We’re setting up a smoother and automated method of buying and selling bitcoins at cryptomama.com
We’re making sure that it complies with regulations related to bitcoin sale and purchase.
We’re also aiming to make it the platform to buy bitcoin cheap and with minimum fees.
Services to buy bitcoin
We’re offering following services to buy bitcoin (or other currency exchanges)
Paypal to bitcoin
Payoneer to bitcoin
Western union to bitcoin
Paypal to payoneer
Others (contact with details)
Meanwhile you can contact us via twitter or facebook or through comments on this page for any updates or related discussion, until the automated exchange is in place.
BTC-e.com is under DDOS attack right now. They’re running their requests through cloudflare DNS server, but still having the issue with the server’s overload.
BTC-e API not working
BTC-e api isn’t working either. Which shows probably one of these two things:
The attack is on their API server (with or without main server)
The API and main server are on the same machine, which they shouldn’t have been
These days many crypto exchanges are undergoing DDOS attacks. Coinbase had it too along with UrduBit and several others.
Site is not completely down
The site does load however, including sign in working fine too with google authenticator as 2 factor authentication.
However it’s slugging and gets unresponsive along the way after every few seconds.
Their twitter account shows that the site is under DDOS attack or overload for almost a week now.
Check the tweet on june 6th 2017 and now till 12th june 2017.
Let us know if btc-e is not working for you too or is it working in your region.
Lets hope that the data remains intact and they have backups put on time! Also that the coins and currency of every individual remains protected on BTC-e during this massive attack!
Update 25 & 26 July 2017
BTCE is down since yesterday since the last dip started. The site is giving 522 error through cloudflare.
Many people are blaming it on them and calling it intentional like they do on coinbase whenever there is a dip so that people don’t buy coins at lesser price. Can be false though!
UrduBit claims to be the first Pakistan based BitCoin trading platform. In this post we will examine if it’s scam or legit. And even if legit, is it reliable or not to trust it with our bitcoins. Along with pros and cons of this platform.
Summary of Negative points
These are few negatives and cons about UrduBit which make it at least unreliable and untrustworthy, if not a scam!
Not registered with government of Pakistan
Ask for original documents and pure signature of the user – as personal policy (not government requirement)
Only 3 person team
Are not technical, didn’t even know about if offline wallets exist
Money not spent well on website, SSL certificate is FREE one, Chat script is FREE, and so on, making it insecure and unreliable to send and hold our money and documents
They share private info and screetshot from official platform to public without even asking, imagine how secure your documents and signature are with them
Details of these points plus many more are discussed below.
Update: Don’t forget to eat the conversation with UrduBit support in the end.
Domain Analysis of UrduBit.com
The domain name was registered in 2014 for 1 year
In 2015 it was renewed for 3 years
Domain expires in 2018
The owner is from Pakistan while the technical contact is from USA
Any serious company wouldn’t register or renew their domain for anything less than 10 years. Especially when it’s dealing with people’s money.
We can see this information in the domain whois, shown in the image below:
Wayback machine’s analysis
The wayback machine analysis for UrduBit shows that the site haven’t changed or updated its main design ever since 2015.
However, they did remove their phone numbers and address from the footer. The address and phone numbers shown on the footer were:
I’m not sure why would they remove it. Especially because the numbers were present on the site till last April 2017.
Anyway, the contact number and address of UrduBit.com team are:
Amazingly, the SSL certificate (crypto technology) used by the CryptoExchange, UrduBit, is the Universal SSL of cloudflare, which is free with free account ofcourse!
The SSL used is: COMODO ECC Domain Validation Secure Server CA 2
Seriously? You want me to give you my information, verfication data and even access to all my cryptocurrency on a universal and free cloudflare ssl? Which got hacked recently last time!
A huge turn off and negative part. I wouldn’t trust them in anyway after seeing this!
Verification process analysis
I tried checking their verification process. They require you to verify your identity before you can add funds to your UrduBit account.
Guess the amazingness of this process. The verification process looks like this:
Did you see that? No you didn’t! Let me show you!
Signature? Seriously? What for?
National ID card picture while holding it?
Yes I understand that many websites these days ask people to verify using the id card like this. But wait, does paypal do that? Does any other monetary site do that? Then why are you just following the weird sites which ask you to do this? Can’t someone photoshop this to have any card in anyones hand too? Come on!
And wait, signature? You need me to submit a pure signature so that you can use it anywhere? Wow!
