Open nelsonic opened 2 years ago
Many people don't take the not your keys, not your coins motto to heart. But I wager the recent bear market and recession signals made a lot of people realise that it is not just a catchphrase ๐ .
There's a fine difference between regular wallets and custodial wallets. For example, Coinbase has a mobile app where you can trade and hold funds there. But it's custodial meaning that they control your coins, not you. This is usually more user-friendly for casuals since seed phrases are handled by the company and not the user itself - they can just log in to the app and check their funds.
But here's the problem. Most of these custodial apps refer to companies that offer interest on whatever crypto you're holding - they usually do this through crypto loan programs. And for a while, people would have ridiculous APYs as far as 20%! But lo and behold, as soon as the bubble burst and Powel hiked interest rates to fight inflation, the stock market crashed and risky assets like crypto plummeted. The result? Celsius went insolvent, halted withdrawals and users stopped having access to their funds.. Voyager did the same thing.
This is what happens with an unregulated market like crypto - fishy companies offer crazy APYs akin to ponzis and when everything goes bananas lots of people are left holding the bag.
Many were predicting this to happen and it did. Even if most people consider Coinbase or Binance "too big to fail", you ought to beware, there's always risk involved.
I digress. I wager there are roughly 3 types of wallets, in my opinion:
Also, you can have a Bitcoin Nyan Cat on Trezor, it's always a plus ๐ฑ
Mobile wallets - mobile apps. Can either be custodial or not - which I don't personally recommend unless you're risk averse and want to earn interest on "your" coins. For regular apps, Trust Wallet or Exodus or Atomic should be fine.
Desktop wallet - desktop applications. The keys are stored locally and can be also used offline. I don't personally have any experience with this so I'm not going to recommend any.
If you believe Coinbase or Binance won't go insolvent nor will block access to your coins, you can park your funds there and earn through staking programs if you wish. But during bear markets and periods of recession the risk is much more severe.
If you want to have full custody of your own keys, wallet and coins AND have a certain degree of anonymity and privacy, you should go for cold storage hardware wallets like Ledger or Trezor. It has a cost but you're paying for the security and direct access to your own coins ๐
@LuchoTurtle great detailed response. Thanks! โค๏ธ
I really hope Coinbase
doesn't go insolvent cause I have quite a few shares. ๐
Yes, I know how poorly they have performed in the last year ... Don't remind me!!
Also have a few Coins but only through https://www.coinbase.com/wallet ... ๐ Going to shift to Hardware on your advice/recommendation; you've clearly done the research. ๐
Going to order a Trezor hardware wallet. Is there any advantage to spending 3x more on the Trezor Model T
?
https://trezor.io/#comparison
https://shop.trezor.io/product/trezor-one-white
https://shop.trezor.io/product/trezor-model-t
From your photo above, it looks like you have the Trezor Model One
. 1๏ธโฃ
If you don't mind me asking, and feel free to answer verbally if you don't want random people to know ... ๐ญ where do you store the hardware wallet? e.g. do you have like a super safe place for it? ๐คทโโ๏ธ How long does the battery last and is there a contingency if for any reason the device becomes corrupted? ๐ฅ
@nelsonic I think anyone holding any shares of anything (except perhaps energy/gas-related companies) is having a rough time, so you're definitely not alone on this bloodbath ๐
You mentioned you have your coins on Coinbase Wallet, which is fine and falls under the category of self-custodial mobile wallets. Coinbase has two apps: a wallet and their regular app where you can trade coins. The former is self-custodial and the latter isn't. Here's a screenshot of the link you sent:
So you own your coins and Coinbase won't block your access! So you're fine on that end ๐ .
If you're really moving on to cold storage and you're stuck between choosing the Trezor One
or Trezor Model T
, I'd recommend the former. I don't find any real reason to spend much more money for a fancier screen and access to more coins. I don't know what coins you own but I'm pretty sure they fall under the supported coins of Trezor One
. So safe yourself some cash and don't bother with Model T
- I don't think a fancier screen will be much use if all the hardware does is hold your private keys ๐ . It provides Shamir backup capability but I think that's overkill and not worth the price.
