Hello visitor. Thanks that you lost the way and now reading my article. If you want to skip boring intro, I would like to ask you to just scroll to the "Interesting part" paragraph ;) I will share my experiences with cryptocurrency and describe some ways how to get some. And would like to ask you to forgive me if you will find some mistakes in my English.
Boring intro
This article is made mainly for beginners into the cryptocurrency world. If you would like to start and do not know how, I am going to try to give you a brief overview, to help you to make your own opinion about cryptos and how to get some coins and how to enjoy the crazy world of alt coins.
I decided to share my experiences about cryptos and about how I tried to find the way how to get some for free or make a some profit. I tried many options, like PTC sites, faucets, even some betting services or investment into promising coins. I would like to share my experience with you, if you think how to get “easy money” or think about how to become a millionaire.
First of all, do not expect, that it will be easy. And honestly rather do not expect nothing big. If it would be easy, every one would be a millionaire. You would need huge amount of good luck to achieve that and some time to take a risk. Even though I was lucky and got into cryptocurrency world quite soon, I did not take a big risk with amounts of money I give into that, so I do not own houses, planes or something like that. I think the rule “do not invest what you can not afford to loose” is what you should follow, but it is up to you ;)
And who am I, and why you should read my comments? I am software developer, I spent last two and half year with project focused on providing Bitcoin services, which means something like web application, where you can buy or sell Bitcoins, provide payments into fiat currency etc. and I am big crypto fan. But honestly, that's not important. I was lucky I got into that crazy world before it started rising as hell and I had a chance to discover a few interesting projects. But it is not a reason, I guess the only reason is, if you want to have another opinion about crypto connected stuff, nothing more.
I also discussed with many people about crypto, and my advise is, do not take anything as 100% truth (even me, I am trying to stay objective, but I am only human and some opinion may be biased, just let me know in comments). I will not give here investment advises (because all predictions are nothing than just guesses), I just want to share my experience and my own opinion about stuff I will describe, but I recommend you to take it just as on of many opinions and to do your own research to confirm or to refuse my words, i.e. I read many times that Bitcoin is dead, once I read article from one of former core devs, I believe it was in January in 2016, and now, it is all time high. So, make my own opinion is what I follow.
When we are talking about coins, we need to store them somewhere. There are many options like, like paper wallets, hardware wallets, online wallets, mobile wallets or desktop wallets. Every has its own pros and cons. You can also find some multicurrency wallets like Exodus, Coinomi or Jaxx, which are very popular. If you are beginner, I would recommend you some light wallet like those above or another is i.e. Electrum where you do not need to download whole blockchain. I will make a little overview of wallets in one of later posts.
Last thing what I will mention is where to find news about your favorite coins. First of all, I have to mention twitter. It is the best place to get latest news, but beware of hoax. Following official channels is the best to stay updated. I tried Mastodon too, but I had no luck to find something as useful as on twitter. Of course Reddit is good place too, you can find various topic about each coin and discuss with other people form the community. Some coins supports Slack or Telegram, so you might join there, but it is more to be in touch with the community and there are lot of crap. Also there are great Youtube channels, I really like are these two channels Boxminig and Ivan on Tech . And good price overview provides coinmarketcap.com OK, that was enough for now and lets get straight to more interesting stuff.
Interesting part
Here I will introduce a few ways how to get Bitcoins or other alt coins and my experience with those ways, So, lets start.
Faucets
When I discovered Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, I found out that there are even options how to get some for free. The most common way is by faucets. When you fill captcha, you will get some small reward, honestly, very small. The interval between clicks might differ, but usually it is something about one hour or even day. Which is not much profitable.
What can help you is something what is called faucet rotators. They aggregate earnings from faucets joined into that and when you finished one it can offer you another one. So you do not need to wait too long, but again, earnings are very low. And rotators might take some provision for their services, like I do not know, i.e. 10% of your earnings. What can make it interesting is affiliate programs and get earnings from yours referrals. You will get some % of their earnings and do not need to click anymore (it depends on the conditions of the rotator). Which is cool, but you have to find these users which will work for you and make some investments, with not guaranteed result. I am going to describe some faucets a rotators in next post “Alt coins on the Internet: Part I: Faucets”.
PTC sites
Something similar are PTC sites. Which means Pay To Click. You are paid a small reward when you watch ads. These ads might be anything. Even for getting referrals for another PTC sites or faucet rotators. My experience is that you can earn a small amount without referrals, but you usually spent a lot of time for a small amount of reward. These sites are not oriented for crypto only, but mostly for USD, EUR, RUB or GBP. I found even one site were you were paid for listening music, I tried that, in one month I made around 0.5 GBP (wow).
I took it more as fun and exploration of things I did not know. My opinion for that is that very few people can make a good profit form that. Usually they owners of that sites and you will loose your time there. But it is interesting to see people who try to get you there to make you think you will earn big money, but finally you make it for them. On the other hand if you have good social skills, it might be way for you. Those sites will be described in “Alt coins on the Internet: Part II: PTC sites”.
Online Betting
If you are fan of bwin.com and sport, would not be awesome to join a site with the same services but which would be oriented on crypto? Or what about to have an online casino? Well, I am fan of sport and from time to time I try my luck, but honestly, I did not bet more than 1 USD on the ticket :D
Actually there are many providers of that, but it is hard to reveal scams. Once I saw casino with jackpot which was 141 000 000 BTC, which is pretty impressive when expected amount of BTC might be around 21 000 000. Never mind marketing is marketing. I will share my experience with that in another post “Alt coins on the Internet: Part III: Online Betting”.
Freebit.co.in
Freebit.co.in is faucet, but it provides many other services, so, I decided to share it with you in its own post. Instead of faucet, it provides lottery, Hi-Lo gambling game or option to earn an interest for holding BTCs there. I will describe it in more detail in “Alt coins on the Internet: Part IV: Freebit.co.in”.
Exchanges
In my opinion the best way how to purchase cryptos. I will share my experiences with some exchanges and will try to introduce pros and cons what I see there. If you are total beginner, do not be scared, I will describe how they work and how to get what you want. It is easy as online shopping. I will show it in post “Alt coins on the Internet: Part V: Exchanges”
ICO: Initial coin offering
This is the phenomenon of recent time. It is something like paying for trust. Not always, but usually it is projects on the start of their journey and they tries to get funds for development to reach their projects aims and ideas. It might be great investment or great loose of your money.
In short, it is about buying tokens or futures, of the new project when you can expect rise of their price, if the project will become successful. There were many successful projects even older, like Ethereum or newer like Stratis, but do not forget that you will hear mostly about successful ICOs rather then tons of fails. I will try to make a brief intro into ICOs in post called “Alt coins on the Internet: Part VI: Initial Coin Offerings”.
Wallets
In the last post of this mini series I would like to focus on wallets. There are many options how to store your crypto. I would introduce different types of wallets and would share my experience with them and make some reviews or compare reviews available on the the Internet. I will come in post “Alt coins on the Internet: Part VII: Wallets”.
So I hope you will enjoy this brief series and will enjoy the world of cryptocurrencies. I am looking forward for your feedback and comments. See you in post “Alt coins on the Internet: Part I: Faucets”