Ok even if you’re a pious angel, what’s the guarantee that the hacker who’s getting all my data coming to your server due to the FREE SSL you’re using from cloudflare? Who’s gonna take guarantee of that?
Zendesk not whitelabelled
As it’s apparent from the chat screenshots below, the zendesk support they’re using is not whitelabelled. Which clearly shows the level of investment and seriousness they’ve for this project.
Team lacks knowledge of Cryptocurrency or CryptoWorld
Checkout the conversation between UrduBit and me while trying to figure out their policies and process.
The staff was responding after ages
The guy didn’t even knew what are offline wallets
The guy ran away
The transcript of this conversation is as follows:
Chat started on 12 Jun 2017, 10:48 AM (GMT+0) (10:48:25)*** nabtron joined the chat *** (10:48:25)nabtron: to any offline wallet (10:48:48)*** Support joined the chat *** (10:49:09)Support: apka wallet kahan per hai? (10:50:07)nabtron: brother, ap new ho crypto ma shayad, please google for “offline wallets” 🙂 (10:55:37)*** Support left the chat *** (11:04:33)*** nabtron has commented: seriously? you guys don’t even know what an offline wallet is? *** (11:04:38)*** nabtron has rated the chat Bad *** (11:05:03)nabtron: I’m going to blog about this chat dude!
You can well imagine the level of the team who don’t even know what an offline wallet is! It’s a big turn off for me and I won’t be trusting them ever in the future with my money, bitcoin or any cryptocurrency.
Irony is, the guy simply quit and ran away when he realized that he don’t know what an offline wallet is.
Twitter account full of Excuses
How can you simply close the market for 3 days? Wow! I can only imagine the type and mindset of people who would invest in such a market which could simply go down for days and simply tweet about it!
The twitter account of UrduBit.com is full of issues and excuses! Have a look at few recent tweets:
Focus on the Dates. They’re not all of one day. But spread over weeks!
And also this:
Imagine trading on such a market! Yeah good luck!
Conclusion
The team might not be a pure scam, but it’s NOT RELIABLE at all. They lack technical skills of handling an online bank, let alone a marketplace. They don’t have proper mindset and pattern which will ensure safety of our funds in their system. And oh, the safety of our information and the signature that they ask us to submit! It’s a big NO and STAY AWAY site in my humble opinion.
Polybius.io is an Estonia based team that claims to be a croudfunded website which aims to become a bitcoin bank (or cryptocurrency bank).
Well, they might become that too, however my review is suspicious about the site. Lets get deep into it and see the reasons what make it unreliable.
Here we will analyze the polybius.io project and see if it appears to be a scam or legit site that can be considered trusted and reliable or it’s untrustworthy and unreliable.
Note: Polybius = HashCoin = HashFlare, all are the same team and group apparently.
Review from The Financial Supervision Authority of Estonia
This is what Finantsinspektsioon has to say about Polybius.io:
The domain name was registered in 2016, yet nothing exponential has been done which is done in case of serious teams and companies
The domain was registered for one year only in may 2016, if they were serious, they would have registered it for 10 years
The domain was renewed again in may 2017 for one year only, if they were serious by now they would at least renew it for next 10 years
Now we do understand that many websites and companies don’t register or renew their websites for 10 years, but they usually don’t ask you to trust them with their payments too.
If a team is claiming to be managing such a big project, they can at least afford 150$ at once for registration of a domain for 10 years.
Evaluating the Customer Support System
When giving money to some firm or group, their customer support system is highly important. How will they respond when there is any issue and do they really care about helping the customers or not.
The support system used by polybius.io is provided by intercom.io
And the support system includes only a chatbox on right bottom or email id at the footer to send email to.
Now upon evaluating the intercom.io chat, these are my findings.
Using trial or lite version
When we start their support chat, it shows the branding of intercom.io, saying we run on intercom.io.
Which means they’re using either the trail version or else the base lite version. How can we prove that and what does it mean? Well, the proof is on intercom.io site, check the features difference between lite version and the standard version:
Intercom.io Lite version pricing
You can see that the unbranding messaging option is not available in Lite plan for intercom.io
The price for lite version is 53$ per month, for 250 users. While the pricing for the standard version is $79 per month.
Assuming that they’re a big setup as they claim, they must be having more than 250 visitors per day, so if they can afford that high for lite version, they could easily get the standard version and get rid of branding.
However, that brings us to the option that they might be using the trial version. The trial version is for 14 days only, but we can re-register for trial version using another payment method or card and we’re good to go! This is just a speculation though.
