crypto currency

[QuarterMillionMan]

Transferring cryptos are very cheap. Take this transfer from Robinhood to Arculus which cost me .26 cents. Buying cryptos is a whole different story. Take Coinbase for instance which has a 1% to 3% fee but it's not just the fee it's also the spread on the buy & sell where today BTC is $85,000. If you buy from Coinbase they'll sell it to you for $86,000 plus the fees. I'm convinced that the banks are already laying the foundation (behind the scenes) to transact in cryptos to save on the transaction fees and once they are ready they'll flip the switch and the train will have left the station.

[ua_guy]

I thought BTC was over $100k recently. Or did that go down the toilet too?

[disneysteve]

I thought BTC was over $100k recently. Or did that go down the toilet too?

It hit 105K in late January before starting to fall again. Looks like it's mostly been around 85K the past month except for a brief drop to 75K.

Highly speculative things tend to also be highly volatile.

[QuarterMillionMan]

I have 3 cold storage wallets, $69 Ledger, $79 Trezor, & $99 Arculus (my least favorite). Let me explain w/Ledger & Trezor when I open my iPhone these 2 apps shows my balances and can easily buy, sell, transfer, etc. With Arculus it needs the card everytime I open the app by tapping the card to the back of my iPhone. I don't want to have to carry the card everywhere that I go and I keep the card at home for safe keeping. People say Arculus is the best but I bet they are being paid to promote it.

[disneysteve]

I have 3 cold storage wallets, $69 Ledger, $79 Trezor, & $99 Arculus (my least favorite). Let me explain w/Ledger & Trezor when I open my iPhone these 2 apps shows my balances and can easily buy, sell, transfer, etc. With Arculus it needs the card everytime I open the app by tapping the card to the back of my iPhone. I don't want to have to carry the card everywhere that I go and I keep the card at home for safe keeping. People say Arculus is the best but I bet they are being paid to promote it.

Sounds like Arculus is more secure for that reason. Somebody would need access to your phone and to that card in order to get into your account.

[QuarterMillionMan]

Good point, I didn't think about that. Yes with Ledger & Trezor the thief would only need my iPhone PIN. With Arculus the thief would need my iPhone PIN and the Arculus card to tap to the back of my iPhone. Before you brought up this point, I was going to keep my Arculus balance low due to the inconvenience. But now since you brought up the stronger security for Arculus needing 2 steps instead of 1, I'll load the Arculus with a higher balance.

[QuarterMillionMan]

Almost daily I've been loading the Trezor with about $500 in bitcoin. Tomorrow I'll start loading the Arculus with about the same amounts. The bitcoins are coming from my Robinhood & Coinbase accounts each containing about $10,000 balances. Someone might ask why not just transfer the entire $10,000 over in 1 shot. Because if something goes wrong I don't know how to retrive it. I have lost money before transferring Ethereum where I gave up trying to find out how to retrieve it. With traditional banking let's say transferring $10,000 from Wells Fargo to Citibank, it's straightforward but with cryptos it is not the same.

[disneysteve]

Good point, I didn't think about that. Yes with Ledger & Trezor the thief would only need my iPhone PIN.

Are there not passwords or face ID or something with those other accounts? It's best not to remain logged in to financial apps. Actually, most good financial apps don't even allow that. They automatically log you out after a couple of minutes of inactivity.

[QuarterMillionMan]

Drove LA to TJ about to ride my e-bike to my hotel in TJ to meet up with one of my sugar babies at the gentleman’s club sorry getting excited and side tracked. Nope no log in nor biometrics needed and both Ledger & Trevor always on.

[disneysteve]

Nope no log in nor biometrics needed and both Ledger & Trevor always on.

Wow. Financial apps with no password needed? I guess that's what you get with an unregulated industry. Yeah, I wouldn't be doing that.

[QuarterMillionMan]

Decades ago iPhones didn't need a PIN and was always accessible without it. Later they added a 4 digit PIN and even later a 6 digit PIN. The programmers at Ledger & Trezor can always implement a 4 digit PIN into their apps. Coinbase's app is always on as I think about it. Robinhood's app always needs a 6 digit PIN to access it.

[disneysteve]

Decades ago iPhones didn't need a PIN and was always accessible without it. Later they added a 4 digit PIN and even later a 6 digit PIN. The programmers at Ledger & Trezor can always implement a 4 digit PIN into their apps. Coinbase's app is always on as I think about it. Robinhood's app always needs a 6 digit PIN to access it.

Robinhood is probably subject to the normal security regulations since they are a brokerage. The crypto stuff is still the wild west and can do whatever they want, which is probably whatever costs them the least to operate.

[QuarterMillionMan]

On my radar next is Quant (QNT) which is a cryptocurrency project that launched in June 2018 with the goal of connecting blockchains and networks on a global scale without sacrificing efficiency. To achieve this, Quant has developed the Overledger Network, which it describes as the first blockchain operating system. The Overledger Network is designed to allow applications to operate on multiple blockchains, providing a bridge between them and allowing them to interoperate. QNT is trading at $67. Coinbase gave free QNT once where my balance is $1.17 but I'll be adding maybe $1000 worth.

[QuarterMillionMan]

Lessons on cryptos. Confirmed 813x, I take this to mean that 813 people confirmed this transaction? Anyone know or care? This was when I transferred $788 of bitcoin from Robinhood to Trezor.

[QuarterMillionMan]

I'm guessing no one cares so I did my own research.

When people confirm a crypto transaction, it means¹²³⁴⁵:

• The transaction has been processed and accepted by the blockchain network, making it irreversible and secure.
• Confirmations verify that the sender has sufficient funds and has not spent them elsewhere.
• Multiple confirmations reduce the risk of transaction reversal due to blockchain reorganisations or malicious attacks.
• Confirmations ensure that all nodes on the blockchain agree on the transaction’s validity.
• A transaction with many confirmations means more blocks have passed since the block containing that transaction was accepted, making the transaction more secure.