
Yahoo Finance has added over 100 cryptocurrency quote pages - mbgaxyz
https://finance.yahoo.com/cryptocurrencies
======
dash2
God help us.

At this point the sane people are staying quiet. The madness is in full swing,
a large number of fools are desperate to be parted from their money, and there
is no point trying to stop them.

Even on Hacker News, there are no comments below saying "this is stupid". Just
"how can I throw my money into this pit?" "I'm planning to build an AI
algorithm to throw my money into this pit, can anyone advise?" and "if I throw
my money in this pit, will it double or triple over the next week?" Good luck,
guys.

~~~
whataretensors
The truth is nobody knows what will happen. Meanwhile people who have a risk
tolerance and budget keep making money.

The 'sane' people have missed out on some of the best returns in history.
There is more there than you think, and everyone should investigate for
themselves rather than having a knee-jerk reaction.

~~~
jeffwass
> The 'sane' people have missed out on some of the best returns in history.

Are these actual returns (ie, BTC sold for fiat) or paper returns on an
assumption of market depth at current spot?

Serious question. Most bitcoin enthusiasts I know are either still holding
their bitcoin, or traded them for other cryptocurrencies. Few have
crystallised their gains in fiat.

~~~
JTon
Everyone I know in BTC cashed out months/years ago. Makes them feel sick
thinking about what they've missed out on recently. But I keep telling them
they made a the same decision any rational actor would

~~~
pyvpx
and those I know who still hold BTC, the few that have tried to cash out so
far haven't received a single dollar, euro, yen, or pound.

~~~
look_lookatme
So if you transfer BTC into Coinbase, you can't get your money out?

~~~
RIMR
$10k at a time, unless you make some kind of agreement.

There are also ATMs and other exchanges to tap. Cashing out a large sum is
nearly impossible.

If you have millions worth of BTC, it's better to just auction them off at a
discount to a large buyer.

~~~
etr-strike
To be clear: You can sell 100 btc today for USD. Coinbase will hold your USD
(and the balance is insured). They will limit your withdraws to 10k, however.
To take out more faster, you'll need to contact them and speak with a human.
None of this seems unreasonable.

~~~
QAPereo
It paints a bleak picture of bitcoin runs on insolvent and poorly insured
exchanges when the bottom falls out.

~~~
etr-strike
Coinbase is insured via FDIC, so I don't think "poorly" as an appropriate
adverb.

~~~
QAPereo
Assuming everything goes smoothly in that regard, it’s still a limited
coverage.

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torpfactory
Seriously everyone, please stop using bitcoin. The environmental impact of
energy generation for mining and proof-of-work is totally untenable. I
understand this is key to why Bitcoin works, but we absolutely should not be
scaling a technology which so inefficiently uses energy. This is not an
argument about the profitability of mining or other technical merits of
Bitcoin. Even if all cryptocurrency mining were to use zero-carbon energy
generation, we still should not use it: that energy ought to be used for more
practical pursuits.

A few links about the insane amount of energy used for each transaction:
[https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ywbbpm/bitcoin-
mi...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ywbbpm/bitcoin-mining-
electricity-consumption-ethereum-energy-climate-change)

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/27/bitcoin-m...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/27/bitcoin-
mining-consumes-electricity-ireland)

Anyone know of cryptocurrencies which will not blow up our planet's carbon or
energy budgets? I've heard of proof-of-stake algorithms, but don't understand
that approach very well.

~~~
wyldfire
> that energy ought to be used for more practical pursuits.

I don't think you or anyone else should get to decide what amounts to
practicality of energy consumption. Lots of people burn hydrocarbons all day
long so they can live in the burbs and have their own driveway and nice big
walk-in closets and not have to take an elevator or stairs up to their
apartment.

> Anyone know of cryptocurrencies which will not blow up our planet's carbon
> or energy budgets? I've heard of proof-of-stake algorithms, but don't
> understand that approach very well.

They're not trustless, but they are a very interesting approach to the
problem. If they indeed are superior, they might supersede bitcoin and other
PoW friends at some point. But it's really hard to move past the fact that
bitcoin is already "this hard" for folks to understand. Moving beyond it to
new coin designs will be an interesting challenge.

Proof-of-stake is discussed in the peercoin whitepaper [1] in plain,
understandable language. Best to start there IMO.

[1] [https://peercoin.net/assets/paper/peercoin-
paper.pdf](https://peercoin.net/assets/paper/peercoin-paper.pdf)

~~~
torpfactory
We should be actively trying to discourage pointless energy and resource
consumption, including people living in the burbs and having huge homes. I’d
agree with the idea we shouldn’t be making decisions about how people spend
energy if and only if we could price in all externalities related to energy
production adequately. This task, I believe, is more or less impossible.

