Bitcoin Punt

[x5x3]

On the basis that a lot of the traditional "solid" investments I have are not doing that great I am tempted to buy and hold some bitcoins. By buy and hold I mean longterm - 5 to 10 years.

Clearly this is a gamble and not an investment.

On the surface it is a classic bubble, but when you dig (excuse the pun) a bit deeper there is a growing economy based on bitcoin and the many clones.

I have some cash free from another very high risk investment a few years ago - which worked (and yes it does make a change!) so I'm happy for this to be put into another high risk investment.

Mining seems to be a done deal now - those with their own personal farm of ASIC cards are making money but nobody else is, so the only realistic option is to just buy and hold.

Yes/No/Mad/Genius?

Thoughts please?

[x5x3]

to the mod who moved this - this is much more relevant in the Computer section which is why I posted it there - please move back.

[mrmr96]

Where's a safe/reputable place to buy/store them?

[crosseyedlion]

Ive bought and sold a fair bit using LocalBitcoins. Quite a clever system, dealing direct with the individual but the btc and funds are held in escrow until the transaction is confirmed by both parties.

[x5x3]

I've used bitbargain to buy in the past - seems to be safe, as mentioned they use an escrow method.

To hold/store them you need a wallet (and do encrypt it and remember your passphrase!) - e.g. bitcoin-qt, but when you open it then it will download the entire blockchain which can take some time.

[MrT8064]

I've used bittylicious, usually a bit more expensive than others but certainly seemed reliable.

[hornet]

MrT8064 said:

I've used bittylicious, usually a bit more expensive than others but certainly seemed reliable.

Likewise used Bittylicious for Bitcoin and Feathercoin purchases and both went through without issue. BTC transaction took about an hour to appear in my wallet, whilst the FTC transaction was there in minutes. Looking at a few Litecoin as well. As much a technical exercise as speculation, as I find the whole thing very interesting. Wallet wise, I use the Feathercoin-qt client and Blockchain.info wallet, although also have a few offline addresses to move things to should prices get interesting. There's also now a Chrome plugin wallet that looks to have some nice additional features, but I've not used that.