In last couple of years I have tried out different P2P platforms – Mintos, Twino, Swaper, Viainvest, EstateGuru, NEO Finance, but have always had a strange feeling about 2 of them: Kuetzal and Envestio – I saw that they had many projects from Latvia, offered much higher returns, but some of the listed projects just did not make any sense to me, so I did not even try to invest there.
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How to buy Bitcoin?
As Bitcoin price has climbed from $1k to $15k this year, I get asked quite a lot – how to actually buy it?
When I decided to buy some Bitcoins in 2013, it was like wild west – price of BTC was skyrocketing from $100 to $1000, everyone was writing about it and exchanges were crashing from lame code, high load and hacker attacks.
bitcoin-24.de
At that time the biggest exchange in Europe was bitcoin-24.de, so I opened an account there, bought some Bitcoins and did some trades. But then it started receiving DDoS attacks and at one point transactions were duplicating.
If I bought 1 BTC, suddenly I received 2 BTC. If I sold 2 BTC, I got money for 4 BTC, etc. I got lucky to withdraw some bitcoins, but of course the withdrawals stopped working very soon, and I was left with an account “worth” 60k EUR and 7.7 BTC.
Received an email from Mark, who asked for advice about investing in P2P platforms:
Basically, ~127k EUR is sitting around and not working. I do have Bondora and I was one of the early investors in 2012 when it was called Isepankur. Problem there is I don’t understand what’s going on there-it is displaying my ROI as 15% but everyone is saying that it’s not real because they don’t calculate defaults correctly and real returns are ridiculously low.
Considering all of the above, do you recommend investing in Mintos and/or Twino?How would you suggest getting enough math skills to be able to figure out what’s going on with my account at Bondora, how to calculate XIRR(not sure?) etc.
If not Mintos/Twino, what passive strategies would you recommend to put the capital I have sitting idle to work.
Iepriekšējos 3 rakstos detalizēti apskatīju piecu banku piedāvājumus 50k EUR kredītam. Šoreiz apkopošu visu vienā rakstā ar dažiem secinājumiem. Zemāk saņemtie piedāvājumi:
| Fiksētie % | Papildus % | Komisija | |
| DNB | 1.89% | 3 mēn. EURIBOR + MFL | 1% |
| Swedbank | 2.40% | 6 mēn. EURIBOR | 1.5% |
| SEB | 2.40% | 12 mēn. EURIBOR | 1.2% |
| Citadele | 2.50% | ? | 2% |
| Nordea | 2.70% | 12 mēn. EURIBOR | 0.50% |
Šoreiz apskatīšu uzreiz 3 bankas un sākšu ar tām, kur līdz līguma izpētei nemaz netiku, jo piedāvātā % likme likās pārāk liela.
Citadele piedāvājums
| Fiksētie % | Papildus % | Komisija |
| 2.50% | ? | 2% |
Swedbank līgums ir garš, sarežģīts un pilns ar visādiem brīnumiem, piemēram – aizņēmējiem paredzēts arī pārbaudes laiks.
Swedbank piedāvājums
| Fiksētie % | Papildus % | Komisija |
| 2.40% | 6 mēn. EURIBOR | 1.5% |
Tie, kas ir saskārušies ar kredīta ņemšanu nekustamā īpašuma iegādei, droši vien zin – ka izvērtēt un salīdzināt banku piedāvājumus nav viegli. Lai nedaudz vienkāršotu šo procesu pārējiem, aprakstīšu – kā man gāja un kam jāpievērš uzmanība. Šajā gadījumā runa ir par kredītu ap 50k EUR vērtam īpašumam, tātad – ja pirmā iemaksa būtu 20% jeb 10k, tad kredīta summa sanāktu 40k EUR.
DNB piedāvājums
| Fiksētie % | Papildus % | Komisija |
| 1.89% | 3 mēn. EURIBOR + MFL | 1% |
DNB bija viszemākā fiksētā % likme un to piedāvāja samazināt vēl par 0.2%, ja noformētu kredīta maksājuma apdrošināšanu.
Long $UWTI
When I opened my DNB Trade account in 2015, my first trades were a bit crazy, among them:
- $YHOO – lost only 4%, but should not have touched it at all
- $NBG – National Bank of Greece, lost only 25% (now delisted)
- $CHAD, $CHAU – ETFs with 2x leverage that follow CSI 300 Index
- $SUNE, $ZINC, $VRS – lost nearly 100%, delisted or went bankrupt
I tested my risk tolerance by starting with the most risky stuff I could find and when I got burned, moved to more safe things like sector ETFs with no leverage.
My most expensive lesson was from buying $UWTI – where I managed to lose about 80%, which amounted to more than $3700:
