Bitcoin

Some chat in the "what does everyone do for work" thread about bitcoin. I love talking about it, keen to chat with anyone if you're keen, so starting this thread to avoid further thread hijacking. 
Happy to talk about other cryptocurrencies in reference to bitcoin, and explain other crypto-related things, but if you want to chat about NFTs/DeFi investment etc etc, then perhaps start a new thread for that. 
To kick things off, this was the comment I posted in the other thread about it;
Everyone will have their opinions on bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, NFTs and other things associated with that world. A lot of them will be very different, and will be backed by their different levels of education, knowledge, and personal opinions. 
To sum up my own journey so far... 
I have been studying bitcoin, economics and monetary history in my spare time for the past 14-16 months. The first few months of that included learning about other cryptocurrencies before I understood the key difference between bitcoin and everything else: Decentralisation. 
Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency that cannot be changed, controlled or shut down by a single individual or at the very least, a small group of individuals (e.g. the "ethereum foundation" that runs ethereum). Bitcoin simply has no one in a position like that, it is a truly decentralised, unowned, uncontrollable blockchain.
Think of it more as equivalent to the internet. It's a protocol for the future of the financial world, basically. The difference from the internet is that the protocol itself is also a store of value. You can own a part of it. And if you store and secure it correctly, then it is actually the only thing in your life that really is owned by you, and cannot be taken by anyone else - more so than your house, your bank funds, and the clothes on your back. Any of those can be forcibly taken from you. Bitcoin cannot (again the important caveat though - you must store and secure it correctly). 
Bitcoin is actually many things though. It is compared to other stores of value and investments often (stocks, precious metals, fiat money), and those comparisons are fair. But it is also compared to other monetary networks, because it is also a monetary network as well - e.g. visa, mastercard, western union, the swift banking system etc. 
The coolest thing is that on almost any credible measure, bitcoin beats every other store of value, and every other monetary network. 
Bitcoin is to finance, what the internet was to communication. And that also means it is difficult to describe and understand, just like the internet to the average person in the early 90s. 
I can't give financial advice here, I must stress that you have to do your own research and understand these things before you decide to purchase some for yourself, but the most important thing to note in my opinion is that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are two extremely different things. Where bitcoin is an internet-level technological advancement, other cryptocurrencies are more like private blockchain start-ups. They are not competing in the same ballpark. There are use cases for them for sure, and some will be very successful. But bitcoin is living in a different reality. It is permissionless, unhackable, unconfiscatable, and it bends the knee to no company or individual or government or anyone else. It is simply there to be used, by anyone and everyone, just like the internet protocol. 

Good idea for a thread. 
My biggest concern about getting into bitcoin/cryptocurrenies is what is real? As in what data can you rely on to make decisions.  I'd be keen to hear how others have navigated this. 

I am not sure if I understand the question completely, it could mean many things, but I'll put some info out there and see what further questions it prompts - I could be off on the wrong tangent entirely.
Every 10 minutes, a miner successfully adds a new block to the bitcoin blockchain, and receives a reward for doing so. At this point in time the reward is 6.25 bitcoin. This amount halves every four years (it started at 50 in 2009 and has been halving since). Eventually this will halve its way down to near-zero. By 2140, the amount of new bitcoin being minted will be negligible. 
There will never be more than 21 million bitcoin in total. 
No one can break this consistent cadence of bitcoin minting. The supply is fixed, constant, and predictable. 
Every piece of bitcoin you own is a chunk of that capped amount, so you actually own a percentage of all bitcoin that will ever exist. This is not possible with any fiat currencies or precious metals. 
This gives the user assurance as to what it is that they own. If you buy a piece of bitcoin, no one else can own it, spend it, take it, etc etc, without your permission. You have a piece of that 21 million bitcoin, and it is yours. 
When you create a bitcoin wallet, you are creating your own unique private keys. You use these to buy bitcoin. That bitcoin is then recorded on the ledger as belonging to the private keys in your possession. In order for this bitcoin to change hands, your private keys must sign the transaction, so there is no way it can shift from one owner to another without your permission. 
As long as you purchase it with your own private keys (i.e. do not hold it on an exchange or some other intermediary), then you are completely in control of it, and that cannot change, unless someone gets your private keys. 

paulm

I am not sure if I understand the question completely, it could mean many things, but I'll put some info out there and see what further questions it prompts - I could be off on the wrong tangent entirely.
Every 10 minutes, a miner successfully adds a new block to the bitcoin blockchain, and receives a reward for doing so. At this point in time the reward is 6.25 bitcoin. This amount halves every four years (it started at 50 in 2009 and has been halving since). Eventually this will halve its way down to near-zero. By 2140, the amount of new bitcoin being minted will be negligible. 
There will never be more than 21 million bitcoin in total. 
No one can break this consistent cadence of bitcoin minting. The supply is fixed, constant, and predictable. 
Every piece of bitcoin you own is a chunk of that capped amount, so you actually own a percentage of all bitcoin that will ever exist. This is not possible with any fiat currencies or precious metals. 
This gives the user assurance as to what it is that they own. If you buy a piece of bitcoin, no one else can own it, spend it, take it, etc etc, without your permission. You have a piece of that 21 million bitcoin, and it is yours. 
When you create a bitcoin wallet, you are creating your own unique private keys. You use these to buy bitcoin. That bitcoin is then recorded on the ledger as belonging to the private keys in your possession. In order for this bitcoin to change hands, your private keys must sign the transaction, so there is no way it can shift from one owner to another without your permission. 
As long as you purchase it with your own private keys (i.e. do not hold it on an exchange or some other intermediary), then you are completely in control of it, and that cannot change, unless someone gets your private keys. 