If you don't mind me asking, and feel free to answer verbally if you don't want random people to know ... ๐ญ
Good question. Your Trezor will come with the hardware, a few stickers and two pieces of paper for you to write your seed phrase. This seed phrase is extremely important and you can't forget it/lose it or else you risk losing access to your wallet and your funds. Even if your Trezor is lost or stolen, you can still access your funds through your seed phrase. This seed phrase is given to you on your Trezor's initial setup. Trezor has a blog post on what to do in case your Trezor gets stolen . Long story short, if your Trezor gets lost or stolen, move your funds to another wallet and use your seed phrase to access the compromised one to move your funds over to the backup wallet.
When you setup your Trezor, they ask you for a PIN. So if someone steals your device, they need to know your PIN so they can access the Trezor. Only if they know your PIN they can get access to your coins.
:warning: This is not always the case. Trezor allows you to have a second type of wallet that is protected by a passphrase that you define. So even if the person who stole your hardware bruteforces your PIN, they'd still have to know the passphrase to access your funds.
I personally have the seed phrase written and stored in two safe places and Trezor on a third secured place. I have other ways of storing the seed phrase but I won't delve into all that here because of privacy concerns. It's really up to you and however you feel it's safe for you.
How long does the battery last and is there a contingency if for any reason the device becomes corrupted? ๐ฅ I don't believe the Trezor hardware has any battery. You need to use a USB cable to connect it to a PC and access your funds through a desktop application or web app. At least my model doesn't.
If the device becomes corrupted, you can access your coins as long as you have the seed phrase with you and use another Trezor to move your funds over.
These are all quite extreme cases. Most people don't even use cold storage so you're already taking a huge leap in coin security and privacy ๐ . But if you're still not sure, here's Trezor's docs on good security practices. Their documentation is quite easy to understand and all of this is written in the manual when you buy a Trezor.
Order placed for Trezor One: ๐ โณ
When it arrives you can help me setup and document the process. ๐
Trezor
hardware wallet arrived. ๐
need to make time to set it up and transfer some BTC. โณ
@LuchoTurtle when you have 20 mins to sit down with me, please LMK! ๐
We'll do it tomorrow, for sure! Gotta wkaw up early for BJJ tomorrow so sorry we're not doing this today ๐ญ
Cool. Looking forward to it. ๐
Reading: https://trezor.io/learn ๐
@nelsonic if ye want a partner to set it up or if you're fine doing it on your own, ye know where I am
Sweet. I'm reading docs. But given that you've done this all before, it might be a lot faster for you to show me. ๐ญ
Do you use the Trezor Suite desktop app or the Trezor Suite for web https://suite.trezor.io/web/ ๐คทโโ๏ธ
โณ
Create new wallet:
How to add funds to crypto wallet? ๐คทโโ๏ธ
kraken + lightning ... https://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinUK/comments/xj62el/best_exchange_to_buy_uk/ ๐
https://www.kraken.com/features/fee-schedule#kraken-pro
1% transaction fee? This is daylight robbery!
Seeing you set up your wallet made me wonder what the best way to purchase Bitcoin was. Seeing your bewilderment with the fees of some exchanges, I feel like this write-up should help discern the best options and save money on purchasing. This is relevant for me and anyone else, as I see myself switching methods to stash some sats.
Many exchanges offer the option of Instant Buy crypto. This is useful for one-time purchases and it's instant, meaning that you get the crypto you want at that exact instant. This is usually synonymous with market order (immediate purchase or sale at the current price) With this convenience, you pay more fees (e.g. on Kraken, you pay a whopping 1% fee).
On the other hand, there's a Limit Ordering option. You set a limit order at a specific price you want to purchase or sell Bitcoin and whenever the price hits that, your order is fulfilled. This is the best way to get lower fees. You are basically adding liquidity, so the exchange also benefits from this. This is why you have the Maker and Taker fees associated with this. Here's a better way of explaining it, taken from the Kraken docs.
