Bitcoin as Future
Most likely you have heard about Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies
in the news, but you are not sure what all is about. Most likely you do not want
to know more because you think it is risky games, where mostly teens are involved.
What you heard is partially true. Most people are not in the business, and the
cryptocurrencies market is extremely volatile. Think about penny stocks.
But, if you want to feel young again, and get a glimpse of
what these teenagers are crazy about, get more information and create your
personal opinion. Furthermore, you may invest in cryptocurrencies your funds,
time, and efforts, or just time and efforts if you do not like to fund risky enterprises.
If you want to know my opinion, cryptocurrency is the future
if the financial system, no matter how hard the banking system will try to
suppress it through legal, financial, or economic channels. However, the coins
you will get now, may bring you outstanding returns in the future. Or, may not…
As usual, it is recommended to invest only the funds you can afford to lose in
the worst case.
One of the indicators that bitcoin future is bright is the
fact that the “smart” investors put more and more money on the table. The
amount of venture capital raised by bitcoin startups for less than 6 months in
2014 has already surpassed the total amount raised in 2013 by more than $27m.
“It is pretty much the highest-risk, highest-return
investment that you can possibly make,” said Barry Silbert, founder and CEO of
SecondMarket and founder of Bitcoin Investment Trust, during a MarketWatch
Investing Insights event titled “Bitcoin: boom and bust,” held recently in New
York.
What is Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is a new currency that was created in 2009 by an
unknown person using the alias Satoshi Nakamoto. Transactions are made with no
middle men – meaning, no banks! There are no transaction fees and no need to
give your real name. More merchants are beginning to accept them: You can buy
webhosting services, pizza or even manicures.
Bitcoins can be used to buy merchandise anonymously. In
addition, international payments are easy and cheap because bitcoins are not
tied to any country or subject to regulation. Small businesses may like them
because there are no credit card fees. Some people just buy bitcoins as an
investment, hoping that they’ll go up in value.
1. Mine Bitcoins
People compete to “mine” bitcoins using computers to solve complex math puzzles. This is how bitcoins are created. However, the complexity of the puzzles grew up significantly from the early stages, therefore, you may not rely on your standard computer performing the profitable operations. There are special hardware modifications, performed to increase the efficiency of mining, however, the hardware upgrade is pretty expensive. So, taking in account higher electricity bills, and relative complexity of the settings for people, who was born before the digital age, that may not be the way you will acquire your first coins.
Bitcoin mining is the process by which new Bitcoins are
originated. When you perform mining, your computer adds new Bitcoin
transactions to the block chain (a public ledger where all Bitcoin transactions
are saved) and searches for new blocks. A block is a file that has the most
recent Bitcoin transactions recorded. When your computer discovers a new block
you receive a certain number of Bitcoins.
If you want to earn Bitcoins through mining be aware that it
is a costly and time consuming process. Read the respective introductions and
manuals to learn more about it. Unless you are mining just out of curiosity and
want to get to know the technology it is important to make a cost benefit
analysis. As said, hardware prices, electricity costs and the Bitcoin value
influence the profitability of Bitcoin mining.
2. Buy/Trade Bitcoins
If you plan to invest in bitcoins, find one of the special marketplaces
called “bitcoin exchanges” which will allow you to buy or sell bitcoins using
different currencies. If you believe, at some point in the future, the
price will significantly rise, you make buy and keep your coins as long-term
investment.
Similar to stocks day-trading, you may consider the same
approach in relation to Bitcoins. Due to the high volatility and not always
immediately consolidated pricing, which may be different at various exchanges, you
may have an excellent opportunity for short-term trading.
Some people would say that trading is a form of gambling.
While there these two things have something in common, there are also
fundamental differences. When you gamble (and assuming that it's a fair game)
you have a certain probability of winning and losing. When you trade assets,
this gets much more complex.
The safest way to make money with trading is through
arbitrage. In short, this means that you see an opportunity to buy an asset in
one place for a certain price and sell it immediately at another place for a
higher price. It is important that you know you can sell the asset immediately
at a certain price. Id this does not hold, then we are talking of speculation -
or gambling as you like. The Bitcoin world, in my opinion offers such arbitrage
opportunities. But they are not as simple to execute as it might seem at first
sight. Price differences between exchanges often come for certain reasons. That
would be speed of fiat money transfers and access restrictions. You have to
find out the concrete opportunities yourself. Also, not every opportunity is
available to everyone. Go and have a look at the price differences between
exchanges and find out if you also see opportunities or not.
The other way to earn Bitcoins from trading is simple
speculation. In this case you would buy Bitcoins, wait until the price
increases, then sell for a fiat currency and buy more Bitcoins once the price
drops again. For this to work out you either need to be very lucky or capable
of predicting the future. There are people who are good traders and who can
recognize patterns from price charts. But that's something very specialized and
I'm not sure if I believe in this. So for me, if you want to earn Bitcoins from
this form of trading it could also be categorized as gambling. And actually
it's even more risky if you compare it to a fair game where you know your odds.
