The Hobo Simpleton's guide to Bitcoin (BTC) and Other CryptoCurrencies (How to Get Crypto When You're Broke)

Hi There, I'm Hobospices, I am a Hobo (I have Little Money and I don't use banks) and I am a simpleton (I lack technical skills, I've never even been able to execute a command line to get a miner running properly). So why write a guide from this not so extravagant perspective you might ask? Well the truth of the matter is that, the folks that stand to benefit the most from bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general are us, the regular people. You see someone like oh say Ryan X Charles would be OK without bitcoin, he would be working away at astrophysics while the average folk toil away at trying to save wealth in a medium thats value is controlled by others who might not have their interests in mind. Bitcoin is your money and its value is not "Controlled" by anyone. While the price can fluctuate up and down, one thing is clear in its almost 9 year history, It rewards Hodling... (holding or saving) It's like your money gains value by not spending it. This guide will show you how to acquire Bitcoin and Crypto from this humble means perspective and some things you can do with it. Always remember that even if your purchases are small today, if you manage to hodl, it will probably be worth much more in the future. I Put in a couple hundred bucks from the methods explained below and today they are worth thousands. Crypto is still in its early stages but the sooner you take part, the greater the potential future reward.

ACQUISITION

Well the easiest way to earn is to get paid In Bitcoin. One can achieve that by just getting paid from there regular job, but in bitcoin. Bitwage is a service that lets you collect your wages in BTC ive never used it as I live in Canada (They currently serve USA UK and EU) but I have heard if you work for an American International company then you can still collect your wage regardless of location.

If you're not willing or able to take the plunge of diverting funds from your day job or you don't have a day job (no hobo). There are other ways of obtaining some funds to make a small acquisition of crypto.

Clixsense - clixsense has a few ways to make money but I find the most profitable is taking surverys. When you have a decent amount of money, I recommend to withdraw into the prepaid visa option then spend that at CEX.io as far as I know they are the only exchange that allows funding by prepaid Credit Card. Additionally you can get payed out in payza who support bitcoin but they have high fees. (They used to allow payout strait to BTC before the network fees got too high) Below is a few months of casual work, just don't let 3mo of inactivity acrue, they will eat your balance and not return it. That's why payouts and earnings differ in my case.

Swagbucks - Swagbucks is similar to clixsense but I find the UI nicer. Clixsense seems to have higher cash payouts but swagbucks seems to stretch the payouts further if you're are willing to spend them on gift cards. What does this have to do with crypto you might ask? Well you'll have to be creative, perhaps you can buy a video card from amazon to mine with. You could even save up enough to buy an asic miner if you were extremely persistent.

Fiverr - I've heard good things about fiverr but sadly I lack any of the skills in demand there. However if you have any skills in Graphics, animation, Translation, Programming or Music this might be a good option. Caveat to the hobos out there, I've heard they only payout to paypal which is not really a good option if you are unbanked. Up to this point paypal does not have a good option to buy cypto directly either.

CRYPTOCURRENCIES

Here is a short list of cyptocurrencies That I have found useful/interesting. This is by no means exhaustive and I encourage you to do your own research to find others and possibly acquire them too.

Bitcoin (BTC, XBT) - The first mover and highest market cap. Bitcoin is turning out to be a great store of wealth to this point however, it has lost some of its utility due to high network fees (until a layer 2 solution happens). If you wish to buy small amounts you should hold it on the exchange rather than your personal wallet to avoid losing portions from network fees. Once you have a sizable stack move it to your own wallet where you control the private keys. Hodling in this manner is a security risk so make sure you have G2fa enabled wherever you trade.

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) - Bitcoin cash is a fork of bitcoin that has chosen to scale at layer 1 in a different way. (I am not a computer scientist so please don't ask me about my opinion on scaling.) As far as utility goes BCH is turning out to be quite versatile, so far you can spend it for low fees and the value has been steadily increasing as well. A large list of services are constantly choosing to support BCH also.

Litecoin (LTC) - Low fees and as of late it seems like the least volatile of cryptos

Ether (ETH) - The crypto for smart contracts. I don't think I'll ever write a smart contract but there are a lot of talented people out there who will. That should make this crypto valuable in the future. The only caveat I have is that ETH tries to do many things. This has proven a challenge to keep things secure in the past but necessity is the mother of invention after all.

Zcash and Monero (XMR) - These cryptos specialize in privacy. Don't ask me if zkSNARKs are better than ring signatures to do this, as I don't know and only time will tell.

Storjcoin - An interesting proof of retrievability coin mined using hard drives.

EXCHANGES

So when you've obtained some money for the purpose of acquiring crypto you're going to need a place to buy them. Below is a list of exchanges that I have used and the reasons so.

Coinbase - Coinbase is probably the most popular way of buying crypto. They charge the lowest credit card fees and have the best customer support. They even have a phone number you can call. (I know there isn't an exchange without many complaints about level of support but I what would say to this is, In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king)

HitBTC - What stands out for me with Hitbtc is that in this new era of ICOs, airdrops and forks, HitBTC is always among the first to support new tokens and give access to those new markets.

Poloniex and Bittrex - Between these two exchanges you'll have most cyptos and pairings covered so you cant go wrong here.

CEX.io This is an Important exchange for those who slip between the cracks of the financial system as they (as far as I know) are the only ones who will accept pre-paid credit cards.

Quadriga - They have a few pairings and good liquidity and many funding options to get your CAD on the markets. As a Canadian I use this exchange most often

MINING

Mining Is probably a more difficult way to earn Crypto, but if you're so inclined, try getting your feet wet with Minergate Its especially great for someone like me who can't even execute a command line properly as everything is done within a beautiful, easy to use UI. Don't think that GPUs and ASICs are the only way to mine you can also use your spare hard drive space to get crypto. There are a few coins that pertain to this method but I like STORJ the best. Check it out its super easy too. Another option is Cloud mining. I've found that Hashflare.io consistently has the lowest prices and offer a variety of coins to mine.