Maker orders A trade order gets the โmakerโ fee if the trade order is not matched immediately against an order already on the order book, which adds liquidityโ. You can use the post limit order option to ensure that your limit order will be charged the maker fee or be cancelled.
Taker orders A trade order gets the โtakerโ fee if the trade order is matched immediately against an order already on the order book, which removes liquidityโ.
This is why when we place a limit order, we have cheaper fees. We are saying we are buying BTC at a certain price and we are adding liquidity. This is the lowest fee we should aim for.
The way one can do this is to put a limit order really close to the current price of BTC. There's a huge likelihood it will hit the limit and you get the crypto almost instantly (it might take a few minutes for the price to be volatile enough to hit your order limit). You can see how to set up an automatic mechanism to do this by checking this video -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6r1h3am6kA
To buy BTC or any other crypto, we can either mine it or buy it from an exchange. Since we are focusing on the latter, these are the steps we need to take to get crypto to our cold storage.
deposit money to exchange -> trade deposited money for BTC -> withdraw from exchange to cold storage (withdraw from exchange + blockchain validation fees)
So you may have fees on each step, depending on the exchange and method of depositing. We are going to discuss various options for trying to get the sum of these three operations to an absolute minimum.
Each exchange might have a withdrawal fee. On top of this, when sending to your cold storage wallet address, the blockchain has a miner fee to validate the transaction. You can get the current average transaction fee here -> https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-transactionfees.html#3y.
At the time of writing, the average fee is 1 dollar
.
Let's roll ๐ .
We are not going to even consider credit card deposit methods, the fees are upwards of 2% and not even worth discussing. Bank transfer is the cheapest way available.
You can only deposit euro and not pound sterling because the latter doesn't have a way to do a SEPA transfer. The fee is 1 euro
, regardless of the amount transferred.
As of the time of writing this, Binance has launched a campaign since August that there are no fees
for BTC spot trading.
The withdrawal fee for Binance is 0.0002 BTC
(at the time of writing this is 4 euro
).
Sum of all fees = 6 euros
Binance, right now, is a great option for sending large sums of money since you have a flat tax every step of the way. The more you buy BTC, the more you save on fees.
You can deposit euros with SEPA transfer (1 euro
) or GBP with the following methods.
The deposit fee might say "free" but that means on the exchange part. If you do a bank transfer, you might have a fee from the bank. This happens with SEPA. Exchanges don't have fees for SEPA transfers but you pay 1 euro to the bank for the transfer.
The lowest fees possible are 0.0200%
maker fee (or 0.0150% over 100 dollars).
The withdrawal fee for Binance is 0.00001 BTC
(at the time of writing this is 0.2 euro
).
Sum of all fees = 1,2 euros
+ 0.015% of BTC amount purchased
It looks cheaper than Binance but it's highly dependent on the amount of BTC one is going to purchase. For large amounts, it might not be a viable option.
You can deposit euros with SEPA transfer (1 euro
). They don't have anything specifying if pound sterling is available but they say every wire transfer is free (only on their side, SEPA transfer is still 1 euro
because the bank has the fee).
Gemini's fees are the lowest if one uses their API. That means that one needs to code a client (with AWS, for example) to purchase BTC. Here is the table
So it's 0.05
over 1000 dollars.
The withdrawal fee for Binance is 0.0001 BTC
(at the time of writing this is 2 euro
).
Sum of all fees = 3 euros
+ 0.05% of BTC amount purchased
Compared to the other two, it shouldn't even be considered
I didn't really get into other exchanges, primarily FTX Exchange or Coinbase. The former is because it's not as "big" and, consequently, safe as the others. And Coinbase because, even with Coinbase Pro, their fees are higher than the others.
Hopefully this is enough information to better make your decision ๐
@LuchoTurtle good writeup thanks! ๐
Will deposit some GBP
to Trezor
ASAP and then try
to transfer to you. ๐ค
Don't sweat it, I did this for me because I do all my stuff at the beginning of the month, so I needed this update as well. Going to change strategy after this research :]
@LuchoTurtle which exchange / service would you use for GBP
? ๐ฐ
My reading of your research is that Kraken
is the way to go. ๐ญ
For small amounts, I would consider using PayPal for the ease-of-use: https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/cryptocurrency/coinbase-vs-paypal/
But the 1.5%
fee and the "spread" is a bit of a joke.