------
Top19
I feel obligated to post this comment:

Bitcoin is stupid.

It’s a bubble. If you make money it will only be on the backs of massive
losses on the other side, and potentially globally destabilizing / destructive
effects.

~~~
scotty79
You can say the same about art and gold.

~~~
kamaal
Gold has obvious ornamental and industrial uses.

And art is a totally different market. Largely the players are the richest of
the rich, who invest in below 1% of their net worths largely for decorating
their castles. Other forms of art have recreational and entertainment and
genuine uses.

Even tulips have their utility, Bitcoin too. The question here really is at
what price?

~~~
scotty79
> Gold has obvious ornamental and industrial uses.

Which contributes almost nothing to its price.

> And art is a totally different market. Largely the players are the richest
> of the rich, who invest in below 1% of their net worths largely for
> decorating their castles. Other forms of art have recreational and
> entertainment and genuine uses.

There is medium priced art too and some people buy it as investment. You can
also think about people buying collectibles if buying art is something you
associate with decorating castles.

What entertainment value has unopened box with plastic spiderman figurine that
would justify price of few hundred bucks? It has enteraiment value of me
showing you I own it. Bitcoin has the same utility and it also doesn't justify
its price.

Value comes from scarcity, durability and transferability.

~~~
kamaal
Ornamental use of Gold is the primary diver for its prices. Ask women.

Art has its uses. Because we haven't yet automated creativity.

~~~
scotty79
I guess that most gold in the world in the world must be in women's hands
since their appreciation of ornamental purpose is the primary driver of price.

Do you think guys wear golden bracelets and chains because they look pretty?

Art has its uses, gold has its uses, collectibles have their uses and bitcoin
has its uses but most of their price comes from scarcity, durability and
transferability.

------
1024core
Remember this quote from Greenspan, folks: "The market can stay irrational
longer than you can stay solvent"

Edit: oops, sorry, I stand corrected: it was Keynes.

~~~
etr-strike
Sorry you can't see the value and potential of Bitcoin. I hear there's a new
social media platform selling ads; you should keep your money with them.

~~~
sincerely
You should be ashamed of yourself for this comment. This is the sort of
discourse I would expect to see in the comment section of an article about
something tied to identity politics, not a discussion about support for a
digital currency.

Is it really impossible for you to believe that someone could see value and
potential in bitcoin while believing that the current price is not a an
accurate representation of it's value?

Maybe they are skeptical of any community that dismisses well-measured
criticism with cries of "FUD". Maybe they see bitcoin as cryptocurrency v1.0
but it would be foolish to think that the first implementation of such a
technology was the best possible implementation. Maybe they are skeptical of
the way many bitcoin-holders seem to prioritize their personal net worth
increasing over bitcoin's use as a currency. Maybe they think the future lies
in a more extensible platform like Ethereum.

Bitcoin and the blockchain are very interesting technologies full of potential
but I don't understand why their proponents seem to take everything so
personally.

~~~
etr-strike
Sorry, I don't believe proclaiming "Bitcoin is a bubble" is a "well-measured
criticism" of Bitcoin. And people taking time out of their day to make such
baseless claims are coming out of the woodwork lately.

When the iPod was announced, people frequently commented on purchasing apple
stock, or how you can't go wrong purchasing apple. No one was calling apple a
bubble when taxi drivers were making those statements.

Sorry for speaking up against people who make baseless bubble claims.

------
Bishonen88
A somewhat related question: If I buy Bitcoin for e.g. $1.000. If the price
doubles, how much can I expect to actually get out? I reckon there will be
some cost-overhead for the exchange service etc. Am wondering if we're talking
about 1%-5% or more like 20%?

~~~
rakoo
On top of the fees there's another point you have to consider: not all buyers
will buy at $2k. You may be able to sell 0.1 BTC, but further buyers will buy
at decreasing prices, such as $1950, or $1920 or further down. So for bigger
volumes you get less than the current advertised value, which is the max you
can get if you sold the minimum amount of BTC.

