Wow, I don't think I would've imagined seeing Bitcoin being used at a mainstream consumer retailer.
The more I read about Bitcoin, the more excited I get. It started as a simple idea / project among a small group of users and today, the entire Bitcoin network consumes more electricity than some countries! Impressive for something that is so "young" relative to other projects that have touched so many lives.
If it took Bitcoin a decade to consume this much electricity, imagine what the next decade will hold. Could Bitcoin be the driving force to use more green, renewable energy? It would be such a turn of events if in ten years most of the electricity that is being used for mining comes from solar, wind or other forms of renewables.
That usage, which is close to half-a-percent of all the electricity consumed in the world, has increased about tenfold in just the past five years
I recently came across this simple to use, yet highly educational website called Case Bitcoin. It lays the case to invest in Bitcoin and also has plenty of interesting resources, including a comparison to the S&P500 and gold.
Let me know what you think of the site: https://casebitcoin.com/
Jack Dorsey just tweeted a link to monitor the adoption rate of Taproot (a new protocol that is supposedly privacy oriented):
— jack (@jack) May 2, 2021
I've seen many stores proudly display "We accept Bitcoin here" stickers but I haven't seen the same for Ethereum. Why is that?
I created my first online wallet using Gemini and purchased some Bitcoin, Ethereum and Basic Attention Token over the course of two weeks. The process of creating an online wallet was simple and quick: all I needed was my U.S. driver license and a bank account.
A month ago I purchased a Trezor hardware wallet (referral link here). After reading about basic security, I felt that the $55 was well worth the peace of mind knowing my coins are stored safely. I also use an YubiKey for added security.
In order to familiarize myself with the basic functionality of cryptocurrency, I embarked on a simple "to do list" which consisted of:
- Updating the Trezor firmware (this is a default step when you use the device for the first time)
- Performed a dry run of recovering the wallet using the recovery seed
- Purchased and transferred BTC, ETH and BAT to my hardware wallet
- Formatted the Trezor
- Recovered the wallet using the seed and confirmed I could still see my balance
I'm not sure how Gemini processes withdrawal fees because in my experience so far, none of my transactions seem to incur any network or transaction related fees.
If you are new to Gemini, my suggestion is to use the default web layout for your first purchase. Once you feel confident about what you're doing, go to Settings and change your layout to Active Trader. By doing so, you'll save a lot on purchasing fees. I'm not sure why Gemini charges such a high rate for a different frontend, but I was disappointed to find out that I had paid 3%+ for my earlier purchases using the simple layout vs. changing to Active Trader I paid only 0.25%!
With this, I have taken my first steps into my crypto journey. I can't wait to see what the next ten years has for cryptocurrency.
Today marks the first day of my ten year journey into cryptocurrency. I've been sitting on the sidelines since 2011 watching the space evolve. In 2013, I even attended a Bitcoin talk hosted by Andreas Antonopoulos in San Francisco. I remember thinking to myself that Bitcoin seemed interesting, but didn't see the potential of what it could be.
In 2015, Coinbase was offering $10 in BTC to almost anyone with a .edu email address to open an account. I took advantage of this offer since it was quite literally free money, so why not? I cashed it out within days. Had I held onto it, today it would be worth over $1,000.
Now that I'm a little bit wiser, today seems better than ever to join the cryptocurrency movement.