Just capturing for reference. ๐
@LuchoTurtle which exchange / service would you use for
GBP
? ๐ฐ My reading of your research is thatKraken
is the way to go. ๐ญ
I might have been wrong about Binance. It didn't work for me because my account is PT but I think you surely can use Binance to deposit thru bank transfer with only 1 pound flat fee.
Now, depending on how much you want to transfer, Kraken vs Binance is pretty simple. If you are to send more than 320 pounds
, Binance is the way to go. This is the threshold that Kraken with their 0.015% fees start to be bigger than Binance's apparent flat fee.
Warning: Binance is very much a good option NOW only on BTC because of their 0 fees trading campaign. These values might change if they stop the campaign (I think it's still ongoing).
Just wanted to share my findings ๐
I didn't really get into other exchanges, primarily FTX Exchange or Coinbase. The former is because it's not as "big" and, consequently, safe as the others. And Coinbase because, even with Coinbase Pro, their fees are higher than the others.
Update on this. FTX just imploded, BTC fell 17% because of this. Binance acquired FTX and it's probably going to control 80% of the trading crypto market.
Crazy times ahead. Couldn't be happier having a cold wallet. dodging all of these fireworks is a blessing.
@LuchoTurtle I'm very curious what you think will happen to BTC
, ETH
etc. in a global recession. ๐ ๐ญ
You're too young [lucky!] to have felt the pain of the the 2008 financial crisis from an investment perspective.
I had a front-row seat working for Deloitte at Credit Suisse in Sept 2008 and had some of my savings in stocks ...
It wasn't pretty. Some people lost everything. Most people didn't learn their lesson. "This time it's different ..."
Obviously if we had a crystal ball, we would invest (speculate) accordingly ... ๐ฎ I honestly don't know. ๐คทโโ๏ธ
https://www.google.com/search?q=btc+to+usd
This level of volatility (crash!) tells me that it's not a particularly good store of capital in a crisis. ๐ข Totally agree with you that a "cold" wallet is the way to go for your existing coins/tokens. ๐ฏ But if we know anything about herd mentality, the worst is very much yet to come. ๐ When the Big Tech Layoffs and general economic turmoil kicks-in many people are still going to gate-rush / panic-sell and this could all end in tears. ๐ญ
I mean, I've seen the video you sent me how the 2008 crisis still effects us, so I'm not THAT lucky ๐. But yeah, I didn't have any investments at the time.
It's funny you mentioned Credit Suisse, they were on the news a month ago for showing signs of insolvency ๐.
Everything seems to be ever so bleak right now. But honestly, I'm absolutely excited. Historically, the markets always recovered. Not a single instance historically has shown otherwise. If one invests in World ETFs, this is a gold opportunity to DCA down. As Buffet said "Be fearful when everyone's greedy, be greedy when everyone's fearful".
This BTC crash is a side-effect of the FTX ordeal. And I love it (I wouldn't if I had my money there, of course). I love this bear market. It's purging all the overvalued projects. It's giving back credibility to crypto (for me, BTC only). Even though it crashed today, BTC has survived this bear market and crypto winter and held on.
I'm particularly tired when people see BTC crash and squirm, saying it's not s good store of value. Please, being a store of value, making short-term assertions is plain disingenuous. Look at the chart not of the last month but of the last 3-5 years. Gold has been historically recorded since the 50's, the beginning of the gold standard. You make a long-term evaluation on it, not short-term. If you put BTC against any FIAT currency, or even gold, it has surpassed and maintained his value exceedingly well. It ticks all the boxes of what a store of value should be.
Of course, gold is not volatile when in recessions and BTC is. BTC is 10 years old. Gold us much, much older. BTC is still in its infancy and still considered a risky asset, hence why it's the first one to be affected by periods of recession.