~~~
dahdum
True, but the spread at GDAX BTC/USD frequently hovers around $0.01, and
within $0.05 of the price there'll be 10's of bitcoin available.

A quick check right now had 5.2 BTC (~$86k) on either side of the $0.01
spread. Slippage has plummeted as exchange volume has gone up.

------
1024core
What are the tax implications of playing with Bitcoins? (disclaimer: I have no
desire to do so, just wondering about it). Say I bought some BTC a couple of
years ago, and now sell them at some exchange like Coinbase or Coinmate or
whatever. Do these exchanges report 1099s to the IRS? If not, how will the IRS
ever find out? (I'm not proposing cheating on taxes either, but just curious
about what goes on). What if you just keep the gains and keep quiet?

~~~
iak8god
> Do these exchanges report 1099s to the IRS?

Not usually:

"With the exception of some business accounts, Coinbase does not provide 1099
forms. Coinbase does however provide a specialized Cost Basis for Taxes report
which will help with filing your taxes." [1]

After this hypothetical transaction you will likely owe capital gains tax. It
would be hard to hide any significant amount from the IRS if you actually want
to convert it to USD, for example by transferring to a bank account [2].
Regardless, the IRS is definitely paying attention and going after back taxes
on large exchange accounts [3].

[1]
[https://support.coinbase.com/customer/en/portal/articles/149...](https://support.coinbase.com/customer/en/portal/articles/1496488-taxes-
faq?b_id=13521)

[2] [https://pocketsense.com/deposits-reported-
irs-7557.html](https://pocketsense.com/deposits-reported-irs-7557.html)

[3] [http://fortune.com/2017/11/29/irs-
coinbase/](http://fortune.com/2017/11/29/irs-coinbase/)

~~~
tc313
I always thought the $10,000 reporting rule was for physical cash deposits. Is
it also triggered when you, say, transfer $10,000 from your online brokerage
account to your checking account?

~~~
PeterisP
I believe that this doesn't trigger a mandatory report, however, it would be
reasonable to expect that the IRS will ask every major bank for large incoming
transactions from e.g. Coinbase, audit every one of those who hasn't listed
any capital gains on their tax report, and charge the appropriate taxes+fines.
Of course, they don't have to do this now, they'll start next year after
everyone has filed their taxes, but they can review it a few years later if
they wish.

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vijayr
Where can one get historical and current prices of all crypto currencies as a
downloadable dataset, even for commercial use?

~~~
nsomaru
Not all, but here's a start:

    
    
        https://coinmetrics.io/data-downloads/
    

You can also use the cryptocompare API:

    
    
        https://www.cryptocompare.com/api/

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elmar
Anyone knows where I can sort cryptocurrencies by block time?

BTW anyone knows what is the cryptocurrency with the highest block time?

~~~
peterisza
Random fact: Ripple, IOTA and Stellar Lumens don't use blockchains.

~~~
etr-strike
Random fact: Ripple, IOTA, and Stellar Lumens are not decentralized and
trustless.

~~~
hyprCoin
Long term plans of IOTA at least are to provide a trustless currency. Right
now it has a centralized coordinator which is a neverending source of issues.
Hopefully it can be successfully removed in the coming years.

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rizwank
Yahoo finance powers the stocks app on iOS. I haven’t seen these new ones work
there, fwiw.

~~~
fourstar
It's because this article should be more appropriately titled: "Yahoo Finance
Embeds Widget", which is
[https://www.cryptocompare.com/](https://www.cryptocompare.com/).

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RIMR
IOTA is #4. I have a good feeling about that one right now.

I just put $275 into it. Too bad I didn't think to do that back in October.

~~~
lonewolf_ninja
Which exchange did you use to buy IOTA? You can't really buy IOTA directly
with USD, right?

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jerkstate
this is great, much nicer interface/interactive charts than coinmarketcap.
Good work, yahoo!

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thinkMOAR
wow that is one poor looking website, look like one big banner page with a
little table in the middle.

