CRYPTOCURRENCY
The Safe, Easy Way For Beginners to Start in Crypto
Follow these steps, and I can guarantee you an instant return of 28% on your first few hundred dollars
“Don’t listen to the hype, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”
“Ony invest in what you understand.”
“Bitcoin is dead.”
“It’s just gambling.”
In 2017–2018 I mostly listened to people who told me things like that. They’re all still broke.
And for the most part, so am I.
Meanwhile, the people who ignored the doubters and believed in Bitcoin enough to get their own are driving Lambos on the moon, living that good life.
There are still lots of people out there peddling the kind of Fear Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) that’s going to keep you paralyzed and broke if you listen to them. They often get tons of views and clicks, because fear sells. Readers who have missed out on something love to be consoled with “you were right for not trying”.
Well, do you know what I like more than a pat on the head from “unfluencers” who are too self-loathing even to accept that they have power in this new attention economy?
Money.
Unfortunately, listening to the doubters has cost me boatloads of money.
Maybe you can relate.
Now, I’m not saying that every argument made against Bitcoin and crypto is automatically wrong. I’m just saying that these FUD spreaders are the 2021 version of Paul Krugman. Oh, you haven’t forgotten that this guy said in 2005 that the internet would be no bigger than the market for fax machines, have you?
So yes, go ahead and listen to the FUDsters if you want to stay poor. They were right to warn you that we crypto-bros might say that. The reason we say “you’ll likely stay poor by not investing in crypto” is because you will.
On the other hand, if you want to better understand why Bitcoin is going to matter more every year, then you can read about that in my piece below.
You probably don’t have a full understanding of how your car engine, HTML protocols, or wi-fi work either, do you? And yet you use these things anyway. Every day. Similarly, you can use Bitcoin without becoming an expert on what’s happening under the hood.
You don’t need to be intimidated by technical stuff. You just need to understand that its value is very likely to continue going up in the long run.
Disclaimer
Before we go any further, to be clear I am not qualified to give financial advice and don’t know your personal skillset and risk profile. It is impossible for me to tell thousands of strangers exactly what each of you should do.
But I will walk you through my thought process and lay all my cards on the table so that you can use this for educational and entertainment purposes.
Having said that, you can try out all kinds of different cryptos once you know more, but as a beginner, your best bet is probably to just buy Bitcoin as your first investment. Think of Bitcoin as being like continually holding pocket aces in poker. Yes, sometimes it still loses, but in the grand scheme of things, you don’t mind keeping it day after day, round after round.
Full disclosure — I’m not very heavy into Bitcoin in my own portfolio. Instead, I’m heavily invested in the meme-powered HOGE, modeled after Doge but with tokenomics that I find much more appealing. I love the community and I love dogs. But it is very deep in the Wild West of the crypto space and isn’t really part of the strategy that I’m outlining here for totally new beginners. I’m just telling you where my own money is as a way of being transparent.
So in between Bitcoin on the safer side and HOGE on the riskier end of the spectrum, there are thousands of altcoin projects of varying quality and useability. Some are solving a real problem or innovating in a cool way, many are just knock-offs with insufficient differentiation. You have to do your own research to see what makes sense to you.
But for a beginner who doesn’t have trading skills, again, I’ve gotta be honest that you’re almost certainly best off to just buy and hold Bitcoin. Think of it as a Certificate of Deposit that pays 200% annual returns if you hold it for 5 years, rather than the 2.45% annual returns that traditional banking pays. If it goes up or down, who cares? Ignore the fluctuations and just use it as a savings account whenever you can afford to put money in.
Put a date on the Google calendar five years from now for when you’ll cash out. Based on its record you know with high confidence that Bitcoin will be around and will be strong. But unless you’ve done a ton of research (as I have) you probably can’t have that kind of confidence in any other coin.
The strategy here is to just buy Bitcoin and collect your winnings at the end of that ride regardless of what happens on the price roller coaster along the way. That’s the easy, stress-free way to do it. Patience.
And now let’s put patience on the back burner for a moment and get back to my promise from the subtitle that I would give you the instant gratification of 28% returns right now!
Yes, I’m actually being serious. This really does work. I’ll explain how and why.
Exchanges
The way you buy Bitcoin these days is through exchanges. Think of a crypto exchange like Coinbase as being sort of like what the Nasdaq or the NYSE is for the stock market. They offer a selection of different coins such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Algorand. These coins are like the equivalent of individual stocks.
These exchanges are in fierce competition with one another to get newcomers like yourself to use them. They all want to have the largest user base, which makes them more valuable. And so they’re willing to pay you to use their platform.
But here’s what’s cool… you don’t have to exclusively use their platform. And you shouldn’t.
Centralized exchanges are just as vulnerable to cyberattacks as banks or government institutions are. So instead of putting all my eggs in one basket, I like knowing that I have my crypto spread around in several different wallets and exchanges, just in case.
If you use my links, we are both rewarded with free crypto. If you don’t, we won’t get anything extra.
Coinbase
Deposit and buy $100 worth of crypto and you get $10. There are also mini-courses that are only a few minutes long which you can watch to earn extra money. I wrote more about that here.
Etoro
Deposit and buy $100 worth of crypto and you get $50
Voyager
Deposit and buy $100 worth of crypto and you get $25
Use code JES5F0 when it asks for one.
If you just got started by investing your first $300 in Bitcoin and followed my instructions, then congratulations, that’s $85 for each of us.
By the way, if you’re signed up for etoro, please share your link invite in the comments section of this article so that even after my own friend invites are used up, people will still be able to get the $50 sign-up.
Or even better, share this article to your friends along with your etoro link so that you and they will each get $50.
Important Tax Information
Do not convert your Bitcoin into anything else, or move it anywhere else. As long as you simply purchase it, leave it there, and do not sell or trade it, then you won’t have to pay taxes until you cash out (5 years from now, right?).
If you go do this right now, you’ll already be sitting at returns of 28% on your first $300. Not bad. But I want to make you a whole lot richer than that. Sign up for the newsletter and I’ll keep telling you about every move I make and why.
Why Am I Helping You?
I’m so grateful to Medium for giving me this platform, but don’t expect to make much from their membership rewards program.
I do make some money off of the referral links too, but that’s not really why I do this either.
I go to the lengths I do to create so much free content and give away so much value to my readers because I hope to someday earn your voluntary contribution to my crusade. But only once you’re rich. I don’t want you to give me money as a precondition/entry fee while you’re still poor. Lots of manipulative people show you pictures of mansions and say “wouldn’t you like to live like this? Just buy my course!” That makes me angry. I think they’re taking advantage of people like us.
Right now, I think all your available money should be going into crypto, and not going to me or anyone else as a course fee. If I help you and if what I tell you comes true, then 5 years from now when you’ve got the money you can always send me a donation to the degree to which you think makes sense.
In the meantime, you can send questions or comments to [email protected] (my website is coming, please be patient).
Also, the HOGE community is looking for aspiring artists, podcasters, writers, game developers, and all sorts of creative people to volunteer, so reach out if you have a skill and want to support what we’re doing. I’ll connect you with the right people.
OH, and remember to share this story with all your friends along with your own etoro affiliate link!
Want to Help Me Evangelize the Gospel of Crypto? Donate.
HOGE wallet: 0x6d7317c4869FBf5CFA9C9911EA47746446ABc045
BTC wallet: 3LznhYTWNSCxniLzRpw3DDG5hi7JXRYnuM
In Code We Trust.