Welcome once again from @antonburton and myself, @alexmavor. Looking to start investing in you first crypo? Or simply need a reminder on where to go. Tonight we take a look at the pros and cons of the current Cryptocurrency exchanges and what is out there to use.
Double trouble
Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss are believed to be the first bitcoin billionaires. The twins, famously enriched by a $65 million payout from Facebook after claims Zuckerberg stole their idea for the social-media site, were early investors in bitcoin. An $11 million bet on Bitcoin in 2013 made by the twins has swollen by almost 10,000%.
It is estimated that the twins hold a total of 92,000 coins. Based on a Bitcoin value of $10,000 per coin, their estimated wealth is approximately $1.1 billion. The twins have tried to launch their own online Cryptocurrency exchange and it is believed that they held held on to their bitcoin investments with the hope to launch an exchange-traded fund.
Bitcoin price
Last night was another historic moment for the price of Bitcoin as it surpassed $12,000 with minimal signs of it stopping anytime soon. Over a 7-day period we have seen an increase of 18.74% increase, despite last Wednesday when we say the price fall, whilst the currency value was balancing out. The market capitalization of Bitcoin is now sitting around $213 billion, which is double that of Goldman Sachs!
Let’s Exchange
For those of you who have dabbled in Bitcoin, you will now be familiar with platforms such as Coinbase or Coinfloor. However, you may now want to expand your Cryptocurrency portfolio with some of the lesser known coins, known as altcoins. Whilst we strongly recommend thorough research before investing any of your hard-earned cash into Cryptos, we are going to tell you about some of the pros and cons of the exchanges currently available to you!
This week we have heard that Bitfinex will now be taking legal action against it’s critics, Stuard Hoegner, Bitfinex’s in-house counsel, stated:
"To date, every claim made by these bad actors has been patently false and made simply to agitate the cryptocurrency ecosystem. As a result, Bitfinex has decided to assert all of its legal rights and remedies against this agitator and his associates.”
The currency, which started trading in 2015, is described as a stable alternative to bitcoin’s wild price swings. A lot of this criticism has arisen due to Bitfinex’s relationship with Tether – Tether is the US dollar backed crypto that has not proven it’s cash reserves. Charlie Lee of Litecoin urged Bitfinex to perform a 3rd party audit in order on Tether to remove any doubt but it has yet failed to do so.
That being said, Bitfinex generally allows for fast exchanges and is actually quite user friendly compared to many of the exchanges out there. There have been stories about hacks but this is consistent throughout cryptocurrency exchanges. Furthermore, it allows to trade a range of altcoins. Anyone new to investments, might like to start here, as it’s relatively easy to understand.
Kraken
Kraken - the largest Bitcoin exchange in terms of euro value and enjoys a good reputation relative to other exchanges. This reputation is based on low transaction fees and good customer support, a surprisingly rare position considering this is not the case with the most common exchange at the moment, Coinbase. Understandably, with an easy to use interface, Coinbase acts as the perfect starting point for any new investors.
Bitshares
BitShares is an open-source, public, blockchain-based real-time financial platform. It provides a built-in decentralized asset exchange. For further information, please refer back to our earlier episode with the God-Father of Bitshares, Stan Larimer.
Conclusion
We hope that this has given you some idea of what to look for, and what not to look for in various exchanges. If you are just getting started on Cryptocurrencies then coinbase or coinfloor depending on the currency you are using would be a fine place to start. But you should be aware that there are other platforms where more diverse Cryptos can be traded.
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Crypto Nights
Shout outs
The first shout out this week goes to @heiditravels – A regular blogger with insightful updates on the latest Crypto related news.
The second must go to the God-Father of Bitshares, @Stan. The technology he is working is truly breath-taking and provides an insight into the fantastic developments of what we can expect in the future.
As always don't forget to follow, subscribe, upvote and like and we look forward to seeing you next time!
@alexmavor & @antonburton
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@vasa-the-mission those payments to @null are for promoting a post.
Bitfinex's PR has been a disaster lately- they tried to shut down their own subreddit, have had poor deposit/withdraw experience for the last day or so, and scared a lot of people when they transferred all of their ETH holdings to a new hot wallet yesterday. A lot of people are telling traders to stay far away. Kraken has gotten a lot of heat lately for poor performance under load, though the same can be said for almost all exchanges. What are your thoughts on Binance?