Hi Guys,
For those of you into Crypto, I was wondering if you have any experience with other than BTC/ETH/LTC
Where do you recommend to buy altcoins?
I’d like to prepare a portfolio kind of my own ETF but Coinbase allows me to get only those 3 (4 with BCH next year)
Please advice!
I get mine at Bitfinex.
Currently own ETH, IOTA, LTC, XRP, DATA, EOS.
Anyone here with experience with Bitstamp?
Got a bit carried away by the craze and registered an account with them…
They actually asked for a copy of my ID and proof of residence (legal requirement due to money laundering laws) but now I am a bit concerned of giving away such private data so mindlessly - What might happen if they have a data breach or sell this info to shady parties?
I use Bitstamp and I’m quite happy with them. I also have accounts on Kraken, Binance and Bittrex, but Bitstamp is the best by far.
I registered with Bitstamp yesterday und uploaded my ID scan. It also made me think about identity theft. Crypto Exchanges seem to be shady places…
Anyway, Bitstamp told me they will need up to 2 weeks to verify me. I used this time to google a bit about them and the reviews are not so nice. People made a transfer and wait for their money to appear, support not responding, etc:
What do you think? Is there any other exchange where I can quickly register and send EUR SEPA payment? Coinbase?
A different question: would it be possible to send USD directly from IB to crypto exchange?
It’s funny, they ask you for ID and you guys think about identity theft. I think about how at least they’re trying to be professional and how they won’t be the first exchange to get shut down. I’m either too naive or you’re too cynical. Or both. 
Verification times have gone up for all the big exchanges, they’re getting huge numbers of requests a day. For what it’s worth, I was also told 2 weeks but if was done in less than one. You might get lucky. I hope so, there’s a crypto fire sale going on right now!
I don’t put much stock in the negative reviews on that site, most of them are people whining because they haven’t gotten verified yet. Anyway, standard advice applies to all exchanges: don’t leave your coins there.
You won’t be able to do it as a transfer, but you may be able to do it as a third-party withdrawal. I don’t know how much it costs or how long it takes.
OK thanks. Well I don’t think they are “trying to be professional”. I guess they are just fulfilling some regulations. Otherwise, why would they care? Maybe only to collect private data. Here my tinfoil-hattism turning on again 
For my plan (investing evenly in lots of cryptos) I need an exchange like Binance, which makes it two exchanges already (one to exchange fiat to btc, other for the rest of cryptos). However, I saw that Bitfinex can directly exchange USD to many cryptos. Any experience with them? Looks like the most hassle-free deal. I don’t mind paying 1% fee if I have, if it saves me time.
Bitstamp won’t accept it, it’s in their FAQ:
"Can I deposit funds from a bank account other than my own?
We are unable to process third party transfers. All transfers to and from your Bitstamp account must be paid from or be received by a bank account held in your name."
I use Binance as well, but not a lot. If you are going to sign up with them, you can use my referral link. I get a small discount on fees if you do.
As for Bitfinex, I’m staying far far away from them. They’re heavily tied to Tether, which is really, really dodgy. If/when tether blows up, it will probably take Bitfinex down with it. Kraken also trades tether, but they just list it as another pair, so it won’t take the whole exchange down if it blows up.
It’s an arbitrage coin, everyone knows that, I doubt most people seriously believe they have 100% of the funds behind it. But it’s convenient with its emerged price peg at $1. People use it for closing the loop when arbitraging between different exchanges instead of fiat which is much slower and has its own risks - like money getting stuck for months in transit (eternity in crypto) due to some insane AML/KYC rules
I heard about tether. But does it matter really? A crypto exchange may seem sound and legit and it still may disappear with your cash. The risk only exists as long as you keep the funds on the exchange.
Ok guys… I’m back…
I’ve been reading lots of stuff on Crypto… (seems like everyone nowadays…)
In the meantime, I opened an account on Binance (Ref link) for Alt coins,
I ended up building a portfolio with:
TRX
QSP
ICON
APPCOIN
So far I found Binance a good platform.
Easy to use and according to what I’ve read trustful.
I do have an account on Coinbase too but only for
BTC
ETH
LTC
I’ll open a Thread to share portfolios.
I definitely would avoid bitfinex as well… it could really disappear one hour or the other… maybe especially today 
I use binance sometimes, kraken is quite bad, more often I use changelly (like shapeshift) which does not require any logn (!), especially if you want to stay long (buy something, differentiate, store it on a paper wallet and forget it for the next couple of years at least), otherwise if you are for shorting/daytrading I would rather suggest to try doing 100x leverages on a BTC future like the one on BITMEX… but veeery risky… 
Currently studying new exchanges like altcoin.io based on direct atomic swap without the coins leaving your wallet…
my 2 cents… or… satoshis…
So yesterday I transferred €4’000 to Coinbase and bought Bitcoin and Ethereum for €2’000 each. Coinbase showed their commission for each trade at €19, but once I went through with the trade, the value of my BTC and ETH was displayed at €1’920. So the bastards essentially took €160 to convert €4’000, a whopping 4%. Of course, I knew that you could trade cheaper at GDAX, but when I logged in there, they wanted an additional ID scan (like passport), to which i said: f*** it.
I just spent €160 in commissions. Just thinking what I could buy for this money makes me think how stupid this purchase was. But well, at least my crypto FOMO is satisfied…
That is not really the brokers fault, that is just a relatively calm day in the crypto market XD.
Kraken currently has no commissions but their site is craping out pretty constantly (less than before the upgrade though).
Also you have to keep the payout fees in mind, I do not know about coinbase but kraken charges flat rates for each currency and they are usually way above the actual transaction cost (you can see what the transaction on the chain cost because transparancy f*ck yeah). I my case they ranged between 1.5x the actual cost for BTC to about 5x the actual cost for ETH.
So prepare for the “bastards” to fleece you a little more when you want to put it on your hardware wallet (which i think you have).
4% is nothing in crypto, it’s either going to the moon or zero
It’s totally the broker’s fault. You see, they were showing me that the exchange rate is X, and their commission is €19. Instantly after the trade my BTC were worth less Euros than implied by this exchange rate. They just fooled me on the exchange rates and I was too lazy to double check it all. You can track the BTCEUR exchange rate on GDAX and the spread is €0.01 all the time.
Sure, the one that’s guaranteed to make money is the exchange (like the casino in gambling)
There are better exchanges out there, we’ve discussed several of them. Anyway, you learn from your mistakes, and this one won’t matter much when bitcoin moons.
Did you keep BTC and ETH or you sold it along the way? 
