Nyan Parlement

I meant to write about this when it was news, but often times, I’m pretty slow at releasing content. Speaking of which, I am looking for guest contributors.

But about a year ago, I officially became a founding member of the Nyancoin Parlement. The parliament is an interesting system and is like a mix of a corporate board of directors and a legislative government body. The fundamental principle behind the Nyancoin Parlement is one coin is one vote. Nyan coin are used to give electing power to those in office. A coin can only be used to endorse one candidate at a time. One of the issues was if Coinaday should be the “Dictator pro tem” of the Parlement.

So if I wanted to vote Yes (which I did), I could use my 100,000 coin endorsement and vote on it. But if someone else is endorsed with more coins, they will overall have more sway than me. Overall whichever receives the most votes (in the form of coin endorsements) wins.

As far as I can tell, this seems to be the only system of its kind. But I haven’t conducted an exclusive search by any means.

There recently has been some activity in the Nyancoin Parlement, and perhaps some new exciting news will be forthcoming. Then again, it might take a while for me to write about it.

Buying, Selling and SAFELY STORING Bitcoin?! – Mining Adventure Part 4

Here is another more mainstream person getting into crypto. See my earlier post here.

Don't put money into what you don't understand

Part of the mission of this blog is to point out scams. Sometimes I suspect scams and don’t say enough. Here is another potentially dangerous site I am looking into. Buying mining somewhere else is a risky proposition, so be careful. The site does offer free mining, so maybe you can investigate it with me.

Here is an older story that I didn’t get around to publishing. ( Ref1, 2, 3)

What happened is this guy bought a ledger Nano, and included in the box was a piece of paper with additional setup instructions. This piece of paper was not from the manufacturer, it was included by the reseller. The buyer followed the directions which enabled the seller to steal all of the buyer’s Bitcoin.

Long story short, know what you are getting into. I don’t use a standalone hardware wallet, as it doesn’t solve one of the simplest problems with a physical wallet, it can get lost or stolen. Sure, you can save your key on a physical piece of paper, but if your home has a problem like a fire, this will not help you.

Here is another unrelated scam. Bitcoin is becoming mainstream enough that scams are also becoming more mainstream. Some of these scams are obvious even if the subject was USD rather than a cryptocurrency. For example, on reddit someone was claiming to host a giveaway where you give them .5 ltc and then they will give 10 ltc back to you. This scam is clear in USD as well. Some scams are more sophisticated. Like in the paragraph above. It's not obvious why using the private key contained in the Nano ledge box is a bad idea unless you are familiar with Cryptocurrency.

In short, don’t put money in things you don’t understand!

Robinhood

Hey, a short update post. Crypto adoption is getting mainstream more and more every day. Lots of non crypto people have been coming out as crypto people:

Tai Lopez (you can see some of his show here)

Amir Blumefield (you can hear on his podcast If I Were You)

the food guy

Acorns

CNBC

Robinhood will now enable you to invest in Crypto! That's exciting. For those of you who don't know, Robinhood is an app that lets you invest in stocks with no brokerage fees! Normally a trade costs at least 5 dollars, but not with Robinhood! Check it out here.

Also, a short note, the Reddit alternative, Emeopled, is now offline. They promised btc for every user, but it looks like that didn’t pan out. I don’t think they ever made a profit, or even revenue, as I don’t think I ever saw ads on the platform.

ICOs are dumb.

For a little context, an ICO is an initial coin offering. In essence, it is selling equity or ownership in a company. It is similar to an IPO, initial public offering, but with some major differences. There is mountains of paperwork and regulation that goes into an IPO. Some firms specialize in working with companies seeking to go public and help them meet the requirement ( I even worked at one of these). Some of the minimal requirements is audited financials, finding an underwriter ( like Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, etc) , registration with the SEC and many others.

I mean, in some ways undercutting underwriters is cool, but at the same time, underwriters and other parties in the IPO process have an important role. In my opinion, the auditors play a huge role. Now, as an auditor, I’m probably a little biased. But with an ICO there is no guarantee what you are getting into. There are not required financial statements, let alone audited ones, as anyone can offer an ICO. In addition, there is not assurance the ICO is even in compliance with the law.

When auditors give an opinion on an IPO, it is a huge deal. Normally a party needs to be privy to sue. But in the case of an IPO if there is a material misstatement, anyone who experienced a loss can sue.

ICO also have be totally ridiculous. This has to be the craziest one I have ever seen. Literally they are advertising flying cars.

Speaking of which, here is a referral link to an ICO

In the past, I haven’t had much benefit from this, I tried signing up at Wcex.

But as far as I can tell, it didn’t work. The website doesn’t remember the account I made with them.

And don't forget. There with btc price dropping, now is the time to get involved!

Here it is on amazon! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XV3P3QD

James Alt(coin)ucher

This James Altucher has been advertising a lot lately, and if you follow this blog you probably have seen some of his ads.

He kind of looks like a crazier Malcolm Gladwell.

Anyways, it looks like he has gotten some mixed press on Yahoo, you can look at it here. But it's kind of easy to imagine a simple scam here. One, you establish yourself as a crypto expert. Two, you buy some altcoin. Three, you promote the altcoin. And four, you sell at inflated prices.

And that is how you  make big returns with low risk. Be Altucher. You can also see his Master class here.

Also if you have time, look here, some interesting news on Bitcoin’s price changes.

Well that's all I have time for now. More news always incoming. Lookout for my upcoming post on Nyan.

And If you are ready to get serious about bitcoin, take the plunge. Here is my book on amazon

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XV3P3QD

Honey and Money

And here is a new site I tried this week. It's called honey.

Honestly, it looks like a ponzi scheme. It advertises rates that are simply impossible to achieve over the long run. Anything that requires upfront bitcoin payment for an annuity is probably a scam.  There are many, many scams that look like this. Hash Ocean and Hash Profit are both examples that I reported on.  I am also leary of other sites like BCC or bitclubnetwork.

A few telltale signs of a Ponzi scheme is that the way they make money is either unclear, or very complicated. For example, Hash Profit claimed to have a fancy system of mining that picked the most profitable coins, but for some reason, they only did limited mining on weekends, which was strange. There also was no evidence they actually did any mining at all, which is a dangerous sign. Lastly, look at the rate of return, a 4% daily rate means that in one year, $1 turns into to over 1.5 million…  Which is simply not sustainable.  Even a Ponzi scheme likely will have payment proof; the scheme works for a few people, who tell more people, each group paying off the last. As long as more people come, it will work. But as soon as there is a slowdown, everything collapses, sites shut down, and people lose everything.

To contrast this, let's look at something that seems to not be a ponzi scheme, coinbase. Coinbase allows you to buy bitcoin with fiat, or visa versa. I personally don’t use the service, as it requires quite a bit of personal information . Regardless, they have a clear business strategy. They make money on the bitcoin spread, they sell bitcoin at one price, a higher price, and buy it at a lower price. So every time a trade is made, they make money.
In short, check out Honey if you want, but it doesn’t have all that much to do to earn Bitcoin so maybe give this one a pass. Make sure to check out my faucets for some better sources of crypto.