While PaulM has offered some great information I feel like saying Bitcoin is 'unhackable' is misleading. There are ways to likely make the BTC you hold more secure than having cash in a bank; but saying a technology is unhackable sounds like saying the titanic is unsinkable.

There are also various places you may be vunerable to getting hacked (e.g security vunerability in a wallet you use, or storing your coins on an exchange),  which are not the fault of the underlying blockchain technology itself, but still something to be aware of.

In answer to the question from kwlap about what data can be relyed on? Be very careful about sources of information (e.g someone really pushing an alt-coin on youtube, reddit, etc, likely has a vested interest); and be very careful about any software you download (e.g don't just google Bitcoin wallets and download the first one you see). Don't trust everything you read, there are a lot of scams and so on out there.

No technology is unhackable, but if you do lose coins due to being 'hacked',  etc, it will almost certainly be due to a silly mistake you make rather than an issue with Bitcoin itself; so do your research!

PaulM, I don't want to quote the entire comment, but you said:

"Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency that cannot be changed, controlled or shut down by a single individual or at the very least, a small group of individuals (e.g. the "ethereum foundation" that runs ethereum). Bitcoin simply has no one in a position like that, it is a truly decentralised, unowned, uncontrollable blockchain."

This comment feels wrong to me, but I don't have a good enough understanding on the technology to say otherwise. My understanding is Ethereum, like Bitcoin, is decentralised and open source. How can the "ethereum foundation" shut it down? What's different about Bitcoin than other coins (from a technical point of view) that gives it those properties, and how come other coins can't do the same?

I used to work in bitcoin years ago, when it was quite new - we used to think it would completely be the future and was going to be as revolutionary as HTTP was. We built a business for public supply chains (for things where you don't trust the source or the middleman, like diamonds) this was when it was so new that we pivoted the business about half way through development from using the bitcoin blockchain to the new etherium blockchain that had just been released. I used to run my own copy of both bitcoin and etherium locally, when the chains were both pretty small. Like most crypto businesses, the one I worked at failed with them owing me a lot of backpay.

I traded a little bit but went off it a few years ago and haven't done any trading in years. The community around crypto is just so toxic, the environmental impacts are bad, and the idea of having an alternative to FIAT currency (and destabilising governments) doesn't sit very well with me with all the stuff going on at the moment.

Ultimately, I think the technology has some niche use cases for things where trust is low but the need for transparency is high. Like supply chains, or voting systems, or stock in companies, or even NFTs for certain things (not pixel art). But the community of bitcoin is kind of destroying the potential - if you find anyone who's into the "plandemic" conspiracy theories, chances are they're crypto bros.

I also don't think it has much of a future outside of a few niches. There's a lot of people trying to sell the idea of "web 3.0" which has a push towards decentralisation. However, web 2.0 had a clear value proposition for the customer - it was a set of technologies that made the web more responsive and more like an application. Web 3.0 is supposed to use things like blockchains to make the web more decentralised and transparent, except for the end user doesn't really care, there isn't the obvious benefit to them, and in fact decentralisation is usually a pain for the user. What has happened is everytime someones tried to build a decentralised system, like git or even the web, there's always a move to centralise it and monopolise it and in doing so make it accessible.

Ultimately, for 99% of the use cases, blockchain solutions are very slow, very expensive, and very limited places to store things. You've always been better off with traditional, centralised, databases and applications.

Great tech but it hasn't managed to find a way out of being very niche, and therefore is overblown.

siac

PaulM, I don't want to quote the entire comment, but you said:

"Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency that cannot be changed, controlled or shut down by a single individual or at the very least, a small group of individuals (e.g. the "ethereum foundation" that runs ethereum). Bitcoin simply has no one in a position like that, it is a truly decentralised, unowned, uncontrollable blockchain."

This comment feels wrong to me, but I don't have a good enough understanding on the technology to say otherwise. My understanding is Ethereum, like Bitcoin, is decentralised and open source. How can the "ethereum foundation" shut it down? What's different about Bitcoin than other coins (from a technical point of view) that gives it those properties, and how come other coins can't do the same?

You're right, Etherium is decentralised with a huge pool of miners and isn't any more vulnerable to a 51% hack than Bitcoin (Bitcoin actually used to be quite vulnerable because more than 50% of mining occured in China before they banned it).

Back in 2016 someone found an exploit in the DAO smartcontract and managed to steal a good chunk of the money from the DAO. The etherium foundation negotiated with all miners to agree to roll back the blockchain to reverse the hack (IIRC they actually forked the chain from before the hack and renamed the old chain etherium classic). They said at the time that it was hard to do, was pretty political, and would be impossible to repeat with the growth of the currency.

I guess you can say that because Etherium has a foundation, the foundation can fork the Etherium blockchain whenever it wants and at whatever point it wants, as it does when there's an update and then it just renames the old chain to something and the new chain to Etherium. But it needs the miners on board whenever it does this. Bitcoin can't really do that, although there's been plenty of attempts to fork it and take it over (like Bitcoin cash) and in some ways that's a disadvantage as Bitcoin can't innovate. Hence it's expensive and slow.

