem was likely the biggest hurdle with Profit Trailer until I realized what was happening. Download and install Notepad++. Very Important. Some guides make it sound like you can do the settings changes on a regular NotePad file. This may be true, but Notepad++ is an actual IDE (software writing program for the uninitiated) that will give you the same view that all the guys in their YouTube Videos have up when they discuss their settings. Just saying guys, you’ve got people who, while they might know how to trade, might not know squat about IDE’s and their function. Buy the bot. This can be accomplished at https://profittrailer.com/pt/CryptoGnome/ At check out, you will be asked for the FIRST of the API keys you created. This will be the, first PUBLIC key you created. Pay for the bot. Wait for BitCoin to go from wallet to Profit Trailer creators. Have a beer….Smoke a cigarette….watch a movie. Seriously, you’re gonna be waiting awhile. One good idea while you spend hours waiting for the license key to be sent to you is to ensure that, if you have a newly created exchange account, you should place some cryptocurrency/money in the account…otherwise you’ve got another wait. Most guides say to next get a VPS(Virtual Private Server or Cloud Server). I was unable to get a VPS enabled at the time of this installation, so I will be posting another article regarding that process as soon as I can get it up and running on this installation. UPDATE We now have a Windows VPS running. You can visit Profit Trailer And You: A Newbie Guide To Setting Up Profit Trailer Part 2: Windows VPS here. Get Profit trailer Up and Running!!!! Here’s what you’ve been waiting for and trust me, all the other “prep stuff” will make this part a whole lot smoother. First, go to https://github.com/taniman/profit-trailereleases download the latest version of Profit Trailer. Next, unzip the files and navigate to the new folder. Open the file named application.properties with Notepad++ and then stare at it. I mean… really stare at it. Scary huh? Looks like you’re about to start coding the next Destiny game doesn’t it? Relax. this is a simple IDE that is giving you a series of settings that have to be adjusted manually instead of using a graphics user interface like the ones we’ve all grown to know and love. What you really need to know is what you are looking at. You’re going to see things like “trading.exchange” and “default_apiKey”. Each of these lines will have an equals sign on the end of them. Concentrate on what’s on the right side of the equals sign, cause that’s where your info is going to go. Remember those API keys you made? Well, here’s where they go.
Update these settings:
trading.exchange = THE EXCHANGE YOU ARE USING e.g. BITTREX (This MUST BE IN ALL CAPS. using lower case letter will give you an error code on startup)
default_apiKey = THE FIRST API KEY YOU CREATED (The key you labeled (yourexchange)Default )
default_apiSecret = THE FIRST SECRET KEY YOU CREATED
trading_apiKey = THE SECOND API KEY YOU CREATED (The key you labeled (yourexchange)Trading )
trading_apiSecret = THE SECOND SECRET KEY YOU CREATED
server.password = PASSWORD HERE (This is a password you create here. it is not tied to any other account)
Click save
You with me so far? Keep in mind that, so far the bot IS NOT RUNNING. we haven’t turned on anything yet, so don’t worry.
Most of the other guides say to start the bot up at this point and I would tend to agree, except you may want to look at the default settings in the pairs and DCA files to ensure that they are set the way you want them. DCA settings are a huge factor in Profit Trailer and I would suggest watching several videos regarding them. I do not claim to be a crypto expert and do not pretend to understand all the terms. The Profit Trailer Wiki at https://wiki.profittrailer.io/doku.php/dca.properties has in depth articles dealing with each of the settings and I suggest getting very familiar with them and understanding exactly what each does before turning the bot on.
Ok, with that being said, if you feel like your settings are just the way you want them, open up the pairs.properties file in Notepad++ and change “ALL_trading_enabled=false” to “ALL_trading_enabled=true” and save the file. Next you will want to click ‘run’ on the ProfitTrailer.cmd file. This will actually start the bot and will open an old style black Windows command line window. Ignore this as it is just the bot starting up, not where you will see what the bot is doing and open your web browser and enter http://localhost:8081/monitoring in the URL field. This will bring up a login page. Use the Password you created in the application.properties file here. This opens the web monitoring dashboard for your bot.
Again, I cannot stress enough the importance of following each step and understanding what each of the settings in Profit Trailer are and what they do. There are several important safety valves in Profit Trailer to keep the bot from chewing through your crypto like cookie monster on a 3 day bender.
One is “ALL_max_cost = x.xxxxx” in pairs.properties. This sets the amount of coin, in BitCoin, that the bot will use for trading. Just because you have have 1.5 BTC in your exchange account doesn’t mean you’ve gotta let the bot play with it all. “ALL_min_buy_balance = x.xx” in the pairs.propertiesfile will accomplish the same thing, just specifying an amount in the account that the bot will not take the account below. There are several important safety triggers in the DCA files as well, one being “min_buy_balance = x.xx” which will keep a specified minimum of BTC in your account, below which NO DCA buys will occur. This is an important distinction from the “ALL_min_buy_balance = x.xx” found in the pairs.properties files; DCA buys will STILL OCCUR even if the account is at or below the minimum specified in the pairs.properties file. Confused yet? It makes sense really, but if you’re like me, DCA really doesn’t mean anything to you. ( It’s Dollar Cost Averaging and it’s a profit mechanism used by Profit Trailer) What it really means is that, if you don’t know or understand what you are doing, it can cause big problems trading. Use your safety triggers and brush up on your trading terms cause soon you’ll be hip deep in EMAGains and Dust Bags…..whatever that means.
Any info on other exchange procedures with reagrds to setting up Profit Trailer would be greatly appreciated. I am not affiliated with or paid by any exchange, developer or site.
Credit & Thanks for this guide by: https://steemit.com/@demonsthenes

