Newby - looking for a 3 to 5 year investment

[BartS]

Given the size of your investment ($1300), I'd consider going all in on Ether.

Bitcoin and Ethereum both have very good long term growth opportunity, the challenge is that Ether is way earlier in its run than Bitcoin. With Ether currently trading at ~$250 you can buy more Ether than you can bitcoin and it's the number of "shares", coins you own that will give you real leverage to gain return on investment from any price growth in the future.

It's feasible that Ether gets up to the $2000s level and beyond (just as Bitcoin has). And with a cost bases of $250 you stand to make a 10x return on investment. However it's less likely that Bitcoin would take the same 10x run over the same time period...do you think Bitcoin could hit $25000 in just 3 years?

In the end you need to be happy with your investment, and diversification definitely plays a part. I just wanted to add my thoughts as someone who knows a lot professionally about these sorts of things.

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One more comment...

5) How do I create a wallet? Is the address allocated to me?

Check out this site for a list of a lot of wallet options: https://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet

Welcome to Bitcoin!

Price is not the most important thing, it is the market cap that matters and now that the market cap of bitcoin and ETH are closer then the logical conclusion is that wit will be very difficult for Ethereum to grow 10 times its current price, if you wanted to win that amount of money with Ethereum you are one year too late.

[1713905909]

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[Vishnu.Reang]

Since your investment amount is significant, and since you are planning to hold your coins for long term, I would suggest you to purchase a hardware wallet (such as Trezor). They are available for around $100 per piece. I agree that it sounds a little bit expensive, but trust me, it will give you the peace of mind. A lot of robberies are happening with online wallet right now.

[HabBear]

@BartS, you don't understand market capitalization. Market cap is the price of the coin (or investment) multiplied by the total number of coins (or shares) available. The price drives the market cap, which is why the price is so important.

And the comment of yours that I've bolded doesn't follow logic. The size of the market cap doesn't drive or influence buying decisions. Market cap is a consequence, not an influence.

When comparing ETH to BTC, ETH has a greater likilihood of growing 10x than BTC does. And LTC has greater liklihood than ETH, and so on. The OP's question was about whether to invest in BTC or ETH.

Given the size of your investment ($1300), I'd consider going all in on Ether.

Bitcoin and Ethereum both have very good long term growth opportunity, the challenge is that Ether is way earlier in its run than Bitcoin. With Ether currently trading at ~$250 you can buy more Ether than you can bitcoin and it's the number of "shares", coins you own that will give you real leverage to gain return on investment from any price growth in the future.

It's feasible that Ether gets up to the $2000s level and beyond (just as Bitcoin has). And with a cost bases of $250 you stand to make a 10x return on investment. However it's less likely that Bitcoin would take the same 10x run over the same time period...do you think Bitcoin could hit $25000 in just 3 years?

Welcome to Bitcoin!

Price is not the most important thing, it is the market cap that matters and now that the market cap of bitcoin and ETH are closer then the logical conclusion is that wit will be very difficult for Ethereum to grow 10 times its current price, if you wanted to win that amount of money with Ethereum you are one year too late.

[karanj]

According to me Bitcoin and Ether are the best investments apart from that you can go through the whitepapers of the new ICO and can analyse them.There are always hidden gems present.

[TetraFugolini]

I think bitcoin is your "safest" bet, ethereum forked before and all these ICO's are getting way more money than they are really worth.

[Icculus.]

I think bitcoin is your "safest" bet, ethereum forked before...

If Ethereum has forked and is past that hurdle that has unknown consequences, and Bitcoin hasn't...how does this make Bitcoin a better investment?

[arwin100]

I think bitcoin is your "safest" bet, ethereum forked before...

If Ethereum has forked and is past that hurdle that has unknown consequences, and Bitcoin hasn't...how does this make Bitcoin a better investment?

Maybe you should research for yourself so that you could see the result and you must be wise aswell as be more observant since there are several downfalls happening on it. And you must join each downfall happen so that you can earn with the pumps happening.

But you shouldn't be calm that there's always profit on bitcoins since particularly many people lose their capitals for not being attaintive to there investment on bitcoins.

[BitcoinUKmedia]

Given the size of your investment ($1300), I'd consider going all in on Ether.

I would not recommend that decision. Bitcoin is safe bet in a way its proven technology without critical holes like they are discovered in ethereum every month.
Bitcoin is more well known, its better designed and have limited coins, not like ethereum (unlimited) so your money will be nothing in future in Ether.

Could you point to all of the "critical holes" that are being discovered in Ethereum every month? I've heard of very few

was it Golem that found a way that ETH had a weakness meaning it could just be stolen from certain exchanges (last Nov)? then there was a fix suggested by someone pretty high up in the community - but that backfired and meant that tokens got stuck in multisig wallets. Then there was a problem with Parity wallet last week - that's Gavin Woods project - not even a hack but basically left the door open for an exploit and Edgeless Casino lost $30 million along with a bunch of other people.

I still love ETH but it's not rock solid - blockchain is difficult and new.

[BitMaxz]

I think bitcoin is your "safest" bet, ethereum forked before...