Lots to discuss here, love the comments lads, pity i got to work, I will be back to discuss these points and questions!
But briefly, Siac in answer to your question about centralisation in other cryptocurrencies, ryan has pretty much answered that beautifully. The 2016 situation with ethereum etc. If you can talk about a group of influencers that small, then you've already lost.
And Bitcoin is "old tech" compared to these other blockchains in the same way that the internet protocol is old tech. Its old tech that works and can be trusted, it has proven itself over time and now scale.
Its the platform, and now its about what you build on top, same as the internet. The lightning network us a great example. 

Dammit will be hard to work when i just want to come back here and discuss hahaha. Ryan im very intrigued to hear more from you given your experience. 
Im running a full bitcoin node, its probably easier to do now than when you did it, and despite the scaling up the entire blockchain is still under 600gb. Running an ethereum node is basically not an option for most people anymore, its ridiculous. 

I have got into crypto this year just after the may crash.   Had always been interested in it but never put the research in to find out how to purchase it.   (Wasn’t in the financial position to do so either).   
Haven’t put that much in to be honest but have still tripled the money I put in.   (Was 6x at its peak).  

Have several different clubs with my largest stake in the crypto cook which is now called cronos I think.   (Wanted the card as I saw it as an easy way to withdraw funds when I wanted ).    

Still a novice and always keen to learn more.    

Hey Siac, regarding this comment: 
"While PaulM has offered some great information I feel like saying Bitcoin is 'unhackable' is misleading. There are ways to likely make the BTC you hold more secure than having cash in a bank; but saying a technology is unhackable sounds like saying the titanic is unsinkable."
Yes I can understand that sentiment for sure. I think it is best answered by your comment at the end of your post;
"No technology is unhackable, but if you do lose coins due to being 'hacked',  etc, it will almost certainly be due to a silly mistake you make rather than an issue with Bitcoin itself; so do your research!"
That answer you provided is absolutely spot on, and critical to anyone first learning about Bitcoin. 
If you create your private keys and secure them correctly i.e. not expose them to the internet and keep your seed phrase safe, then I would class your bitcoin as "unhackable". By that I mean that no one can move that bitcoin out of your wallet and into another, without your private keys. 
The only way bitcoin has ever been "hacked" as far as I know is through gaining access to private keys. You cannot hack the blockchain and re-allocate coins, without executing a 51% attack. The more energy bitcoin uses, the less likely that attack becomes. And bitcoin is now so big and has such history, that executing an attack like that would be a ridiculous waste of resource that I couldn't even see China attempting, even if the majority of mining was still on their shores. If it was going to happen, they would've done that rather than purge the mining from their country the way that they did. That's my opinion anyway, based on my understanding so far!

detoxin

I have got into crypto this year just after the may crash.   Had always been interested in it but never put the research in to find out how to purchase it.   (Wasn’t in the financial position to do so either).   
Haven’t put that much in to be honest but have still tripled the money I put in.   (Was 6x at its peak).  

Have several different clubs with my largest stake in the crypto cook which is now called cronos I think.   (Wanted the card as I saw it as an easy way to withdraw funds when I wanted ).    

Still a novice and always keen to learn more.    

This is exactly how I started out. I set up a crypto.com account and just got stuck in. Initially I was dabbling in other coins before I had any understanding at all of what I was doing.
Once my knowledge expanded I traded everything for bitcoin. I've now exited the exchange completely. I would strongly recommend this. Tying into my previous comment - your coins are currently able to be stolen should someone hack crypto.com (and this did happen recently). 
Another benefit is to avoid the ridiculous fees. Crypto.com are taking a cut at every stage of what you are doing. I bought quite a few thousand worth of bitcoin through them, and at the end of it I calculated I had paid upwards of $500 US in fees to them! They also have a spot price for bitcoin that is roughly $300 US higher than prices given by Coinbase and others. They are absolutely creaming it. 
My method now is using cold storage, and buying through EasyCrypto. 
However, this is all bitcoin-centric that I am talking. Withdrawing other coins to your own wallet is something I am not well versed on at all, and is probably a lot trickier. 
I started with Crypto.com because I also liked the idea of the card, so that if I wanted to, I could withdraw in panic! But since shifting to cold storage I have tested by selling some bitcoin back to EasyCrypto, and it works very well too. 
DM me if you want any further info on this sort of thing, happy to give you any knowledge I have!

I cannot stress this enough from Siac;
"In answer to the question from kwlap about what data can be relyed on? Be very careful about sources of information (e.g someone really pushing an alt-coin on youtube, reddit, etc, likely has a vested interest); and be very careful about any software you download (e.g don't just google Bitcoin wallets and download the first one you see). Don't trust everything you read, there are a lot of scams and so on out there."
The crypto world is an absolute wild west. There are a ton of players out there trying to scam you. It's been really eye-opening. I would hate to see anybody at all fall victim to this stuff. If you are looking at getting into it and reading this thread, please ask questions in here before you take the plunge. I've found it's much better talking to knowledgeable people rather than googling, it's a horrible minefield out there. 
And always remember:
- NO ONE ever needs to know your private keys or seed phrase, for ANYTHING AT ALL. Do not give anyone that information under any circumstances. 
- If you own bitcoin in any way that results in you not having your own private keys and a seed phrase, then you are more vulnerable than you need to be. 

I really want to get into the discussion with Ryan but think its probably best to let these few comments lie for a bit first, and let those talk who are interested and asking questions and talking from a slightly newer perspective.
But rest assured Ryan I am super interested in your comments around Web3.0, where bitcoin sits in this world, other blockchains and their utility, and many other things in your posts! Lets take all that up in discussion a little further down the track. 