The Vigilante’s View
It is our first issue in months that bitcoin hasn’t hit an all-time high! And it’s the last issue of the year. And what a year for cryptos it was.
To put it in perspective, bitcoin could fall 90% from current levels and it will still have outperformed stocks, bonds and real estate in 2017.
Bitcoin started 2017 at $960.79.
At the time of this writing it is near $13,000 for a gain of 1,250% in 2017.
And, bitcoin was actually one of the worst performing cryptocurrencies in our TDV portfolio in 2017!
Ethereum (ETH) started 2017 at $8. It has since hit over $800 for a nice 10,000% gain in 2017.
That’s pretty good, but not as good as Dash which started the year at $11.19 and recently hit $1,600 for a nearly 15,000% gain.
I hope many of you have participated in these amazing gains! If not, or you are new, don’t worry there will be plenty more opportunities in the years ahead.
It won’t all be just home runs though… in fact, some of the cryptos that have performed so well to date may go down dramatically or collapse completely in the coming years.
I’ll point out further below why Lightning Network is not the answer to Bitcoin Core’s slow speeds and high costs. And, I’ll look ahead to 2018 and how we could already be looking beyond blockchains.
Yes, things are moving so fast that blockchain just became known to your average person this year… and could be nearly extinct by next year.
That’s why it is important to stick with us here at TDV to navigate these choppy free market waters!
New Years Reflection On The Evolution Of Consensus Protocols
Sooner or later crypto will humble you by its greatness. Its vastness is accompanied by a madness that is breathtaking, because you quickly realize that there is no stopping crypto from taking over the world. The moment you think you have everything figured out, is the moment the market will surprise you.
We are for the first time living and witnessing the birth of the first worldwide free market. Throughout this rampage of innovation, we all are implicitly aiming for the best means of harnessing consensus. As we leave this bountiful 2017 and aim at 2018, it is important for us to meditate and appreciate the progress we have made in transforming the world through the decentralization of consensus. It is also important to reflect on the changes in consensus building we have partaken in and those yet to come.
Consensus is the agreement that states “this is what has occurred, and this is what hasn’t happened.”
Throughout the vastness of history, we humans have only really had access to centralized means for consensus building. In the centralized world, consensus has been determined by banks, states, and all kinds of central planners. As our readers know, any centralized party can misuse their power, and their consensus ruling can become unfair. In spite of this, many individuals still praise the effectiveness of consensus building of centralized systems.
People from antiquity have had no other option but to trust these central planners. These systems of control have created still-water markets where only a few are allowed to compete. This lack of competition resulted in what we now can objectively view as slow innovation. For many, centralized consensus building is preferred under the pretense of security and comfort. Unfortunately, these same individuals are in for a whole lot of discomfort now that the world is innovating on top of the first decentralized consensus building technology, the blockchain.
Everything that has occurred since the inception of bitcoin has shocked central planners because for the first time in history they are lost; they no longer hold power. We now vote with our money. We choose what we find best as different technologies compete for our money.
What we are witnessing when we see the volatility in crypto is nothing more than natural human motion through price. The innovation and volatility of the crypto market may seem unorthodox to some, because it is. For the first time in history we are in a true free market. The true free market connects you to everybody and for this reason alone the market shouldn’t surprise us for feeling “crazy.” Volatility is a sign of your connection to a market that is alive. Radical innovation is a sign of a market that is in its infancy still discovering itself.
In juxtaposing centralized consensus building with decentralized consensus building, I cannot keep myself from remembering some wise biblical words; “ And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined.” – Luke 5:37
The centralized legacy financial system is akin to old wineskins bursting to shreds by the new wine of crypto. Decentralized consensus building has no need for central planners. For example, think about how ludicrous it would be for someone to ask government for regulation after not liking something about crypto. Sorry, there is no central planner to protect you; even the mathematical protocols built for us to trust are now competing against one another for our money.
These new mathematical protocols will keep competing against one another as they provide us with new options in decentralizing consensus. As we look unto 2018, it is important that we as investors begin to critically engage and analyze “blockchain-free cryptocurrencies.”
HASHGRAPHS, TANGLES AND DAGS
Blockchain-free cryptocurrencies are technologies composed of distributed databases that use different tools to achieve the same objectives as blockchains.
The top contenders in the realm of blockchain-free cryptos are DAGs (Directed Acyclic Graphs) such as Swirlds’ Hashgraph, ByteBall’s DAG, and IOTA’s Tangle. These blockchain-free cryptos are also categorized as belonging to the 3 rd generation of cryptocurrencies. These technologies promise to be faster, cheaper, and more efficient than blockchain cryptocurrencies.
Blockchains were the first means of creating decentralized consensus throughout the world. In the blockchain, the majority of 51% determine the consensus. The limits of blockchains stem from their inherent nature, whereupon every single node/participant needs to know all of the information that has occurred throughout the whole blockchain economy of a given coin.
This opens up blockchains to issues akin to the ones we have been exposed to in regards to Bitcoin’s scaling. It is important to make a clear distinction in the language used between blockchains and blockchain-freecryptocurrencies. When we speak about blockchains it is more proper to speak about its transactionconsensus as “decentralized”, whereas with blockchain-free cryptocurrencies it is best if we refer to transaction consensus as “distributed.”
Swirlds’ Hashgraph incorporates a radical and different approach to distributing consensus. Swirlds claims that their new approach will solve scaling and security issues found on blockchains. They use a protocol called “Gossip about Gossip.” Gossip refers to how computers communicate with one another in sending information.
In comparison to the Blockchain, imagine that instead of all of the nodes receiving all of the transactions categorized in the past ten minutes, that only a few nodes shared their transaction history with other nodes near them. The Hashgraph team explains this as “calling any random node and telling that node everything you know that it does not know.” That is, in Hashgraph we would be gossiping about the information we are gossiping; i.e., sending to others throughout the network for consensus.
Using this gossiped information builds the Hashgraph. Consensus is created by means of depending on the gossips/rumors that come to you and you pass along to other nodes. Hashgraph also has periodic rounds which review the circulating gossips/rumors.
Hashgraph is capable of 250,000+ Transactions Per Second (TPS), compared to Bitcoin currently only allowing for 7 TPS. It is also 50,000 times faster than Bitcoin. There is no mention of a coin on their white paper. At this moment there is no Hashgraph ICO, beware of scams claiming that there is. There is however a growing interest in the project along with a surge of app development.
IOTAs DAG is known as the Tangle. Contrary to Hashgraph, IOTA does have its own coin known as MIOTA, currently trading around the $3 mark. There are only 2,779,530,283 MIOTA in existence. The Tangle was also created to help alleviate the pains experienced with Blockchain scaling. IOTAs Tangle creates consensus on a regional level; basically neighbors looking at what other neighbors are doing.
As the tangle of neighbors grows with more participants the security of the system increases, along with the speed of confirmation times. IOTA has currently been criticized for its still lengthy confirmation times and its current levels of centralization via their Coordinators. This centralization is due to the fact that at this moment in time the main team works as watchtower to oversee how Tangle network grows so that it does not suffer from attacks.
Consensus is reached within IOTA by means of having each node confirm two transactions before that same node is able to send a given transaction. This leads to the mantra of “the more people use IOTA, the more transactions get referenced and confirmed.” This creates an environment where transactional scaling has no limits. IOTA has no transaction fees and upon reaching high adoption the transactions ought to be very fast.
Another promising aspect about IOTA is that it has an integrated quantum-resistant algorithm, the Winternitz One-Time Signature Scheme, that would protect IOTA against an attack of future quantum computers. This without a doubt provides IOTA with much better protection against an adversary with a quantum computer when compared to Bitcoin.
ByteBall is IOTA’s most direct competitor. They both possess the same transaction speed of 100+ TPS, they both have their own respective cryptocurrencies, and they both have transparent transactions. ByteBall’s token is the ByteBall Bytes (GBYTE), with a supply of 1,000,000; currently trading at around $700. ByteBall aims to service the market with tamper proof storage for all types of data. ByteBall’s DAG also provides an escrow like system called “conditional payments;” which allows for conditional clauses before settling transactions.
Like IOTA, ByteBall is also designed to scale its transaction size to meet the needs of a global demand. ByteBall provides access to integrated bots for transactions which includes the capacity for prediction markets, P2P betting, P2P payments in chat, and P2P insurance. ByteBall’s initial coin distribution is still being awarded to BTC and Bytes holders according to the proportional amounts of BTC or Bytes that are held per wallet. IOTA, ByteBall and Hashgraph are technologies that provide us with more than enough reasons to be hopeful for 2018. In terms of the crypto market, you don’t learn it once. You have to relearn it every day because its development is so infant. If you are new to crypto and feel lost at all know that you are not alone. These technologies are constantly evolving with new competitive options in the market.
As the technologies grow the ease for adoption is set to grow alongside innovation. We are all new to this world and we are all as much in shock of its ingenuity as the next newbie. Crypto is mesmerizing not just for its volatility which is a clear indication of how connected we are now to one another, but also because of the social revolution that it represents. We are experiencing the multidirectional growth of humanity via the free market.
Meanwhile Bitcoin Is Turning Into Shitcoin
It is with a great degree of sadness that I see bitcoin is on the cusp of destroying itself. Bitcoin Core, anyway. Bitcoin Cash may be the winner from all of this once all is said and done.
Whether by design or by accident, bitcoin has become slow and expensive.
Many people point out that IF the market were to upgrade to Segwit that all would be fine. I’ll explain further below why many market participants have no incentive to upgrade to Segwit… meaning that the implementation of Segwit has been a massively risky guess that so far has not worked.
Others say that the Lightning Network (LN) will save bitcoin. I’ll point out below why that will not happen.
Lightning Networks And The Future Of Bitcoin Core
If you’ve been following bitcoin for any length of time, you’re probably aware of the significant dispute over how to scale the network. The basic problem is that although bitcoin could be used at one time to buy, say, a cup of coffee, the number of transactions being recorded on the network bid up the price per transaction so much that actually sending BTC cost more than the cup of coffee itself. Indeed, analysis showed that there were many Bitcoin addresses that had such small BTC holdings that the address itself couldn’t be used to transfer it to a different address. These are referred to as “unspendable addresses.”
In the ensuing debate, the “big blockers” wanted to increase the size of each block in the chain in order to allow for greater transaction capacity. The “small blockers” wanted to reduce the size of each transaction using a technique called Segregated Witness (SegWit) and keep the blocks in the chain limited to 1MB.
SegWit reduces the amount of data in each transaction by around 40-50%, resulting in an increased capacity from 7 transactions per second to perhaps 15.
The software engineers who currently control the Bitcoin Core code repository have stated that what Bitcoin needs is “off-chain transactions.” To do this, they have created something called Lightning Networks (LN), based on an software invention called the “two-way peg.” Put simply, the two-way peg involves creating an escrow address in Bitcoin where each party puts some bitcoin into the account, and then outside the blockchain, they exchange hypothetical Bitcoin transactions that either of them can publish on Bitcoin’s blockchain in order to pull their current agreed-upon balance out of the escrow address.
Most layman explanations of how this works describe the protocol as each party putting in an equal amount of Bitcoin into the escrow. If you and I want to start transacting off-chain, so we can have a fast, cheap payment system, we each put some Bitcoin in a multi-party address. I put in 1 BTC and you put in 1 BTC, and then we can exchange what are essentially cryptographic contracts that either of us can reveal on the bitcoin blockchain in order to exit our agreement and get our bitcoin funds.
Fortunately, it turns out that the video’s examples don’t tell the whole story. It’s possible for the escrow account to be asymmetric. See:. That is, one party can put in 1 BTC, while the other party puts in, say, 0.0001 BTC. (Core developer and forthcoming Anarchapulco speaker Jimmy Song tells us that there are game theoretic reasons why you don’t want the counterparty to have ZERO stake.)
Great! It makes sense for Starbucks to participate with their customers in Lightning Networks because when their customers open an LN channel (basically a gift card) with them for $100, they only have to put in $1 worth of Bitcoin. Each time the customer transacts on the Lightning Network, Starbucks gets an updated hypothetical transaction that they can use to cash out that gift card and collect their bitcoin.
The elephant in the room is: transaction fees. In order to establish the escrow address and thereby open the LN channel, each party has to send some amount of bitcoin to the address. And in order to cash out and get the bitcoin settlement, one party also has to initiate a transaction on the bitcoin blockchain. And to even add funds to the channel, one party has to pay a transaction fee.
