I have been watching the crypto space from the sideline since the famous Satoshi White Paper was published (yes, I am old!) and just recently I've jumped in. There are two things I'd like to share with you all: why I've waited until now, and a very simple guide of how to get onboard. So, let's begin!
It's in fact my second stint. Over 10 years ago I installed a Bitcoin node on my old Linux machine and I kept it running for a while. Did I mine anything? I have no idea. I only thought about it watching a re-run of Big Bang Theory, that episode when Sheldon plays a prank on Leonard and Howard by stealing their wallet keys from them... [spoiler to follow...] and years later, after the stratospheric rise of Bitcoin value, finding out that he'd lost them! Did I make and then lose a fortune? That old laptop is no longer in my possession for many years now. It's just a thought. It doesn't bother me at all.
The reason for jumping in right now is the community around Bitcoin Cash (BCH) which I got to know through a hackaton a few months back. I'm awestruck. Communities are shaped around projects and at the same time they shape the project's philosophy. Bitcoin Cash is about storing value as much as being a means of payment. A currency in its original, Phoenician spirit of three thousand years ago: currency, money, coins were invented to remove friction from the act of trading and thus being the first step towards effective commerce, thus being the stepping stone for societies to thrive. You don't get into Bitcoin Cash with the hope that speculation will pump its value and you'll get rich just by betting on the right horse. I don't like betting. I like work that generates prosperity, wellbeing and a better world to live in.
Step number 1: Understand what you're doing
Read about cryptocurrencies. Understand what they are, what they are not, what risk you take if you swap your hard earned fiat money for some crypto. There are some fine articles right here in https://read.cash. I quite like this piece in Forbes Magazine: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/what-is-cryptocurrency/ The main takeaways for me are: in the same way that it took a leap of faith to abandon the gold standard (this means that national currencies' value were no longer backed by physical gold, but would free-float one against another based on supply and demand), with crypto you get dizzy that your money is not backed nor guaranteed by a central bank or the wealth of a country, its value purely based on users' perception. What do you get in return? As a society, we get programmable money and extra security. And everything we can build on top of that. It's early work in progress.
Would I exchange my life savings for crypto? Absolutely not. If I was interested in investing then I would follow a "barbell strategy" à la Taleb: invest so little that if everything goes wrong you don't jeopardise your future, invest enough that if you're lucky, the reward would be significant.
But I'm not interested in investing. I am interested in being able to purchase goods and services, from a coffee to a villa, with my crypto wallet. And for this, Bitcoin Cash is the leader of the pack.
Step number 2: Get the tools
First of all, if, like me, you're interested in Bitcoin Cash, then your go-to place is https://www.bitcoin.com. There are a gazillion different web sites about crypto. And they all look similar. Simply go to this one. And the first tool you need to handle cryptographic money is the same that you need with paper money: a wallet!
Install the wallet for your Android or iPhone device, you have the links in the landing page of https://www.bitcoin.com. Once installed, create a wallet (you can choose in which cryptocurrency: I chose BCH).
Once created, I strongly advise you to write down your recovery phrase and store it somewhere safe. If you lose your phone, or if you get a new one, that list of words is all you will need to import your wallet (with your funds!) to your new device. You could also choose to back up your wallet to the cloud (Google Drive or iCloud). I'll let you explore that option.
Step number 3: Use it!
Like a real world wallet, you can use it to get money (i.e. you get paid and you keep what you're given in it) or to pay (i.e. you get money from it and give it to somewhere else).
How to get money (from somebody else): use your wallet to find out your receiving address and give it to them. The address per se has the following format: bitcoincash:32morecharactersofgibberishxxxxx but your bitcoin.com wallet makes your life easy: it produces a QR code that can be scanned by the other person. You'll see this in a minute.
How to pay: You ask the other person for their address (same format as above) or you ask them to flash the QR that the wallet generates for you (see point above!) and then in your wallet you select Send money. Scan the QR, write down the amount you wish to pay, and voilà. In a matter of seconds, transaction done.
Before I go any further, two important things here.
The first one, you can configure your wallet to work in a real world, fiat currency. That means that when you select the amount of money you wish to pay to someone else, you express it in dollars, euros, etc. I am certain that quite soon we will be an army of users and we will have developed a feeling for value (how much BCH for a coffee?) but we're not there yet.
The second one, let's talk about commissions and the time it takes for a payment to be processed. I will spare you the cryptography, don't worry. About commissions: the terminology becomes exuberant. Some currencies, like Ethereum, use the concept of "gas". Your transaction consumes gas. In the case of Ethereum, it is expensive. In the case of Bitcoin, they don't call it like this but it is also onerous. This rules out both cryptocurrencies for humble transactions (like buying a coffee): you'd be paying way more in commissions than your actual payment. Then there's also the issue of transaction time. For technical design reasons (and this is a topic that is still painful to some), Bitcoin is very slow. Your payment may take hours to process. It may even get really stuck. Remember Elon Musk's announcement that you could buy your Tesla with Bitcoin? Well, someone tried, but Tesla imposed a 30 minute limit for the transfer to arrive, and as I type, this guy's money is literally in the ether - neither in his wallet nor in Elon's.
The good news for Bitcoin Cash is that commissions are dead cheap (dollar cents) and transactions are fast. You can configure your wallet to go for even faster transaction times (costing a few more dollar cents) but don't worry. With the default value you can still buy your coffee with the confidence that by the time you add sugar and stir it, the payment will have gone through and you can carry on with the rest of your day.
Step number 4: Really use it
All right, this is very nice, but you don't sell any product, so you don't take BCH from customers, and you've never seen a shop that accepts it as payment either, so what's really in it for you?
Remember when I said bitcoin.com was the place to go for useful tools? I meant it. Here you have a searchable map with all shops that accept BCH as a means of payment: https://map.bitcoin.com/
You can also use your BCH to buy gift cards from major outlets, mobile phone companies, etc. that you can then use for your purchases. Here is an example of such site. https://www.coinsbee.com/en/shop I've checked for both my countries, Spain and Mexico, and I could not think of a major brand that is not there.
PayPal recently announced that it will allow US customers to buy and sell four different cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin Cash. At the moment these funds are not usable to pay your purchases with PayPal, but I strongly believe that it's a matter of time before they launch such a service. When it happens you will be able to virtually use your BCH anywhere online.
And how do you get funds to your wallet? Let me tell you something. This community is awesome and if you do something for it, like writing articles on read.cash, you can be generously tipped for it, if you share your receiving address. But in general, you go to a crypto currency exchange service and buy some BCH.
Nowadays you (metaphorically) kick a stone and suddenly 24 crypto exchanges will pop up. You can safely purchase your BCH from within the wallet throughout bitcoin.com's approved partners, but feel free to search around, also search for real customer references!
This is just both the tip of the iceberg and the simplest use case for Bitcoin Cash. Now it's a good moment to dip your toe in the water, try it out and see if it feels comfortable, and be a step ahead of the pack when things in the crypto space really become interesting for the general public. I hope I've provided more answers than doubts I've generated. In any case, please reach out! I'll be happy to help.
