So I'm sitting in literally any bar in the United States, minding my own business, checking the charts, watching the candles, and thinking about making some trades over a cold beverage...

... and some random, stonedrunk son of a bitch comes up and sits right next to me and peers drunkenly over my shoulder.

"Whatcha' lookin' at, tharr [there], buddy?" He says, eying my phone.

"I'm checking the prices of Bitcoin and Ethereum right now," I tell him.

"Hey, now that's somethin' I've heard about... Bitcoin..." the man mutters to himself, contemplating heavily over the many beers and shots of tequila he's consumed this evening.  "... the fuck is a bit coin, anyway, man?  Like, what is it?"

I sigh.  I have been here before...  I have explained it a thousand times, but it's like clockwork now.  How else are we going to change minds if we aren't willing to drop our techno-elitism and explain some shit to an idiot every now and then?  So, I begin my explanation.

"Well, a Bitcoin is essentially a digital asset held in computerized wallets.  It's an inflation-resistant asset, because there will never be more than 21 million of them in existence, unlike any other government-printed money which can just be generated ad-infinitum, and it's status is effectively guaranteed due to the permanence of the blockchain's ledger.  You can't take them from me unless I give them to you (or in the highly unlikely event you crack my private keys and my passwords), and if you have some, not even necessarily a lot, you might be quite wealthy later.  A single Bitcoin eclipsed, and surpassed, the price of an ounce of gold some time ago.  It's a very happening scene."

I sip my beverage as the man eyes me strangely.  He produces a phone and shows me a RobinHood portfolio and a short trading history.  The man uses the internet competently enough to buy GameStop stock in late January, but his profits leave a lot to be desired.  He's been short-term trading for fun; he hasn't actually thought much about the long term gains he could be seeing in his portfolio, if he were to play around in the world of DeFi.

"See I saw bit coins pop up in my trading app here," the drunk proclaims loudly.  "I ain't never owned no crypto currency... How do ya work it?  Mind showing me a thing or two?"

I smile.  We may have ourselves a convert, everyone.

"Well, the first thing you'll need to understand is that if you buy Bitcoin from some third-party investment platform like RobinHood, they won't let you manage or control your coins.  They'll hold them for you, and determine what happens with them in the interim, while handing you an I.O.U. for an amount of Bitcoin or ETH controlled entirely within their ecosystem.  It's centrally-controlled, closed off, and completely liable to sell you out for their own gain.  That's not what real crypto is about."

I may have touched a nerve with that last rant; he's protective of his favorite trading platform (because he's invested! get it?), but he doesn't like the idea of not being in control of his own money.  That sense of freedom matters greatly to this individual.

"I don't like anyone telling me what I can and can't do with my money," the man growls.  "Least of all some fat cat app company in some shitbird office somewhere.  Is that really what Bitcoin is about?"

"Not exactly; at least, not Bitcoin alone..." I say slyly.  "Ethereum's your workhorse if you want to make your money work.  There's a lot of 'decentralized finance' applications that run on the Ethereum blockchain. Most of these work the same way as the interest engines used by the big money people, but without the middle man attached, so you can still successfully use Ethereum to manage your investments on whatever scale you like, lend and borrow, and you are the only determining factor, presuming only you have access to your own wallet.  Some of these borrowing engines are radical, too.  If people knew how powerful some of them actually were, they'd probably ditch their bank entirely."

"So Bitcoin's just valuable, but Ethereum is a tool?  Like, to make shit happen with my money? The same way that rich motherfuckers get to earn?"  The man asks, clearly confused by this new information.

"That's correct," I tell him.  "Ethereum's special for a lot of reasons.  The utility aspect is merely one reason."

The drunk man ponders what he's hearing, and a glow of resolve forms around his eyes. 

"All right, man..." he begins.  "Let's say I pulled all my shit off RobinHood right now, and wanted to buy some Bitcoin at whatever it's trading at; I really don't care how much.  I just want enough to get started.  There's so many sites, and so many places though... and I work all damn day, I ain't got time to check numbers and do the day-trader thing..."

"Don't worry about it, I work too.  That's partly what's cool about cryptocurrency: it has no bank holidays, business days, trading hours, etc.  One can trade, buy, and sell it at literally any time of day, and there are no time-constraints on it.  The blockchain records transactions 24 hours a day." I reassure the man.  "You know how banks take that 1-2 business day bullshit to move your money?  With most blockchains, you'll see the movement in under an hour.  Some are as fast as one to five minutes..."

The man spit-takes some of the cheap beer he was sipping.  "You're telling me I can send money over the internet in five minutes!?  Not even fucking PayPal is that fast for me, and they jack me around on my money all the time..."

I smile.  "That's the power of crypto, and the power of a decentralized blockchain.  That's also the reason why you shouldn't 'buy Bitcoin' on RobinHood or PayPal.  They're not gonna let you hold or transfer the coins out of their treasury, for obvious reasons!  They're just gonna sell you an IOU for fiat dollars and let you dick around with it locked inside the PayPal and RobinHood ecosystems!  As we say in the crypto space, 'not your keys, not your coins.'"