Right now fees on the bitcoin blockchain vary widely and are extremely volatile. For a 1-hour confirmation transaction, the recommended fee from one wallet might be $12 US, while on another it’s $21 US. For a priority transaction of 10-20 minutes, it can range from $22-30 US. Transactions fees are based on the number of bytes in the transaction, so if both parties support SegWit (remember that?) then the fee comes down by 40-50%. So it’s between $6 and $10 US for a one hour transaction and between $11-15 for a 15 minute transaction. (SegWit transactions are prioritized by the network to some degree, so actual times may be faster)
But no matter what, both the customer and the merchant have to spend $6 each to establish that they will have a relationship and either of them has to spend $6 in order to settle out and get their bitcoin. Further, if the customer wants to “top off” their virtual gift card, that transaction costs another $6. And because it adds an address to the merchant’s eventual settlement, their cost to get their Bitcoin goes up every time that happens, so now it might cost them $9 to get their bitcoin.
Since these LN channels are essentially digital gift cards, I looked up what the cost is to retailers to sell acustomer a gift card. The merchant processor Square offers such gift cards on their retailer site. Their best price is $0.90 per card.
So the best case is that Lightning Networks are 600% more expensive than physical gift cards to distribute, since the merchant has to put a transaction into the escrow address. Further, the customer is effectively buying the gift card for an additional $6, instead of just putting up the dollar amount that goes on the card.
But it gets worse. If you get a gift card from Square, they process the payments on the card and periodically deposit cash into your bank account for a percentage fee. If you use the Lightning Network, you can only access your Bitcoin by cancelling the agreement with the customer. In other words, you have to invalidate their current gift card and force them to spend $6 on a new one! And it costs you $6 to collect your funds and another $6 to sell the new gift card!
I’m sure many of you have worked in retail. And you can understand how this would be financially infeasible. The cost of acquiring a new customer, and the amount of value that customer would have to stake just to do business with that one merchant, would be enormous to make any financial sense.
From time immemorial, when transaction costs rise, we see the creation of middlemen.
Merchants who can’t afford to establish direct channels with their customers will have to turn to middlemen, who will open LN channels for them. Instead of directly backing and cashing out their digital gift cards, they will establish relationships with entities that consolidate transactions, much like Square or Visa would do today.
Starbucks corporate or individual locations might spend a few USD on opening a payment channel with the middleman, and then once a month spend 6 USD to cash out their revenues in order to cover accounts payable.
In the meantime, the middleman also has to offer the ability to open LN channels for consumers. This still happens at a fixed initial cost, much like the annual fee for a credit card in the US. They would continue to require minimum balances, and would offer access to a network of merchants, exactly like Visa and MasterCard today.
This process requires a tremendous amount of capital because although the middleman does not have to stake Bitcoin in the consumer’s escrow account, he does have to stake it in the merchant’s account. In other words, if the Lightning Network middleman wants to do business with Starbucks to the tune of $100,000/month, he needs $100,000 of bitcoin to lock into an escrow address. And that has to happen for every merchant.
Because every month (or so) the merchants have to cash out of their bitcoin to fiat in order to pay for their cost of goods and make payroll. Even if their vendors and employees are paid in bitcoin and they have LN channels open with them, someone somewhere will want to convert to fiat, and trigger a closing channel creating a cascading settlement effect that eventually arrives at the middleman. Oh, and it triggers lots of bitcoin transactions that cost lots of fees.
Did I mention that each step in the channel is expecting a percentage of the value of the channel when it’s settled? This will come up again later.
Again, if you’ve worked in the retail business, you should be able to see how infeasible this would be. You have to buy inventory and you have to sell it to customers and every part that makes the transaction more expensive is eating away at your margins.
Further, if you’re the middleman and Starbucks closes out a channel with a $100,000 stake where they take $95,000 of the bitcoin, how do you re-open the channel? You need another $95,000 in capital. You have revenue, of course, from the consumer side of your business. Maybe you have 950 consumers that just finished off their $100 digital gift cards. So now you can cash them out to bitcoin for just $5700 in transaction fees, and lose 5.7% on the deal.
In order to make money in that kind of scenario, you have to charge LN transaction fees. And because your loss is 5.7%, you need to charge in the range of 9% to settle Lightning Network transactions. Also, you just closed out 950 customers who now have to spend $5700 to become your customer again while you have to spend $5700 to re-acquire them as customers. So maybe you need to charge more like 12%.
If you approached Starbucks and said “you can accept Bitcoin for your customers and we just need 12% of the transaction,” what are the odds that they would say yes? Even Visa only has the balls to suggest 3%, and they have thousands and thousands of times as many consumers as bitcoin.
The entire mission of bitcoin was to be faster, cheaper and better than banks, while eliminating centralized control of the currency. If the currency part of Bitcoin is driven by “off-chain transactions” while bitcoin itself remains expensive and slow, then these off-chain transactions will become the territory of centralized parties who have access to enormous amounts of capital and can charge customers exorbitant rates. We know them today as banks.
Even for banks, we have to consider what it means to tie up $100,000/month for a merchant account. That only makes sense if the exchange rate of bitcoin grows faster than the cost of retaining Bitcoin inventory. It costs nothing to store Bitcoin, but it costs a lot to acquire it. At the very least the $6 per transaction to buy it, plus the shift in its value against fiat that’s based on interest rates. As a result, it only makes sense to become a Lightning Network middleman if your store of value (bitcoin) appreciates at greater than the cost of acquiring it (interest rate of fiat.) And while interest rates are very low, that’s not a high bar to set. But to beat it, Bitcoin’s exchange rate to fiat has to outpace the best rate available to the middleman by a factor exceeding the opportunity cost of other uses of that capital.
Whatever that rate is, for bitcoin, the only reason the exchange rate changes is new entry of capital into the “price” of bitcoin. For that to work, bitcoin’s “price” must continue to rise faster than the cost of capital for holding it. So far this has happened, but it’s a market gamble for it to continue.
Since it happens because of new capital entering into the bitcoin network and thus increasing the market cap, this results in Bitcoin Core becoming the very thing that its detractors accuse it of: a Ponzi scheme. The cost of transacting in Bitcoin becomes derived from the cost of holding bitcoin and becomes derived from the cost of entering bitcoin.
Every middleman has to place a bet on the direction of bitcoin in a given period. And in theory, if they think the trend is against Bitcoin, then they’ll cash out and shut down all the payment channels that they transact. If they bought bitcoin at $15,000, and they see it dropping to $13,000 — they’ll probably cash out their merchant channels and limit their risk of a further drop. The consumer side doesn’t matter so much because their exposure is only 1%, but the merchant side is where they had to stake everything.
If you’re wondering why this information is not widely known, it’s because most bitcoin proponents don’t transact in bitcoin on a regular basis. They may be HODLing, but they aren’t doing business in bitcoin.
Through Anarchapulco, TDV does frequent and substantial business in bitcoin, and we’ve paid fees over $150 in order to consolidate ticket sale transactions into single addresses that can be redeemed for fiat to purchase stage equipment for the conference.
For Bitcoin to be successful at a merchant level via Lightning Networks, we will have to see blockchain transactions become dramatically cheaper. If they return to the sub-$1 range, we might have a chance with centralized middlemen, but only with a massive stabilization of volatility. If they return to $0.10, we might have a chance with direct channels.
Otherwise, Lightning Networks can’t save bitcoin as a means of everyday transaction. And since that takes away its utility, it might very well take away the basis of its value and bitcoin could find itself truly being a tulip bubble.
One final note: there are a some parties for whom all these transactions are dramatically cheaper. That is the cryptocurrency exchanges. Because they are the entry and exit points for bitcoin-to-fiat, they can eliminate a layer of transaction costs and thus offer much more competitive rates — as long as you keep your bitcoin in their vaults instead of securing it yourselves.
Sending it out of their control lessens their competitive advantage against other means of storage. It comes as no surprise, then, that they are the least advanced in implementing the SegWit technology that would improve transaction costs and speed. If you buy bitcoin on Poloniex, it works better for them if it’s expensive for you to move that coin to your Trezor.
In fact, an exchange offering Lightning Network channels to merchants could potentially do the following…
1) Stake bitcoins in channels with merchants. These coins may or may not be funds that are held by their customers. There is no way to know.
2) Offer customers “debit card” accounts for those merchants that are backed by the Lightning network
3) Establish middle addresses for the customer accounts and the merchant addresses on the Lightning Network.
4) Choose to ignore double-spends between the customer accounts and the merchant addresses, because they don’t actually have to stake the customer side. They can just pretend to since they control the customer’s keys.
5) Inflate their bitcoin holdings up to the stake from the merchants, since the customers will almost never cash out in practice.
In other words, Lightning Networks allow exchanges a clear path to repeating Mtgox; lie to the consumer about their balance while keeping things clean with the merchant. In other words, establish a fractional reserve approach to bitcoin.
So, to summarize, Bitcoin Core decided increasing the blocksize from 1mb to 2-8mb was “too risky” and decided to create Segwit instead which the market has not adopted. When asked when bitcoin will be faster and less expensive to transfer most Bitcoin Core adherents say the Lightning Network will fix the problems.
But, as I’ve just shown, the LN makes no sense for merchants to use and will likely result in banks taking over LN nodes and making BTC similar to Visa and Mastercard but more expensive. And, will likely result in exchanges becoming like banks of today and having fractional reserve systems which makes bitcoin not much better than the banking system of today.
Or, people can switch to Bitcoin Cash, which just increased the blocksize and has much faster transaction times at a fraction of the cost.
I’ve begun to sell some of my bitcoin holdings because of what is going on. I’ve increased my Bitcoin Cash holdings and also increased my holdings of Dash, Monero, Litecoin and our latest recommendation, Zcash.
Other News & Crypto Tidbits
When bitcoin surpassed $17,600 in December it surpassed the total value of the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights (SDR) currency.
Meanwhile, Alexei Kireyev of the IMF put out his working paper, “ The Macroeconomics of De-Cashing ,” where he advises abolishing cash without having the public aware of the process.
Countries such as Russia are considering creating a cryptocurrency backed by oil to get around the US dollar and the US dollar banking system. Venezuela is as well although we highly doubt it will be structured properly or function well given the communist government’s track record of destroying two fiat currencies in the last decade.
To say that the US dollar is being attacked on every level is not an understatement. Cryptocurrencies threaten the entire monetary and financial system while oil producing countries look to move away from the US dollar to their own oil backed cryptocurrency.
And all this as bitcoin surpassed the value of the IMF’s SDR in December and in 2017 the US dollar had its largest drop versus other currencies since 2003.
And cryptocurrency exchanges have begun to surpass even the NASDAQ and NYSE in terms of revenue. Bittrex, as one example, had $3 billion in volume on just one day in December. At a 0.5% fee per trade that equaled $15m in revenue in just one day. If that were to continue for 365 days it would mean $5.4 billion in annual revenue which is more than the NASDAQ or NYSE made this year.
Conclusion
I never would have guessed how high the cryptocurrencies went this year. My price target for bitcoin in 2017 was $3,500! That was made in late 2016 when bitcoin was near $700 and many people said I was crazy.
Things are speeding up much faster than even I could have imagined. And it is much more than just making money. These technologies, like cryptocurrencies, blockchains and beyond connect us in a more profound way than Facebook would ever be able to. We are now beginning to be connected in ways we never even thought of; and to some degree still do not understand. These connections within this completely free market are deep and meaningful.
This is sincerely beautiful because we are constantly presented with an ever growing buffet of competing protocols selling us their best efforts in providing harmony within the world. What all of these decentralized and distributed consensus building technologies have in common is that they connect us to the world and to each other. Where we are going we don’t need foolish and trite Facebook’s emojis.
As we close a successful 2017 we look with optimism towards a much more prosperous 2018. The Powers That Shouldn’t Be (TPTSB) can’t stop us. As we move forward note how much crypto will teach you about ourselves and the world. In a radical free market making our own bets will continue to be a process of self discovery. Crypto will show us the contours of our fears, the contours of our greed, and will constantly challenge us to do our best with the knowledge we have.
Remember, randomness and innovation are proper to the happenstance nature of a true digital free market.
Happy New Year fellow freedom lovers!
And, as always, thank you for subscribing!
Jeff Berwick