Sure, as I said it's been a few years since I was deep in the tech of crypto (for bitcoin and etherium), but happy to have a chat and answer any questions, my memory might be a little hazy though.

(Thought I'd combo my response to "Bitcoin"+"what do you do" threads in here)

My background is in Banking (Trading) where I ended up as a Senior Dealer(Spot FX) for a bank in London. I eventually left banking & became an independent Futures trader (primarily Oil / Indexes / Grains / Cattle / Copper - I'll trade pretty much anything!).
I then added investing & trading BTC/Crypto/NFT's - can make crypto seem dull & pedestrian at times!

Trading: I dont usually "daytrade" BTC but simply use my Futures daytrading method to trade BTC on daily chart both Long/Short. I "trade" 5 other cryptos in the same way. 
Investing:  I'm currently mostly BTC & ETH - just gotta have it to buy "pictures" of apes, toadz & mfer's :-) ! 

I first got into BTC/Crypto in 2017. I basically just thought of BTC (& still do) on a "what if..." basis as an asymetric bet on the future, that remains in place possibly long after I'm gone for as long as BTC continues.

The recent "Bitcoin First" report from Fidelity Digital Assets 
(downloadable here https://www.fidelitydigitalassets.com/articles/bitcoin-first)
stresses the need to consider BTC seperatly to other digital assets. 
A number of public Corporate Treasuries have/are adding BTC to their balance sheets in varying degrees. Microstrategy is certainly the most bullish with approx 125,000 BTC (US$4.75 B) followed by Tesla, 
https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/treasuries/
whilst only a few weeks ago we see KPMG Canada adding BTC & ETH to their corporate treasury - hopefully just coincidence it being ahead of the freezing of some personal/corporate bank accounts over there :-) 

Does BTC use lot of energy? Yes...hence miners are always searching for cheaper, alternative, wasted (eg gas flaring) sources. Recent estimates put 65%-75% of current mining energy as being green & renewable. 
Maybe we should ask how much global energy posting pictures on FB uses ..or global energy use of hair dryers ! Maybe everyone should now be made to let their hair dry naturally to help save the planet. Us baldies could even be entitled to a tax credit instead :-).. but seriously, yes, energy consumption maybe a concern but not a dealbreaker imho.

Whilst maybe unlikely in my lifetime & the USA would fight (literally) to avoid the collapse of the US$ , "what if" & game theory comes into play from a long term perspective .....maybe more countries will adopt BTC (events may have delayed any Tongan desire but always rumours of an Asian country later this year) or in a currently unlikely & extreme event Russia decided all its oil/gas has to be paid for in BTC. 

21m total BTC (Approx 90% already mined (19m)
Approx 4m lost (Chainalysis estimate)
Approx 78% (14.5m is held by "illiquid entities" (ie long term hodlers): Glassnode/Cryptoquant estimates)
Any major events/adoption & a supply shock could be insane.
Lets hope certain entities dont have their eye on those Ukranian public officials who reportedly own approx 46t BTC !
https://decrypt.co/65883/ukrainian-officials-own-2-67-billion-in-bitcoin-report

For me & my risk profile, the greater "risk" is in not having some investment exposure to BTC as part of an overall portfolio.

Aside from some of the previous points about safety, you must also consider tax & taxable events. (Dependent on tax jurisdiction), everytime you exchange fiat > crypto > fiat ... exchange crytpo A > crypto B ...send/spend to a wallet that is not your own account etc . These are all usually taxable events which may result in a reportable profit/loss. 

Another thing to consider having in place is an inheritance plan. Theres no "forgot password" button for crypto wallets. Should the need arise how will your loved ones get access to your assets.

As always: not financial advice, DYOR, opinions can change, only invest what youre prepared to lose, keep good records etc.

For me crypto is a long term play on the future.
We hold mainly ETH BTC DOT ADA LINK.
I watch   intothecryptoverse, Coin Bureau on youtube.
Any other recommendations?Other than DYOR.
Also measure the performance of your crypto against BTC and ETH not just Fiat.
If they cannot out perform or keep with ETH and BTC what is the point holding them?
Good thread.

Sanday

For me crypto is a long term play on the future.
We hold mainly ETH BTC DOT ADA LINK.
I watch   intothecryptoverse, Coin Bureau on youtube.
Any other recommendations?Other than DYOR.
Also measure the performance of your crypto against BTC and ETH not just Fiat.
If they cannot out perform or keep with ETH and BTC what is the point holding them?
Good thread.

I also watch Intothecryptoverse as its focused on the data/math. I used to watch Coin Bureau as he seems to do good analysis on coins/topics but there's a lot that doesnt apply or paricularly interest me.
Other people I like are are Bob Loukas, InvestAnswers & Technical Roundup.
If I see a "screaming face thumbnail" with "Urgent" or "Warning" plastered across it I give it a miss !  

Just come across this thread, interesting discussion. Have started to get interested in crypto over the last year as I have a friend who has been into it for a while. After starting getting some for free with a few "learn and earn" promotions on Coinbase and some dollar cost averaging in recent months I have a small amount of bitcoin (around $1000) split between 3 different exchanges in interest earning accounts. Don't feel confident enough to try trading the market so just been holding bitcoin and I like the idea of it earning more in interest.

