I am 61 yrs old and I was introduced to cryptocurrency last December by my son, stephen.king989. It was a great year because now I am on the sailboat I have always dreamed of. I wrote the following note for people at work who are quite skeptical of the whole crypto coin experience. I'm posting it here to share my experience so far with the Steemit community. Please let me know if you find it helpful.
Hey Name
This may seem a bit third-person at the end because I may post it on my Steemit site.
Start here to get your cash converted to Bitcoin. This is the site out of Vancouver where you can move money from a bank account and buy either Bitcoin (BTC) or Etherium (ETH). https://www.quadrigacx.com/ There is a 5% fee for instant interac transfers, but you can transfer back free (but it takes a few business days—or you can pay a fee like you do to bring it into this site).
Bittrex is another exchange I use https://bittrex.com/ because there was a lot of lag on Poloniex given the increase in volumes over the last couple of months. It's easy to use, but most of them have a 2K limit on what you can transfer until you get higher level verification. That usually requires you to send in a photo ID and a picture of you holding the photo ID. It takes week's for Poloniex so far.
August 2017: I added an account on Bitfinex because it is the only site that is trading IOTA (Internet Of Things Application). I bought IOTA at 89 and 98 cents last weekend and in five days it is up to $1.30 ish. Wish I'd bought more, but I'm a pensioner, and not getting a pay cheque yet:). Seriously, this month my Canada Pension is going to IOTA and BTC. I find cat food tasty anyway.
Simple IOTA explanation on YouTube
IOTA, capable of replacing money itself?
This guy is out of Toronto and gives a number of good explanations on blockchain and the tech behind various coins. He gives good advice on getting started and suggests around $500 to get used to it. I got two BTC from Christmas till end Jan (had to buy them in increments on my credit card because I was on the road, and needed verification to move larger than $200 from my bank), and split on up into other coins. I paid $850 and $1100 for both BTC. You know how the split worked for me, but I was lucky.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaPSoa3hoxgouMd8YdlUwXQ
Wirex https://app.wirexapp.com/log-in is the site where you can hold BTC, but also move it to either a digital or actual debit card. I have the card and it worked very nicely. The one I have now is a Master Card, but the company just moved to Visa, so mine is in the mail. [I'm still having issues with the damn Visa card, but they are good to respond to help requests). It was pretty cool to buy a case of beer or a meal, and see it on the card, and to think that it did not come out of my actual bank account, but somewhere in the either-world. There is a small percentage to use the card, but it remains basically invisible.
A wallet I use
https://www.coinpayments.net/register
Another wallet
https://www.coinbase.com/signin
This site leads you to a wallet. https://www.burstnation.com/index.php?disclaimer/
This is the one I bought for 0.00000111 Santosi (fraction of a BTC) and it tripled but is not moving. It is still quite cheap at 0.00000394 Santosi. I'm holding it because I think it has potential, and there is chatter that it is being picked up by one of the biggest online casinos https://www.bitsler.com/index.php as the fifth coin the casino uses. Time will tell. If this one takes off (e.g., hits $2.00, I can buy the 450K condo we rent:) ).
August 2017: Would have worked fine but the casino that added it as the 5th coin went tit's up. I sold most of it at 0.009 cents and now it's down to 0.008. It is mined from PC's so that may have potential but it got shook up bad, so I sold off to buy IOTA. If you are looking at BURST, do more research.
This is a neat lending site https://bitconnect.co/ I put in $220 USD about a month and a half and it's generated $64.96 (as of this morning). I reinvested the first $30 I made, and have just been letting the remained accumulate.
August 2017: I'm still not sure—this site seems to good to be true. I stopped reinvesting and move it over to the sites BCC coin. I got in at around 60 or 80 and now the coins are trading at $150, I am still getting around $10 USD every couple of days from the lending site, that I reinvest in the coin, so if it works fine, but I just can't get my head around it. Who is borrowing from this site?
I also put about $200 in a mining company https://www.genesis-mining.com/
Had this contract for over two months and it has generated about $135 as of the 29th. I get a small fraction of a BTC (around 4-5 USD) per day that goes directly to my Wirex site for my card. I'm mining BTC right now, but will probably change it to ETH. I think it's a 2 year contract and I've made over half that back already. This guy, who I watch regularly, is also skeptical:
You should subscribe to his site. He gives very good explanations of the tech background behind the coins. And like he says, it's not financial advice.
The coins I have:
BTC—were I started
ETH—where I'm really happy to have bought in. I bought in at $40 and it's sitting around $220 USD today. The last ones I bought I held my breath and paid $125 and $130—whew! Read up on the tech behind this one because it's interesting and has big potential by the looks of things. Right now ETH is the second coin behind BTC. The value of my ETH is still down over 2K after the recent down-turn in August. Still, do some research on it on youtube because the tech sounds solid and there are many big corporations prepared to build on this technology.
STEEM from the social medial site https://steemit.com/ that is based on a blockchain. This site is still beta but it's generating. I first wrote a few short stories that made about 20 – 30 USD each, but it's hit-and-miss. I wrote Part III to a story a couple of weekends ago, and I got 10 cents. You can get paid for making comments too. My son has made thousands cranking out work: He draws, writes, photograph etc. You can also buy STEEM. When it came out it was worth around 4 USD, then took a massive downturn. It's on its way back. I bought some at $0.008 and it got up to $1.30 a week ago, and now sits around $1.00. There is a blockchain white-paper on the site, plus all kinds of rooms on crypto etc. It's worth a look.
August: I sold off some STEEM to buy Etherium way back so I'm down to only a couple of thousand, but even with a drop today to $1.38 (CAD) I'm still up $700.
XRP/Ripple This one, I just don't know. I put $100 in because it is linked to major banks. It tripled in a week, then went the other way (after I put in $500 more of course). I think it was $0.35 when I bought it but it has gone down to 18 cents and sits around 22 cents. I'd keep an eye on it, but can't say I'd recommend it. The links to banks has people nervous. Worth reading up on though. I'm holding the bloody thing now just to see what happens.
August: Still have this coin, because I just don't know. Today it's at $.020 (CAD) , so I'm down $74 in value. The linkage to major banks is counter to the whole crypto currency things, yet major financial institutions are not starting to flog cryptocurrency.
Stratus https://stratisplatform.com/ I just got some of this last night (Spring 2017) because I read about the technology, and it was on its way up. I put in around $400 from my BTC holdings just to see where it goes. That got me 71 coins. After the massive gains yesterday (it doubled before I bought it) I expect it will adjust down before regaining ground again.
August: The technology remains solid but there have not been big gains.
So that is everything I know about crypto currency:)
Like gambling (which I don't do apart from the routine lottery tickets) I went in with just a little and was prepared for the worse case of losing it all. That has not happened so I'm very encouraged. Now I've just ordered a “cold” wallet so I can get the coins out of the virtual wallets and onto a device. Rosic explains that too:
I just ordered a Trezor for $160 CDN from amazon.ca
https://trezor.io/?h=626974636f696e7472657a6f722e636f6d
I think I'll feel better when I get most of my coin moved onto a device.
August: got it, but never moved my coins to it—been sailing. Revising this note has been the most work I've done on Crypto since June.
So in summary, I'm a senior citizen that stephen.king989 on Steemit introduced me to the whole cryptocurrency world. He's on Steemit at https://steemit.com/@stephen.king989
I would not be spending my time this summer on my own sailboat without his advice and direction on cryptocurrency.