Don't be a complete idiot with margin trading, and don't be the one holding large quantities of cryptocurrency when it reaches a small fraction of its current valuation.
I am gonna go ahead and make a pretty long post giving some advice and things that I have learned before withdrawing all of my funds from GDAX (I have been out for some time now but just holding funds on there for whatever reason) and no longer posting in this subreddit for the foreseeable future. Many of you probably don't know or recognize me as a lot of new members have come around since May, after which I did not post very much. Additionally, I had only started to post in here around February of 2017, maybe even later, so I guess it hasn't been that long in the first place.
I'm not hear to brag about predicting the huge bearish market before it happened, as I ended up losing a significant amount of money this week alone. It doesn't matter to me that I was right when I still suffered just as much losses as you guys through an alternative path, it is what it is. I am just here to impart some wisdom onto those of you that are still trading, still holding, still staying involved with cryptocurrency.
The last half year has been a very remarkable thing for me - I remember sending a text to a friend of mine to ask him what his thoughts on bitcoin were, after which he replied saying he did not know much about it. I did not either necessarily, but remembered the hype back from the early 2010's about it and for some reason decided to investigate it upon seeing the recent gains it had made. I asked my mom what she thought (I am not so old myself, and thought she could share some of her investment experiences with me) and she told me that if I thought it was a good idea, I should go for it.
Fastforward to the BTC ETF day, I sat at my laptop staring at the charts waiting for the eminent SEC decision. I saw BTC, at an all-time high of 1300, suddenly move down to 1280, 1250, 1220.. all of a sudden saw a notification from the slack group I was in stating that the ETF had been denied, hardly believing it at first due to talks of slack notifications being used as scams. One minute later, the price dropped 20% and the exchanges crashed soon after.
I noticed that soon after this event, another asset I had looked into but only bought a small amount of at around 11 dollars, Ethereum, actually was doing WELL despite the fears that it too would crash along with BTC after this decision. So I bought in, and the altcoin rise begun. I cannot even begin to express how exciting these times were for me and how much I appreciate the insights, support, and fun from the traders on this subreddit. I could easily go on for hours and hours about this, but I am here to share what I have learned:
1 - When you are making profits, be sure to take gains over time, regardless of how much you believe in your investment.
In this subreddit and many others, there are many people who will say not to sell anything because then you may miss out on future gains - what if ETH has a massive bull run tomorrow and you sold today and miss out on that? Who gives a fuck? You miss out on some more money, so what? At least you made some in the first place. We should all be grateful for the profits we have made and take out money from time to time to decrease our risk accordingly. You may miss out on some profits some day but at least you will have more security and won't have to be as concerned about your investments as you will simply have less at stake and have already come out positively. I have seen far too many people who bought low in say the sub-10 values and held through this entire debacle, and have now lost massive sums in unrealized gains because they were too vain to just take some gains and be happy with it. Don't be like them. I'm not saying to sell now necessarily, but when the opportunity strikes, at least take something off the table when it benefits you.
2 - Don't margin trade unless you see the most blatantly obvious price movement ever about to happen and for some reason, others don't see it. Otherwise, stay the fuck away from margin trading.
I cannot begin to describe how terrible of a thing margin trading is. In theory, it gives you the opportunity to amass riches from another's fortune, a prospect which will make even the most humble trader foam at the mouth with greed. You can be reasonable and thoughtful all you want, but eventually most traders will at least try this out, and won't quit until they have suffered sizable losses. It seems promising at first but is just flat out stupid unless you are absolutely certain of something.
Personally, I shorted ETH at 0.12 while everyone else was laughing at me saying it would go up a lot - I was confident it would go the other way, and I do not regret that decision. Nevertheless, I had to close my margin trade when Poloniex practically scammed me out of tens of thousands of dollars through a glitch in their system which removed large amounts of LTC from my account balance. While that did not work out for me, the trade itself is an example of a good one - again, you should only margin trade when you are EXTREMELY confident in things going a certain direction. If you are new to crypto or have not margin traded before, for fuck's sake do not use this at all, especially with large amounts of money. It's a grade A way to lose everything you had. And even when you have some idea of which direction the market will go, it's best to stay out. I still remember reading about the guy who must have made hundreds of thousands but lost it all to margin trading, trying to short dash which he was confident would go down - in most cases it's simply not worth the risk, especially if you put too much at stake.
Lastly, don't margin trade large amounts (and especially, do not make your whole order at once). I know this defeats the purpose of it all, but if you have ever margin traded before you will understand. When you borrow say, 1000 ETH to go long, in order to close your position you must also sell that 1000 ETH at the very end of your trade. That means then when you go long 1000 ETH, you are going to almost instantly be suffering a huge loss in unrealized profits because selling all of that ETH at once would require you to bring the price down a decent amount. Maybe it's just a problem for the wealthier traders, but still it's something to consider.
3 - Do not sell in the face of blatant market manipulation.
I will say now, I do not think the recent selloff of cryptocurrency is market manipulation, it is an outcome of an overbought market and people panicking to maintain some of their gains as everything collapses around them. But this is something that applies to all markets and investments. Generally, unless it is the part of an established trend, it is a very bad idea to sell at an local minimum, especially one without reason. I vividly remember a few months ago when I was heavily trading LTC and it went from either high 20's or low 30's to around 20 in a few hours, caused by constant selloffs and massive sell walls being placed at the lowest price possible moment and moment again. In times like that, you just have to keep holding and staying strong. It should be clear to you if you are watching carefully when market manipulation is going on - these people don't try to hide it, they know they won't get caught. Just hold on and wait for the run back up before selling.
Now additionally, here is probably the most important thing, especially considering recent events:
4 - Know when to take a loss, and when it is the right time, take it.
You make an initial investment because you believe you will profit from it. While there are many who invest in crypto because they believe it is their way of supporting a new system, to fight back against the powers at be, or whatever else, let's face it - most of us just want to make money, and most of us did. The thing is though, you may not be in profits forever. Maybe you will make an investment that has huge gains, maybe you will make one that suffers huge losses. No matter the situation, you need to be proactive with your investments and act accordingly.
You may have invested in some other coin as a hedge, or perhaps because you heard somebody on /ethtrader pointing it out as something with strong potential, or which will have a good future, only to find out a few days later that you were the victim of a pump and dump scheme and are left to hold the bags. Maybe you read about Ethereum in the news when it had just passed 200 dollars, and thought you could still get in early on this remarkable investment but are now suffering some losses that you did not expect to suffer, and they are putting your mental health at risk as well as your finances. We can't all make huge gains off our investments, and sometimes things do not work out. Don't be the one on the sinking ship when it happens, regardless of how reluctant you are to admit you made a mistake or what other people around you are saying. Do what is best for you, and remember that no matter what there will always be a next day.
As somebody who suffered from depression for a very long time, there will always be a next day. Maybe you lost a shit ton of money today, or yesterday, or you will lose it tomorrow. There will always be an opportunity to improve your life in the days to come. If you are upset, or depressed, or sad, or lost a lot, then I recommend you seek some help and comfort with friends and do not act emotionally on the markets - chances are that this will lead to even greater losses, and just worsen your situation. What I mean to say here is that even if things don't work out your way today, there will always be tomorrow. I am not trying to say that you will suddenly gain back the profits you lost, or anything alike it - don't go mad trying to regain what you once had. Just do your best to cope with the situation, get some help if needed, and take the next day in stride, continue doing your best to create the best future you can for yourself.
Most of you were smart enough to learn about and invest in cryptocurrency and have since made recent gains. Appreciate that about yourself, and enjoy the fruits of your labor before they are gone - it may not be today, tomorrow, or the next day, but someday they will be if you stand still and do nothing.
Thank you for taking the time to read this post and for all of your time discussing cryptocurrency with me in the past 6 months. I wish you all good fortune and that you enjoy the gains you have made in recent times.
-ThisGoldAintFree

