So in my last post I mentioned looking for a new coin to mine and brought up Coinye West.
If you've been following the cryptocurrency scene, you're probably aware that Kanye West came out against it and issued a cease and desist order. In response, the makers of Coinye rebranded by dropping the West and launching a week early.
And in the last 24 hours or so, many of the Coinye sites have been hacked by someone who is apparently a fan of Dogecoin. So whatever Coinye sites you go to - it's dogecoin... to the moon! LOL
Its been quite comical to watch. :D
Friday, January 10, 2014
Thursday, January 2, 2014
If it's new... it must be news...
So I did my mining run of Lottocoin, the difficulty already escalated and my crappy video card isn't equal to the mining it any further. I made around .02 bitcoin on that mining run (about $15). Once again, that works out to about the amount of electricity.
As fortune would have it, I cashed out some lottocoins and added the .02 bitcoins to my pile and then used it to buy up some name coins right before the price run started - and I got out before it came crashing back down. So to bring you up to speed, my .07ish bitcoins is now up to .11ish bitcoins (about $80). Considering that I started with nothing and mined some Doge coins which I then flipped for bitcoin and then the same with lottocoin + my earnings trading so far I've turned about $20 of electricity into $80. Not bad.
And unlike Dogecoin where I unloaded them fast expecting it to fizzle - this time, I held onto about 10k lottocoin just in case they follow Dogecoin's lead and increase in value by 3 orders of magnitude (and by that time, my dogecoins were all gone). So I learned my lesson and sit on a small reserve of the coins I mine... just in case.
Now for the news.
There's a new cryptocurrency coming backed by Kanye West, his currency will be called Coinye West. Hahahaha. :D Anyway, mining/launch begins in 8 days... this particular coin is the only one I've encountered so far that is nice enough to provide you with a countdown timer to its go live.
More information here:
http://www.coinyewest.com/
Not sure what I'll mine next. I have a week to fill and need to find a new coin.
Oh and things I'm pleased to see - dire news coming from individual countries regarding bitcoin are having less and less impact. The news coming out of India didn't make a dent on the market or values at all... actually, the prices went up instead of down.
Another thing - as long as I've been watching cryptocurrencies, every time bitcoin has taken a blow, all the other currencies plummeted with it. Lately, the individual coins are starting to diverge and their value is increasingly less influenced by bitcoin. Then again, considering that Cryptsy is the biggest cryptocurrency (only) exchange and they have a bewildering array of trading pairs, it could be that backing is passing to Litecoin as its volume of trade is rapidly approaching that of Bitcoin, and since it costs less per unit, its less intimidating. Even there, I monitored the price of namecoin against bitcoin and litecoin when making my trades and lately - the big 3 are taking on a life of their own and independent of one another. That's a very good thing. (I call those the big 3 since they're the oldest, but technically, Peercoin is trading greater volume then namecoin.)
Anyway, that's it for now.
As fortune would have it, I cashed out some lottocoins and added the .02 bitcoins to my pile and then used it to buy up some name coins right before the price run started - and I got out before it came crashing back down. So to bring you up to speed, my .07ish bitcoins is now up to .11ish bitcoins (about $80). Considering that I started with nothing and mined some Doge coins which I then flipped for bitcoin and then the same with lottocoin + my earnings trading so far I've turned about $20 of electricity into $80. Not bad.
And unlike Dogecoin where I unloaded them fast expecting it to fizzle - this time, I held onto about 10k lottocoin just in case they follow Dogecoin's lead and increase in value by 3 orders of magnitude (and by that time, my dogecoins were all gone). So I learned my lesson and sit on a small reserve of the coins I mine... just in case.
Now for the news.
There's a new cryptocurrency coming backed by Kanye West, his currency will be called Coinye West. Hahahaha. :D Anyway, mining/launch begins in 8 days... this particular coin is the only one I've encountered so far that is nice enough to provide you with a countdown timer to its go live.
More information here:
http://www.coinyewest.com/
Not sure what I'll mine next. I have a week to fill and need to find a new coin.
Oh and things I'm pleased to see - dire news coming from individual countries regarding bitcoin are having less and less impact. The news coming out of India didn't make a dent on the market or values at all... actually, the prices went up instead of down.
Another thing - as long as I've been watching cryptocurrencies, every time bitcoin has taken a blow, all the other currencies plummeted with it. Lately, the individual coins are starting to diverge and their value is increasingly less influenced by bitcoin. Then again, considering that Cryptsy is the biggest cryptocurrency (only) exchange and they have a bewildering array of trading pairs, it could be that backing is passing to Litecoin as its volume of trade is rapidly approaching that of Bitcoin, and since it costs less per unit, its less intimidating. Even there, I monitored the price of namecoin against bitcoin and litecoin when making my trades and lately - the big 3 are taking on a life of their own and independent of one another. That's a very good thing. (I call those the big 3 since they're the oldest, but technically, Peercoin is trading greater volume then namecoin.)