Interest to hear more about the cold storage you use Paul. And is there any cold storage method that allows interest earning too or do you need to be on an exchange for that? So far I've found the Australian owned Swyftx to be easiest to buy from as you can transfer straight from your NZ bank account without the need for a middle man or credit/debit card fees. You can also withdraw straight to an NZ bank account for a flat $10 fee. Not tried that yet but gives me comfort that it's easy to get it out eventually. 

Swytfx also have a podcast called 'Tapping into Crypto' roughly twice a week which has been helpful for learning too.

Hey Ajc, no there are no earning schemes etc for cold storage.
Basically cold storage is just like having your own little personal vault to keep your bitcoin in. 
With those exchanges you are on, you do not really "own" your bitcoin, you are trusting those exchanges when they tell you it's your bitcoin - in reality they're holding it on your behalf, and all you have is an IOU in the form of your login and balance on their app. And they use "your" bitcoin to make money, which is why they give you returns for staking it (staking is essentially just promising you won't withdraw it before a particular date, so that they know they can use "your" bitcoin to make more money up until that date). 
Yes it is good that you know how you can withdraw at any moment, but it's also important to know that when something goes wrong with one of these exchanges, you most probably won't get the chance. When an exchange has been hacked or some other major issue in the past, more often than not you won't know about that until it's too late, and you won't be able to withdraw it. 
Not trying to be a negative ninny but this is basically why I moved out of that space completely. Any gains I might get from staking products and the likes were not worth it to me once I got to a certain level of investment, and to be honest until I got to that level, the returns were so small it wasn't worth it before that either. 
When I buy bitcoin I use Easy Crypto, where you can use your bank account to buy so no credit card fees etc, and then it goes straight to my cold storage, so I am in 100% control of it right away. 

Thanks for that. I have it split between 3 difference exchanges as that feels less risky than having it all one place (feels like "diversifying" I guess). None of it is locked to a particular date though, have been using accounts where I can move it whenever I want. As I've only been dabbling so far and the amount I have is relatively small I'm happy to leave it sitting there growing in quantity for now. But interested to learn more about cold storage.
Would also be interest to compare what rate you get between Easy Crypto and Swyftx (can't remember which was better last time I looked). They have to be taking a cut each time so probably worth a comparison.
What devices/methods do you use or what would you recommend for cold storage? 

That's great thinking with splitting between exchanges, definitely a good way to minimise risk.
I do the same thing with my cold storage. I have multiple brand devices I spread my bitcoin across. Obviously far minimised risk anyway, but if one particular brand of device was ever corrupted, or a vulnerability was found or something like that, then my loss would be limited to that device. 
I recently watched a video showing how someone was able to "hack" a pin for a trezor device (most popular cold storage device brand, along with Ledger) using a vulnerability in one particular update many years ago. Although he showed it was possible, the lengths he went to, the time it took, the expense incurred, and the actual genius and ability of the hacker himself (world renown), gave me much comfort. If my device was lost or I had forgotten the pin, I would have that bitcoin out and into a new device using my seedphrase far quicker than it would take for someone to get the pin out of it the same way he did it. 

Re: rates for purchasing bitcoin
I don't know much about Swyftx and what the comparison would be, but I was previously using the exchange Crypto.com and it was extortionate. They take their cut in various ways...
Firstly, Crypto.com display a price for bitcoin that is about $300 US higher than what Coinbase and others give a price for. So you know that Crypto.com are getting a cut in that way. 
Then they have their fee which is high, 2% I think from memory.
But the real kicker is when you withdraw. About $20 US per withdraw, regardless of amount. This introduced a lot of risk for me, I was new to cold storage and taking custody of your bitcoin, so it was a nervewracking process, as I was withdrawing large amounts to avoid excessive fees. The second withdraw resulted in me thinking I had lost a huge amount of bitcoin for about 3 minutes before it showed up. This taught me the value of education, and really properly understanding bitcoin, so I could feel confident in my actions, and I could picture exactly what was happening. 
All up I think I paid Crypto.com upwards of $700 US over about 6 months before I became more educated and switched off them. 
Crypto.com are expensive though, I imagine the exchange you are using is much cheaper. Some of my friends swear by Celsius, lower fees, and no fee to withdraw. 
EasyCrypto is in the range of 0.7 - 0.9% fees according to this, from Moneyhub;