December 22nd Picks: XRP(CB), NXT(airdrop), WAVES(**NG Activation & Promo), TNB(Promo), TRX(Promo), MCO(Christmas News “CN”), PAY(CN), BAY(CN)
Yesterday and last night were fun ones! Depending on what time you checked your portfolio it may have been up 10% or down 30%. I personally think there was significant manipulation holding the crypto market down as a whole yesterday, while it prepares for the rally from Christmas Eve – End of January (conferences planned every weekend across the globe). I posted days ago predicting XRP would be added to CB as my favorite pick and was significantly disappointed when BCC was chosen over it. However, CB promised multiple currencies in Q1 of 2018 so XRP I believe is still a candidate (XMR too). The market agrees with me hence the 100% increase in the last 48hrs. I am still recommending buying and holding XRP, even at the $1.00 price point (my original recommendation came when it was under $.5). The price spiked to over $1.40 yesterday and this type of volatility can make you wealthy on 30% day trade margins, or 100% buy and holds. XRP is one of the few currencies that functions well with banks, is being tested by multiple banks in Japan and by Mastercard with positive news from all thus far. Buy and hold.
NXT dropped slightly with the market yesterday even though their airdrop was supported by Bittrex and is valued at approx. $1.40 per coin. The airdrop is valued at more than the underlying coin currently meaning NXT will have to appreciate to a minimum of $1.40, likely $2.00+ with news that Poloniex or another exchange is also supporting the airdrop. We have a week before the airdrop and I expect extreme appreciation of most altcoin prices over the holidays. NXT should be trading at a minimum value of the airdrop $1.40- $3.00 (upper limit). I hope everyone picked up some NXT at $.90 last night (trading at $1.10 right now)!
MCO still has me and many other anxiously awaiting the news they’ve promised to release on the 24th. I expect it to continue to produce gains of 10-15% leading up to the 24th with a likely pop leading up to the announcements and a significant climb if the surprise announcement is positive! (on Christmas eve how could it not?).
PAY and BAY have Christmas surprises coming and both are near completion of many of their projects. What could the surprise be? The suspense alone should be enough to drive the prices up 20% minimum in the next 3 days.
WAVES has their NG activation today (supposedly) stay tuned for that as it should increase the price per coin leading into the airdrop and Binance contest listed below. The NG activation greatly increases the speed in which transactions take place (a key factor of coin functionality, why XRP is so successful right now).
BINANCE CONTESTS EXPLAINED: WAVES, TNB, TRX Binance is holding 3 contests, 2 based on trading volume and 1 based on accumulation. All 3 games/promotions will drive significant trading volume of their underlying coins, in turn driving the value of the specific coins higher for the next 3-10 days depending on the specific promotion. I think this is an ingenious way for Binance to get new traders involved while holding free promotions!
WAVES’s promotion is based on how much you buy and accumulate (sales and withdrawals are counted against you). With an airdrop coming at the end of the month and NG activation in 36 hours I expect the next 4 days to see significant upward trending price movement (prediction: 10% per day).
TRX and TNB’s promotion is based on total trading volume with the leaders approaching 1000BTC, but there are still plenty of prizes for smaller traders (sharing 4million TRX or 2million TNB for example). The sheer demand to exchange huge volumes to get more entries creates a game like atmosphere increasing the price for the next 4 days (only 4 days left in the promotion). I expect to see a nice price jump the next 48hrs. Not to mention it is down 40% from today’s highs to still be slightly up overall today (good time to get in).
I think owning either of the three (not to play the game) but as a buy hold strategy for the 3 days while many individuals play the game is a must! If you enjoy day trading it these three are having 15-30% swings daily and you can take part in the game!
THESE ARE SOLELY STRATEGIES I USE IN THE CRYPTOCURRENCY MARKETS BY NO MEANS AM I TRYING TO PROVIDE INVESTMENT ADVICE. I DO OWN SOME OF THE LISTED CURRENCIES FOR THE REASONS I’VE STATED.