Anyway, that's it for now.
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
Holy Cow...
And on Christmas day 2013... Litecoin eclipsed Bitcoin in trade volume.
Here is a visualization of all cryptocurrencies in play and how their trade volume compares (as of a few minutes ago):
If this is a sign of things to come, 2014 might be the year of Litecoin and derivatives. A move away from SHA based coins and towards Scrypt based coins.
Oh, and in other news, I'm assembling a Pearltree of cryptocurrency tools and information located here:
http://pear.ly/cB_Vn
Check it out, its got a few goodies in there already.
If this is a sign of things to come, 2014 might be the year of Litecoin and derivatives. A move away from SHA based coins and towards Scrypt based coins.
Oh, and in other news, I'm assembling a Pearltree of cryptocurrency tools and information located here:
http://pear.ly/cB_Vn
Check it out, its got a few goodies in there already.
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
Lottocoin, and weird stuff...
Alright, good to my word, on Saturday night I switched my mining operation over to LottoCoin. It had a catchy gimmick (the coin that is also a game), so I thought I'd give it a go. For the time being, its mostly a game for miners. The payout for a block is quasi-randomized and the difficulty is non-linear - so anyone mining might get lucky and see a big payday.
No idea how that's going to pan out yet... but I'll keep you informed.
And now on to the weird stuff.
Its interesting, as I've gotten into mining and trading bitcoins, I am frequently witnessing real world applications of hacking that have some value beyond just attacking something.
For example - when Lottocoin first launched, it became clear that to insure a regular pay off, was to join a mining pool. You can certainly mine solo, but since the payouts are all over the place its pure gamble as to the pay off.
With that said, there were some that wanted more time solo mining before the pools really started chewing away at both the profits and the difficulty. So what did they do? A massive DDOS (distributed denial of service) attack. Why would they do such a thing? Because if the mining pool servers could be kept offline, they would have a much better shot at mining new blocks (before the pool beat them to it, and their block was orphaned).
Anyway, it seems like some new piece of news about applied hacking almost every day in the cryptoscene. It sure makes for interesting reading.... and highly volatile markets. LOL
That's it for now.
No idea how that's going to pan out yet... but I'll keep you informed.
And now on to the weird stuff.
Its interesting, as I've gotten into mining and trading bitcoins, I am frequently witnessing real world applications of hacking that have some value beyond just attacking something.
For example - when Lottocoin first launched, it became clear that to insure a regular pay off, was to join a mining pool. You can certainly mine solo, but since the payouts are all over the place its pure gamble as to the pay off.
With that said, there were some that wanted more time solo mining before the pools really started chewing away at both the profits and the difficulty. So what did they do? A massive DDOS (distributed denial of service) attack. Why would they do such a thing? Because if the mining pool servers could be kept offline, they would have a much better shot at mining new blocks (before the pool beat them to it, and their block was orphaned).
Anyway, it seems like some new piece of news about applied hacking almost every day in the cryptoscene. It sure makes for interesting reading.... and highly volatile markets. LOL
That's it for now.
Monday, December 23, 2013
Upside down and shut out...
Last night taught me a valuable lesson.
Since I don't have a lot of resources in the game, I've been playing the smaller coins (litecoin and namecoin in particular). I was focusing only on making my bitcoins grow and kind of ignoring the cash out value of bitcoin.
So when the rally on bitcoin began last night, I wasn't paying attention and I had my resources tied up in light coin. Anyway, everyone tried to liquidate their litecoins as quickly as possible to get bitcoin to capitalize on the rise. Anyway, it fell so far, I couldn't liquidate without eating a loss larger than I wanted. (Though had I acted immediately, I probably could have come out ahead). So I waited, adhering to the wisdom, "buy low, sell high." But what if the high you need to turn a profit never comes? And still I wait.
The irony is - I'd only be losing a couple of hundredths of a bitcoin, but still it chafes to have been caught upside down and locked out of benefiting from the bitcoin rally.
So what are the take away lessons here? No matter what coin you're trading in, pay attention to bitcoin, if it starts to rally everyone is going to liquidate to get back to bitcoin. And if you see it happening, you liquidate too before the value drops and you get caught upside down. Patience may win out in the end, but there would have been much more profit in acting.
Ah well, I'm new at all this. Lesson learned. :) If it ever looks like I'm going to be caught upside down again, I'll get out as close as I can to my buy in as possible and then set a high buyout price on the bitcoin side. Because, as it turns out, he who hesitates really is lost.