When you speculate with assets, you can extract your odds from historical
prices, but never start believing this would tell you something about the
future.
There are recently installed the cash machines where you can
buy bitcoins directly using cash or credit card. The pictures ago show one of
such machines installed a months ago in Silicon Valley, California.
3. Earn free Bitcoins
There are many websites which offer you to earn free
Bitcoins. With most of these sites, the concept is that you visit the site and
just for looking at it you get a small amount of Bitcoins. The concept has
something in common with watching good old free TV. You watch a lot of ads and
in between you get something you actually want to see, like a film or music
clips. Usually, you have to prove you actually visited the site by filling the
so-called captcha – code to prove you are human, and not computer program,
trained to visit websites and collect rewards. The sites are frequently called
as “faucets”.
I have prepared a list of the best sites, where you can
actually earn Bitcoins with no monetary spending. Note that the base unit of
Bitcoin (0.00000001 BTC) is sometimes called satoshi, after legendary Bitcoin's
creator Satoshi Nakamoto.
Best Multi-Faucets Aggregators
One of the most useful Bitcoin faucets, representing faucet
itself, faucet aggregator, and more features.
Some of the current features include:
- Once you opened the faucet you will get small amount of
free Bitcoin every minute from built-in faucet. If faucet is not opened
automatically, you may open it manually clicking on blue button.
- Easy way to collect free Bitcoins from multiple working
faucets. No need to remember the allowed visit frequency, the site will show
only the services, which you can collect money from. Usually, the better paying
services are listed first for your convenience.
- The total earning range is 1 to 1,000 satoshis, depending
on particular faucet.
- Works fine on mobile devices.
- Aggregator also filters the faucets with nasty pop-ups and
chronically not paying faucets.
Some of the faucets in the system have the minimal amount to
be accumulated before it can be paid, for other, the compensation goes instantly
to the micro-transaction sites, like Microwallet (payment threshold 5,800
satoshi) or CoinBox (payment
threshold 5,500 satoshi). You do not need to open new accounts there, and your
payment will be sent to your regular BTC wallet as soon as the threshold is
reached.
2. VisitBit
VisitBit is a multi-faucet, where you need to spend some
time on the displayed page. It might be from 10 seconds to 1 minute. The amount
of compensation depends on the length of time, site is displayed. After you
visit all available sites for the day, you may be asked to come back later,
since no more unwatched ads remain. Earning automatically and instantly adds up
to Microwallet account after each visit.
3. BitVisitor
BitVisitor gives you free bitcoins after you input your
Bitcoin address, solve a verbal captcha, keep a website open during 5 minutes
and click a green "Next" button.
The incentives are from 100 satoshi to up to 12,000 satoshi.
Payments are generated and sent automatically as soon as the
accumulated amount is higher than 60,000 satoshi.
Best Single Bitcoin Faucets
I am also posting several single faucets, offering descent
compensation, but not captured by the multi-faucets at time of writing.
Feed the zebra and win up to 1000 satoshi every hour. You
got an equal chance to get 100, 200, 300, 400, or 1000 satoshi. In addition,
you get a chance to multiply your winnings through Zebra Multiplier.
Referral program is available (about 50% rate depending on
number of referrals). Direct payments once a week - every Sunday, as soon as
amount exceeds 5,500 satoshi.
2. Bitcoinker
A new Bitcoin Faucet is worth to play with as it offers an
average payout of 200 satoshi with submission frequency once an hour. You will
get paid instantly to your Microwallet.org account.
Available prizes are 100, 200, and 300 satoshi, with an
equal chance of each! You may earn 25% lifetime commission for referring your
friends and colleagues to Bitcoinker, using your referral URL.
3. Freebitcoinz
Earn 2,000 BTC a day through simple to use straightforward
faucet. As soon you enter, post the Wallet ID and solve the captcha below the
Congratulations! Balance will show up in the pop-up window in the right bottom
corner of the screen. Then, scroll down the page slightly and locate CLICK HERE
immediately after the following text:
“Want more Free Bitcoins?
Earn an additional 1000 Satoshi simply for clicking the link
below!”
Solve the captcha and earn 1000 more satoshi.
Earnings will be sent to you on Saturday as soon as you
reach 0.001 BTC
Referral program is available. You will automatically earn
50% of the income from every person who joins through your referral link, and
that includes all their earnings on this site.
Earn free bitcoins by scratching on the four bitcoin images
on the ticket. If you match both numbers, you win! Play hourly, compensation up
to 1,000, instant payment. In any case, if you don’t win, you get 100.
5. BTCRock
BTC faucet with unique mining interface where your minimum
winning is 265 satoshis and up to 5,000 satoshi. Play once every 50
minutes.
You also can multiply your BTC with included game, however,
the gambling is never secury, so be careful with such approach. 50% referral
system.
Payments are sent once a week - on Mondays – as soon as your
accumulated amount exceeds 0.0001 BTC (10,000 satoshi).
Sources and Additional
Information:
