A pleb's guide to participation and attention economy, part IV: coins

By arinbasu | Arins blog | 6 Feb 2022

There are about 5000+ coins in circulation today and the list is likely to grow many times over, :-)
Most commonly used:
- Bitcoin:
  - 21 million total to be in circulation eventually by 2025
  - Prices fluctuate everyday (this is why volatile coin), see https://www.coinbase.com/price/bitcoin
  - I BTC =~ 42, 000 USD, see price conversion here, https://www.unitconverters.net/currency/btc-to-usd.htm
  - Metamask cannot receive BTC, for receiving BTC, you can use exchanges such as
    - Coinbase
    - Wirex
    - Crypto
    - ... (many choices), each will allow you to "trade in BTC
- Ethereum
  - Volatile cryptocurrency, value fluctuates
  - Check here: https://www.coindesk.com/price/ethereum/
  - Ethereum is part of a larger ecosystem where if you want to buy Ethereum, you have to pay gas price
    - Check here how to calculate gas price, https://automatedwebtools.com/usd-eth-gas-fee/
    - Another one where you can calculate gas prices, https://ethgasstation.info/'
    - Here is a nice tutorial to learn more about gas prices, https://medium.com/coinmonks/a-short-guide-to-ethereum-gas-fees-5c4c53a05feb
There are many other coins, and these are volatile coins, their prices fluctuate regularly, there are stable coins ("stablecoins"), that are different from these ones,
- Tether, https://tether.to/en/
- Here is a nice intro to stablecoins, https://www.makeuseof.com/what-is-a-cryptocurrency-stablecoin/
Bottomline for plebs:
- If you are starting out, I think it's a good idea to work with BTC, safer
- Ethereum is great, and has a large ecosystem of app ("Dapps", which we will explore later, :-)), smart contracts, DAOs, NFTs, and the whole shebang of Web3, but for this is also quite complex with respect to gas fees
- If you use cryptocurrency exchanges, then it is relatively inexpensive to "move" BTC, rather than ETH unless you know what you are doing
- Many places allow for free ETH or coins, and you can convert them to dollars and cents, but do not be hasty; they are based on ETH and therefore, you need to accrue a fair amount of money before you can convert them to ETH and then withdraw
- You can "hold" ETH or BTC, this is referred to as "HODL" (hold for dear life", :-) )
In the next episode, let's see how you can "make" some cryptocurrency without spending any dollar on your own, :-)