As I sit and watch my hard-earned Storm Gain profits dwindle away in an unforgiving bear market my inner gambler persuades me to bravely weather it out and wait for a wild bull to come charging sending Bitcoin back up to 70k. As I write it dithers at 64k. I was once addicted to slot machines, back when I was an unruly child. I learnt the hard way that gambling leads to thievery and poverty. But crypto is not gambling, right?
Crypto has been fascinating me for the last 12 years, back in 2013 I once have a go at mining Litecoin on my aging Asus Laptop running Linux, I didn’t get far with that. Now I wonder whatever happened to the fraction of Litecoin I made, hmm.
5 months ago, I got myself a somewhat newer laptop and started delving into the world of NFT’s, WAX suited, I minted a few of my old fire performance videos, I got lost on Blender for a while, discovered faucets and airdrops.
At first it seemed to me that the world was giving away crypto currency, it was everywhere! I eventually found myself tied up in a desperate world when I stumbled upon coinwetalk.com: a despicable website that promises huge amounts of Bitcoin for simple gambling, it offers a free and paid mining service and sets its users against each other in a feverish bidding scenario to get limited boosts.
I knew it seemed to good to be true, however for the purpose of documentation I soldiered on for about a month until I reached the minimum payout limit, I filled in my Bitcoin address and waited nervously for my 300 dollars of Bitcoin to get paid out to my wallet. Of course nothing, deciding to fully shatter my dreams I had a go at contacting the scammers behind this site, that is still online! A free world. Naturally the Whatsapp contact number was fake, it was all fake, I had lost my sleep over nothing.
A minor mishap in my road to success, during that month I had discovered other interesting ways to obtain funding for my new passion. I love to mess with code, build websites and root Android telephones: I use the excellent forums on xda-developers.com to help me get my devices rooted, the root gives me the power to use a couple of useful apps. Unfortunately, banking apps and others notice that the device has been tampered with and forbid you from usage, and how was I to know!
Cointiply.com was my next chance to reach the moon, and after completing the game hag offer and destroying a few tanks along the way I got my first 11 dogecoin withdrawal with out much stress, of course, its hardly anything but hey, it was real, I happily transformed my dogecoin to RLT to help buy a miner on rollercoin, hey my free time is mine to waste away as I like right, its not like I don’t do all my house chores and raise my 4 kids in perfect harmony.
I guess I don’t really posses any free time, looking after a preschooler is a full-time job, I have a small holding with 50 olive trees and many other plants, dogs, cats even turtles, turtles are the perfect pet for anyone who is looking for free time. However. Cointiply. So inspired by my success I set about playing BoardKings on one of my aforementioned rooted Android devices, a cheap Samsung phone transformed into a lovely google flagship. It was a toil, my 6-year-old daughter got involved, we raise Waldorf children so excessive screen time is actually forbidden by the general ethics and guidelines we follow. It was taking a long time to level up so I even connected my Facebook account. Privacy? Who cares, use my data please.
Finally, I got past level 12 I believe it was, and waited for Cointiply to pay up, and waited, and waited. Nothing so I contacted support, they slyly took no responsibility and directed me to contact the offer wall, I got in contact with AdGem and sent them my screen shots of the completed offer, my free time, its free right! So again, I wait, and wait. Nothing. Back to Cointiply, at worst, I imagined they would give me a reduced amount. I enter into an infinite argument with a lady at the support center and just when I thought they would pay up she suddenly utters the words
“I just noticed that you have tried to complete this offer on 2 offer walls, AdGem didn’t pay you for that reason and we will not pay either”
This was bad, not only had I wasted hours of my life, I felt soiled, dirty, insulted and abused. I maybe many things but a liar and a cheat do not fit into the equation. Needless to say, I do not use Cointiply anymore. Currently I’m on FreeCash and SwagBucks to do the same kind of stuff. Just recently AdGem stopped me from using their offers saying that my phone was rooted, ok, so that’s the reason. It might be helpful to users to have that information before wasting days and weeks completing horrible tasks.
And the surveys! Now there you have a low point in human existence, sure I have made money doing surveys, but how come a 2-minute survey ends up taking 15 minutes. Or am I pondering my answers for too long.
Ok so finally I have made some Crypto currencies, I have my Doge, My Shiba and wow Coinbase has been really generous, get paid to learn, Excellent, to quote Burns.
So, I innocently phoned my Italian bank to ask how they felt about me using the SEPA network to transfer some cash, so I can, y’know, buy some food, maybe a new pair of jeans.
“No, no we don’t deal with crypto”
Responded my dear Girolama, upon further analysis she suggested that I ask the Banca Intesa Sanpaolo, a reputable institution. So, I phone their call center, and yes, of course the are able to transfer funds for me, I immediately fixed an appointment online to open a new account, surely a simple operation methinks.
So off I go to the Bank, in Via Duca della Verdura in the city of Palermo, of course I followed the instructions to not print my email with the appointment, to save trees, it was safely on my smartphone anyhow, the first thing I do when I get inside the bank is connect to the free Wi-Fi, free stuff love it, it took me a minute or two, possibly making the manager, who happened to be standing around nonchalantly, feel a little edgy, or maybe our home made anti covid masks gave him the creeps, masks and banks don't make good bed fellows.
Upon finding my email, I declare to have an appointment to open an account, with Mr. X,
“No need for that, this is the central bank, we don’t open accounts here, for that you need to go to one of our subsidiaries.”
Said the bank manger airily,
Perplexed I insist that the website had given me an appointment to open account, and I continue:
“I just wanted an account so I could transfer my Crypto currency to cash.”
The manager took us into his office,
“Aha, I am glad you told me that! Well, there is absolutely no need that you open an account here, in fact when I discover clients doing that kind of thing; gambling or buying Crypto I remove their accounts. The Italian central Bank does not recognize Crypto currencies and nor do we.”
He said belligerently, somewhat shocked, I shook his reluctant hand and retreated from the premises, upon studying a little longer the question at hand it turns out that banks in Italy are not enthusiastic to perform these kinds of operations. Perhaps they fear that the Crypto will put them out of work.
The solution of course is to use one of the numerous online banks that make the transferal process easy.
Check out Coinbase. Get €8.74 of free Bitcoin when you sign up with my link and trade €87.38 of digital currency: https://www.coinbase.com/join/philip_u8j