HashCoins and Polybius
HashCoins is the company or group which has started polybius project.
Both websites have the same contact cell phone number. Which means no seperate dedicated team is for these two projects.
Last tweet by HashCoins on their twitter account was on 19 Apr 2016, more than a year from now!
So if the parent company or group is so much dormant and sluggish, how can we expect their child project to be something extraordinary!
Conclusion
Polybius might not be a pure scam, but it’s not a reliable team either as their is no promising future. Their past don’t seem interesting and promising either. So in my opinion it’s better not to indulge in this project as they are at least not serious about their own project apparently.
A lot of people are concerned about one very important question: What’s the best BitCoin wallet. Well, before finding out the best and the most secure bitcoin wallet, we need to first understand what are the different types of wallets available and how one is better than other.
What is a BitCoin Wallet
A BitCoin wallet (or any cryptocurrency wallet) is just like your bank account or a place where you store your money.
What are public and private keys?
A public key is used to send or receive cryptocurrency to your wallet. Private key is the one which gives you actual access to your cryptocurrency account.
Two main categories of BitCoin wallets
We can classify all bitcoin wallets into two main categories:
Hot wallet (online wallets)
Cold storate wallet (offline wallets)
Ok so now lets see four types of cryptocurrency wallets
1. Online Wallets
Online wallets are also called web wallets. They come under the category of hot wallets. They’re easies to use as they can be accessed from any device that’s connected to the internet. However this type of wallet have their own problems, being least secure is one of them.
Pros of Online Wallets
Ease of use
Accessible from any devide with internet connection
Easy to setup
Online wallets are usually linked with cryptocurrency exchanges or bitcoin exchanges online
Cons of Online Wallets
Private keys are saved on someone elses server
More prone to hackers
Prone to technical glitches
Website management can limit or suspend your account anytime for any reason
Website has the control over your cryptocurrency
2. Software Wallets
Software wallets are also hot wallets. They require the user to download a software on their laptop mobile or any other device. Usually software clients are available for multiple devices, especially for both mobile and desktop versions.
Desktop wallets like Bitcoin Core requires the users to download the complete blockchain, which is almost 100GB in size. However not all wallets require the blockchain to be downloaded. They are relatively easy to use too and safer than online wallets.
Mobile apps based software wallets are quite easy to use too.
However they have their own down sides. Such as they can be hacked if someone gains access to the computer or mobile device they’re stored in. Also, if the data or device itself is lost, the wallet and thus all cryptocurrency you have is gone too. Some wallets provide an option for backup too to fix the issue of data loss or device loss.
Pros of Software Wallets
More secure than online wallets
Data is available at the users own computer or mobile device
Easier to backup yourself
You have control over your cryptocurrency
Cons of Software Wallets
Wallet is lost if device is lost
Hackers can hack the computer or mobile and gain access to wallet via malware
Requires some technical know how
3. Paper Wallets
Yes you heard it right. It’s possible to print out your public and private keys and storing them on a paper. Paper wallets are a type of Cold Storage method, as it’s an offline method of storing your cryptocurrency.
As it’s obvious, paper wallets are more secure than online or software wallets, as you have the the private and public keys printed with you physically on a piece of paper.
How to generate paper wallet?
Most of the online or software wallets available allow the users to print their existing keys for their wallet. However if they don’t, they can still be generated using various services like BitAddress or BitCoinPaperWallet.
Once you have the paper wallet printed keys, you can simply use them wherever you want just by adding public-private key combination into your existing wallet service.
Apparently, paperwallet is more secure than the online and software wallets. However they’re harder to keep damageproof. One way is to generate multiple physical copies of your paper wallet and then place them in a secure place, to avoid getting hacked or robbed!
Pros of Paper wallet
More control on your wallet
More secure than online and software wallets
Can be stored and taken care of without internet connection or holding on to a computer or mobile device
Cons of Paper wallet
Can get damaged with time
Get get stolen physically
Multiple copies to prevent damage make it more prone to being stolen
Need more technical knowledge to generate and then use the paper wallet
4. Hardware Wallets
Hardware wallets are a type of cold storage. These are the devices which are usb shaped devices. They need to be plugged into the computer while making a transaction and can be pulled out and stored safely when done.
These devices generate the keys for your bitcoin wallet on the fly while you’re making the transaction.
Hardware wallets are relatively safe from computer virusus, malware and hackers as they generate they private keys on the device iteself. So as the private keys are generated offline, they’re harder to be hacked.
