Bronco Models’ 1/350 Scale Type 056 Jiangao class Corvette Model Acquisition

The box of the Bronco Models 1/350 Type 056 Jiangdao Corvette Scale Model

I bought a Type 056 Jiangdao class Corvette model in 1/350 scale made by Bronco Models recently, not necessarily because I wanted to build Chinese Navy Ships Models, but because it was the cheapest one available.

The other Ship Models like the Type 45 class Destroyer were just too expensive already. Incidentally, the next cheapest model I could find was the Type 052D class Destroyer, another Chinese Navy Ship so I will likely be getting that later.

Faster and Cheaper Bitcoin (BTC) Transactions – January 2018

Over the weekend, I noticed that my Bitcoin (BTC) transaction got faster and cheaper. I made a BTC transaction last Saturday, January 21, 2018, and it cost me only 0.0002 BTC (Php 156) compared to the 0.0003-0.0008 BTC (Php 260-600+) it used to cost during my previous transactions.

And not only that, it went a lot faster, too. It used to take anywhere from 30-70 minutes to complete a BTC transaction, but I was pleasantly very surprised when it was over after just around 12 minutes.

I simulated another transaction recently, and fee has gone down even more, down to 0.0001 BTC or approximately Php 60 at the time of the simulation (see screenshot below).

Ripple (XRP) Wallet to Wallet Transfer – January 2018

My Ethereum (ETH) coins were already in the Poloniex exchange, which is located in the US so I didn’t have to worry about that for now. One coin that I could transfer out from Binance to Poloniex though was Ripple (XRP) since both exchanges trade it, so I did go about doing that.

‘ID Tag’
My transfer did hit a snag as when I tried to do it the first time, the Withdrawal menu on Binance was asking for an Identification (ID) Tag aside from the just the wallet address (like on most other coins) which I could not find on the Poloniex Deposit details.

After doing a bit of research, I found that some exchanges like Bitfinex and Binance require their users to use these ID Tags when making XRP deposits to their exchanges and even putting out warnings that any transfer would be lost if no ID tag information was included in the transfer.

Off-Exchange and Stellar (XLM) Wallet Transfers – January 2018

I am getting a bit nervous about the coins I bought and left in Binance because of the bullsh@% that the Chinese government has been doing to Cryptocurrency (CC) lately. Binance is located in Shanghai, China.

Aside from cracking down on miners, there was a report that I read early today about a rumor that the Chinese government might do a more comprehensive crackdown on CC which I think will might affect CC Exchanges like Binance.

Of course in any emergency I am hoping that I will still have time to convert all of my CC in Binance to Bitcoin (BTC) and then to send them to Coins PH. But rather than just selling it, I was thinking of pulling out the coins to off-exchange wallets which I can do now before any emergencies with Binance.

Cryptocurrency Update – January 14, 2018 – 1025H

The prices of the Cryptocurrency (CC) I invested in Binance continues to “move sideways”, meaning up and down a little with no clear direction of moving either way.

‘Poloniex Account Approval’
About the only good news was the surprise verification approval of my account at Poloniex. I thought it wasn’t being reviewed since the status was “Unverified” instead of “Pending Review”.

I already tried three times to have it verified the last couple of days, and I was surprised when I logged in to try a fourth time when I saw that my status was already “Approved”.

Cryptocurrency Update – January 13, 2018 – 1100H

The prices of the Cryptocurrencies (CC) on my Binance portfolio has started to rise, but at a very slow rate. They are still much lower than they were just at the start of this week (Monday, January 8, 2018).

It’s like a blanket was put on the prices by, first, the Chinese and then the South Korean (SK) governments. Between the two, though, I think the SK government had more impact since they initially said they will ban CCs (which are already banned in China).

SK later retracted that and said they will only regulate CCs, but the damage had already been done. I think the reason for the severity of their initial action was due to some mixture of paranoia also.

Cryptocurrency Update – January 12, 2018 – 1100H

Initially, the “Bear” or downward sentiment of the Cryptocurrency (CC) market was due to China’s crackdown on CC Miners. This was followed by South Korea’s (SK) crackdown on Cryptocurrency Exchanges (CCEX), and for me it is now apparent that it was the bigger factor in bringing the CC prices down.

However, this morning SK issued a clarification on the major news organizations that they were not out to ban CCs, only to regulate them. As a result, the CC prices are showing some signs of recovery. Of the seven CCs I am monitoring, for example, two are now “in the green” or back to a small profitability.

In the craziness of yesterday’s falling prices though, I pulled out some of the CCs I invested in that still were profitable. For example, I pulled out around 70% of my investment in Quanstamp (QSP) which, despite the low prices, was still showing a nice 77% overall profit.

Cryptocurrency Update – January 11, 2018 – 1100H

The prices of the Cryptocurrencies that I bought on Binance continued to go down, it was near their lowest so far yesterday (Wed., Jan. 10, 2017) evening.

The prices recovered somewhat this morning, I hope that they will continue to go up in the next coming days.

I wanted to buy some Etherium (ETH), something that I have been thinking about the last couple of days, especially with its price continuously going up.

Cryptocurrency Update – January 10, 2018 – 1020H

After weeks of solid gains, I saw the Transient or Temporary Gains based on Price Changes on my Cryptocurrency (CC) Portfolio go down to nearly zero today.

The prices of new, cheap, sub-dollar CC like the ones I own and some major CC like Ripple (XRP) have gone down for the last couple of days while the prices of older, more expensive but more established CC have gone up.

Not sure why this is so, but I suspect that the China crackdown on Bitcoin (BTC) Miners and South Korea’s (SK) ongoing crackdown on CC might have something to do with it.

Cryptocurrency Update – January 9, 2018, 1045H

After two days of stratospheric rise, the price of the Quantstamp (QSP) coin went down yesterday (Mon., Jan. 8, 2017) afternoon and evening, going down to as low as USD 0.55.

This happened not only to QSP, but most of the other Cryptocurrencies (CC) as well, though their dip was not as large. The reason is probably due to the announcement of China cracking down on Bitcoin (BTC) Miners and South Korea discussing CC regulation with both China and Japan.

But thankfully the price of QSP has recovered, it is back to trading in the USD 0.70+ this morning. This just illustrates the volatility of these coins, and the need to HODL (Hold on for Dear Life) for investors who are not skilled in trading like me.