Period: 119.49 days

	Submissions	Comments
Total	345	83465
Rate (per day)	2.89	692.21
Unique Redditors	93	3777
Combined Score	10869	300389

Top Submitters' Top Submissions

1. 236 points, 1 submission: bit_LOL
   
   1. 7000 BTC hacked from Binance Exchange (236 points, 178 comments)
2. 209 points, 1 submission: Dimax88
   
   1. Your Position Has Been Liquidated (209 points, 137 comments)
3. 113 points, 1 submission: odeybit
   
   1. Bitcoin Bull Run JP Morgan Analyst Admits Institutions are Behind (113 points, 41 comments)
4. 106 points, 1 submission: sign-me-up-now
   
   1. For those of you that sold more than 50% of your bitcoin holdings above $10,000; how do you currently feel about the market now? (106 points, 137 comments)
5. 103 points, 1 submission: SurreyEnglandGU2
   
   1. Bitcoin 24 hour volume at an All Time High according to CoinMarketCap.com (103 points, 10 comments)
6. 90 points, 4 submissions: 12345abcde00001
   
   1. 2019 Cryptocurrency (Elliott Wave): Sell In May And Go Away? (35 points, 25 comments)
   2. 2019 Cryptocurrency (Elliott Wave): Bull Market…? (22 points, 6 comments)
   3. 2019 Cryptocurrency (Elliott Wave): Easter Update (21 points, 13 comments)
   4. 2019 Cryptocurrency (Elliott Wave): Solstice Update (12 points, 0 comments)
7. 84 points, 1 submission: Taubi
   
   1. [Poloniex] BTC Margin Lending Pool Losses (84 points, 94 comments)
8. 82 points, 1 submission: aSchizophrenicCat
   
   1. Bitfinex has removed its $10k minimum equity threshold (82 points, 105 comments)
9. 82 points, 1 submission: zacnash
   
   1. How I did my Crypto Taxes using multiple wallets & exchanges, ZenLedger.io, and Turbo Tax (82 points, 30 comments)
10. 78 points, 1 submission: moon_airspace
    
    1. Since Jan 1st, 2019 These Things Have Happened: (78 points, 54 comments)

Top Commenters

1. SloppySynapses (9413 points, 2003 comments)
2. wardser (5741 points, 1363 comments)
3. RetardIdiotTrader (4891 points, 989 comments)
4. CONTROLurKEYS (4346 points, 1182 comments)
5. Merlin560 (4008 points, 434 comments)
6. aaj094 (3432 points, 794 comments)
7. JohnCryptoRambo (3231 points, 619 comments)
8. bunch_o_faces1 (2905 points, 540 comments)
9. ParticlMaximalist (2888 points, 612 comments)
10. moon_airspace (2668 points, 497 comments)

Top Submissions

1. 7000 BTC hacked from Binance Exchange by bit_LOL (236 points, 178 comments)
2. Your Position Has Been Liquidated by Dimax88 (209 points, 137 comments)
3. Bitcoin Bull Run JP Morgan Analyst Admits Institutions are Behind by odeybit (113 points, 41 comments)
4. For those of you that sold more than 50% of your bitcoin holdings above $10,000; how do you currently feel about the market now? by sign-me-up-now (106 points, 137 comments)
5. Bitcoin 24 hour volume at an All Time High according to CoinMarketCap.com by SurreyEnglandGU2 (103 points, 10 comments)
6. [Poloniex] BTC Margin Lending Pool Losses by Taubi (84 points, 94 comments)
7. Bitfinex has removed its $10k minimum equity threshold by aSchizophrenicCat (82 points, 105 comments)
8. How I did my Crypto Taxes using multiple wallets & exchanges, ZenLedger.io, and Turbo Tax by zacnash (82 points, 30 comments)
9. Since Jan 1st, 2019 These Things Have Happened: by moon_airspace (78 points, 54 comments)
10. Multiple US States Pushing Progressive Blockchain Legislation by TheSedatedSlothe (72 points, 14 comments)

Top Comments

1. 137 points: Bob-Rossi's comment in Your Position Has Been Liquidated
2. 133 points: DogGuy23's comment in How I got Illegally liquidated by Bitmex, and why you should never trade there.
3. 109 points: ICanHazEconomics's comment in [Daily Discussion] Thursday, May 09, 2019
4. 99 points: boglehead288's comment in [Daily Discussion] Sunday, May 12, 2019
5. 99 points: yolotrades's comment in [Daily Discussion] Wednesday, March 27, 2019
6. 91 points: moon_airspace's comment in [Daily Discussion] Wednesday, May 15, 2019
7. 90 points: Merlin560's comment in [Daily Discussion] Sunday, May 19, 2019
8. 83 points: deleted's comment in For those of you that sold more than 50% of your bitcoin holdings above $10,000; how do you currently feel about the market now?
9. 82 points: septrenarion's comment in [Daily Discussion] Saturday, May 11, 2019
10. 80 points: lastdropfalls's comment in [Daily Discussion] Friday, May 17, 2019

Generated with BBoe's Subreddit Stats

December 22nd Picks: XRP(CB), NXT(airdrop), WAVES(**NG Activation & Promo), TNB(Promo), TRX(Promo), MCO(Christmas News “CN”), PAY(CN), BAY(CN)
Yesterday and last night were fun ones! Depending on what time you checked your portfolio it may have been up 10% or down 30%. I personally think there was significant manipulation holding the crypto market down as a whole yesterday, while it prepares for the rally from Christmas Eve – End of January (conferences planned every weekend across the globe). I posted days ago predicting XRP would be added to CB as my favorite pick and was significantly disappointed when BCC was chosen over it. However, CB promised multiple currencies in Q1 of 2018 so XRP I believe is still a candidate (XMR too). The market agrees with me hence the 100% increase in the last 48hrs. I am still recommending buying and holding XRP, even at the $1.00 price point (my original recommendation came when it was under $.5). The price spiked to over $1.40 yesterday and this type of volatility can make you wealthy on 30% day trade margins, or 100% buy and holds. XRP is one of the few currencies that functions well with banks, is being tested by multiple banks in Japan and by Mastercard with positive news from all thus far. Buy and hold.
NXT dropped slightly with the market yesterday even though their airdrop was supported by Bittrex and is valued at approx. $1.40 per coin. The airdrop is valued at more than the underlying coin currently meaning NXT will have to appreciate to a minimum of $1.40, likely $2.00+ with news that Poloniex or another exchange is also supporting the airdrop. We have a week before the airdrop and I expect extreme appreciation of most altcoin prices over the holidays. NXT should be trading at a minimum value of the airdrop $1.40- $3.00 (upper limit). I hope everyone picked up some NXT at $.90 last night (trading at $1.10 right now)!
MCO still has me and many other anxiously awaiting the news they’ve promised to release on the 24th. I expect it to continue to produce gains of 10-15% leading up to the 24th with a likely pop leading up to the announcements and a significant climb if the surprise announcement is positive! (on Christmas eve how could it not?).
PAY and BAY have Christmas surprises coming and both are near completion of many of their projects. What could the surprise be? The suspense alone should be enough to drive the prices up 20% minimum in the next 3 days.
WAVES has their NG activation today (supposedly) stay tuned for that as it should increase the price per coin leading into the airdrop and Binance contest listed below. The NG activation greatly increases the speed in which transactions take place (a key factor of coin functionality, why XRP is so successful right now).
BINANCE CONTESTS EXPLAINED: WAVES, TNB, TRX Binance is holding 3 contests, 2 based on trading volume and 1 based on accumulation. All 3 games/promotions will drive significant trading volume of their underlying coins, in turn driving the value of the specific coins higher for the next 3-10 days depending on the specific promotion. I think this is an ingenious way for Binance to get new traders involved while holding free promotions!
WAVES’s promotion is based on how much you buy and accumulate (sales and withdrawals are counted against you). With an airdrop coming at the end of the month and NG activation in 36 hours I expect the next 4 days to see significant upward trending price movement (prediction: 10% per day).
TRX and TNB’s promotion is based on total trading volume with the leaders approaching 1000BTC, but there are still plenty of prizes for smaller traders (sharing 4million TRX or 2million TNB for example). The sheer demand to exchange huge volumes to get more entries creates a game like atmosphere increasing the price for the next 4 days (only 4 days left in the promotion). I expect to see a nice price jump the next 48hrs. Not to mention it is down 40% from today’s highs to still be slightly up overall today (good time to get in).
I think owning either of the three (not to play the game) but as a buy hold strategy for the 3 days while many individuals play the game is a must! If you enjoy day trading it these three are having 15-30% swings daily and you can take part in the game!
THESE ARE SOLELY STRATEGIES I USE IN THE CRYPTOCURRENCY MARKETS BY NO MEANS AM I TRYING TO PROVIDE INVESTMENT ADVICE. I DO OWN SOME OF THE LISTED CURRENCIES FOR THE REASONS I’VE STATED.

