Steemit

Aug 09 2017

11 Ways to Get Started Now

Just like anything else, at first the whole concept of Bitcoin, the Blockchain, and cryptocurrencies can seem really overwhelming.

Imagine walking into a shopping plaza in a foreign country, not speaking the language, and not really knowing what any of the products are. That’s this space…at first.

But once you get the hang of some of the concepts, it’s not that bad. Really.

In that vein, we present a post that could actually be an ebook. It’s called 11 Ways to Get Started Now.

DISCLOSURE: some of the links on this page are AFFILIATE LINKS, and we’ll do our best to blatantly identify them as AFFILIATE LINKS. That means we may be compensated if you set up an account or make a purchase.

Here goes:

1. Get a Coinbase Account

Let’s face it, there are really two big categories of Bitcoin users: the hardcore ones – mining rigs in their basements, wallets on all sorts of machines, exhaustive lists of which coins are PoS and which are PoW – and there are those who just tuned out at everything you just read.

If you’re in that second camp, Coinbase is for you. (THAT’S AN AFFILIATE LINK.)

(If you’re in that first camp, you might actually have started with a Coinbase account, but you don’t want to admit it.)

Coinbase offers the most silly simple service you can use to get into Bitcoin – or Ethereum or Litecoin; those are their three currencies as of right now – and you can link it through a US bank account or a credit card. (We are based in the US, so we

Note that Coinbase will actually give you a bonus of $10 worth of Bitcoin when you set up an account, so using our link actually benefits you as much as it benefits us. (But it probably benefits you MORE than it benefits us, since you are now “in the game.”)

2. Transfer some of your funds to one of our three favorite exchanges

First, let’s explain an “exchange” vs. a wallet/purchase platform such as Coinbase. Simply put, exchanges where you can trade cryptocurrencies are like stock exchanges were you buy and sell stocks.

Dozens of exchanges are out there, but we have so far only used three:

Poloniex. We used this one first. “Polo” is based in the USA. Most of the largest coins by market capitalization are traded here.
Bittrex. We started using this one a month or so after we started with Poloniex. It, too, is based in the USA. If you hear about a “small cap altcoin” (small market capitalization, alternative to Bitcoin) that isn’t traded on Polo, it might be traded on “Trex.”
Cryptopia. THAT’S AN AFFILIATE LINK. It’s based in New Zealand, so if you want to feel all exotic, trade there. Speaking of exotic, we’ve got a decent chunk of small cap altcoins over there. “Topia” is their common abbreviation.

Ask people about their experiences with these and you might get a varying degree of answers; our own experience has been just fine.

3. Get a Steemit account…get paid to blog?

I’ll admit, this is the most fun I’ve had with any site since the early days of Twitter. Steemit is pretty cool – you’ll find all sorts of people there, with all sorts of interests.

It’s a social network that is powered by a cryptocurrency of its own, Steem. You’re given a certain amount of “voting power” and you earn more power through more interactions. It can get a little complicated, but suffice it to say you can start to see some results – a few dollars here and a few dollars there.

I don’t do it for the money, though – I’m there to trade ideas with others, and to find out what folks are thinking a bout a variety of topics.

4. Investigate coins at CoinMarketCap

CoinMarketCap.com, or CMC, is the leading site for getting a snapshot of what is happening with cryptocurrencies. Pretty much all of them are listed here, they’re ranked by market cap, you can see what’s trending up or down or sideways.

Here’s where you can keep track of the Crypto Unicorns (those coins with a market cap of $1 Billion or more), all the way down to the tiny market cap coins that, again, seem to dominate our Cryptopia account.

5. Start Lending at Bitconnect

We did a pretty big write-up on this one last week. That write-up includes several AFFILIATE LINKS, but if you want to cut to the chase and just get started, here’s an actual banner ad you can click on.

In our post the other day, which we tried to make “warts and all” in nature, we did mention our skepticism around this lending platform. As with ANYTHING in this space, remember to do your own research, to seek the advice of tax professionals and accountants, and to not invest more than you can afford to lose.