Re: cold storage education in general
So cold storage is where you have a device that is "air gapped" from the internet, that holds your private keys, for signing transactions. 
When you set up the device, you generate your seedphrase for your private keys, and you write that down and store it safely somewhere. You also register a pin code for the particular device as well.
The pin is for whenever you want to use the device, and the seedphrase is simply a back-up. Should you lose the device, forget your pin, or want to get rid of the device for whatever reason, then you can use your seedphrase to restore your private keys in another wallet set-up. I have tested this thoroughly. For example I've restored my bitcoin in a completely different wallet just to check that I could actually do it if I needed to. 
There are many cold storage devices available, but the two most popular by some distance are Trezor and Ledger. I find Ledger a little bit more fancy with their app and the ability to check balances, and generate receive addresses without needing to plug in your device. But I find the Trezor device itself to be slightly more user friendly when logging in and signing transactions. So it's a bit of a toss-up for me, I don't yet have a preference for either. 
There is a step before this you can take. You can use a cold wallet that is not a physical device. For example Electrum is one that I would recommend. This is really the same thing, except that there is more trust involved - you are trusting Electrum that when you set up your pin and generate your seedphrase, they are not holding that information, and cannot communicate it to anyone. And you are also trusting that your PC is not being infiltrated at all - the seedphrase words and pin all appear on your PC for you to record, rather than on a device that is air-gapped from the internet and your PC. However, with cold storage devices, there is still trust there too - you are believing them when they tell you that it is air-gapped for example. 
Electrum and other desktop/mobile wallets are free. Mycelium, Bluewallet, and others like that are all very mobile friendly too (Electrum is old school, desktop only, looks like windows '95). 
I recommend to people that they start off using these wallets, and only purchase a cold storage device once their bitcoin is worth enough money to warrant it. A Ledger or a Trezor is around the $100 - 120 mark for the bottom of the line model (you only need bottom of the line too, the extra features on the better ones are just fancy gimmicks in my opinion e.g. I don't know why you would want bluetooth? Seems a security risk to me). 
I've started friends off with Electrum wallets, and then once they've educated themselves further and started to understand bitcoin well, which inevitably results in them wanting to buy MUCH more, they progress to a cold storage device at that point. 
A key risk to look out carefully for, with a cold storage device, is tampering in the mail. If anyone buys one, when it arrives, don't open it right away. Google the latest scams going on with devices, and make sure you inspect your packaging and contents very carefully for any evidence. People may break seals and insert things into the packaging to try and fool you. Things like official looking letters with differing instructions that will result in your depositing your bitcoin in their wallet, etc. I know that sounds scary but it's very unlikely, just make sure you are always vigilant with bitcoin.
Remember: Bitcoin takes the middle man (banks) out of the equation. While that brings many many benefits, it also means you lose the safety of the banks taking on risk on your behalf. They keep your money secure, you can rely on them (mostly!) that your money will be there when you want it. With bitcoin, you are relying on yourself, and yourself only. Take responsibility and be safe. 

Also something cool to add re: wallets...
You can actually generate your own private keys (wallet) with nothing but a piece of paper and some method of random generation e.g. a couple of dice. 
You can roll the dice many times and record the random results, translate that into binary language, and therefore a set of private keys. Then you can generate public key addresses from that set of private keys, send bitcoin to them, and it will be there in the blockchain. 
I am not quite at the level to actually carry this out, I'm still studying! But it will be a landmark day when I achieve this, for my personal education at least.
To me it was a mindblowing day when I read that this was possible. I now understand how and why, but doing it is another thing! 

Thanks for all the helpful advice Paul. Much to research and learn!
One thing I like with Swyftx over Easy Crypto is the $30 minimum which has allowed me to drip feed a bit more (generally dollar cost averaging with $50 per pay day).

Nice. 
Yes a lower limit is great for that sort of flexibility. 
I am not completely sure having not used that platform, but I assume that if you wanted to, rather than having your bitcoin purchase loaded to your Swyftx "wallet", you would be able to enter your own bitcoin receive address instead.
Obviously you would be giving up the staking revenue etc so not ideal for you in your situation right now, but that would potentially be a way of having secure custody of your bitcoin, whilst still using your preferred exchange with the lower buy limit. 
If you ever changed your method in future, it might be a good thing to try, so you can get used to a new wallet or device while still using the exchange you know and understand. 

Good tip. Will have a look at that, and also do some research on hardware wallets.
Quick question - on the hardware wallets you use, are you able to set these up with your phone or do you need a pc? Only currently have mobile (well, have work laptop but there's restrictions with what you are allowed to plug into it etc), so would want something I don't need a pc to be able to use. 

I *think* the cold storage devices like Trezor and Ledger require desktop for set-up at the least, but not 100% on that, I've never researched any mobile-only functionality they might have. 
A non-device based wallet like Mycelium works well on mobile only, I've tested this out, and I have it on my mobile now. 
It just doesn't have that air-gapped device functionality like Ledger and Trezor. Mycelium has been around a while though and is well trusted, and they cannot freeze or control your bitcoin in any way that we know of, unlike the exchanges. 
For example, when the canadian government recently introduced emergency regulations to be able to confiscate people's bitcoin (and cryptocurrencies), they were able to force exchanges to provide personal information and account details of their users, whereas proper wallet providers actually cannot provide that level of info, even if they wanted to. So it protects from hackers, but also government overreach. Most people would probably not see the canadian government as being any kind of bad actor, but it's still a good example to show what different levels of bitcoin custody actually mean, as other governments of our world might create similar regulation that comes from a more nefarious angle. 

As has been mentioned, leaving crypto on an exchange, staking, lending etc all comes with counterparty risk. 
Some people are happy with the easy option of leaving funds on exchange, some prefer to go down the self custody, more complicated security routes. It depends on risk tolerance, tech savvy'ness , size of funds etc. 

Some other ideas that may be applicable to some:
When generating/storing seed phrases etc, go old skool & write them down, stamp them in metal or chisel in stone etc - do not take a photo on your phone or create a word document stored on your pc. Leave as few electronic gateways as possible for hacks, sim-swaps etc. 

Also think about where you store your "written down" seedphrase - obviously not next to your device ;-) , but maybe also in a fireproof/waterproof safe. Theres no insurance company to help if the unthinkable event of fire/flooding one day becomes a reality to you. 

Unless an exchange were to collapse with your funds, with some knowledge & care its possible to remain relatively safe. Most people lose their funds in crypto/NFT's because of their own actions eg: clicking a link, revealing a seedphrase, carlessness, forgetfullness etc rather than some hacker specifically coming after your 0.01 BTC :-)

Previously I have used 4 platforms to "lend" (Blockfi/Nexo/Ledn/Celsius), but for me the return is not worth the risk now.
Over the years I have used about 15 different platforms to buy/trade crypto although now I only really use 1-3 to trade/buy & then store in hard wallets. 
I have had the occasional "friendly" call from my bank to ensure I'm not sending my own fiat ccy to somewhere in error but thankfully it seems banks are now more crypto friendly ! 

