I've been noticing that Bitcoin has been going way up lately.  Got interesting to me when it passed gold/ounce a while back.

Besides Bitcoin, what are your favorite cryptocurrencies, and why?

I've been checking out Ripple and Maidsafe.  They look interesting b/c of the technology behind them.  I see Litecoin and Eth are going up also, but I'm wondering how much of this is hype and if its all going to come back down?  Has the technology and faith in cryptocurrency come far enough along to make these currencies viable?  To me, they will be viable when I see local stores or mainstream online retailers take these as payment.

I've been using CoinMarketCap, along with Coinbase and Poloniex to play with the currencies and learn some.  No choice on a wallet yet.

ETH is my favorite after bitcoin.

I can see room for 2, maybe even 3 crypto-currencies that make it bigtime.

Bitcoin has the lead now, with ETH in second place.  

Third place could be quite a race.

I own 4 different ones,  bitcoin, ethereum, litecoin and ripple

What wallets you guys use? I'm thinking about getting a hardware wallet.

Eth doing the best for me. But i trade bitcoin a bit outside the exchanges.

Edit: i think bitcoin and ripple have the best potential

I'm only holding bitcoin. 

I don't like the inflation built into etherium.

I think they will all be lower than todays price in six months or so. Long term I think btc will be up, but the network lag issues need fixed.

Is there a good "idiots guide" to  crypto currencies?  I'm interested but have no idea where to begin. Still trying to wrap my brain around how they work.  Stock market stuff makes way more sense to me than this...and I only scratch the surface of that...

I'd like more info as well. Hard to determine what legitimate sources for info are for this layman.

All I can say is I think it's in a bubble.  In 3 to 6 months, I think almost all of them will be cheaper than their current valuations.

Long term some crypto's will stay around, but it's pretty early to know which ones.  I sold some of my BTC last week, not because I think BTC is going to die but because I think I can own more BTC by buying back in later.

I got bored with my BTC and ETH stash. The 60% growth in the last month was a yawner. I peeled off a few hundred bucks into some small market cap coins. SIA, AMMO, ECC, to name a few. I'm looking at 500% gains now. Just need to decide whether I want to make off with my fast bucks, or be greedy and try to turn my $300 into $300,000 or more. It's mathematically possible, but past experience tells me as soon as I find out about something cool, it all goes to shit.

Cryto Currency Primer

^{What is best current advice for a "E-Wallet "}
lets's say a guy wants to own  $1000 worth of BTC... Does one have option of leaving the virtual thing on 3rd party server, ie banked at an exchange, presumably very liquid, OR  alternately can one secure the Virtual Value IN HAND on a pc, hardrive, or micro SD card ?

Yes. You can store it on an exchange like coinbase or you can put it in a wallet like trezor.

@Fullpower

After the Mt. Gox theft anyone who doesn't use a wallet of some nature for their cryptocurrency is a fool

Never, never, never x1000 leave it on an exchange! Only play money on exchange. Rest goes on hardware (not your phone or computer) or paper wallet. Never keep more on exchange, phone or computer than you are willing to loose.

Watching banking on bitcoin on netflix as I type this..

Is it still worth it to mine?

Not really.

So, throwing some money on Gemini, and letting it roll is considered a bad idea?

If some one could (IM works) explain "keeping it on hardware or a paper wallet" a little further, i would certainly appreciate it.

Thanks.

If you're going to actually mess around with this, I'd recommend you set aside some time and do some research.  All your questions have been answered a million times online, and if you don't want to read a little bit to learn you're going to just lose your money.

Basically a bitcoin transaction involves a public key and a private key. The public key anyone can have but the transaction can't be completed without the private key.

The private key is a LONG combination of letters and numbers. You can keep your bitcoin somewhere like coinbase and they store your private key and you just need to type in your password to do transactions. A hardware wallet works similarly but it is stored on a physical device you control. A paper wallet is just writing or printing out your key on paper.

The hosted option is probably easiest to use but the least secure. Something happens to your host and your bitcoins are gone. Hardware wallets are good security and more convenient than paper but could fail or very slight risk of hacking since you do connect them to computer. Paper is probably the most secure if you don't lose it and store it somewhere safe. Then again a hardware wallet has a password so if a thief finds it they can't do much but if they found your paper they would have all your bitcoin.

Bitcoin transactions are irreversible so if theft, loss, etc happens your are shit out of luck. You are 100% on your own to secure your coins with no one to call if you screw up. It ain't like you lose your password to your online banking and you call them and sort it out. There is a thread on a bitcoin forum where a guy has 600 bitcoins he acquired years ago when they were below a dollar and he can't find the private key. Over 2 million dollars at today's prices gone and nothing he can do about it.

Most people feel ripple will never go far because of the volume of coins. In spite of their escrow which doesn't do anything it's ultimate value doesn't seem like it could be high.

BTC,  ETH and LTC are all doing well this month

I hold btc, eth and ltc. I've been eyeballing OMG and NEO.

 Neighbor kid bought some  " Antshares" cheap...  they converted to  NEO, and he is doing well...  started with  thousand dollar buy-in...  worth around $6000 now.  decent return  for couple months.

I have played with everything but I stick to BTC and ETH now

coin base is a good (fairly save place) to buy sell BTC and ETH for US based persons

for any type of long-term holding I go with paper wallets, multiple copies in multiple locations

bitcoin talk forum is a good place to read up on crypto but its full of good people and scammers alike so do your homework and spend the time to figure it all out

LiteCoin is  really popping today..

 Consider trading some  " Profit"  from LTC for more shares in Etherium.... considering.

Coinbase fees are too high for traders; long-term holds, maybe. GDAX is the Coinbase trading platform and is way cheaper if you're making more than a few trades a month.

I was a millionaire last month on the NXT/Ardor that I own.  well at least on paper.  i expect that next year to be able to cash out a million, and still be a multimillionaire, not just on paper.  I got it real early, not one of the original users who got in on genesis, but very shortly after.

Also was able to nearly 2x my IOTA, converted and got into the top 5% bracket in Tezos.  Wish I had dont a lot more of that one.