We still consider Bitconnect to be rather speculative in nature; but we’ve also studied the coin behind the solution, and it has a large market cap ($540 million-plus) and we don’t think the coin itself is going anywhere.

6. Lock up some coins in DOT at Cryptopia

If you tend to be impetuous with your trades, you might want to consider cooling off a little – and one way to do that is to lock some coins down in an interest-bearing coin such as DOT, which helps to fuel Cryptopia. (AFFILIATE LINK over there.) For a minimum term of 90 days, you can receive interest at 0.5%, compounded monthly, with higher rates for longer-term deposits.

Once you’re on Cryptopia, you’ll need to mouse over “More” and then “Term Deposits.”

7. Buy a Trezor, store your coins offline

We love this little device so much that we joined its AFFILIATE PROGRAM (here’s the link).

What you’re doing is moving the keys for the coins you own (that are supported by Trezor) over into cold storage, on a device that you own that can’t be corrupted.

If you have a decent amount of coins, you’ll want to explore Trezor.

8. Invest in an ICO

With all the news surrounding ICOs, you wonder why we have this so far down the list. Well, ICO investing is A LOT of WORK. You want to research them thoroughly, and you’re still making a leap of faith.

Hands down, ICO Countdown is the best service for this.

We’ve got an okay track record so far getting involved in ICOs, but one thing that gets in our way as an American site is that we’re Americans. Some ICOs won’t let you participate if you’re an American citizen or even an American expat living abroad.

9. Visit the Bitcoin news sites

The ones that we like the most are Coindesk and CoinTelegraph. Both may, at first, seem over your head. That’s okay. We’ve got to start somewhere.

10. Set up an Automatic Investment Program

This is one of those super-simple ways to “set it and forget it.” Just hop on over to Coinbase and, when buying your next batch of Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Litecoin, ask to repeat that purchase daily, weekly, every two weeks, or monthly.

You’re “averaging in,” or “dollar cost averaging” your crypto purchases, so that’s another way to smooth out your returns and your risk.

11. Think about a Bitcoin IRA

Yes, that’s a thing. Bitcoin IRA is the world’s first and we’re sharing this link as a public service – we’re not in their affiliate program and we haven’t gone this route ourselves. Yet.

You can search and find a few other links – some ads, some not – but, in our limited investigation of these, this appears to be the best and most reputable service.

Wow. 11 Ways to Get Started. We’re exhausted now, so we’re going to take a break. But you…you should really consider getting started…look around and consider getting into the Bitcoin game.

Jul 19 2017

Ten Days Later: How About Those Five Coins for Bargain Hunters?

Earlier in my business career, I worked for a company that was part of a paradigm shift of sorts – in the way that health care plans were delivered to corporations. Then, the “high-deductible plan” was foreign. Now, these things are everywhere.

The company I worked for was in the unique position of trying these plans out on a few of their employees, and these same employees would report back to prospective companies “warts and all” on the pluses and minuses of using these plans.

The saying at the company was pretty simple:

We eat our own dog food.

In that spirit, I’ve decided to “eat my own dog food;” or, more accurately, share an update on the “Five Coins for Bargain Hunters” that we told you about ten short days ago.

Why am I doing this?

One of the things I’ve noticed in this emerging cryptocurrency trading and investment space is that analysts, coin-pickers, token fans and others are extremely quick to tell you when they went 10x or better on a pick. But they’re awfully slow to tell you about those errors in their ways. I’d rather do this “warts and all” – you can’t take this site seriously if all we do is share our winners.

A Lot Has Happened In 10 Days

Just this afternoon, word broke of a huge theft of Ether from unsecured wallets – a potential huge blow to a coin that is serving as the backbone of so many ICOs.

And this is after price drops in what we call our BRED Portfolio.

This same portfolio, you may recall, was $224,000-plus just 18 days ago.

