Source
r/Bitcoin•
QuantumPi

Newbie To Bitcoin

Hello everyone. So yeah, I'm new to all this. Recently I've been looking for a means to make money, legally mind you, through investment. Recently I heard on a TED Talk how some very smart kid made thousands from investing into bitcoins and cashing out $100,000. Right now I know it's probably too late to do anything, especially since my roomie said there is going to be a Global Market Reset soon.

Mainly I need advice on this, as I'm tired of always being behind, tired of debt, and want to be able to pay for college. In my mind, I think this would be the best option, and I know some people have succeeded at this like that 15 year old, and many other people. I don't want millions of dollars, but something realistic like 50k to help jumpstart things and be able to move and deal with my debts. So any advice on how I should deal with Bitcoins is appreciated as I'm pretty much dumb in this department.

Posted May 19, 2016, 6:47 PM UTC

420
bitcoinchamp•

Buy one bitcoin. It's only in the mid 400s right now. Only 21 million will ever be created. Either you lose 450 or you make some.

4
Riiume•

Bitcoin won't help you get rich quick. It can be useful for the its un-censorability (nobody can block you from sending Bitcoins to someone or to some business. For instance, when all the major corporate payment systems blockaded Wikileaks, Bitcoin was still a valid method of sending them donations) and for its programmability (trustless multi-signature accounts, which never existed before). There are many ways to program a bitcoin transaction (you can program a bitcoins to remain "locked" for a certain period of time before they become accessible (e.g. a programmable trust fund). Also, objective "proof-of-existence" is now possible (basically, you can encode and submit a document into the Bitcoin blockchain, and this acts as notarizing the document (because the blockchain cannot be "back-dated" or reverse engineered due to the strength of its encryption)).

And of course, if you are a business person, there are no chargebacks with bitcoin (yay!) and instead of paying 3% tribute to a credit card company, you just pay a flat ~5 cent transaction fee.

tl;dr - Bitcoin has unique uses and properties that are not exhibited by traditional money or even by gold. Bitcoin can help you, but it won't do 100% of the work for you. However, it has made new business models possible, and you could potentially create or get involved in one of these businesses:

https://bitcoin.org/en/innovation
http://www.coindesk.com/information/why-use-bitcoin/
http://cointelegraph.com/news/anticipated-bitcoin-projects

3
QuantumPiOPredditor for 2 months•

Oh wow, I didn't know it was like that, thanks for the information on that. It may just be worth putting work into, possibly. I'll need to weigh my option and figure out if it's viable for me or not, but this is good knowledge.

1
thisguybuysbitcoinredditor for 14 days•

Note that while it is true the transaction fees are much lower and it is super easy to send bitcoin half way across the world at minimum cost, there are a couple of risks you need to know esp when you are new:

  1. Converting from fiat to btc will involve some charges in conversion. This is similar to converting USD to CAD. And some charges in converting back.
  2. Price volatility - 1$ in btc may be 1.25$ or 0.75$ tomorrow. This needs to be factored into your calculations if you are working with large amounts

This is not to scare you, but a fact. I'm pretty new to it as well and am loving it so far :). Welcome to the rabbit hole!

1
NimbleBodhi•

If you're in debt then you don't have any money to invest in Bitcoin anyways. My suggestion is to work on increasing your skills and earning more money to take care of your debt and then start saving whether it be in dollars or Bitcoin.

I don't want millions of dollars, but something realistic like 50k to help jumpstart things and be able to move and deal with my debts.

Lol, oh that's all, well then right this way... look man, this is not meant to be a get rich quick scheme. Yes, there are early adopters who speculated/gambled early on and got a lot of Bitcoin that rose in value over time, but in the end Bitcoin is money, and you earn Bitcoin the same way you earn any other money, by trading your labor, goods, or services for it.

Mainly I need advice on this, as I'm tired of always being behind, tired of debt, and want to be able to pay for college.

If you're bad at handling money then Bitcoin isn't going to help you. First learn the basics of personal finance and how to budget. A more suitable subreddit for you would be r/personalfinance

Also, read the following article:

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/04/18/news-flash-your-debt-is-an-emergency/

3
QuantumPiOPredditor for 2 months•

Thanks for the reality check. I didn't know you could sell services for it though. Also I've been ignoring my debt for a bit trying to save up for something like this, but knowing what you just told me I think I'll just toss that money to the debt and continue to pay it off slowly instead since there's no way I will be able to juggle education, job, and home rebuilding all at the same time with another job tacked on. Ah well, at least it's good to ask first before jumping in blind and screwing myself over.

2
Riiume•

Coinality is one job board where you can do a lot of remote-work in exchange for bitcoin.

One of the advantages of Bitcoin is how it allows you to take payments from customers anywhere in the world, easily and consistently, without having to process hundreds of different currencies.

2
DJBunnies•

Bitcoin is an experimental technology, only invest that which you are willing to lose.

If you are trying to pay for college or get out of debt, I think bitcoin might be a little risky for you.

2
roryn3kids•

I would say buying a small amount monthly (dollar cost averaging) would be ok to do in tandem with paying your current debt. What ratio only you can decide. Would suck to miss out on a possible 1000% return even on a small amount while paying back a 10% or 15% debt. When I was in grad school this was the advice I was given by a financial planner when I asked if I should invest or pay off my loans first. Of course a return of even 20% was unread of those days. Also you might want to diversify and do a little of both bitcoin and ethereum, one hedging the other. A great thing about crypto is you can invest even $5 a month if you like.

2
dolianaredditor for 8 days•

Many many many many people have lost money on bitcoin. It's popular around here to tell eachother that you just need to wait and it's gonna be free money but going by transaction counts and by number of addresses a majority of people that have bought into bitcoin are currently holding bitcoin worth less than the price they bought at OR missing bitcoin from the numerous losses and thefts of major websites. Stories of people making big bucks are fun, but it's rare.

(now people will tear my post to shreds because they are the people holding coins that are at a loss and they need to convince new marks to buy in at higher and higher prices to get back to zero)

1
MaryCAntonioredditor for 1 month•

What you mean by Global Market Reset?

1
Riiume•

It's a future event hypothesized by certain economic analysts (Jim Rickards, Marc Faber, others). It's the view that world currencies are becoming unstable due to mounting debt crises (e.g. Greece, Puerto Rico, etc.) and the East creating independent pricing mechanisms for traditionally Western-governed commodity markets (e.g. the Shanghai Gold Exchange is taking control of the "gold price fix" from US futures markets and ETFs). The upshot is expected to be a new reserve currency, starting from scratch if you will (by backing it with gold to get it kick started).

1
btcchefredditor for 1 month•

I'm most interested in this global market reset. What does that mean?

1
KeturahKBigelowredditor for 2 months•

It's never too late with bitcoin, give it a try.

1
subcypher•

In addition to all the other great advice here, I recommend new users also check out my site. I offer tutorials, educational posts, reviews, and opinion articles.

0†
nter•

user's site is almost all "Paid Content" you have to pay to see...

0
subcypher•

It's also ad free. Not everything in the world is free.

-1
nter•

It's also ad free.

"Ads By CoinURL" at the bottom of every page...

0
subcypher•

On the free pages, yes. Which my site explains. If you pay to read it, it's ad free.

0