Ok, where were we? Yes, cryptos. I looked into Bitcoins and find out that it is now just 1 of around 800 cryptocurrencies, with more and more joining the party every day. The other big dog in the kennel is Ethereum. Ethereum is different in the sense that it is not a digital currency, like Bitcoins. Ethereum is a platform that runs smart contracts (don't ask me to explain that because I still can't just yet) using blockchain technology, which is the same foundation that Bitcoins was built on.
To say that all this was overwhelming is a huge understatement. I'm not a programmer so the theory behind blockchain technology and smart contracts and proof of stake etc was a bit mind boggling. All I cared about was the fact that I could make some money doing this. If done right (and if you are really lucky) you can make a boat load of money. So my journey started.
My first question: How can I buy some bitcoins? Sounds easy right? Generally yes, but living in Ghana, West Africa makes that a bit more tricky. I had to first find a website that would accept my credit card. Not many sites accept credit cards from Ghana for obvious reasons. The sites that do accept my card didn't have the greatest customer feedback or had really high transaction fees so it took me a good week to find a site worth trying. I finally found NetCents. They are a relatively small exchange that let you buy either Bitcoins or Ethers (Ethereum coins). Their fees are also quite high but I was desperate to own my first Bitcoin so I gave them a try. They accepted my credit card details easily enough so I was happy about that. They had a few kinks but their IT guys were pretty decent with communicating and sorting that out so all in all not bad. I bought $10.00 worth of BTC (really exciting) and $4.00 worth of ETH. All in all relatively smooth.
To be continued......