The saddest part is... the margin in trades had become so stretched out and taught, I knew something was about to happen. I could feel it... but instead of parking my coins as instinct warned me... oh no no, I had to ignore my gut. Same mistake I've been making my whole life.
Since I don't have a lot of resources in the game, I've been playing the smaller coins (litecoin and namecoin in particular). I was focusing only on making my bitcoins grow and kind of ignoring the cash out value of bitcoin.
So when the rally on bitcoin began last night, I wasn't paying attention and I had my resources tied up in light coin. Anyway, everyone tried to liquidate their litecoins as quickly as possible to get bitcoin to capitalize on the rise. Anyway, it fell so far, I couldn't liquidate without eating a loss larger than I wanted. (Though had I acted immediately, I probably could have come out ahead). So I waited, adhering to the wisdom, "buy low, sell high." But what if the high you need to turn a profit never comes? And still I wait.
The irony is - I'd only be losing a couple of hundredths of a bitcoin, but still it chafes to have been caught upside down and locked out of benefiting from the bitcoin rally.
So what are the take away lessons here? No matter what coin you're trading in, pay attention to bitcoin, if it starts to rally everyone is going to liquidate to get back to bitcoin. And if you see it happening, you liquidate too before the value drops and you get caught upside down. Patience may win out in the end, but there would have been much more profit in acting.
Ah well, I'm new at all this. Lesson learned. :) If it ever looks like I'm going to be caught upside down again, I'll get out as close as I can to my buy in as possible and then set a high buyout price on the bitcoin side. Because, as it turns out, he who hesitates really is lost.
The saddest part is... the margin in trades had become so stretched out and taught, I knew something was about to happen. I could feel it... but instead of parking my coins as instinct warned me... oh no no, I had to ignore my gut. Same mistake I've been making my whole life.
Friday, December 20, 2013
Playing the market...
Alright - a quick catch up.
So I started this whole thing by applying for a coinbase account, falling into the ideology, I'll buy some coins mentality. So this set off the long, slow process of getting a coinbase account. This has taken so long, that the bubble burst before I could even get started.
Son, I am disappoint.
However, when I started researching mining and landed on the Doge coin as a low difficulty coin that I could realistically mine using my hardware. Of course from then to now, the difficulty has been mounting at the same time that the mining pools have increased fees, and tightened up their reward schedules. So day by day I produce less and less. When I started I was getting about 10000 doge coins a day, that has dropped to about 1000 inside of 2 weeks. For those who like the math speak, I've lost an order of magnitude of production power in a week. Ouch.
So one of the things I'm going to do this weekend (and through the holidays) is pick a new coin. I haven't quite decided what I will try (it will depend on the ability to liquidate) but I need something back in bounds with my hardware. And while I thought my radeon card was relatively decent, it turns out that its actually pretty weak. Funny, it pushes 3D games like a bastard maniac but when it comes to hash rates - it ain't all that.
Back to the point - buying bitcoins isn't the only way in. In mining coins and selling them for bitcoins, I've scraped up enough to start playing the market. It's a tiny little amount, about $15 dollars worth. (Funny to consider that the amount I have now WAS worth nearly $40 before the bubble burst). Here's the kicker - the fall off rate vs. the decline in bitcoin value has lowered my production rate to $1 worth bitcoin per $1 worth electricity. Funny how that works, huh? (Understand, I quantify this based on the production of Doge coins... $1 worth of bitcoins = $1 worth of electricity mining doge coins. For now, if the trend continues, I'll be losing money on mining inside a week. The rate was obviously better when I was producing 10000 dpge coins a day and the price of bitcoins was higher. But for the time being, I'm breaking even on the mining side.
But that is production... on the trading side I've increased my original amount of bitcoins, 0.00833, up to 0.02339. And that sounds like little tiny amounts. But lets sick the math on it... that's about a 36% growth rate. So the amount I have in play is growing faster than I'm mining. That's the right direction!
I know, I know - a measly 36%? Compare that to you average savings account at 0.21%. So - suck it. LOL
Anyway, one of the things working in my favor is that I'm a spreadsheet badass from years at my job. And I could probably push it harder - but I'm still cautious since I'm just learning the ropes. But it is nice to be able to calculate my values and targets and graph out my growth rate, I was aiming for 35%, and the 1% variance comes from continued mining. Honestly though - to get much past 40% I'd have to have more time to babysit my trades and track charts, and since I'm a working class schmo, that's not realistic. But the upside is - as the amount I have in play continues to grow - that 35% will become increasingly meaningful.
