Crypto-currencies: A noob's journey from $20
The first crypto-currency I ever had the pleasure of owning is STEEM. Now I have Bitcoin, DASH and Ether!
Lately there's been a war on for who is going to win as the best crypto-currency. I've decided to take a stake in all sides.
Because of the huge gains in some of these wacky magic money coins I've decided to try exchanging some STEEM for a few other currencies. Sure they may fail spectacularly and the value will go to zero, but it's fun to invest, kind of like penny stocks. So I downloaded the super simple Exodus wallet and sent myself some sweet sweet ETH. It makes a pleasing coin jingle sound when you receive crypto! In the 1800s people used to huff diethyl ether to get high. Since the name is associated with drugs and the logo is some kind of magic crystal that a wizard would use, I saw it as the natural choice to invest in.
I'm all in baby! Bam, $20 worth of sweet sweet ether and a few other currencies.
DASH on the other hand, seems to be staking out ground as the fastest of the currencies. I told my friend who was super into mining bitcoins back in the day to install the wallet and give it a try. In the heyday of 2013 him his buddies mined about 250 bitcoins, most of it was recycled into video cards. Moral of the story: You must have patience, and faith. Anyways I sent him $2.00 in DASH with about a $0.10 fee. Comparable to bitcoin but almost instantly fast. My review for DASH: pretty swanky.
Okay but which coin is better?
STEEM obviously! In a way, it's really a window into the crypto currency world. Instead of having to spend actual money to accumulate crypto, you can get it other ways like mining, steeming or even loaning it out! Thanks to Steemit I've been able to dip my toes into these other cool cryptos and support them as well. In a way, there needs to be a diversity of coins in order to fulfill all the roles. There could be one for privacy, one for speed and another for stability. In the long run, only time will tell which one wins out.
My thoughts so far: The coins are now competing for #1
Bitcoin
The grandaddy of cryptocurrency. The original blockchain. The biggest and most available. Also, rapidly becoming one of the slowest. My advice: Don't be cheap like me and send with a low fee. It could take days for your transaction to clear! I learned my lesson quickly, but the wait was slow and grueling.
My bitcoin address: 11N6oK13bRmpyCWVUbupX3FpsrhPPfJBj
Dash
Extremely fast, with a low fee for transactions. I dare say it could replace bitcoin if they don't get their blocks in order. Dash is run by something called masternodes and X11. I will report back to you as I learn more about it.
My Dash address: Xe5bF4iXPVF4LK3qYPZx1LScmNtiVYQiUZ
Ethereum
A mysterious currency based mostly on crystals and black magic. I don't understand much about it other than it can be programmable and other strange features. I like cool and weird stuff so I loaded up on it. It seems to send pretty fast as well.
My Ethereum address: 0xE0a9a17E0aDD693AF572935B4B13A6d4f4DdA2b6
Steem
The FASTEST of all crypto currencies. Nobody can beat that 3-second block time, man. I can send STEEM faster than their browser updates to tell them they have STEEM. The OG crypto currency in my books. Still, somewhat the peso of internet currencies, with a high inflation rate. However it has the bonus of allowing you to use a normal name as your ID instead of those god forsaken randomly generated hashes in the other crypto currencies!! Did I mention NO FEE TO SEND OR RECEIVE? This seems to go overlooked on Steemit but this feature is fantastic and still makes STEEM one of the crypto currencies worth having.
My steem address: @stonedfood
That's all for now. I'll keep you updated on developments periodically as I learn more about crypto-currencies and how they work. One thing's for sure: as all of our money gets eaten away slowly and surely by inflation, it's nice to invest in currency that actually goes up in value!
EDIT: Thanks to whoever sent me 0.001 BTC! Looks like we have some purists among us...
Now we just gotta wait for that block to confirm!
Awesome review. Steem Is also currently my only crypto. I tried to do some mining with my older system back in 2009, but lost my rig and my hardcopy backup bitcoin key in a fire several years ago. Ohh well shit happens.
Now you got 2 crypto-currencies! Check your wallet for $0.50 SBD, increasingly rare these days... :)
Thanks
Somehow i do believe in the power in STEEM, and this great guy Frystikken :)
If i will have some money to spend or to set somewhere a while, it will been for sure only in STEEM :)
It is an exciting time. I always used to say it was best to diversify your Crypto portfolio. I broke my rule in the fall and now I am paying for it. Sigh. It is fine I will rise from the ashes once again.
How did you break your rule? Did you go all in on STEEM or some other currency? I still think STEEM is great long-term (despite the long-term history). There's gotta be a bounce somewhere, and like I said it's very useful too.
Cool, goodluck
Well done post man. Loved it.
You should learn about bitshares sometime ...and peerplays.
Maybe that will be my next post, as I go down the rabbit hole further still...
Ill give u something thst for some reason is never advertised about it :)
It has Separations of Power Built in! No other chain has governance like it. Unless of course you talk about any of the chains built using the same protocol. And even they are slightly different.
follow:)
Great post @stonefood! Great minds must be thinking alike... I just made a post about FREE MINERS. These are FREE Miners that I have running. Perhaps you might find them useful to continue your journey. Good lucks to us all! https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@jacobts/free-cypto-mining-list-one-month-experiment
L0ve your work man, keep it up!
STEEM is the fastest - Resteemed ;)
I had 0r have plans on stacking up on ETH as well but 0nly due to 'Circle'(bit-bank) now getting involved with ETH. My plan is to use my mined BTC in exchange for ETH by weeks-end but I continue to struggle with my Forex-Trading thus making me use my hard earned mined BTC to trade with. 0nce I get a grip on this Forex monster, I will be investing into ETH heavy!