Everything you need to know about cryptocurrency
So many people have become millionaires and even billionaires from Bitcoin. As of the time of writing this book Bitcoin is going for almost $10,000 per Bitcoin. When bitcoin first started you could go to certain websites called faucets and get 5 bitcoin for free. You could leave a regular computer on all night and wake up to a few dozen Bitcoins.
Right now you’re probably kicking yourself for not being an early investor in bitcoin, or at least for not buying it when it was $400 per coin while it was just starting to get popular. I’m here to tell you that it’s not too late.
In this article, we’ll go over how to get free(ish) bitcoins by mining. What altcoins are and why they’re important. Why you could potentially become richer from altcoins than Bitcoins post 2020. Proof of Stake and how you can get free altcoins just because you already own altcoins.
We’re also going to tell you how cryptocurrency differs from any other method of money ever created.
What is Cryptocurrency and What Sets it Apart from Other Forms of Money?
The first three reasons everyone loves cryptocurrency is privacy, privacy, and privacy. The government can’t see it, your ex wife/husband can’t sue you for it, it’s impossible to tax, if you get arrested, it can’t be seized.
Cryptocurrency is the perfect mix of holding money in your hand, and being able to wire it anywhere in the world. Having cryptocurrency on your computer is like having a safe full of $100 bills hidden under your floorboards. The main difference is, you can discreetly take your safe with you in the form of your smartphone or a hardware wallet if you’d like. Maybe you want to digitally hand your friend on the other side of the world $100 all in a matter of minutes, well you can.
The reason this is possible is because of mining and staking (we’ll get more into this later). But there are people who leave powerful computers running 24/7 all over the world. These computers are constantly verifying transactions and in return, the owners of these computers are rewarded with free cryptocurrency.
Since there are sometimes thousands of separate people verifying transactions and no central bank, it’s nearly impossible to tamper with cryptocurrency. You cannot hack a central system, because there isn’t a central system. The central bank cannot make up arbitrary rules that only benefit them, because there is no central bank.
Not only is your money completely anonymous, but we don’t have to deal with the dreaded billion dollar corporations calling all of the shots.
Mining and Staking
Transactions have to be verified multiple times for to prevent hackers from conjuring up free money. A cryptocurrency greatly benefits from having as many people as possible verifying transactions.
Miners use powerful computers, usually loaded with six or more graphics cards (these computers wouldn’t be useful for anything other than mining). These computers referred to as “Mining Rigs” are left on to verify transactions 24/7. These computers are racing to guess the correct hash faster than the rest. The first computer to guess the correct hash receives sometimes tens of thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency.
So why isn’t everyone doing this? You might be thinking. What’s the catch? The catch is, so many people are doing this that the odds are usually slimmer than winning the lottery that you’re going to be the person to guess the hash. This is why people pool their computers together and split the winning between everyone in the pool. This is an almost guaranteed way that you will get paid for mining if you pick a large enough pool. A mining computer usually makes between $1.50-$10.00 per day. You won’t make a living, but it’s a nice passive income stream.
Staking is similar to mining, but it doesn’t require expensive computer equipment. You verify transactions by owning the currency and automatically sending it to yourself again and again. This system differs slightly depending on the currency. The more currency you own, the more powerful your stake is, and the more cryptocurrency you will receive back. This is generally less profitable than mining unless you are already a millionaire, or if you invested while the coin was extremely new and now have millions of dollars worth of the coin.
With a few exceptions, you can’t stake minable coins and you can’t mine staking coins.
What is an Altcoin?
An Altcoin is any cryptocurrency other than Bitcoin. Bitcoin is the behemoth in the cryptocurrency game that every other cryptocurrency is trying to beat. More than 90% of cryptocurrency transactions involve Bitcoin at the time of writing this.
Bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency to ever be released, and like most cryptocurrencies, has never been hacked. Therefor it has the longest track record of never being hacked. This is why the majority of people trust Bitcoin more than anything else.
Some people come up with really wacky ideas for altcoins that ultimately fail. Other people have great ideas and aren’t able to execute, and fail. Out of the thousands of cryptocurrencies, most people aren’t devoting any serious resources to anything not in the top 100 of market capitalization. Others only look at the top 20, or even the top 10.
Investing in cryptocurrencies that have just been released is like investing in penny stocks. Some people get obscenely rich, most lose their shirt. On top of it, since cryptocurrency can’t be regulated, there are a lot of scam coins that only aim to look like they’re the next big thing. They’re usually spotted and delisted on any major platform within a week.
Next, I’m going to talk about some altcoins and why they’re different.
Monero has made a big splash in the cryptocurrency world because it puts its greatest focus on anonymity. Anonymity is a big reason why people love cryptocurrencies and a lot of people agree that Monero is the best at keeping you anonymous.
Ethereum at the time of writing this has a market capitalization of 25 billion and is the number 2 cryptocurrency behind Bitcoin. Ethereum has its own ecosystem of applications that literally anyone can build into.
NEO coin has some weird properties to it that not many people have seen before. For one, a NEO coin is not divisible, you cannot have 1.4 NEO coins, but you can have one NEO coin, two NEO coins, or any whole number o NEO coins. Furthermore as a proof of stake coin, there is a separate coin it pays you in for holding it called NEO GAS. NEO GAS is not worth nearly as much as NEO coin, but it is divisible. NEO coin utilises smart contracts and there are talks of it potentially being backed by the Chinese government which would cause the price to skyrocket.
TRON focuses on the entertainment industry. TRON is a major player at the time of writing this. Historically the entertainment industry doesn’t take a hit during a bad economy. This probably has something to do with why TRON has been so successful.
Then you have the coins that are destined to not really go anywhere like CURE coin. CURE coin is distributed to people who donate their computing power to the folding at home project that cures cancer. While this is a very noble idea, this cryptocurrency will never be widespread because the foundation has nothing to do with money or anything that makes money.
Resources
Cash App:
A place to buy and sell bitcoin for USD.
Exodus Wallet: A wallet where you can exchange one cryptocurrency for another.
Coinbase:
Generally less fees than other places for buying and selling cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin ATM:
An ATM that sells and sometimes buys Bitcoin and Altcoins for normal regulated currency.
Coinmarketcap.com:
A great place to research Bitcoin and Altcoins.
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