
Ask HN: You have $100/mo to invest in cryptocurrency, BTC, BTC Cash or Ether? - iDemonix
I have some expendable income every month and I&#x27;d like to have a stake in cryptocurrency. I find it interesting but my attention span is short, so having some funds involved would make it more interesting, and it&#x27;s money I can afford to lose.<p>Obviously they&#x27;re all a gamble, but I&#x27;m interested to hear which one people would pick. Bitcoin cash seems a bit unsteady with it being new, Bitcoin appears to be stronger than ever (when I thought the fork would lower its value) and Ethereum is backed by some fairly big names and recovering from its dip.<p>On a sidenote, if anyone has a platform to recommend feel free, as all I&#x27;ve been recommended is markets.com.
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kleer001
Whatever you decide, set it up on a daily, weekly, or monthly deposit. Then
forget about it. Delete all your crypto news alerts, take off all your crypto
book marks. Do everything you can to take yourself out of the equation once
the thing is set. Keep it boring, keep it consistent. Emotion is your greatest
enemy while investing. But you're smart and you know all this.

~~~
muggermuch
Upvote. I have done this on Coinbase. I have recurring daily transactions
created for Bitcoin and Ethereum, putting in $5 each. Coinbase charges me
$0.15 in fees (3%) for each transaction. I realize that the fees have
increased since I set this up, but I guess I'm grandfathered in.

FWIW, I've been lately thinking of adding an extra $2.50 each per day for
Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash.

As another poster has pointed out, dollar-cost averaging is your friend.

~~~
iDemonix
Is there an advantage to daily over weekly/monthly? It seems to me like w/m
would make more sense as you'd get less fees?

~~~
dchuk
The fees are percentage based, so the investment interval doesn't matter.
$5/day gets you a $0.15 fee, $35 a week is $1.05. It all nets out to the same
dent made.

~~~
iDemonix
Which marketplace are you getting those fees from? I'm looking at Coinbase and
its fees are quite a lot higher than that for using a Credit Card, and bank
transfers cost a lot more.

~~~
muggermuch
Re: Coinbase, I have it setup to debit my bank account every day. The
transactions go through between 2.45-3 PM EST daily, with 3% fees.

However, I just tried setting up a new transaction and the fee looks to be
$0.99 for a $5 investment. At ~20%, this sort of averaging would no longer be
worth it. Like I said before, I guess I've been grandfathered in after the new
fees schedule was imposed. Let's see how long it lasts.

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nodesocket
Honestly, why take the risk? If you are looking to invest long-term, just buy
an index fund like $QQQ or $SPY and sit back and let it ride. You can use
Robinhood to continue to buy without paying commissions (which is going to be
crucial since commissions would take a large percentage on such a small
investment amount).

~~~
bakeryOnMain
Or setup a Vanguard account and enjoy free Vanguard ETF trades w/ ability to
re-invest dividends as partial shares.

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ac29
Why not actually gamble? For $1200/year you can have a couple fun trips to
Reno (or somewhere else that isn't Las Vegas, which is way too expensive to be
a low-stakes gambler). No legal or tax ambiguities unlike cryptocurrencies,
free drinks and other comps -- its not a bad way to spend money you can
"afford to lose".

~~~
iDemonix
I'm in the UK and I don't really find casino-style gambling fun, plus it's all
over pretty quick. I agree there are plenty of ways to spend 'afford to lose'
money, but I'm a geek and cryptocurrency piques my interest.

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gk1
Why not diversify your portfolio and invest in all three? Coindesk.com
supports BTC and ETH, though not BTH.

~~~
nodesocket
The problem with diversifying hundreds of dollars is it does not move the
needle. What's earning 7% a year on $100, earns you a large Starbucks.

Now this completely changes once you get above 20k invested. Then, diversity
is more important and earning 7% a year moves the needle.

~~~
muzani
Bitcoin has historically gone up much faster than 7% a year and can go down
much faster too. Currency being what it is, it is to everyone's benefit to
eventually agree on one. In most cases, it is not useful to diversify, but
with crypto's make or break, your $100 could be worth $100k in the future or
$0.

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companyhen
Check out r/NEO on reddit and learn on [http://neo.org](http://neo.org)

One thing that makes NEO cool is that it generates another coin in it's
ecosystem called GAS which you get for just holding it in your wallet. Make
sure you move NEO from an exchange unless you're using Binance (which lets you
generate GAS on the exchange)

It just hit Top 10 on [http://coinmarketcap.com](http://coinmarketcap.com)
yesterday

~~~
nosuchthing
NEO is backed by Chinese venture capital.

Unlike other more open and honest or at least auditable crypto currency
systems, NEO aka antshares was 100% premined which is incredibly dubious and
indicative that many of the shares were selectively distributed to individual
'whales' who can and will easily dump their holdings.

~~~
companyhen
There is no "premine" \-- they were created, locked, and distributed.

~~~
nosuchthing
Semantics.

Premine is a term for cryptocoins where traditionally, the start date of the
network is announced after the mining protocol and software is released to the
public.

When a cryptocoin dev team intentionally takes control of part of the supply
of the cryptocoins before releasing the minting protocol/process/supply to the
general public then it's considered 'pre-mined' because traditionally as with
BTC/LTC/DOGE/etc, the public was informed of the protocol and presumably all
users given access to generate the coins as a reward for fueling the network
activity.

In the case of antshares, the basecoin being %100 premined would almost seem
more like a stock in the project as apparently coin ownership is a precursor
to generating the secondary token which is used as fuel for the services
provided.

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wchrisn
Investing is about creating assets and having a diversity of assets. Assuming
that $100/month is one part of your expendable income that you have considered
for crytocurrency - you are in good hands. However if you are putting 100% of
your expendable amount in cryptocurrency - do revisit other options.

