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Does anyone know anything about this alternative method of currency? I've seen them around the last few years and always meant to somehow learn and get involved in them.

Turns out they have rocketed in value from 1BTC being about $5, to almost $300 since the start of the year, making the early investors in them, rich as f**k.

Reading through a few articles though a lot of experts feel, like the Dot Com boom, it's a bubble which has a chance of continuing to expand for a few years.

Does anyone trade in them or use them? Other than actually buying them, you can 'mine' them. Seems a bit vague how you would go about doing such a thing though.

Edited by djchapsticks
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Heh, cheers. I knew they were used on silkroad as an anonymous way of buying and selling illegal stuff.

I was thinking more along the lines of getting, keeping, hoping the market continues to boom and selling them, not pure buying eccies an' at no?.

XE.com, one of the largest exchange rate websites lists it amongst it's currencies for comparison.

http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=XBT&to=USD&view=1Y

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I bought a few a while back, left them in my account, but it takes so fucking long for your wallet to load that I've not checked recently how many I have. Might have to load it up again if they've gone up by that much!

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I bought a few a while back, left them in my account, but it takes so fucking long for your wallet to load that I've not checked recently how many I have. Might have to load it up again if they've gone up by that much!

This could be you! http://www.geek.com/news/norwegian-mans-forgotten-27-investment-in-bitcoin-now-worth-886000-1575490/

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I wish! It was about a year and a half ago, so I think I have between 1 and 3 bitcoins. I paid about $20, so anything over that would be a bonus.

For anyone that's interested in investing, I bought mine on Mt Gox, which is the biggest trading platform for them on the internet. You have a bitcoin wallet, which is encrypted, and takes literally about 12 hours to load, even on a fast connection. If you want to pay someone with bitcoin I think it's done with a string of numbers and letters. There are plenty of legit websites that will take it as payment too.

The last time bitcoin rose this much in value it was followed by a massive crash. Anyone wanting to invest would be wise to wait for the crash.

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I'm fairly sure now digging about that I had $1000 worth of bitcoin (about 2 and a half) that I paid $8 for a year and a half ago. I'm also now fairly sure that I'll never get access to it, because I didn't back up my bitcoin wallet on my old computer. Bollocks.

On the plus side, it looks like it's going back down again in value. I might buy some more when they get a bit cheaper.

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After this topic I've been researching again, as the value's still going up by the week. I don't think there's going to be a big crash anymore - the rise in popularity seems pretty consistent.

There are a few competitors to bitcoin now, the biggest of which is litecoin. I think I'm going to do what I did with bitcoin years ago and buy a few. Who knows, might buy a holiday in 2 years!

It's a pain in the arse getting bitcoin though without doing a bank transfer, unless you meet people in person.

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After this topic I've been researching again, as the value's still going up by the week. I don't think there's going to be a big crash anymore - the rise in popularity seems pretty consistent.

There are a few competitors to bitcoin now, the biggest of which is litecoin. I think I'm going to do what I did with bitcoin years ago and buy a few. Who knows, might buy a holiday in 2 years!

It's a pain in the arse getting bitcoin though without doing a bank transfer, unless you meet people in person.

I might follow suit. I'm downloading Litecoin just now but it's taking forever to sync, like BitCoin.

I might read into and join a mining community. Seems like it provides a small but steady income, and who knows? In a couple of years it might have risen a fair whack.

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For the sake of a few quid, and given the outcomes of the bitcoin rise...I might jump on this litecoin thing. If nothing happens then I lose the price of a night out, no big deal.

Is there an absolute idiots guide of what to do and how to buy/sell anywhere?

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For the sake of a few quid, and given the outcomes of the bitcoin rise...I might jump on this litecoin thing. If nothing happens then I lose the price of a night out, no big deal.

Is there an absolute idiots guide of what to do and how to buy/sell anywhere?

Easiset way to do it is to join Mt Gox, get verified, buy bitcoin. You need to do a bank transfer to get money there. Then join and go to BTCe, send your bitcoin to your wallet there, and exchange it for litecoin.

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Looked into it a lot yesterday and did a lot of reading up. There's an easier way than that for anyone who's looking to get involved:

Register with litecoin.org to download your litecoin wallet and software (it's important to get it from this source as it's verified...there are plenty scams out there). Once you've installed you need to be patient to allow it to sync up tot he current date.

While that is happening, register on litecoinlocal.org where you can purchase litecoin directly with another person. I'd advise looking at their transaction feedback (similar to ebay) to make sure they are reliable...and there is a message system in place to exchange bank details. They transfer litecoin to a 3rd party holding account while you make the bank transfer to them. Once they receive the funds they release the litecoin to you. At this point you just transfer your litecoin from this online wallet, to your offline wallet.