December 22nd Picks: XRP(CB), NXT(airdrop), WAVES(**NG Activation & Promo), TNB(Promo), TRX(Promo), MCO(Christmas News “CN”), PAY(CN), BAY(CN)
Yesterday and last night were fun ones! Depending on what time you checked your portfolio it may have been up 10% or down 30%. I personally think there was significant manipulation holding the crypto market down as a whole yesterday, while it prepares for the rally from Christmas Eve – End of January (conferences planned every weekend across the globe). I posted days ago predicting XRP would be added to CB as my favorite pick and was significantly disappointed when BCC was chosen over it. However, CB promised multiple currencies in Q1 of 2018 so XRP I believe is still a candidate (XMR too). The market agrees with me hence the 100% increase in the last 48hrs. I am still recommending buying and holding XRP, even at the $1.00 price point (my original recommendation came when it was under $.5). The price spiked to over $1.40 yesterday and this type of volatility can make you wealthy on 30% day trade margins, or 100% buy and holds. XRP is one of the few currencies that functions well with banks, is being tested by multiple banks in Japan and by Mastercard with positive news from all thus far. Buy and hold.
NXT dropped slightly with the market yesterday even though their airdrop was supported by Bittrex and is valued at approx. $1.40 per coin. The airdrop is valued at more than the underlying coin currently meaning NXT will have to appreciate to a minimum of $1.40, likely $2.00+ with news that Poloniex or another exchange is also supporting the airdrop. We have a week before the airdrop and I expect extreme appreciation of most altcoin prices over the holidays. NXT should be trading at a minimum value of the airdrop $1.40- $3.00 (upper limit). I hope everyone picked up some NXT at $.90 last night (trading at $1.10 right now)!
MCO still has me and many other anxiously awaiting the news they’ve promised to release on the 24th. I expect it to continue to produce gains of 10-15% leading up to the 24th with a likely pop leading up to the announcements and a significant climb if the surprise announcement is positive! (on Christmas eve how could it not?).
PAY and BAY have Christmas surprises coming and both are near completion of many of their projects. What could the surprise be? The suspense alone should be enough to drive the prices up 20% minimum in the next 3 days.
WAVES has their NG activation today (supposedly) stay tuned for that as it should increase the price per coin leading into the airdrop and Binance contest listed below. The NG activation greatly increases the speed in which transactions take place (a key factor of coin functionality, why XRP is so successful right now).
BINANCE CONTESTS EXPLAINED: WAVES, TNB, TRX Binance is holding 3 contests, 2 based on trading volume and 1 based on accumulation. All 3 games/promotions will drive significant trading volume of their underlying coins, in turn driving the value of the specific coins higher for the next 3-10 days depending on the specific promotion. I think this is an ingenious way for Binance to get new traders involved while holding free promotions!
WAVES’s promotion is based on how much you buy and accumulate (sales and withdrawals are counted against you). With an airdrop coming at the end of the month and NG activation in 36 hours I expect the next 4 days to see significant upward trending price movement (prediction: 10% per day).
TRX and TNB’s promotion is based on total trading volume with the leaders approaching 1000BTC, but there are still plenty of prizes for smaller traders (sharing 4million TRX or 2million TNB for example). The sheer demand to exchange huge volumes to get more entries creates a game like atmosphere increasing the price for the next 4 days (only 4 days left in the promotion). I expect to see a nice price jump the next 48hrs. Not to mention it is down 40% from today’s highs to still be slightly up overall today (good time to get in).
I think owning either of the three (not to play the game) but as a buy hold strategy for the 3 days while many individuals play the game is a must! If you enjoy day trading it these three are having 15-30% swings daily and you can take part in the game!
THESE ARE SOLELY STRATEGIES I USE IN THE CRYPTOCURRENCY MARKETS BY NO MEANS AM I TRYING TO PROVIDE INVESTMENT ADVICE. I DO OWN SOME OF THE LISTED CURRENCIES FOR THE REASONS I’VE STATED.

Hey All,
For the past few months I've been building a web service that automates the process of margin lending on Poloniex. I started out using Mikadily’s open source lending bot, but decided to build poloniexlendingbot.com because I thought there might be demand from less technical users for a web-based solution. I also wanted to prototype building a bitcoin-based business, and this seemed like an appropriate scope.
After about one month, the lending bot has generated over 80 000 loans on Poloniex (most of them very, very small) and is still going strong.
The service is engineered to be usable with ‘trading’ and ‘withdrawal’ API access disabled on Poloniex (it can’t withdraw your funds or use your account to pump an altcoin), and any fees for using the service are remitted to a secondary account balance (insert some millibits to activate your bot). I’m really excited by the idea of building financial services via API - services that have the minimum required access for the job they’re performing.
I’d appreciate if you took a few seconds or minutes to check out the service, and value any feedback on the work so far. It’s very much a work in progress, and I’m open to suggestions from users and the community as a whole.
You can visit the homepage, watch the getting started tutorial, or AMA below.
All the best!
Ben