Nice info there ImNotYourBro. 
Ive been wondering if my bank is going to get in touch but they havent yet... I also wondered what it might mean for a recent re-jigging of our mortgage and these new lending rules where they turn your down for buying KFC etc, but no questions at all. Perhaps its becoming pretty normal

your bank might get in touch for the first couple for transactions - if the are outside you're normal transactions

Not heard anything from my bank either, although Swyftx use an account with the same bank so the bank presumably already understands where it's going.

I have issue with the finiteness of bitcoin (and crypto in general), like in a couple of generations we would have locked in huge generational wealth for people that happened to have lived, had the disposable income and interest to invest in crypto at a specific time in history. like kids born in a couple of decades, crypto is not a good deal for them basically just living off the crumbs. 

also, as mentioned the environmental impacts (electricity and e-waste of asics and other components like gpus designed for crypto with no video outs) and how inefficient they are. trying to remember but i'm sure someone compared  ethereums compute capabilities unfavorably to a raspberry pi - and buying time in gas prices is dumb because the more demand on the network the more expensive it is to access the network, how is this meant to be used widely?

it is only a store of wealth built on the belief on people because there is little utility in crypto and so it seems like the only way for people invested to have their investment increase is to evangelise and get more believers but the value for new entrants is always less than people already invested where the people who invested long ago benefiting the most like a pyramid scheme.

and like fudge having so much of your life for ever on the blockchain, medical records, voting records whatever. also metaverse and web 3.0 is dumb. DAOs are dumb.

its crazy its popular but i reckon the gfc and some govts actions really screwed with peoples attitudes towards certain institutions.

Bullion

I have issue with the finiteness of bitcoin (and crypto in general), like in a couple of generations we would have locked in huge generational wealth for people that happened to have lived, had the disposable income and interest to invest in crypto at a specific time in history. like kids born in a couple of decades, crypto is not a good deal for them basically just living off the crumbs. 

also, as mentioned the environmental impacts (electricity and e-waste of asics and other components like gpus designed for crypto with no video outs) and how inefficient they are. trying to remember but i'm sure someone compared  ethereums compute capabilities unfavorably to a raspberry pi - and buying time in gas prices is dumb because the more demand on the network the more expensive it is to access the network, how is this meant to be used widely?

it is only a store of wealth built on the belief on people because there is little utility in crypto and so it seems like the only way for people invested to have their investment increase is to evangelise and get more believers but the value for new entrants is always less than people already invested where the people who invested long ago benefiting the most like a pyramid scheme.

and like fudge having so much of your life for ever on the blockchain, medical records, voting records whatever. also metaverse and web 3.0 is dumb. DAOs are dumb.

its crazy its popular but i reckon the gfc and some govts actions really screwed with peoples attitudes towards certain institutions.

Re: Generational Wealth.
In your first paragraph replace the word "bitcoin/crypto" with "land". Thats the way things with finitness & demand work, they will go up in value for increased cost to future generations. 
Generational wealth has to be "created" at some point, by someone willing to take a risk with their money. Wether that is risking their money in buying a block of land on Manhattan island, a few pictures of flowers buy some guy who cut his ear off or putting their life savings ($500) in buying a 1/2 share in a block of Oklahama land that eventually struck oil (J.Paul Getty). I see BTC as something that MAY become something that MAY create wealth for my future generations. I'm ok with taking that risk. 

Re: Value for new entrants less...
Early adopters always get the cheapest price & best returns as they take the biggest risk. I dont think buyers of Amazon shares should get the same price/value today with a proven business model as those who invested in a guy selling books from a garage. Same with BTC - Biggest risk : Biggest Reward