But I'm holding long-term. I don't plan on selling for the next 20-30 years. Recessions hardly last one. In fact, this one is not so different from the one in the late-1950s. The markets ALWAYS recover.
Now, it depends. I'm young, i have time on my side. I DCA. If you're older, you have to take into consideration when you need the money or if you need short-term liquidity. But, honestly? Our field, even with tech layoffs, has high demand. We shouldn't be worried. You shouldn't as well! You should be excited! โจ๐ฅณ๐ฅณ
To end this, do notice that markets are forward looking. They price in what they believe what the future holds. We are already in a recession and have been. We won't be in 2 years max. I believe with Fed tightening SO MUCH to the point of causing this recession and economic downturn, I think the worst should be behind us. If not, we are super close to the bottom.
Exciting times to DCA. I'm opening my wallet and I'm all for it. You should be too ๐ฅณ๐ฅณ
Re-connected:
Ok. Going to reg for a Binance Account using a dedicated email address to avoid potential for Phishing in the future ... BRB!
Totally understand that they need to KYC for AML ... but it's so tedious! โณ ๐คฆโโ๏ธ
@nelsonic Not only for AML but most likely for future tax laws that is being passed not only in the UK but in Portugal as well. In the same way the gov taxes 28% here on stocks and ETFs, Costa and his pals also want to do the same thing with crypto, taxing whatever crypto you hold for less than one year. You are exempt from taxes if you hold for more than one though, which I guess is not all that bad.
If you have Degiro or trade ETFs with any other exchange, you also have KYC, no way around it.
Don't forget, in the current climate, don't keep your crypto in the exchange, it's not yours. FTX crashed a few days ago, crashed the market (which is the biggest collapse of a corporation since 2008, in which the founder just tweeted 'what'). which led to BlockFi going bust as well.
Not your keys, not your coins. This bear market is purging the industry that was being run by freaking clowns. Take ownership immediately after buying, please. Billions of dollars from retail investors like you and I were literally stolen, I don't want that happening to you or anyone else.
Sent in my verification request expecting a response 2022-11-16 ... โณ
Yeah, don't worry, only going to buy a minimal amount and transfer straight to cold/offline storage on the Trezor
as per your advice. ๐
It's not an "investment" if there's nothing tangible, like a legally binding share certificate or physical asset.
It's speculation. Like gambling or buying a lottery ticket. It could e worth a lot or it could be worth Zero
.
My take on crypto has always been: there's no underlying asset so it's all a massive Ponzi Scheme ... โ ๏ธ
The people who got in early have already converted enough of their gains into real-world assets that anything they lose now is "oh well" ๐คทโโ๏ธ ...
But the people who have poured their life savings in and seen them wiped out ๐ข
as in the case of Mt. Gox
, OneCoin
, FTX
, AAX
and 97.7% of tokens launched on Uniswap
๐ฆ
There should be criminal charges brought against these con artists. ๐
I know that you know this. ๐
I treat BTC
or ETH
as a medium of exchange, i.e. to buy goods and services not to store wealth. I intend to receive and send money using BTC
but not expecting to HODL
much at any given time. ๐ญ
Anyway, waiting patiently for Binance to verify my account. โณ
Binance account verified. โ
Logged into Binance and there are several options for purchasing BTC
:
Express: https://p2p.binance.com/en/express/buy/BTC/GBP
Buy 1000 GBP
expect to get 0.05925326 BTC
But if we convert 1000 GBP
it's 1186.77 USD
:
And if we convert 1186.77 USD
to BTC
it's 0.071
Another way of looking at these numbers is:
If we multiply 0.05925326 x 16,685.70 USD = 988.68 USD
988.68 USD
to GBP
is: 833.09 GBP
...
In other words the transaction fee is more than 15%!!
1186.77 USD - 988.68 USD = 198.09
198.09 / 1186.77 = 0.1669
i.e. 16.7%
@LuchoTurtle want to run through my reasoning / numbers and confirm if they make sense? ๐ญ
BTW: to me, seeing a celebrity endorsement on the home page is a major red flag ... ๐
https://www.binance.com/en/blog/nft/coming-soon-the-cr7-nft-collection-5342679050321496635
Does Ronaldo need to be cash-grabbing from his fans? ๐คทโโ๏ธ
It's not an "investment" if there's nothing tangible, like a legally binding share certificate or physical asset.
