Truly, is it all now just speculation and "what if"? Bitcoin? Ethereum?

[ShanghaiTimes]

I still see lots of posts about bitcoin, bitcoin mining, and so on. I've even got a little lotto mining thing going myself. Although I've probably got more chance of winning EuroMillions Lotto.
Obviously Bitcoin isn't going away - but mining for it has long gone for anyone but government sized corporations. So why is anyone bothering with it. Like actual Gold - it's just not worth being out in the hot sun to try and find... Just like Gold - if I want it, I'll just have to buy it. And why would I bother.
 
So give me one good reason why I'd want to buy Bitcoin?

The main players I see out there now are Blockchain.info and Coinbase.com
Of course there are dozens of other players, but it looks mighty like those two are the top players in the Bitcoin field. I know I'll be corrected on this, but that's what it looks like to me.

The Other Player that seems to be gaining ever more traction is the Ethereum parties. The ethereum-wallet people, and so on.
Is it too late to bother with Ethereum as well? Is it even worth mining the Ethereum?
https://www.ethereum.org .... Interesting site. But again, I don't see much recent activity around it. Not since mid 2015. Like Bitcoin, it works, the site that is, and the wallet app etc, but to what end.

Has Ethereum gone the way of Bitcoin? Taken over by ... the banks? and Big Business.

It's all looking like a big fat waste of time - as people keep telling me. If all I can now do is Buy Bitcoin, or Buy Ethereum and store it in my wallet, then use it for coffee or gambling, or in a few pubs, then whats the point?

What am I missing here?

[mindrust]

Forget ethereum. Right now, at the moment m-eth is busy with dying. Check btc.e.com, massively dumped and it is still going on. It was too obvious tho, and tomorrow eth gonna die for good. Why would you want  to mine a ded-coin?

[ShanghaiTimes]

That's my point exactly. It's looking to me like the whole thing - all of it - is dead in the water, except for the speculators, scammers, and other waste of time schemes.

[NeuroticFish]

So give me one good reason why I'd want to buy Bitcoin?

Basically there is a good chance that if you buy Bitcoin these days, you'll be able to sell in a couple of years at 2x - 5x price. Which is not bad for a speculative investment.
If you have the appetite to speculate or if you are a tech dreamer, there are plenty of reasons to buy.

The main players I see out there now are Blockchain.info and Coinbase.com
Of course there are dozens of other players, but it looks mighty like those two are the top players in the Bitcoin field. I know I'll be corrected on this, but that's what it looks like to me.

There are many big players in the Bitcoin world. It's a huge lot of money to work with and there's still a lot of room for much more big players.
I'm not sure of the reasons behind putting together a website offering (basically free) services - mostly chain explorer and wallet - and an exchange (which by chance also offers wallet).
There are a lot of wallet providers, some even offering debit cards (Visa/Mastercard compatible), there are a lot of exchanges, but also a lot of other businesses in this world. Today's news is that even PayPal tries to get a slice of this pie (and all major financiar services will do the same, sooner or later).

The Other Player that seems to be gaining ever more traction is the Ethereum parties. The ethereum-wallet people, and so on.

You have to read more. I am not certain that Ethereum is a safer investment. I see it even more volatile/speculative than Bitcoin.


You were asking about mining. 2 weeks ago everybody would have told you to buy many GPUs and mine ETH. Yesterday and today its price dropped a lot. So it's not a safe bet anymore.
But that doesn't mean you cannot mine something. But this is the problem: you have to find that something. You need patience, since you may earn pennies every day, you even have to check if you don't pay more for electricity than your earnings. But the good news is that there are plenty of altcoins that can still be mined with GPU, which is a smaller investment than a Bitcoin miner and you can resell to gamers too.
However, this needs reading, calculating, and reading more.

If you already have a very good GPU (or you know what you want to buy), go to the support threads for various GPU mining software for that kind of GPU. People in there could help you from setup to where to check what's better to mine.

[philipma1957]

Most people don't understand the current dynamic with eth coin

look at the graph.  Decide if the coin will continue to drop or bounce back.

I will say this about a bounce back in price,

AMD
Nvidia
Intel
Gigabyte
Asus
MSI Evga
Biostar  
Asrock

All stand to gain sales if the price goes up.  It is very simple for them to buy some eth coins to boost price as an advertisement expense .

No one knows if they will do this.  Time will tell.

The second half is  BTC is harder to raise price  and  it needs to raise to 650 to boost asic sales due to the
½ ing right a round the corner.
None of the companies above will need to feed into BTC as much as they need to feed into ETH to boost sales.

[NeuroticFish]

Most people don't understand the current dynamic with eth coin

look at the graph.  Decide if the coin will continue to drop or bounce back.

I will say this about a bounce back in price,

AMD
Nvidia
Intel
Gigabyte
Asus
MSI Evga
Biostar  
Asrock

All stand to gain sales if the price goes up.  It is very simple for them to buy some eth coins to boost price as an advertisement expense .

No one knows if they will do this.  Time will tell.

Interesting idea. However, ETH is not the first GPU coin, neither the last. If ETH falls, people will mine something else with GPU. So why would those companies buy ETH and not another coin?

[philipma1957]

Most people don't understand the current dynamic with eth coin

look at the graph.  Decide if the coin will continue to drop or bounce back.

I will say this about a bounce back in price,

AMD
Nvidia
Intel
Gigabyte
Asus
MSI Evga
Biostar  
Asrock

All stand to gain sales if the price goes up.  It is very simple for them to buy some eth coins to boost price as an advertisement expense .

No one knows if they will do this.  Time will tell.

Interesting idea. However, ETH is not the first GPU coin, neither the last. If ETH falls, people will mine something else with GPU. So why would those companies buy ETH and not another coin?

Well the dag file size makes asic adoption more difficult.  eth claims it will go to point of stake making asic adoption a waste of time.

and another coin can and will come along as you say.  the companies can switch to that.  as their goal is to give an incentive to any gpu coin.

If you think of a gpu coin as a disposable asset designed to earn you fiat   you get my concept. 

here is an analogy .. I deliver people I am an uber driver.  My car is an asset I need to make fiat.  It will not last.  Car companies give promos rebates etc to get me to buy a car.  I know it won't last so I plan for it.  where does btc come into this simple it is the road I drive the car on  to make my fiat.

So since I use a disposable asset to make my fiat I must plan for the time for that to happen.

With eth coin  I hold ¼ of it I grabbed a little Dao   and most of it I turned into btc of which some is held as btc and some is turned into fiat.

Right now my chance to mine btc is very hard.  my chance to mine eth coin is easy.

I still mine btc  but I now Have a foot in boot camps.