I almost forgot over the last couple of years just how nauseating bitcoin's price movements can be.
you'll be fine.
Oh crappy-o, it looks like we're going down again
BTC didn't even rise enough to give me a proper dip on my favourite altcoin! I feel better if I can keep my liability split 50/50 between the two but after the events of the past few days I've spent heavily on Bitcoin and now I feel too one-sided and too vulnerable to Bitcoin's fluctuations. It only needed to rise a little bit more (and the alt dip a little bit more) for my buy order to go through on Polo, but now they've see-sawed the wrong way
I understand that people do this, and it does lend a certain ability to profit and an additional level of complexity that can really cause you to lose money faster or gain less (but yeah of course I recognize that it can have big pay offs too).
In other words, you are really bringing additional gambling to bitcoin, and does not really seem to be a longer term plan.. with mere investing in bitcoin should be enough to get rich, no (or at least increase your value over time).
Oh it's long term alright, in fact I was buying up Dash for over a year before I bought any Bitcoin to keep. Let's say I'm hedging my bets as to which one is the better long-term investment.
. I hope they will both enjoy mainstream adoption and a long prosperous future and I want very much to be a part of that. But the high profit margin on my Dash has also been very reassuring during these funky Bitcoin dips.
It doesn't make me any less passionate about Bitcoin. It's just that I was passionate about Dash first and so far it's done me very proud
why did you first get dash?
was the talk of bitcoin scalability problem a factor?
I did a lot of research into as many cryptocurrencies as I could after I became intrigued by a Litepay option on the website for an online service I use. The first thing that caught my attention with Dash was the privacy angle and the instant transactions. As I read more about it, yes, the scalability stood out as an important factor as did the ability of the Dash network to make decisions quickly, thanks to the Masternodes. Dash appeared to be already future-proofed with the ability to adapt with agility to changes and challenges. It seemed to have anticipated the potential problems that Bitcoin might encounter and dealt with them already. Two years on I still feel excited about Dash's future and I can't wait for the release of Evolution to take the mystery out of crypto for the average Joe.
But after a year or so of using Bitcoin as a means to buy Dash (The lack of fiat gateways is still a huge limiting factor for Dash) and also to transfer money from my UK bank to my Euro bank faster and cheaper than the banks can do it, I got to know Bitcoin better and to respect it as the Big Daddy of crypto. I had a chance to buy in low after the Bitfinex hack and then I was hooked. The lack of scalability with Bitcoin does worry me, as does the apparent impossibility of its network to actually agree on anything, but it already has the adoption and market cap that at the moment Dash is only dreaming of. And these rollercoasters are certainly good for an adrenaline rush
Sorry I think I got a bit carried away there
i've bought and sold altcoins now and then, but i never got myself to "HODL" some... from what I see is that every few years there's a bunch of new hot altcoins that offer "a start fresh from ground 0, with this new coin that does X Y Z super fast and super well "
It's an appealing prospect, and a believable story... the crypto does indeed offer technical advantages over bitcoin, why won't it eventually be preferred over bitcoin!?
but in reality altcoins are fighting a battle they can't ever hope to win. first off there will always be newer and "better" cryptos being rolled out. second they can only outpace bitcoin for a limited amount of time... once we have TX malleability fixed ( via segwit or otherwise ) then we'll open up the lighting network which will allow for, instant transactions, scalability, scripting language(and we all know just how impressively immutable bitcoin really is
we won't make the ETH/ETC mistake.) we'll see protocols that utilize zero knowledge proofs for ultimate privacy ( Zcash is a proving ground for development and eventual adoption on the real blockchain ). It might take some time for all this stuff to be rolled out onto Bitcoin's blockchain, but its coming, and all these alts are really just doing the grunt work of trying things and seeing what works and what doesn't.
altho... i have found an interesting altcoin lately, its a protocol layer on top of Bitcoin which allows anyone to create "blockchain assets" and because all these assets reside on the Bitcoin blockchain they can be traded in a decentralized manner. this i can get behind, because its success and bitcoin's success synergies.