Having a backing physical asset or share certificate is not mandatory for anything to be "an investment".
My take on crypto has always been: there's no underlying asset so it's all a massive [Ponzi Scheme]
There's debate on this but there shouldn't be, as people conflate "Ponzi scheme" with "greater fool theory" and try to apply it to BTC or crypto in general, which is intellectually dishonest, imo.
But the people who have poured their life savings in and seen them> wiped out ๐ข as in the case of Mt. Gox, OneCoin, FTX, AAX and 97.7% of tokens launched on Uniswap ๐ฆ
Agreed. The Mt. Gox ordeal is just NOW being solved. The rest of the implosion is the fruit of an unregulated market and companies playing with derivatives and abusing borrowing/lending outside of the law.
Regarding your Binance account getting verified, your numbers are correct. Hence why you don't use the express
version as it's literally a cash grab and paying super premium just for convenience.
What I do is deposit GBP/EUR/USD by bank transfer, and wait 1-2 days for the money to arrive in the spot account. And then I spot trade EUR to BTC, withdrawing to my cold wallet address afterwards.
Here, after depositing, I trade my EUR to BTC. You're gonna have this chart. Notice that I use a market order to instantly trade, instead of limit ordering. Also notice that there is a 0 fee on the pair EUR/BTC (and with other FIAT currencies, including GBP).
After this trade, I withdraw to my cold storage. If you want to test the waters, try to test 5 bucks or so and you'll see that trading GBP to BTC will have 0 fees. You will have, however, a small fee to withdraw to your cold storage (as I stated in my previous comments).
Yep, it can be confusing but ye ๐ .
Also, agreed on how tacky their NFT partnerships are. But Binance right now has the best fees mainly because of them probably the biggest exchange alongside Coinbase. If you don't feel comfortable, you have other options or you can DM me, if you want ๐
OK. Cool. going to try and make a deposit today when taking a break. ๐
The only option I get when attempting to deposit Fiat is Bank Card (Visa/MC) ... no bank transfer. ๐คทโโ๏ธ https://www.binance.com/en-GB/fiat/deposit/GBP
But if I attempt to deposit GBP via Bank Card I see this modal:
They're not making this easy ... ๐
๐ค weird. It might be because you use a PT ID card and the region is set to Portugal? They might be restricting GBP bank transfers to UK nationals only, that's my guess.
If you have the option to do EUR, go for it with bank transfer. Bank card transfers has a 1.8% fee, which is a lot imo :/
Yeah, I used my UK address and Phone number to setup my Binance account because I have GBP that I want to store as Crypto. My account was verified though multiple IDs. They still don't let me add a UK or PT debit card. It's super lame. ๐ It's bonkers cause no other banks in the UK have ever refused my access / transfer rights. ๐คทโโ๏ธ
Contacting support would probably be wise, I don't really know what else you can do :/
Just tried to watch a Flutter tutorial on YT and got served this Ad:
Rookie mistake trying to use Google Chrome [no adblock] to watch anything on YT ...
But does Cristiano Ronaldo really need to be taking more money from his fans?! ๐คทโโ๏ธ
that's embarrassing ... I kid you not, this Billion Dollar company with an active campaign has a 404
!! ๐ฎ
Meanwhile ... ๐
Ouch. ๐ข
What's the explanation for this decline? ๐ค Are "markets" still "spooked" by FTX? ๐คทโโ๏ธ
Adult Butters Explains NFTs: https://youtu.be/N8f-BQFo7lw?t=9
@LuchoTurtle which Crypto (BTC/ETH) wallet are you using? What was your decision criteria? Is it offline or cloud-based? Please share as much info as you can. Thanks! ๐
Answer:
Trezor One -->
trezor.io/trezor-model-one [thanks Luis!]Todo
Trezor One