Bitcoin Dreaming, or How Cryptocurrencies Are Changing My Life

The world of Bitcoins and crypto currencies is growing very rapidly! I keep diving deeper and deeper and it simply never ends. In the past several months I have taken courses on Udemy, read books, scoured websites, and participated directly in various aspects of the bitcoin economy.

I just added a bitcoin-mining related website to the websites visible on my profile {note: 3/12 edited out the link to my website to avoid appearance of spam}. It needs work, but I should at least open it up so I can start getting some feedback. I started the website when I decided to join BitClub Network--a bitcoin mining pool with an affiliate program built into it. I have since joined another mining pool as well--Genesis Mining, which does not have a network marketing component (I joined Genesis specifically to mine Ethereum, a kind of Bitcoin 2.0 technology that has really caught my interest). I have also become quite involved in trading cryptocurrencies on an exchange called Poloniex (it's similar to Forex trading, but a lot more volatile). There are over 300 cryptocurrencies that have been created since Bitcoin, but most are small and are not on the exchange markets.

The good news is that these efforts have been making me some money. Some of it comes slowly--like a 600-day mining contract that just drips payments in day by day. Some of it can come quickly--several cryptocurrencies I have traded have risen more than 20% in a day. (caveat--they can also go down very quickly! . . . hence the importance of setting stop loss orders)

The bad news is that there is a pretty big barrier to entry--it's not so much a barrier of cost as it is a barrier of knowledge and understanding. It takes a while before you start seeing why Bitcoins would have value--how can a "bitcoin," which I cannot see or touch, be worth more than $400 per "coin?" Especially when 5 years ago it had no value! How can something digital be "mined?" What do people mean when they talk about the "blockchain?" It takes a while to figure out what is meant by a bitcoin "wallet" and the differences between "hot" and "cold" wallets, why you might want several different wallets. What is a satoshi? Who is Satoshi? It took me several months before I felt I understood cryptocurrencies enough to start trading in them (happily, once I started it was easier than I had anticipated).

If it is all so complicated, why even bother? A few of the many reasons:

• Remember back when nobody had email and people wondered why in the world you would want an email address? Or go back a little further when people wondered what "www" was all about and why someone would want to get onto "the internet." Bitcoin is kind of the internet of money. It WILL change the world's financial systems, and being at the start of the wave definitely has advantages.
• Can you think of any other investment in the past 5 years where you could have earned more than 10,000%?
• Do you trust your government 100%? How about big banks? If not, you may want to consider Bitcoin because it is the first currency that cannot be controlled by any government or bank. Nobody can devalue it by dumping millions of bitcoins into the economy as a "stimulus package."
• Crypto currencies are a big wave (BIG, like internet big!), and there is a lot to ride. Look into what Ethereum aims to accomplish (voting, contracts, mortgages, and more could change drastically using this coin): https://www.ethereum.org/. What about MaidSafe? Creating an internet run by individuals instead of corporations? Online storage that is completely encrypted and distributed? http://maidsafe.net/ has some BIG ideas!
• Do you have any idea how easy it is to invest in cryptocurrencies? This has been a very pleasant surprise--I have traded in stocks for quite a few years, but this is much simpler to do.
• Take a peek at the drastic jump in price of Ethereum this month! https://poloniex.com/exchange#btc_eth (up 28% in the past 24 hours! This is not an uncommon type of movement in these crazy-volatile markets). You can get started with ridiculously small amounts--when I began trading cryptocurrencies (just 10 days ago) I was risking no more than $8 on a trade.

My kids and my wife roll their eyes and immediately tune out whenever I start talking about anything related to Bitcoin, so I pretty much keep all this to myself. My website is a place for me to at least start to share what I have learned, and to hopefully help others make sense of all of this. There are so many resources already out there, so I am not sure how to make mine different.

Like I said, I'm interested in feedback on website (sorry, removed link to avoid spam, but you can still find it from my portfolio). I even have an incentive!! I'm willing to give you one on one help to get your first bitcoin wallet set up, and I will make the first deposit into your account of 2000 satoshis!

Before you get too excited, you should know that this amounts to 0.00002 bitcoins, or about $0.00836--that's almost a penny for your thoughts!! (I'll bet YOUR currency doesn't let you be literal when you offer people a penny for their thoughts!)

Happy Trails!
~Kevin