# Baby Bitcoin Steps: My Roller-Coaster Ride So Far in Alternate Currency



## SifuPhil

As you may or may not know, I have "gotten into" alternate currencies lately.

Also known as "cryptocurrency" and being composed of hundreds of varieties of "coin", but most known for its leading example, *Bitcoin*, it is a young and mysterious - and oft times frustrating - world.

I am currently working as a writer for a site that pays in one of the varieties, known as "Devcoin". It is a relatively new coin within the field - 4 years old, as opposed to Bitcoin's much more aged 6 years.  But it is what I am paid with, so I can't complain.

But there is a process involved in turning that Devcoin into the far more usable US dollar. You would think you could just go to a bank and trade in your - oh, no, wait - banks don't want anything to do with cryptocurrencies. So first you have to essentially become your own bank, by downloading a program known as a "wallet" that will be used to store your Devcoins.

Sounds simple, right? 

Well, theoretically it is, but there are several versions of this particular wallet available (did I mention that each of the hundreds of cryptocoins have their OWN specific wallet? Oh, yeah!), and like much of the rest of the Net you have to do your due diligence in figuring out which one is sufficiently protected from hackers, else your little pile of virtual gold will not be there one sunny morning.

Okay, got the wallet. A kind soul on one of the coin forums sent me a few Devcoins to make sure it worked, and I promptly sent them back. The value of the coins in total was approximately $0.03 - Rothschilds, watch out!

During the course of my writing work I began to accumulate a respectable amount of coin rather quickly, and it was time to start thinking about cashing out. Ho-HO! I found that there were dozens of exchanges for cryptocoins, but only a few that handled Devcoins, and none of those would exchange Devcoin to dollars directly - first you had to convert to Bitcoins. 

So began my now-infamous hunt for a smart phone that would allow me to prove that I am who I say I am. Yes - I'm talking about something called "two-stage confirmation", wherein not only do you have to log-in to the exchange but also have to have a smart phone that receives the text message they immediately send, which contains a 6 or 7-digit number that you must then enter on the site within 15 seconds.

I hear they're doing amazing things in the field of rat acrobatics these days ...

I've also, on at least one exchange site, use what is called a "QR Reader", which is an application on my phone which reads those little black-and-white boxes that you often see on the Net - 



You hold your phone up to your laptop screen for a second or two, and that smart little phone speed-reads that piece of modern art, storing it in its memory. You then go BACK to the exchange and send a picture of that code to the website.

I think a TSA full-cavity body search would be easier.

But, okay, I finally get in. I send my Devcoins to the exchange and ask for Bitcoins, but nothing happens. I wait - still nothing happens. I wait some more. I feed SnagglePuss and stop Tigger from humping him while he eats. Still nothing.

Turns out, you have to wait for "confirmation" of your deposit, which can take anywhere from 10 minutes to (in my case) an hour.

An hour passes, I see that the exchange has blessedly accepted my Devcoins. I submit them for an exchange into Bitcoins, but first I have to enter 20 minutes worth of info like PayPal addresses and bank accounts and ... hey, what happened to the "anonymous factor" that Bitcoin is so famous for?!? So much for THAT idea.

But they grant me the exchange and my new Bitcoins go into my online wallet, from which I must immediately transfer them to my OFF-line wallet, for the sake of security - turns out that online wallets are very susceptible to theft. Another half-hour figuring out how to do this, along with more passwords, codes and confirmations. I'm beginning to feel like Maxwell Smart trying to get into Control Headquarters.

Yay! I finally have Bitcoins in my off-line wallet! I sit there for a while, sipping celebratory coffee and crooning softly to my baby Bits. But I can't afford to become TOO attached to them, for I know I have to put them up for adoption on yet ANOTHER exchange. 

The horror ... the horror ... 

There are a few exchanges now where I can cash out my Bitcoins, and I choose two - one that takes a week or so to credit them to my bank account (actually a _virtual_ bank account!) and one that deposits my cash into PayPal, but which involves selling my Bitcoins to a stranger somewhere in the United States.

In for a penny, in for a pound, says I, so for my first cash-out I choose a stranger. One with a good reputation rating, true, but still a stranger. The site takes my Bitcoins and holds them in escrow, does the same with the stranger's cash, and when we're both satisfied that we aren't trying to rip each other off the site releases the escrow. It worked like magic the first time - surprise, surprise! - and I saw my PayPal account swell up with my new-found cash.

The next cash-out I used the site that took a week to credit my bank account, and my fingernails were chewed to the quick hoping that my money hadn't just disappeared in the aether. It didn't, and a week later my bank account swelled to even more ridiculous proportions. 

During this roller-coaster ride I've experienced smooth and fast downhill runs, but also terrifying turns and bumps. I took up the hobby of investing in other cryptocoins and was there when my investment in both Dopecoin and Potcoin (two coins that, as you may surmise, are designed to help the legal cannabis industry) lost 75% of its value within minutes, only to stay at that point and fall asleep like a narcoleptic on a tropical isle.