Bullion, those points you raise are all excellent, and are the things that I looked into right away when I started with bitcoin, as I had all the same thoughts. It took quite some time to get my head round some of bitcoin's critical pieces. The world's economic and monetary history can provide some of the answers. 
I couldn't possibly write enough and write it well enough to cover these things off properly and comprehensively, so will just address part of it and see how the conversation develops. 
Firstly, finiteness, or scarcity.
Do not conflate this with value. Value is value, regardless of what currency it is denominated in. 
The amount of money in the world does not change the amount of value. 
The amount of value in the world is always increasing. There are always new products and ideas and inventions coming about, adding to the value already here and being produced every day. 
Prices change as they are the connection between the amount of money and the amount of value. 
As the amount of value has continued going up, the amount of money in the world has been going up by more lately, a lot more, bringing us the current inflation situation. 
If the amount of money does not go up by more than the amount of value goes up, then prices come down. 
There will be only 21 million bitcoin, but that doesn't constrain anything at all, and it doesn't limit the amount of value there can be. The beauty of a digital money means you are not limited to cents in the dollar, you can cut it into fractions as small as you like. For example, the smallest unit that is currently well known in bitcoin is the "satoshi", which is one hundred millionth of a bitcoin. 
This is simply addressing the scarcity/finiteness element as a supposed issue, I have not started on why this is actually an enormous feature, not a bug, and is arguably the number one reason why bitcoin is superior to any store of value in human history... 
If you look at the history of money in the world, you will see that scarcity is the defining quality of the dominant currencies/stores of values. 
The US dollar has been the number one currency, predominantly because it was pegged to gold, strictly, in order to maintain its scarcity. Each dollar represented a denomination of gold, which the US held in reserve. The dollar really only exists because it is a way of exchanging gold without having to carry gold around with you, and that's because before bitcoin, gold has been the scarcest store of value. 
That tie with gold was threatened, then finally severed, in 1971 with the ditching of the gold standard, and that scarcity element has now been lost. 
Prior to all this, the pound was the dominant currency, and was pegged to sterling silver. They ditched that peg during war time because they didn't have enough money to fund the wars. By ditching it or reducing it, and selling bonds (e.g. war bonds), they started mass printing paper money, and therefore devaluing all other money in existence. This is the common pattern. The US dollar is only maintaining its grip as reserve currency through it's new backing that has replaced gold - military force. 
Keep going back further in history and all you will see is the same patterns over and over again.
The world's strongest currency was the world's scarcest, what we call the "hardest money". To produce a new piece of money, you had to produce some value - mine some gold, or silver, or whatever metal was most scarce, in your particular time. 
And all governments overspend, usually in war time, and look to solutions. The solutions were always to just make more money. You've heard of clipping coins, that's what was done once upon a time. And that's what they are doing now, but in fancier ways with fancier terms, to make it sound different and legitimate. But it's all the same. 
Bitcoin cannot be reproduced faster to make more money, no government can clip it and reproduce it, or print more by issuing policies with fancy names. 
It is the scarcest money ever created. The effort to mine it is crucial as it shows that work has been done to produce it. Not a button click to just produce it out of thin air. It is the hardest money we've ever seen, and the modern financial world doesn't know what to do with it yet. Most people in those industries are studied up on keynesian economics and how money has worked in their lifetime, but nothing else. It doesn't matter what they think, and how the world has been working recently, the hardness of bitcoin is an unstoppable force, and like all the most dominant currencies before it, it will sweep the world completely, whether leaders and governments and financial institutions like it or not. 
The most successful ones in future will be the ones that realise that and embrace it first.
The best parallel is the internet. The old communications world didn't understand it initially, and those that resisted ended up worse off. It was an unstoppable force that historical central communications outfits couldn't stop, and were eventually forced to embrace. 

I pretty much agree with youregarding this comment bullion;
"and like fudge having so much of your life for ever on the blockchain, medical records, voting records whatever. also metaverse and web 3.0 is dumb. DAOs are dumb."
I am not yet sold on the "blockchain" as an effective solution to any of the problems it supposedly solves. 
I can't see how they are doing this in a way that is better than traditional servers etc at this point. The blockchains are massive and unwieldy, and it's not simple for any joe bloggs to run a node or something to verify those blockchains. 
I feel that the first part of learning in this world is to immediately separate bitcoin and "crypto". 
They are not competing with Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a store of value and a monetary network, and that's it. And to be honest it really only does the store of value well, all on its own. To be an effective monetary network, it requires the Lightning network to be able to scale properly, otherwise it may have been dead and buried in that respect (thankfully the lightning network is fantastic, and works amazingly well). 
None of these blockchains do what bitcoin does, any better than it already does. They have other value propositions and use cases, none of which I am particularly sold on, but that is where they are competing - with each other.
Ethereum, Cardano, Solana in particular are all battling for the same things, things that bitcoin is not into, and that require newer and constantly updating tech. Bitcoin is more of a platform or protocol, like the internet. 

I am 100% convinced, for a wide array of reasons, that Bitcoin will not exist in 10 years. It will go down as the "tulip mania" of the 21st century. 

Ninja

I am 100% convinced, for a wide array of reasons, that Bitcoin will not exist in 10 years. It will go down as the "tulip mania" of the 21st century. 

Ninja

I am 100% convinced, for a wide array of reasons, that Bitcoin will not exist in 10 years. It will go down as the "tulip mania" of the 21st century. 

If you are 100% sure you should put your life savings, house, etc, on bitcoin futures and short it.

Personally, as a currency (and several other use cases) I think it's here to stay; if not bitcoin then a different crypto at least.

A neat little section from "Layered Money", by Nik Bhatia, that I recently read;
"In reality, Bitcoin is nothing like the Dutch tulip mania. Bubbles don’t burst three times in a decade and come back stronger each resurgence, and the investing public is finally waking up to this fact. In 2020, some of the most legendary hedge fund investors of this generation, Paul Tudor-Jones and Stanley Druckenmiller, acknowledged ownership of BTC. Investment management powerhouses such as AllianceBernstein, Blackrock, and Fidelity Investments made public recommendations for clients to have BTC in their portfolios as a hedge against the devaluation or demise of government currencies. PayPal, the world's largest online payment processor, gave its 300 million global customers the ability to purchase BTC on its platform. It began to become clear to the investing community that denying Bitcoin's place in the future of money was like denying the Internet's place in the future of commerce in 1999. Internet stocks might have experienced a speculative price bubble at the turn of the twenty-first century, but the world's biggest publicly traded corporations today are Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Alphabet (Google), and Facebook, which have generated trillions of dollars in market value thanks to the Internet."
Personally, I think it's very possible that NFTs could be the real tulip mania. Someone bought the NFT of the first ever tweet, by Jack Dorsey, for 2.9m, a while back. They just put it up for auction and were aiming for 48m. The highest bid was $280. If that NFT is not holding value, then how are cartoon pictures of monkeys going to hold value? I am yet to see the real value in this craze, but admittedly have not looked far into it, certainly not as far as I have into bitcoin.