So…those five coins…where are they now, and would we still buy them?

And before we share this update, this disclaimer. DYOR means “Do Your Own Research.” In other words, we like our ideas, but you are at your own risk if you decided to invest in any or all of these. We are not responsible for any losses. Don’t invest more than you can afford to lose.

Library Credits – LBC

Ten days ago: accumulate at the 17-18K Satoshi range.
Today’s price: 12910 Sats.
Recommendation: Still a BUY.

This is one of those long-term plays. I don’t plan on swing trading this one, am more thinking that it has the potential to be very much like YouTube for a wide variety of content. I’m still bullish; accumulation at this price point could pay some serious dividends down the road.

Steem – STEEM

Ten days ago: accumulate up to 60K Sats.
Today’s price: 50K Sats.
Recommendation: STRONG BUY.

We give this a “STRONG BUY” in ALL CAPS because we’re in love with the platform and spend at least an hour a day there. It has engagement that’s off the charts and it reminds us – as we have said before here – of the early days of Twitter. Except you can potentially profit from it, unlike Twitter.

Give it some time, though. Some pundits are suggesting a price of $10 – which would mean growth of 8x where it is now, and would also put it into the crypto unicorn club, as its market cap is around $250m right now.

Stratis – STRAT

Ten days ago: accumulate up to 200K Sats.
Today’s price: 175K Sats.
Recommendation: STRONG BUY.

Actually, this appears to be the one coin that could benefit the most from the one-two punch of Bitcoin’s Hard Fork/Segwit uncertainty, and Ether’s afternoon follies from today.

Yesterday, it actually went above 200K, and it’s only down around 5% today. We love the project and are HODLing this coin.

Antshares – ANS

Ten days ago: accumulate at 285K Sats.
Today’s price: 260K Sats.
Recommendation: STRONG BUY.

Okay, why are three of these five coins now STRONG BUYS in ALL CAPS after ten days of tumult? Simple – these are good projects. Though I was corrected on Steemit by a friend who suggested that Antshares is actually the Chinese Ethereum and not the Chinese Bitcoin, I still stand by it. And you want some variety in your holdings – known as “hedging” – so having some exposure to Asian markets is a really good idea.

Bitshares – BTS

Ten days ago: accumulate at 8000 Sats.
Today’s price: 4700 Sats.
Recommendation: HOLD.

This is the most “meh” of our picks. I’m not going out of my way to pick more up, and I’m possibly going to become a “bagholder” here.

BUT…it could pop again – it’s below its one-month highs of 12,000 Sats. It’s just not a project I am in love with, so I’m giving it a HOLD recommendation.

Next Steps?

Well, similar to the others we talk about here, we’ll keep watching these as they emerge. There will likely be more blog posts like this one down the road.

And we’ll keep eating our own dog food.

Jul 09 2017

Five Coins for Bargain Hunters

Happy weekend, party people!

Oh, not the happiest of weekends? Red numbers got you down? Been watching the crypto markets a little too closely? Afraid of becoming a bagholder?

Fret not, we’re here with an idea or two (or five): coins that might fall into bargain hunter territory.

First up, though, a word or two (or fifty) on some of the big boys and their performance during the past week.

Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin Holding Their Own

It’s been interesting to watch the scuttlebutt and listen to the pontificators asking about what August 1 – when Bitcoin’s big Segwit situation gets sorted out – will do to the BTC price. And it’s also been interesting to hear what the thinking is on Ethereum and the ICO marketplace and the fact that tons of coins seem to be getting tons of money out of nowhere, all built, it seems, on the Ethereum platform or raising money in Ether. And whether Litecoin does anything huge in the interim.

BUT…all three seem fine.

While BTC has stabilized in price at around 2500, we should note that, while both LTC and ETH are also stable, there’s a bit of a difference in where ETH is relative to its 2-week range.