Do also go through
[https://www.wealthfront.com/questions](https://www.wealthfront.com/questions)
and other finance portals to see how they allocate your investments amount
based on risk profile, age and goals.

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viraptor
Are we talking long term investment, or do you want to play with speculation?
If they first, I'd say it's neither - just go with some real fund, possibly
via your bank. If you want to speculate - all of them. Setup a few buy orders
at various levels below current price and wait for the next big event / crash
/ exchange fail / ...

~~~
iDemonix
The latter really, more for fun and experience as I've never done anything
remotely like this.

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atarian
If you live outside of the US, consider investing in an index fund that tracks
multiple cryptos:
[https://www.iconomi.net/dashboard/#/INDEX](https://www.iconomi.net/dashboard/#/INDEX)

~~~
iDemonix
I'm in the UK, but what makes this better outside vs. inside the US?

~~~
atarian
Americans are not allowed to invest in it (yet).

~~~
iDemonix
Ah, that makes sense then, thanks for the swift reply.

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oli5679
Ask yourself,

What's the personal value to me or someone else of owning this unit of
currency, in terms of purchases enabled and transaction costs avoided?There
are frequently financial bubbles, where people just buy because you expect the
value to see further appreciation and sell to a greater fool. Unfortunately
such bubbles inflate slowly but collapse rapidly:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania)

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skulquake
It really depends on your objectives. Just want to save some fiat? Go 85%
BTC/15% ETH this way you can ride the BTC price rises and still enjoy xx%
gains on ETH. Or you can do what the most opportunistic do and go 100% ETH and
then diversify that into ERC-20 tokens built on top of the Ethereum protocol.
Now obviously you should do your due diligence but hopefully this can give you
some ideas.

~~~
kbaker
But if you go 100% ETH, make sure you watch Rootstock very closely
[http://www.rsk.co/](http://www.rsk.co/).

Executing the Ethereum VM and smart contracts on the Bitcoin blockchain...

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CyberCatMeow
Not BTC or Ether. And in no way Bitcoin Cash. As i invested a bit more time in
Cryptocurrencies, i'm mainly looking for newer coins that could have a bright
future (always read and understand whitepapers).

I would currently go for Wagerr, IOTA, SIA and TenX. For IOTA and TenX, i
still need to read the Whitepaper in Detail, but they look very promising.

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DrJid
I'd go all in on Iota.

Transactions without a fee, Scalable. Meant for Machine to Machine Payments.
The internet of things, nano transactions.. Doesn't use a blockchain but
instead uses a Tangle. It's quite early and the tech may seem new but it does
solve a lot of the scaling issues wrought with "blockchains".

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iDemonix
I should point out that I'm in the UK, if that makes a difference.

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SirLJ
Questions like this are showing that the bubble is about to pop...

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freework
I own about 30 different currencies, all stored on paper wallets. I recommend
avoiding "wealth centralization" on any one currency.

~~~
tedmiston
30 different cryptocurrencies? How do these paper wallets work? Do you keep
them in a safe deposit box or something?

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wavesounds
Neither you are literally paying people to waste electricity. Invest in a
company that actually makes something people use

~~~
honestlyreally
Look beyond headlines and you'll see that the vast majority of cryptocurrency
mining is powered by regionally oversupplied renewable power. Here's the
biggest in the world located in Iceland, its 100% renewable.

[https://youtu.be/rsSuay53kIc](https://youtu.be/rsSuay53kIc)

Same story in western China and the Pacific north west filed with mining
company's taking advantage of hydroelectric.

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tribby
some BTC and ETH, but also consider adding monero (XMR) to the mix. it's a
wildcard, but it's fungible. XMR is also trending in illicit use (laundering
and trafficking), which will probably help its price in the short-to-mid term.

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pigeons
Seems like a ridiculously off-topic question.

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krlo
[https://www.coinbase.com](https://www.coinbase.com) is great for simplicity.
Diversifying with BTC/ETH/LTC is a good strategy to minimize risk.

You can use my referral link to earn extra BTC when you purchase :D
[https://www.coinbase.com/join/5927caaa2cc81a08f16dab25](https://www.coinbase.com/join/5927caaa2cc81a08f16dab25)

[https://www.gdax.com/](https://www.gdax.com/) is a more advanced trading
platform (same company as Coinbase). Expect lower fees in exchange for
managing your own trades

~~~
iDemonix
A friend of mine that does invest in to BTC and ETH said he "wouldn't bother
with LTC" but I didn't ask why and haven't looked in to it, I'll do some
reading up on it tomorrow.

~~~
ringaroundthetx
critical thinking:

and do you think that is anywhere near objective?

why would that qualify outside of him being the "cryptocurrency savant" and
you not being one?

what would make your understanding of that statement objective?

Somehow Litecoin traded from $3.00 to $46.00 with many enthusiasts saying the
same thing for half a decade, was there somebody saying something else?

Does your friend have the exact same investment risk profile as you would?

factors...

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hackinthebochs
Yes, LTC went up 10x in the same timespan that almost every reasonable coin
went up 10x. That says nothing about the fundamentals of LTC. LTC simply has
no value proposition after segwit on bitcoin and the alt coin rennaisance.

~~~
nosuchthing
BTC is susceptible to ASIC attacks which has inevitably lead to the network
being taken over by custom hardware producers.

LTC and other coins use more resilient algos like script to prevent that type
of network compromise.

~~~
kbaker
There are scrypt ASICs for Litecoin as well. Anything that can be computed,
will be centralized and moved to the place with the cheapest power and the
loosest regulations...