Also, once you have installed your own offline wallet...make sure you encrypt it, make sure you remember your passphrase or you will lose its contents, and make sure you have at least one backup of your wallet to a usb.

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I might follow suit. I'm downloading Litecoin just now but it's taking forever to sync, like BitCoin.

I might read into and join a mining community. Seems like it provides a small but steady income, and who knows? In a couple of years it might have risen a fair whack.

Litecoin's starting to become harder to mine - just be sure the energy consumption's worth the money! It might be worth it with inflation though. It's pretty heavy duty on your computer, so you'd probably want a decent desktop.

Might be worth reading this first:

http://reckoner.com.au/2013/08/im-done-mining-litecoin/

If you're talking about bitcoin too, I've found a few semi-online wallets that don't take any time to sync at all - the maths is done on the server end. Electrum's definitely worth checking out - it's a massive time saver!

Looked into it a lot yesterday and did a lot of reading up. There's an easier way than that for anyone who's looking to get involved:

Register with litecoin.org to download your litecoin wallet and software (it's important to get it from this source as it's verified...there are plenty scams out there). Once you've installed you need to be patient to allow it to sync up tot he current date.

While that is happening, register on litecoinlocal.org where you can purchase litecoin directly with another person. I'd advise looking at their transaction feedback (similar to ebay) to make sure they are reliable...and there is a message system in place to exchange bank details. They transfer litecoin to a 3rd party holding account while you make the bank transfer to them. Once they receive the funds they release the litecoin to you. At this point you just transfer your litecoin from this online wallet, to your offline wallet.

Also, once you have installed your own offline wallet...make sure you encrypt it, make sure you remember your passphrase or you will lose its contents, and make sure you have at least one backup of your wallet to a usb.

There's localbitcoins.com too for bitcoin, but it all feels a bit too much like buying a quarter under the table at macdonalds to me. There's also nobody near me selling it :(

If you can get USD into btce you're laughing, as they're much cheaper than mt gox. One way that I saw was to go to funds, deposit USD, select payeer.com, and then pay with card through liqpay. It was pretty straight forward, but my credit card was compromised in the morning and I tried to process that transaction in the evening, so it didn't go through.

Edited by RCR
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If you're on litecoinlocal.org mate, there are two options on the front page....buy with cash/in person, or buy online. Just click buy online and choose someone whos payment method is listed as "specific bank". That way you just go through the process to request how much you want to buy, they transfer it to the 3rd party holding site and give you their bank details. Do a bank transfer and as soon as they confirm receipt the funds are automatically released to your online wallet.

I did a small test transaction today to get the gist of it, and then a slightly larger one once I knew it was all fine...and it's easy as. No problems at all.

Here's the basis of my learning, just follow the first link through and it keeps you right each step of the way:

http://cryptojunky.com/blog/2013/03/06/getting-started-with-litecoin-2/

http://cryptojunky.com/blog/2013/03/12/absolute-beginners-guide-to-litecoin-mining/

I won't be getting into mining though as I don't have a desktop, and it would seem if you try it on a laptop you might as well just bin it. That's me in the game with litecoin trading though.

Edited by Al B
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If you're on litecoinlocal.org mate, there are two options on the front page....buy with cash/in person, or buy online. Just click buy online and choose someone whos payment method is listed as "specific bank". That way you just go through the process to request how much you want to buy, they transfer it to the 3rd party holding site and give you their bank details. Do a bank transfer and as soon as they confirm receipt the funds are automatically released to your online wallet.

I did a small test transaction today to get the gist of it, and then a slightly larger one once I knew it was all fine...and it's easy as. No problems at all.

Here's the basis of my learning, just follow the first link through and it keeps you right each step of the way:

http://cryptojunky.com/blog/2013/03/06/getting-started-with-litecoin-2/

http://cryptojunky.com/blog/2013/03/12/absolute-beginners-guide-to-litecoin-mining/

I won't be getting into mining though as I don't have a desktop, and it would seem if you try it on a laptop you might as well just bin it. That's me in the game with litecoin trading though.

There's only one person in Australia selling them online, and it's through moneygram. b*****ds. Not willing to pay $20 for $50 of coin!

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I think I might look into this too. Sounds interesting and I do have a powerful enough PC to make mining worthwhile - at least Id better the amount it cost!

From what i gather, bitcoin is now at the stage where you actually lose money by mining, whereas litecoin is still profitable.

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I finally got my litecoin, bought 13 in total and gifted 1 to someone else. It's so much less exciting leaving them in an account for a few years :(

Bitcoin is still skyrocketing though, and there are now bitcoin stockmarket investment options. I'm considering investing in a full coin.

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