* Brand

ROADMAP DETAILS OUR TEAM BLOG 

THE KARATGOLD COIN (KBC)
is a blockchain-based cryptocurrency
specifically designed to be used as a generally accepted electronic payment means for all who consider gold as a traditional, true, secure and value-stable medium.
READ OUR AUDITWHITEPAPER KARATGOLD KARATGOLD Karatgold Coin (KBC) ICO rating Karatgold Coin (KBC) ICO rating KARATGOLD IS LISTED ON
KARATGOLD IS LISTED ON
Already has a WORKING PRODUCT
120 Countries
500,000 Customers
120 MLN EUR Total Investment
The desire of gold is not for gold It is for the means of freedom and benefit
Ralph Waldo Emerson AS SEEN ON...
AS SEEN ON... DEVELOPMENT PLAN
DEVELOPMENT PLAN
August 2018
With our in-house wallet, you can use the gold-covered payment system as easily as the other benefits, such as the transfer of real gold without banks or other intermediaries.
September 2018
Preparations for our own crypto exchange are in full swing. With our in-house Exchange, you can take advantage of all the benefits you expect from an advanced crypto exchange, adding the important factor of exceptional geographic and cultural closeness. Here you and your wishes are understood very well.
October 2018
Use the benefits of KBC and other KaratCoin banking services whenever you want, wherever you want: With our own app, this is easily possible. This app is available for iOS and Android.
Through 2018
Listing of Coin on further major exchanges. Number of acceptance partners increase to 20. Market capitalization: USD 80 million
Until 2020
2% market penetration. Market capitalization: USD 500 million THE PROBLEM
THE PROBLEM
In former times, gold was a direct payments means, particularly in the form of gold coins.
However, Gold has continuously been replaced by bank notes, which nowadays are not, or only to a marginal percentage, backed by state-owned gold. Therefore, the value of the bank notes issued by the different countries rely on the trust that the respective country is able to pay its bills. Only this is less sure than in former times. Especially in less developed countries, the trustworthiness of legal tender moves towards zero. THE SOLUTION
THE SOLUTION
The Coin perfectly meets worldwide needs because it is based on gold. Each coin represents a certain weight of gold and can at all times be exchanged into physical gold in the form of CashGold.
Furthermore, it can be exchanged for all fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies worldwide.
Exchangeable
Borderless
Value-Stable
Based on Gold
The Coin is cryptonized gold that can be transferred borderlessly, cost efficiently, securely and in real-time.
Its value is predictable because the value of gold has a long tradition and everybody has an idea about its stability. Therefore, the Coin has the ability to become generally accepted worldwide. DETAILS ABOUT KARATBARS
DETAILS ABOUT KARATBARS
The international distribution partner
Currently, more than 500,000 customers from more than 120 countries have already bought smallest gold bars from Karatbars GmbH, Stuttgart, Germany.
The total investment of these customers amounts to nearly EUR 120 million. It is therefore obvious that with this customer basis, the Coin will achieve a high market capitalization: it will write a success story.
It is designed to be used as a generally accepted electronic payment
For all who consider gold as a traditional, true, secure and value-stable medium
Each coin represents a certain weight of gold
Can at all times be exchanged into physical gold in the form of CashGold
Can be exchanged for all fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies worldwide
BANK INDEPENDENCE
COST EFFICIENT
PREDICTABLE VALUE
CRISIS-PROOF
VISION
To become a general accepted payment means by consumers as well as merchants and servicers
MISSION
To provide a payment system that is safe, private, and easy to use for the purchase of goods and services
EXECUTION
More than 500,000 customers from more than 120 countries. Investment amounts to nearly EUR 120 million EXCHANGES WE ARE CONTACTING
EXCHANGES WE ARE CONTACTING BUY OUR PRODUCTS
BUY OUR PRODUCTS
Bronze Card
Silber Card
Gold Card
VIP Card DETAILS ABOUT THE COIN
DETAILS ABOUT THE COIN
The «Coin» is based on the Ethereum blockchain protocol
Therefore, it is safe, cost-efficient and fast. Furthermore, it allows to use smart contracts within its protocol. Token name Karatgold Coin Ticker Symbol KBC Currency Symbol Current Price 1 KBC for USD 1.32$See Audit Maximum KBC produced 12 Billion (technical limit) Maximum KBC for sale 7.2 billion Fundraising Goal $ 72 million Minimum Purchase 1,000 Coins Payment methods Bitcoin, ETH and Karatpay payments
ICO WHITEPAPER WHITEPAPER AUDIT VALUATION SMART CONTRACT
SMART CONTRACT VIEW ON GITHUB SMART CONTRACT AUDIT THE ADVANTAGES OF THE KARATGOLD COIN
THE ADVANTAGES OF THE KARATGOLD COIN

Borderless: Exchangeable into CashGold at any time Fast: Facilitation of real-time payments anywhere and anytime Free and borderless transferable Immediate large number of points of acceptance Low fees payable by merchants for the use of the Coin and the Ecosystem 

WHY A GROWING DEMAND FOR COIN?
WHY A GROWING DEMAND FOR COIN?
The value of the Coin is expected to strongly increase. The market capitalization of the Coin will reflect the billion Euro business that will rely on gold and the gold price based on the CashGold.
The global acceptance and recognition of gold as a safe and secure harbor will make the Coin and the CashGold one of the leading payment means worldwide. Therefore, holders of Coin will not only enjoy protection against inflation and vague governments and economies, but also have the opportunity to participate in the value increase which will be achieved in the future. Such value increase can be realized by everybody through the sale of the Coin, or through the purchase of goods and services.
The Coins will be available on major cryptocurrency exchange platforms such as Poloniex, Bithumb, Bitfinex, Bittrex, etc. The coins will be permitted to float and be traded p2p. The price of the Coin will be determined by market forces and cryptocurrency exchange mechanisms, as well as by the global gold prices. The value of the Coin will reflect the degree of penetration of the worldwide payment systems and, to a substantial extent, the price development of pure gold. The more Coin will be used – thus driving customer adoption – the greater the demand for the Coin will be. The popularity of the Coin and the Ecosystems will most probably grow very fast. Buy Tokens now SAFE. SECURE. CASHGOLD.
SAFE. SECURE. CASHGOLD.
Gold, in the form of gold coins and gold bullions, has served as international payment means as well as solid investments for more than 4,000 years. Although legal currencies presently are not backed by gold, gold reserves still serve many central banks in the world as a currency reserve.
Private and institutional investors invest in gold. In times of economic crises, gold is deemed to be a stable investment with the potential to a value increase in comparison to other investments.
The intrinsic value of gold is caused by its relative rarity as well as by the high cost of mining. This may also be the reason why investments in gold, unlike e.g. investments in interest-bearing securities, do not have default risk.
However, gold coins are not used for payment anymore, and it is not feasible or practical to hold and pay with gold in the traditional form.
The new alternative is the CashGold. It is reliable, globally available, secure, practical in use, and compatible with other payment means.
The idea behind CashGold is to implement small gold bars on a specific paper which partially looks like a bank note. However, instead of mentioning a specific currency amount, the weight of the implemented gold bar is displayed. ABOUT THE VISIONAIR
ABOUT THE VISIONAIR
Harald Seiz was born in 1963 in Calw near Stuttgart, Germany and has been successfully working as a financial consultant since 1982. In 2011 he founded the Karatbars International GmbH in Stuttgart, of which he is the managing director. Since then he has consistently and successfully internationalized the business.
In 2016, he was awarded the Senatorial Degree by the Federal. Association for Economic Development and Foreign Trade (BWA).
He is also the author of the successful book 'The Future of Money', published in 2017 and available everywhere.
In his book he outlines the history of money and the methods of payment; describes what factors are dependent on trust in money and hard cash; how these factors influence the economic and monetary policy frameworks, where the risks of the past and present payment methods and systems lie. He also introduces a few (for some of us possibly exotic) methods of payment and tries to answer the question of what would happen in the case of an IT blackout or cyber-attack – and how we would be able to get by and pay for the essentials – for example, in the form of gold and crypto currencies. The book's jacket text: Never before in times of peace has the subject of money evoked the uncertainty it does today. Although, we live in affluence here in Germany, many people begin to ask themselves whether the value of our money is dwindling away. Cash seems permanently under attack as the media bombards us with theories on the 'End of Cash'.
Concerns about the future of money are not without basis: in many countries, massive restrictions on the use of cash have now become a reality, with India at the forefront. Overnight, 86 percent of their rupee reserves were removed from circulation and declared worthless - is cash in the euro zone next?
What is the future of money - a means of exchange, anonymous payment or an opportunity to hoard wealth? How will we pay in the future? What forms will digitization open up to us? And what forms could be forced on us by the state or circumstances, such as a crisis or catastrophe? Are you prepared if ATMs or online banking no longer function?
Publisher: FinanzBuch Verlag (2017) ISBN-10: 3959720823 ISBN-13: 978-3959720823 THE MANAGEMENT TEAM
THE MANAGEMENT TEAM
Thomas Valet

Head of Marketing & Sales European Financial Consultant 

Andreas Zipperle

Chief Operating Officer German Economic Council 

THE ADVISORY TEAM
THE ADVISORY TEAM
MyICOAgency

Leading TOKEN SALE Consulting Agency founded by professionals with backgrounds in blockchain, investing, PR, and marketing. myicoagency.de 

CPI Technologies GmbH

CPI Technologies GmbH is a leading software company for high scalable finance software solutions and blockchain infrastructure. cpitech.io 

Harald Plewka

Legal Advisor 

Jeannette Franz

Head of Support & Communications at Karatbars International GmbH 

Nina Rezec

Managing Director Karatbars International Dubai 

Ronald Stephan

Head of Public Relations 

Susanna Epli

Project Management Consultant Sales Management Consultant 

Ute Sailer

Senior Sales Coordinator Photovoltaic and Real Estate, InnPro GmbH 

Uwe Heller

Founder & COO InnPro GmbH Renewable Energies 

Andreas Houf

Master Consultant in Finance 

Dirc Zahlmann

Director of International Operations 

HONG KONG HEADQUARTER
HONG KONG HEADQUARTER
Wilson Cheung

Managing Director Hongkong Headquarter 

Heidi Cheung

Marketing Executive Nick Wang Technology Limited 

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