They are also easy to use and provide backup options too. The hardware wallets come with builtin security features like password protection too to avoid theft.
Hardware wallets are a very good option if you have plenty of bitcoins and regular deal with them and carry them with you from place to place.
Pros of Hardware wallets
Most Secure
Backups possible
Password protected
Minimum risk of malware based hack attempts
Cons of Hardware Wallets
They’re not free
Have to take care of them physically
Can be lost due to small size, if not cared for properly
Which type of BitCoin wallet is best and should be used?
Now, as we understand different types of wallets and their pros and cons. We can now discuss and see which wallet suits whom and in which conditions.
Small and frequent transactions: Online wallets or Software wallets
Cryptocurrency exchange: Online wallet (but only the amount that you play with)
Occassional big transactions: Hardware wallet
Storage only: Hardware wallet or paper wallet
Actually we shouldn’t keep all our bitcoins in only one wallet. Divide it into more than one and be safe.
Also, keep your money in online or software based wallets only when you need to frequently send or receive it. Keep only the amount that you usually need and keep the rest of the amount in a better wallet like hardware wallet.
Which wallet do you use? What are the pros and cons of it?
Osciallator referes to several technical analysis tools for chart reading. All of them might be useful, however check them out and see which ones you like and feel more comfortable with.
I’ll share the oscillator which I use too below. However they might change from time to time.
What is an Oscillator
An oscillator is used to figure out if the crypto currency or stock that we are trading is oversold or overbought. Remember that it’s just a short term indicator.
If the oscillator’s value reaches the upper limit, it signifies that it’s overbought and probably it’s time to sell it. However if it reaches the bottom then it’s underbought and probably time to buy more if you can. But again, remember that it’s a short term indicator.
Why are we emphasizing on the fact that it’s short term? Well because of 2 reasons:
It’s only affective if the trend don’t change. If it does change in any direction, then it’s ineffective and unreliable.
It’s for short term analysis and for quick decisions on an item which is moving sideways and horizontally.
So remember, it’s not reliable when the line reaches the top or bottom and trend keeps on going. We can’t predict if the trend is forming or ending with this indicator.
Examples of Oscillators
Good examples of oscillators are:
RSI
StochasticRSI (or StockRSI)
MFI
ROC
RSI and StochasticRSI are good ones. Usually RSI should be good enough to predict the oversold or undersold status of the stock or crypto currency. But only when they’re moving horizontally or sideways!
When the value of the indicator reaches above 70, then we’re probably in overbought range. So Don’t buy it, until you’re sure that it’s not moving horizontally, rather an upward trend is forming.
Similarly if the indicator reaches under 30 percent, then it’s oversold. So don’t sell it at this price if you intended to, unless you’re sure that it’s not moving sideways and instead going into a downward trend, and you might go a lot below this current oversold price.
As long as the price of the current item remain in the established range for that item, then the signals can be considered valid. But not in breakouts! It’s very important to know that’s why it’s repeated!
Let me know if you use any other oscillator so that we can include it along with your review.
When I started crypto currency trading, I realized that this can’t be a wild guess game. Honestly speaking, I was always interested in figuring out patterns in almost everything around me since I was a kid. So I was happy to find out that there are charts available and patterns identification techniques too.
However, many websites and tools offering charts analysis for crypto currency related exchanges are not up to the mark. Infact almost all of them lack basic elements needed for chart and pattern analysis.
Note: I’m coding my own charting script and will make it public soon.
Bad charting websites:
Don’t get me wrong, they might be very good in someone elses view, or yours too. But I found them quite basic or lacking many pattern and chart analysis scripts and stuff. We don’t just need the main graph and keep guessing on our own regardnig what’s gonna happen next!
The websites that I don’t recommend to be used (will keep adding as I find more bad scripts and websites):
Tradingview
bitcoinwisdom
Good chart analysis website
The best charting script I’ve found is on cryptowat.ch
No I don’t trade via kraken (who acquired cryptowat.ch). Neither did they pay me to advertise them here.
Example view of cryptowat.ch that I usually use (I do change themes time to time to keep it fresh and interesting).
Note the indicators and overlays that I’ve turned on.
I do turn others on too, the sideview tabs too, time to time. Depends on what I’m looking for.
The most important indicators are following in my opinion, so keep them turned on.
Important indicators for Chart Analysis and Pattern prediction
First we’ll see the important indicators that I use on cryptowatch (there are more, some are not available on cryptowatch too, so helpless in that one!)