BTC: High of 2720, Low of 2168. It’s a range up/down of 552. Its current price is right around 58% of its range. Close to that Fibonacci level of 61.8%.
LTC: High of 55.40, Low of 32.37. Range up/down is 22 bucks, and its current price is at 68% of its range. Sticking around there for a little while, maybe…
ETH, however: High of 318, Low of 204. Range up/down is 114. Right now, it’s at around 31% of its range. Key Fibonacci levels are 23.6% and 38.2% – 31% is right at the middle.

UPSHOT: WATCH THE ETH PRICE. Watch for support either above or below those percentages: 230.79 on the low end, 247.75 on the way up. These could be good levels to buy on the way up, or to sell on the way down.

Now, let’s return to the regular programming.

Five Coins for Bargain Hunters

1. Library Credits – LBC

Open source YouTube competitor? Democratized payouts? Sounds just a little like Steemit to me.

But I’m game on the product – if you want to sign up on the wait list, you can use this referral link to do so, and we might move up in the line. But then again, you’ll get your own referral link and you might move up in the line, too.

From an *INVESTMENT* standpoint, though, this one, we think, has some serious potential. Here’s why:

It launched in July of 2016 at north of 120,000 Sats. Then it popped – heading to 280,000 Sats before coming back to Earth. Then it stuck around in the four-digit Satoshi level until May of this year, and flirted with 25,000 Satoshis until recently.

The reason for its climb of late: it’s starting to come into its own as an actual site with merit – not just as a coin that could have potential. In other words, past its growing pains as a startup, it’s now ready for prime time.

You can get LBC for around 17-18,000 Sats. Anywhere below 20,000 might be good to accumulate.

2. Steem – STEEM

Steem is the coin. Steemit is the platform. Steem can be converted to Steem Dollars, too.

I’m on this platform daily and, to be honest, I don’t totally “get” it yet. HOWEVER, I see it moving northward from here, and I’ll give you three reasons why:

Controlled, stable growth. Despite the fact that the site is adding around 5000 users a day of late, the site still only has somewhere in the neighborhood of 250,000 users worldwide.
Active community that gets paid for content. I haven’t profited much from the site just yet, but, to be honest, that’s not why I’m there yet. I’m there because it feels a lot like the early days of Twitter to me. Less negativity, and more content to sink your teeth into.
Bagholders that need the site to come back. Yes, I said that out loud – quite a few people are there because they were on the site early, had tons of coins when they were worth 500-650,000 Satoshis each. They now trade at 60,000 or so – with recent highs of 80,000 Sats.

60-80,000 Satoshis would still be a bargain when compared to last year’s prices. The question is whether it will get busy enough to head into 100K territory and beyond.

BTW, sign up for an account now. Go to Steemit for more details.

3. Stratis – STRAT

How could a coin that has gone up from 7300 to 171,000 be a bargain?

Well, this coin’s team has hit pretty much every development milestone. In fact, 171,000 is today’s price; 435,000 was the price just six weeks ago.

We think the recent pullback is mostly because of the overall market pullback.

It’s also an “enterprise platform coin” – in other words, the coin/token fuels the platform for corporate and enterprise clients. So those big corporates looking to get into the blockchain can – and do – call up the Stratis people and say yo.

Say yo yourself at somewhere below 200,000 Sats.

4. Antshares – ANS

It’s the Chinese Bitcoin.

Full stop.

It has gone from 15,000 Sats to 367,000 Sats – 24x – before pulling back to 285,000 or so today.

If there’s one project that could potentially have another 24x up its sleeve before the end of the year, this one may be it.

5. Bitshares – BTS

This is a mysterious platform – to me at least – and it has been around for nearly three years. Most mysterious: the price now is around what the price was in late Summer 2014.

This looks a little like Stratis and a little like Ripple and a little like…well, it’s kinda sorta an enterprise blockchain thing meets a trading platform.

That price, tho: 13,000 Sats a couple months ago, 6000-range now.

Considering we’re now below where the coin was in September of 2014, you might consider accumulating up to 8000 Sats.

