An Update to my Book

I'm excited to announce that I'm working on an update to my very first book, Zero to Moon. When I wrote it, I'm not sure how much I really understood about publishing, or even writing. In a lot of ways, I was a completely different person then.

The book had gotten pretty dated. Many of the services I mentioned are long gone. But revisiting it also reminded me of just how fun the early Bitcoin experience was. With a little bit of work, you could earn your own small slice of Bitcoin. At the time, I remember writing that I'd earned 8 cents worth.

I thought it would end up being worth more than that. Turns out, that 8 cents is worth about $7 today. And that's just from one small transaction. I did this many times back then, and more importantly, I didn't just hold the Bitcoin I earned. I reinvested it, and that whole process is what the book actually walked through.

Unfortunately, that world is mostly gone now. Websites don't give away Bitcoin anymore. Bitcoin today is treated more like digital gold: something to hoard rather than spend. Given how popular it's become, that shift makes some sense too. There are real limits on how many Bitcoin transactions can happen at once, which makes using it as everyday currency a lot harder than it used to be.

Anyway, stay connected. Here's a link to my newsletter for The Frug Life, which in many ways is the spiritual successor to this blog.

The Principles of The Frug Life Booklet Free!

This Booklet is unfinished and unedited, but has useful advice. Your feedback and questions will be answered and included in the next version of the book.

Built with Kit

Investing in Gold Silver and Bitcoin The Frug Life

 I did an podcast episode talking about bitcoin, you can listen to it here.

Update

 There is a very brief update on this blog on my new podcast. 

Money for the Rest of Us "Crypto—Innovation or Insanity? Meme Coins, Hacks, and Strategic Bitcoin Reserves"

 As you probably noticed, I've given up on writing my own content here at BTC+, but I'm happy to share some of the Bitcoin related content I have found on the internet. One of my favorite finance shows (besides my own of course) is Money for the Rest of Us. I've linked a recent episode here saying about the US starting a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. 

A trade

 My involvement with crypto over the years has waned.

At one point, I was constantly looking for content ideas, researching and writing crypto related content. Now I have moved on for the most part. Many of my favorite Bitcoin and crypto related services are gone. 

But not this week. This week for the first time in possibly years, I conducted a crypto transaction. The transaction itself was simple, I bought ten bucks of LTC. Now, as I have said before. I don't think crypto itself is a good investment. It's like investing in checks or investing in a foreign currency. It's a method of exchange, not a cash flow producing asset. 

But I did this because I was paid 25 bucks in bitcoin. So spending 10 bucks for 35 bucks of crypto is a pretty good deal. 

I did this on this app called SoFi, it is quickly replacing Robinhood as my favorite investing app. They offer some great sign-up bonuses. Use my link to get $50 when you invest $1,000.

https://www.sofi.com/share/invest/2588771

I also did a post on The Frug Life recently reminiscing about some of the good times on this blog. You can read that post here. 

I don't think those old times are coming back anytime soon. But I still might have an adventure or two left in the crypto verse. 

Actually, I wrote this post quite a while ago. Funny enough though, that LTC I bought is now worth $40! So I made quite a bit off this trade.  Paypal also offered me a similar deal, where they gave me $25 to buy $25 of crypto. So for the first time, I actually bought ETH, my first holding of it. 

In short though, I’m always looking for deals to be had in the crypto space. They aren’t quite as common for me as they once were, but when they do happen. I will report on them here! On a side note, this particular deal has ended. Actually probably quite a while ago. Still Sofi has other deals that might be worth looking at.

Podcast: Not your Keys, not your Crypto and Bank Runs

With all the madness going on with FTX, I did do a podcast episode talking about bank runs and bank regulation. I think it is interesting to contrast it to the environment that crypto is regulated in, which is to say, there is much less regulation. Tradional finance instituions have much greater consumer protections. Make of that what you will, but it is important to understand that before you send your money somewhere.

QoinPro closed?

 I’m really out of the loop.

But a service I mentioned before,  QoinPro is now out of business. I’m retaining some contents from there website here in case it shuts down, but they state:

Where can I login?

Logging in to your account is no longer possible. QoinPro reached "End of Service" status and the decision to discontinue was made in 2019 after no viable business model could be found.

So if you had any money on there,  I believe it is gone at this point. They did  “QoinPro has discontinued all services, but all active accounts (with on-chain transactions, referrals or logins after June 13, 2018) have been maintained and transaction histories are available upon request. Other accounts have been purged.”

However, I think if you were in a situation like me, with just a handful of referrals, I didn’t have any really meaningful amount of crypto on there, just dust. So it is gone. I thought I read something about fees, etc. 

What are the storage fees for crypto

QoinPro cannot be maintained indefinitely. As of January 1, 2022 a storage fee of $12.50 USD (in the LTC equivalent) will be charged for the few accounts that still hold crypto, although they will be waived for the first few months (see below).

Fees will go up by $12.50 USD / month every first day of the calendar year.

So for me, this probably means I have nothing there.

https://docs.qoinpro.com/faq/account-access-and-closure