If you are bored with life, if you need a stimulating new hobby, or if you are just masochistic, I highly recommend becoming involved in the fastest-growing sport of them all - Bitcoin!


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## That Guy

Still got that South Pacific thing goin' on . . .


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## Pappy

I'm gonna hang on to what few dollar bills I have.


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## RCynic

Pappy said:


> I'm gonna hang on to what few dollar bills I have.



Ditto that. I don't think I could bear to watch two different currencies slipping through my fingers.

Sifuphil, I thought bitcoin was having some problems. Didn't a couple of their big "banks" fold? Also, what kind of writing do you do? And... as long as I'm on a roll here, I've been meaning to ask which martial arts (I assume the Sifu is there for a reason)?


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## SifuPhil

RCynic said:


> Ditto that. I don't think I could bear to watch two different currencies slipping through my fingers.
> 
> Sifuphil, I thought bitcoin was having some problems. Didn't a couple of their big "banks" fold? Also, what kind of writing do you do? And... as long as I'm on a roll here, I've been meaning to ask which martial arts (I assume the Sifu is there for a reason)?



They_ did _have one of their big exchanges - Mt. Gox, in Japan - declare bankruptcy last month. The inside poop is that the owner took off with +$400 million of deposits and said they were "lost". Thing is, there were several months worth of slow-downs on deposits, withdrawals and such, plenty of signs that something was amiss, but because they paid premium rates everyone was too in love with them to notice the bad things going on. 

Many news places have claimed that "Bitcoin was dead", but that would be like saying because one bank was robbed that the Federal currency system was broken - Bitcoin is still alive and still experiencing its ups and downs, just like the stock market.

My biggest writing client right now allows me to write on just about any topic, so that's about 50,000 words a month right there. I still have contracts with a few martial arts places, mainly procedurals and reviews, and a few odds-and-ends places that take a few articles a month. Plus my own blogs - I'm down to just a dozen or so now. 

My martial arts background is mainly Taijiquan (Yang and Chen styles), but I've also got teaching credentials for Hapkido, Aikido, Judo and Northern Long Fist Kung Fu. Spent 44 years in the arts and now I'm pretty much retired except for one private student who has been with me for about 14 years.


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## RCynic

Cool.

I wish I could write, creatively that is. I've done some purely technical writing even though not formally trained in it. I have a lot of envy when reading some works of fiction.

Martial arts was also something that stuck with me, off and on, for much of my life. I was into it in a fully engaged mode for maybe 17 years, but I was all over the map, a smattering of everything and a knowledge of nothing. I enjoyed escrima in my later years the most.


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## SifuPhil

Fiction writing is, I think, a lot more difficult than non-fiction. I suppose a lot of it depends upon how your mind works. I find I always have to hold onto at least a little bit of factual content even in my humor pieces, otherwise I'm like an astronaut off his tether.

Wow, you're a long-timer in the arts as well! :encouragement: Escrima, Arnis and Kali always fascinated me, but apart from a little short-stick training in Aikido and some self-defense-specific stuff (lead pipes, baseball bats, etc.) never had the chance to train in them. 

I'm jealous!


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## SeaBreeze

*The Disappointment and Promise of Bitcoin in 2015*


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## Josiah

Thanks a lot Philstivus for a very entertaining rendition of your recent financial transactions. I confess to being at the very bottom of the cryptocurrency learning curve, but you've certainly caught my interest.

And thank you Seabreeze for your link. Won't it be nice when those clever millennials show us how with a few QR code glimpses we can do aways our archaic government and everyone will be magically self employed as a blogger?


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## SifuPhil

Thanks, Sea, for that video. It's just so hard accepting wisdom from a guy who looks like he could be your grandchild! 

He's right about the plummeting value of bitcoin, though - this past year I've watched it halve in value. Very sad, but perhaps it's reaching its "normal" levels. 

Josiah, I'm heartened to find another sucke - er, _fan_ of bitcoin here!   Just be careful out there ...


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## Butterfly

I'll stick with dollars.


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## SeaBreeze




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## SifuPhil

It spiked at over $400 back in November and yesterday it hit a low of $171. I'm waiting to hear about people jumping out their windows, while others swoop in and buy it all up. 

Not a happy time in Bitcoinland.


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## SeaBreeze

Chinese bitcoin mines, may be of interest to those involved in this currency.


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## SifuPhil

Thanks for that video, Sea - quite a shock to see how casually they run their big operations. 

Mining started off a being something anyone could make money at, but it quickly became a game solely for people with deep pockets who had to pool together in order to realize any profit at all. That explains the necessity of scale shown in this video.


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## oakapple

Very interesting,as I had never heard of this, but even after reading all your posts Phil, it's still all Greek to me.I will stick with my pennies and pounds.


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## SifuPhil

oakapple said:


> Very interesting,as I had never heard of this, but even after reading all your posts Phil, it's still all Greek to me.I will stick with my pennies and pounds.



That's the safe thing to do right about now.


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## SeaBreeze




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## SifuPhil

Them durned goats - always a-bitin' on them thar bittie-coins!


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