Beginners Guide

What is Cryptocurrency?

Cryptocurrency, like Bitcoin, is fundamentally changing the way we exchange things of “value” or how we trade and pay for all sorts of things from online games all the way up to property and real estate. The concept of “money” and “banks” have changed overnight as a direct result of this explosion of new tradable electronic currencies coming on line. Actually it’s not as daunting as you might think to understand, in fact, its a beautifully simple concept and that’s why it will undoubtedly become the money mechanism of the future.

So Cryptocurrency alleviates the problems and restrictions with our current traditional currencies and financial models by way of the following things:

• De-centralizing the currency itself. No boundaries and no controlling commercial or municipal entities
• Available world wide and to anybody
• Driven by Blockchain Technology (GEEK ALERT!!! – This is technical)
• Powered by a global network of computers verifying each and ever single transaction
• One single global publicly available ledger
• Open Source software platform
• Fixed and publicly know maximum circulation

Which all mean that we get the following benefits:

• Anybody can hold any amount of cryptocurrency without paying any fees
• Cryptocurrency transactions and wallets are entirely anonymous, therefore nobody knows how much or little you have
• Fraud is impossible as the currency exists only digitally
• No more Credit Card copying / cloning
• Near instant and free transactions globally because of universal, worldwide adoption
• You don't need a bank or financial institution to hold your money – cut out all the middle men!

All these things mean a crypto currency is a common and non biased financial platform, available to everyone and does not need a Bank or institution behind it to run it, it’s self governing and self regulating, secure and openly available for everyone to use worldwide.

Getting Started

Actually, it’s really easy. Think about your own current financial situation then take your Bank completely out of equation. What would you be left with???.. Just your wallet right! In fact, that’s all you need to get started in Crypto, a wallet, just a wallet.

What is a Wallet?

It’s an electronic version of your real wallet or purse, its a place where you purchase, sell, exchange and store your Crypto money. Unlike your real wallet your Crypto wallet has a unique address associated with it so that you can receive funds into it. When you send funds from your wallet to someone, or pay for things, you just need to know the wallet address of the recipient.

Coinbase is a good one to get started with. Once an account is opened you can connect a bank account or credit card in order to deposit funds to purchase Cryptocurrency. Currently, Coinbase supports Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin. When you open a new account and make a purchase of $100 or more, Coinbase will give you $10.

If you just buy some Bitcoins today and leave them in your new Bitcoin Wallet then as the value of Bitcoin increases (and decreases) you will see the value of your new BTC (Bitcoin) change by the minute.

Can I get my money back?

Yes, at any time. Buying a Crypto currency is no different to buying a regular foreign currency. You’ll pay a small fee to trade with the traditional currency but if you want your money back then you just exchange it back again. Many people just buy Bitcoin, leave it in their wallets and then when they feel the time is right and the value has increased enough for them, they just sell it back to Dollars, Pounds or whatever. This is crypto trading in its most basic form and has made a lot of people very wealthy recently.