Final Thoughts:

Remember, do your own research. We’re not responsible for any gains or losses. Seek professional counsel for things like legal and tax ramifications. Stay woke.

Jun 22 2017

The $1000, 5-Coin Challenge

We’re back with what we think will be a fun post. We’re issuing a challenge – and we’ll track our own hypothetical results on this site. Think you can beat us? Share your ideas and comments below.

The $1000, 5-Coin Challenge

We’ve been doing a TON of research here – yes, we’re launching a couple products, so stay tuned for those – and we’re learning a whole bunch about some…let’s say…”emerging” coins. Below-the-radar picks that could take off – or could completely fizzle.

And, with all the attention given to ICOs and token launches, we bet that, once the dust settles, people will go back to “established” coins (post-ICO, or ones that launched a few years ago, or ones that have just been languishing a little) to try to give their portfolio a “pop.”

To participate in the challenge – which you can do with play money or real money, totally up to you – you must select one coin from each of the following categories:

CATEGORY A: 5-digit market cap (as measured by CoinMarketCap.com, we’ll use June 22 figures, but you can use them the day you start)
CATEGORY B: 6-digit market cap
CATEGORY C: 7-digit market cap
CATEGORY D: 8-digit market cap
CATEGORY E: 9-digit market cap – BUT must be UNDER $200,000,000.

You’ll “invest” or actually invest $200 in each.

See what we’re doing here? Trying to get out of our own comfort zone – and also trying to go after speculative and/or distressed assets.

Ready for our picks?

Category A: ERY – Eryllium

We told you we’ve learned a lot over the past few weeks – and Eryllium was a new one for us. TINY market cap – $75,000-ish – and it’s only trading at 700 or so Satoshis. They claim faster transactions, global capabilities, security, and lower fees.

The coin hasn’t cratered this year – it dropped from 1500 or so Satoshis at the beginning of the year, but it’s not in the double-digit Satoshi “danger zone” so that’s a good thing – and they have eight different wallets available. Trades on Cryptopia, among others.

Category B: TOR – Torcoin

Yes, that sounds like Tor the private browser platform thing…but it’s not technically affiliated with Tor the private browser platform thing. However, all the features of Torcoin sound like all the features of Tor the browser.

Market cap of somewhere around $115,000. It’s a bargain in the grand scheme – but, as with everything on this list, if you’re investing with real money, don’t invest more than you can afford to lose.

In other words, for us this is probably the most speculative of the five coins we’ll use in this challenge. Even more so than Eryllium. But there’s a chance that a renewed interest in privacy could cause this one to pop.

Trades on Cryptopia, among others.

Category C: CRB – Creditbit (or Credit 2.0)

Rebuilt on Ethereum at the beginning of the year, Creditbit has, in our view, real potential. 30,000 Satoshis is the recent price, trading at 1/5 of its level a couple months ago.

It’s a DAO – Decentralized Autonomous Organization – and there’s a bunch of interest in that concept, too – not just from the ETC/ETH split, but also from the success of Dash.

You can trade it on Bittrex and Livecoin – we have yet to use Livecoin, though, so can’t vouch for it yet.

Category D: GOLOS – Golos

I knew NOTHING about this – NOTHING – until I went to the Golos website.

We translated it from Russian – Thanks, Google! – but, we gotta tell ya…

Golos is the Russian Steemit.

Most of its volume is on Bittrex and it’s trading at about 4000 Satoshis. Russians appear to be adopting blockchain platforms rather quickly when compared to the rest of the world, so this one is worth a shot.

Category E: NXT – Nxt

We’ve owned Nxt before, and now we’ll get into it again. We think it looks enough like XRP that we’re jumping in at this level – even though it’s higher than where it was when we first bought it. Today, around 6700 Satoshis; but we owned it at 3000 (then sold because it wasn’t going anywhere).

Trades on all the major exchanges, including Poloniex.