Does anyone understand *******s?

[oldcolner]

I'm have not a clue what these are, but their value has gone up from $500 last September to $4500 today.
https://charts.*******.com/chart/price

That's some investment.

It seems that you need a key to use them and one person lost all their *******s when the lost their computer.
Computer spammers want paid in *******s and Kim Jong is using them to avoid sanctions

Hackers from Kim Jong Un’s regime are increasing their attacks on cryptocurrency exchanges in South Korea and related sites, according to a new report from security researcher FireEye Inc. They also breached an English-language ******* news website and collected ******* ransom payments from global victims of the malware WannaCry, according to the researcher.

Is anyone into these. Wikipedia makes little sense on this, but I'm aging. Some sprightly youngster with more brain cells might help.

[sinkov]

I was advised recently by someone who I trust to invest in these *******s, he explained what you had to do, but I'm like you OC, it all went over my head and seemed far too complicated for me to get involved with. He tells me I'm being foolish and missing out on the investment opportunity of a lifetime, but I can't invest in something I don't understand.

I've also read 'Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds', which puts me off anything like this.

[oldcolner]

This is supposed to help but at £4000 each I think I'll leave them.

What is it?
A digital currency, used to make payments of any value without fees. It runs on the blockchain, a decentralised ledger kept running by “miners” whose powerful computers crunch transactions and are rewarded in *******s

Who invented it?
Satoshi Nakamoto, a secretive internet user, invented ******* in 2008 before it went online in 2009. Many attempts to identify Satoshi have been made without conclusive proof

[oldcolner]

Financiers say it is a fraud
JPMorgan Chase chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon spoke out against cryptocurrency ******* on Tuesday

He said the currency 'is a fraud' that will eventually 'blow up'
'Honestly, I am just shocked that anyone can't see it for what it is,' he said
******* slid by more than 10 percent on Wednesday, after Dimon's speech

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...d-blow-up.html

[exilecanada]

I have no interest in ******* currency, nor do I understand it, nor do I care to understand it. It seems to be an ‘underground currency’, not totally legal. I may change my mind when I can put paper ******* in my wallet, in my back pocket and use it to buy petrol, groceries etc. I rarely use credit cards, never use a debit card, I’m a dinosaur, cash is king in my world.

[afloatinclaret]

So if I bought myself some, could I then use them to buy tulip bulbs, or maybe Enron-shares and make even more money?

[alfinyalcabo]

The problem is selling them again..

[whittyclaretandblue]

People have made a lot of money from them but these are the people who bought a few at the start 10 or so yrs ago when you could get them for a dollar apiece. they say they are secure but as there is nothing physical like other commodities what is to stop them just disappearing into the ether. if you want to see how secure they are google '******* robbery' millions of $ have just vanished.
The price has rocketed and doesn't look like slowing but I was talking to somebody who trades stocks and he said unless you have a lot of money they are not really a good investment now the price has gone so high, a lot of seasoned traders expect the bubble to burst its just a case of when and how much of a hit people take. It reminds me of the old pyramid schemes buy in early you can make money buy in late and poof your money is gone one morning.
I could be wrong and it may keep going up but I certainly wouldn't be risking large sums of money on something that doesn't really exist apart from on the internet.

[oldcolner]

People have made a lot of money from them but these are the people who bought a few at the start 10 or so yrs ago when you could get them for a dollar apiece. they say they are secure but as there is nothing physical like other commodities what is to stop them just disappearing into the ether. if you want to see how secure they are google '******* robbery' millions of $ have just vanished.
The price has rocketed and doesn't look like slowing but I was talking to somebody who trades stocks and he said unless you have a lot of money they are not really a good investment now the price has gone so high, a lot of seasoned traders expect the bubble to burst its just a case of when and how much of a hit people take. It reminds me of the old pyramid schemes buy in early you can make money buy in late and poof your money is gone one morning.
I could be wrong and it may keep going up but I certainly wouldn't be risking large sums of money on something that doesn't really exist apart from on the internet.

I share your concerns and wouldn’t invest a lot, but it isn’t a pyramid, there are 21 million of them less some 5 million or so that people have lost (eg when moving to a new computer) or forgotten their customer information. That seems more of a problem to me. The Winklevoss twins who sued Zuckerberg for pinching their idea for Facebook are one of the largest investors and have done nicely thank you. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolog...-billionaires/

A lot of others are drug dealers and criminals who can use them to launder money - there are some 90 cashpoint machines in the UK that take cash and give you *******s -ideal for the underworld as you can cash them into any currency in the future. I think Kim Jong Un is another buyer!!

There are also some other digital currencies that I know nothing about.

[whittyclaretandblue]

I share your concerns and wouldn’t invest a lot, but it isn’t a pyramid, there are 21 million of them less some 5 million or so that people have lost (eg when moving to a new computer) or forgotten their customer information. That seems more of a problem to me. The Winklevoss twins who sued Zuckerberg for pinching their idea for Facebook are one of the largest investors and have done nicely thank you. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolog...-billionaires/

A lot of others are drug dealers and criminals who can use them to launder money - there are some 90 cashpoint machines in the UK that take cash and give you *******s -ideal for the underworld as you can cash them into any currency in the future. I think Kim Jong Un is another buyer!!

There are also some other digital currencies that I know nothing about.

That's the thing my hard drive died on my pc last month so had to buy another, so if I had 10 *******s stored on my PC which more and more people are doing instead of electronic wallets would I have lost circa 100k at todays prices or 40k at last months prices just because some $10 cheap chinese piece of tech decided it had had enough, wouldn't happen with your bank account or stock trading. the criminals love the stuff which will eventually see it regulated or worse and that's if it doesn't fall off the planet. It would have been nice to put $100 in to it in 2010 or if you have millions in the bank stick a few 100k in now, anything else and its too big a risk. Some folk will say its not that risky but they are the ones who probably have a lot invested and wake up every morning hoping that todays not the day its all vanished into some Russian/Chinese/N Korean hackers back pocket and there's not a damn thing that can be done about it because it never really existed.