Volume
MACD
RSI
Aroon (7)*
Note that I mentioned the settings value 7 for Aroon. This is variable. Sometimes I set 14, sometimes more or less. Depending on various factors and the time limit of the chart (e.g. 1 minute, 1 hour or so on).
For an easy tip, set the Aroon at 7 or 14 and see if all the past Aroon indications go perfectly with the main chart’s rise and fall. If it does, then probably you’ve set the right value for Aroon indicator.
Note: Remember to learn these indicators in DETEAIL. Starting from their definition. Know everything about them. EVERY SINGLE THING.
Basic Technique for Chart Analysis
Honestly, chart analysis is such a vast and variable technique that I can’t compile it in a simple or basic form.
However I can give you some basic tips which can help you get started, as we build up more stuff on this website and learn together, helping you and me both to improve our chart analysis and pattern recognition techniques.
Follow these tips and techniques for now:
Study all length charts for the item that you’re trading. E.g. see and follow 1 minute, 3 minute, 5 minute, 1 hour, 1 day and so on, as many of them are available. Please don’t assume that any of them would be similar to other one or you already know what they look like. They don’t. Look at them. Repeatedly.
Plan your strategy on the maximum size chart. E.g. the Daily or weekly chart.
If you’re day trading, then learn what day trading is first.
If you’re day trading, make your strategy based on maximum available chart first, then come down slowly to 1day chart, then lower gradually up to the 1 minute chart.
Make lines on the chart.
Make lines on the chart.
Make lines on the chart. (it wasn’t a typo, was intentionally repeated thrice to give it importance).
Day trade with 1/3rd or 1/2 of the total cryptocurrency or any other stock that you’re trading. Keep the remaining on the long term strategy line only.
And the last and most important trick:
Get over yourself
The crypto or trading world isn’t running around you or against your. You’re not a hero you’re not a villan. You’re just another person who’s doing what all other people are doing. So don’t overestimate yourself, neither underestimate yourself. Don’t estimate yourself at all, just estimate and analyze the chart and identify the pattern.
Let me know if you have any questions through comments. I’ll reply and update this post as needed. And add more posts too.
Last year a friend of mine was insisting me on buying OneCoin (yes I know it’s not crypto currency, keep reading). However I had to debate with him for long to explain to him how I don’t feel comfortable with it being controlled centrally and not having any open market value as such.
I explained to him that bitcoin is a better opportunity than onecoin and he should invest in it. Alas! I didn’t follow my own advice and didn’t purchase bitcoin at that time!
It was only until this year when I seriously looked into bitcoin and purchased some of it. To be honest, I truly felt that I was late in the market and might have missed the train. I hope I’m wrong!
Is Bitcoin and other CryptoCurrency market at its peak?
No! not even near that! I would say that not even 1%. How can you be sure? Ask the people around you. How many of them own bitcoin or any other crypto currency? I’m sure not even 1% do that. Take that to Africa and other backward areas and not even 0.01% owns them!
So apparently, at least 100 to 1000% jump is still waiting. But we can’t be sure how long it may take. As acquiring cryptocurrency also means that you acquire a digital device to store and manage it, apparently. However we can see it being fixed in future in one of the two ways, or more:
Introduction of regionally central bitcoin or crypto hubs or banks, which provide normal tenders to the local population, hence they don’t need to learn how to manage or use crypto
Spread of smart phones like a plaque
It’s a paradigm shift in the making. We were expecting the paradigm shift for long and today it’s beginning.
Should we just buy bitcoins and wait?
No. I wouldn’t suggest that. And this is what this website is all about. We need to learn about currencies, world, crypto, technology, market and exchange.
The goal is to tripple the fiat investment and then take out 1 third, leaving us with our original investment back in fiat and then watching the crypto fly high. I know it feels more interesting to let all remain and not pull out initial investment, but it’s always best to take 2 steps forward, 1 step back.
Corporations are acquiring crypto
Microsoft and many other corporations are investing in crypto and thus it will expand the market. I know they’re not investing like most of us believe they do. They might not be buying the coins that we have in our wallet. However they’re investing in the technology, hence pushing it forward for sure.
Governments are panicing
Anything that confuses and panics the governments is something important for sure.
Many governments and banking systems have legalized bitcoin and crypto and have launched ATM’s even that let you withdraw from your bitcoin account directly.
However some countries are also banning them as they’re confused. Most of them run on the invisible slavery network and are threatened by anything that sets people free.
Conclusion:
Don’t just buy crypto. Learn about it, and the future is yours.