But since there are no guarantees in the trading game, I'm sure not going all in with my own money. So that's the reason why I'm mining and flipping. The only overhead is $1.25 a day in electricity. (One of the advantages of having a kind of crappy video card... it doesn't suck a lot of juice. LOL). And the metric I'm working in is bitcoins (not dollars) because I have no desire to cash out because that accomplishes 2 things. 1) It takes me out of the trading game. And 2) The second your coins turn into cash - you have to mind your taxes.
Anyway, tomorrow I'll be picking my new coin (criteria: relatively new, lower difficulty and a fledgling market) and redirecting my mining effort. I'm sorry to see the Doge go, but it has been both fun and educational. Playing with them has taught me to mine, and having coins has allowed me to learn the basics of trading. And since I can get back to bitcoins and cash out through coinbase.com, I have an exit method. So all is well, and the game is working.
That's it for now.
PS. I'd like to welcome my new readers from Switzerland, Poland, Austria, Estonia, Albania, Canada, and the UK. :)
So I started this whole thing by applying for a coinbase account, falling into the ideology, I'll buy some coins mentality. So this set off the long, slow process of getting a coinbase account. This has taken so long, that the bubble burst before I could even get started.
Son, I am disappoint.
However, when I started researching mining and landed on the Doge coin as a low difficulty coin that I could realistically mine using my hardware. Of course from then to now, the difficulty has been mounting at the same time that the mining pools have increased fees, and tightened up their reward schedules. So day by day I produce less and less. When I started I was getting about 10000 doge coins a day, that has dropped to about 1000 inside of 2 weeks. For those who like the math speak, I've lost an order of magnitude of production power in a week. Ouch.
So one of the things I'm going to do this weekend (and through the holidays) is pick a new coin. I haven't quite decided what I will try (it will depend on the ability to liquidate) but I need something back in bounds with my hardware. And while I thought my radeon card was relatively decent, it turns out that its actually pretty weak. Funny, it pushes 3D games like a bastard maniac but when it comes to hash rates - it ain't all that.
Back to the point - buying bitcoins isn't the only way in. In mining coins and selling them for bitcoins, I've scraped up enough to start playing the market. It's a tiny little amount, about $15 dollars worth. (Funny to consider that the amount I have now WAS worth nearly $40 before the bubble burst). Here's the kicker - the fall off rate vs. the decline in bitcoin value has lowered my production rate to $1 worth bitcoin per $1 worth electricity. Funny how that works, huh? (Understand, I quantify this based on the production of Doge coins... $1 worth of bitcoins = $1 worth of electricity mining doge coins. For now, if the trend continues, I'll be losing money on mining inside a week. The rate was obviously better when I was producing 10000 dpge coins a day and the price of bitcoins was higher. But for the time being, I'm breaking even on the mining side.
I know, I know - a measly 36%? Compare that to you average savings account at 0.21%. So - suck it. LOL
Anyway, one of the things working in my favor is that I'm a spreadsheet badass from years at my job. And I could probably push it harder - but I'm still cautious since I'm just learning the ropes. But it is nice to be able to calculate my values and targets and graph out my growth rate, I was aiming for 35%, and the 1% variance comes from continued mining. Honestly though - to get much past 40% I'd have to have more time to babysit my trades and track charts, and since I'm a working class schmo, that's not realistic. But the upside is - as the amount I have in play continues to grow - that 35% will become increasingly meaningful.
But since there are no guarantees in the trading game, I'm sure not going all in with my own money. So that's the reason why I'm mining and flipping. The only overhead is $1.25 a day in electricity. (One of the advantages of having a kind of crappy video card... it doesn't suck a lot of juice. LOL). And the metric I'm working in is bitcoins (not dollars) because I have no desire to cash out because that accomplishes 2 things. 1) It takes me out of the trading game. And 2) The second your coins turn into cash - you have to mind your taxes.
Anyway, tomorrow I'll be picking my new coin (criteria: relatively new, lower difficulty and a fledgling market) and redirecting my mining effort. I'm sorry to see the Doge go, but it has been both fun and educational. Playing with them has taught me to mine, and having coins has allowed me to learn the basics of trading. And since I can get back to bitcoins and cash out through coinbase.com, I have an exit method. So all is well, and the game is working.
That's it for now.
PS. I'd like to welcome my new readers from Switzerland, Poland, Austria, Estonia, Albania, Canada, and the UK. :)
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
Nevermind....
Looks like all the cryptocurrencies were sucked dry overnight. And it all revolves around China.
If these things are decentralized... how is it a single country is wrecking it for the entire planet? Sure they're 1.3 billion people strong.... but the rest of the planet is 5.7 billion. What the Hell?
If these things are decentralized... how is it a single country is wrecking it for the entire planet? Sure they're 1.3 billion people strong.... but the rest of the planet is 5.7 billion. What the Hell?
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