If Ethereum has forked and is past that hurdle that has unknown consequences, and Bitcoin hasn't...how does this make Bitcoin a better investment?

Maybe you should research for yourself so that you could see the result and you must be wise aswell as be more observant since there are several downfalls happening on it. And you must join each downfall happen so that you can earn with the pumps happening.

But you shouldn't be calm that there's always profit on bitcoins since particularly many people lose their capitals for not being attaintive to there investment on bitcoins.

Ethereum is just an altcoin and i think bitcoin will be still a good choice to invest.. bitcoin is gaining more popularity and growing normally the price should be increase because the price is relaying in demand and supply so more business with bitcoin more investment and merchant are accepting bitcoin as payment ..  so if you are a long term investors you will never experience of loses because the movement of the price of bitcoin is increasing year by year.. that i think you can gain more profit if you invest a lot..  and ignore what the price dump happen in bitcoin instead buy more bitcoin if you see the price dump that can increase your profit more if you buy with cheapest price..  you can be lose in bitcoin if you are not wise and smart if you heard a panic sell out there get the benefits of the price dump buy more bitcoins and gain more profit in few months or year because i believe that it can recover the price back and it can increase more. .

[webdevmastery]

Investing your money to the ethereum coin is the best thing to do as of now because the price is stable. I think that this coin has a potential to increase periodically, Since the price today is decreased then it was the right time for you to invest because probably it will rise again like what happened at the previous months.

[bitcoinisbest]

3 to 5 years in coming time will be like break or hit scenario after China decision still things may be little unclear now as might be different countries would go in with China. If this happen market is set to fall again or else if it continue to rise then coins like BTC, ETH, Monero, Dimcoin and invest in good couple of ICO coins which will make you a good gains after 3 to 5 years.

[Jack353]

For a 3-5 year investment bitcoin is not a horrible option, but you have to realize that there is a lot of risk involved. 5 years is more than half of the amount of time that bitcoin has even existed, and for most of that time it was so small that nobody knew about it. However, Bitcoin is in a strange spot right now, due to the plunge, and it may make for a great entry point.

Good luck and make your own decisions! 

[Beefcake]

Just my 2C on this.  I have a particular philosophy: long term.  For me its easy to win long term because you don't have to worry about short term noise.  When BTC dropped to 1800 I didn't even notice.  I have been following it for a long time and it is normal for BTC to fluctuate significantly.  There are many reasons for this, but lately there are rumors that private hedge funds are putting money into bitcoin.  If a hedge fund manager can get 20% PER YEAR RETURN then he is a superstar.  So if he buys some bitcoin and its worth 20% more in two weeks, he has to sell.  It is just the game.  Keep in mind that the entire market cap of bitcoin is comparable, more or less, to a SINGLE mid cap USA company.  BTC market cap: ~65B, Apple: ~805B,  DJIA 6T, S&P 500 ~22T.  This is Just the USA, most people in the world don't live here.  So in other words BTC is still pretty small potatoes.           A single hedge fund can be worth 100B, and the largest mutual fund is over 200B.  So if one of these guys wants to lock in some returns, it WILL affect the price significantly.  Also there will likely be a derivative fund sooner or later which will cause a massive price upswing.  This is besides other things like the segwit controversy that can also impact price significantly.  The point is that no matter your buy in price you will almost certainly see price swings far in excess of what you may be used to.  Just ignore them and hold for the long term.  Especially if you buy and then see a 30% decrease.  Don't sweat it just go about your day.  There are significant risks though, so don't put all your eggs into the crypto basket because anything can happen, and it can happen fast.


Wallets:

Just get a trusted one like electrum or whatever.  You don't really need to understand the technology behind it.  Each address should only be used once and then a new one should be generated.  Most wallets will handle this automatically.  You may want to divide your coins between different addresses on the wallet.  You can also get a hardware wallet like Ledger for increased security, but for such a small investment it may not be worth the cost.


2) You don't have to use a paper wallet IMO.  Your security key can be on paper.  A burglar is not likely to look for this, just keep it somewhere hidden and safe.  And don't tell too many strangers that you own crypto.

3) IMO its better to let the wallet generate the key, they do so in such a way that makes it far harder to brute force.

4) Does my wallet address ever change? --> Use a different address each time, most wallets do this automatically.  But the address storing the coins stays the same.

5) How do I create a wallet? Is the address allocated to me?  --> Its pretty easy, don't stress it most wallets are very user friendly.

5) Living in the UK, where can I get my coins from in the first instance? I've heard bad things about Coinbase. What is this localbitcoins.com website? Is it safe to buy this way?  -->localbitcoins can be dangerous, its not that user friendly but not that hard to figure out.  I don't know whats wrong with coinbase, I have used them before, they are perfectly fine but you will likely find lower fees elsewhere.  Good luck!

[IAMYOURLEADER]

BTC and ETH are both good choices. I'll suggest you add more like Ripple and Nem. These other two are also are legit projects. They are cheap and just waiting to be awaken just like a sleeping giant. Don't miss the chance to invest on those hidden gems.