I continue my explanation as the man looks on, clearly stunned by what he's hearing. 

"PayPal and RobinHood are centralized, for-profit corporations with boards of directors and bottom lines; I don't fault them for trying to turn a profit, but I certainly don't need to participate in a centralized payment system that has the ability to shut users out on a whim," I tell the man.  "With cryptocurrency, your accounts with exchanges can be shut down for various reasons, but never your wallets themselves, and never on decentralized exchange will you be shut out. A 'DEX' doesn't know you, nor does it want to; it knows only the wallet addresses and the blockchain."

I show him my portfolio in my wallet aggregator, Koinly, which helps me pay my taxes when I trade and sell (I have nothing to hide from you bureaucrats).

"How the fuck did I not look into any of this shit before!?"  The man growls at his own portfolio on RobinHood.

I think to myself, it’s okay buddy… this bus is still fueling up. You can still catch a ride.

”Listen man, it’s late and I gotta get out of here, but hey: I’ll do you a huge favor.  What’s your cell number?”

The man and I exchange numbers. On the spot, I text him three referrals: one to Coinbase Basic (as opposed to Coinbase Pro), one to Trust Wallet, and one for CudoMiner.

“All right buddy… here’s three links. The first is to Coinbase, a corporate centralized exchange located in the United States. I’m not a fan of centralization, obviously, but Coinbase has an easy-to-use user interface for trading coins and it’s incredibly easy to send them out of the exchange and into a wallet you control.  While I'm not enamored with Coinbase's corporate hierarchy, I cannot deny ease-of-use as an appealing feature of their platform, and I can send my profits straight to my bank account at any time.”

The man opens the link and seems surprised. “Wow, that really does seem easy as fuck… is there anything I need to know about Coinbase and the anonymous shit? Like, will they sell me out?”

”Absolutely they will! They report all trading activity to the IRS and the anti-money-laundering arms of the SEC. That being said, if you don’t have anything to hide and you conduct the Know-Your-Customer process, which is quite streamlined and fairly quick, they’ll have you linked to your bank account in two or three days, and you can direct deposit your trading profits within a couple business days for free, or instantaneously for a fee.  Because of that aspect, Coinbase is easy to recommend to newcomers.”  I explained.

”Bitchin’!” The man exclaims excitedly. “What about these other two thinga-majiggers?  What do they do?”

“Well, the second is Trust Wallet. I don’t use it, because I don’t need it, but it’s a private cryptocurrency wallet with a back-end exchange option through Binance.  It’s great for your long hold tokens and any coins you might like to stake to accrue interest for supporting the blockchain. A lot of my friends make a good passive income that way.  It, too, is easy to use and has an app you can put on all your computers and phones... but I don't personally recommend you do that for security reasons...”

The drunk downloads Trust Wallet onto his phone immediately. “Very fucking cool, man! I can’t believe how easy this shit is…”

I smile. I’m not gonna give him the DYOR speech. I’m kinda tired of talking to him at this point.

”I don’t know if you’re a big computer nerd, or have any gaming PC’s, but if you have either of those idling all the time, they too, could be making you a nice passive income.” I kill my cocktail. 

“My computer could be making me free money? How?! All I’ve ever done on that is watch porn, trade stocks and shit like that..."

”You sure won’t make any money wanking it, unless you’re on camera, brother,” I tell him.  He laughs a hearty, drunken guffaw.  I continue...

“What you should be doing with that computer is using it to mine currency. Depending on the blockchain, having computers running proof-of-work mining algorithms supports the various cryptocurrency networks, and facilitates trade and transactions. As a thank-you, you are rewarded for this work in cryptocurrency, and from there, you can do what you want with it.” 
 
“And that’s what this Cudo shit is?”  He asks.

“Yeah, boss! At my mining height, even with just a couple computers, I’ve made as much as $50 in passive income mining Ethereum in one day!” I grin, as I brag about the miners.

”I’m stealing my kid’s rig when I get home. I bought it for him, so it’s mine… and you bet your ass imma put that gamer machine to work!”  He furiously texts his wife to cut their kid off of Minecraft and send him to bed, freeing the computer for mining.

"There are three things to tell you about CudoMiner and mining crypto," I begin.  "To start, crypto mining is heat-intensive; your hardware will get VERY HOT, and in order to protect your hardware, you're going to need to keep it as cool and dry as possible.  The second thing I can tell you is that there are a lot of different crypto mining suites, like Nicehash, out there on the web.  But Nicehash rents your hashpower (a fancy term for your network output of activity while mining on-chain) and sells it to the highest bidders while pocketing a cut of the transaction.  So if you mine for Nicehash, you don't own your hashpower, you can't determine what blockchain you're working, and you get paid whatever they're willing to pay you for the work, which is usually Bitcoin.  The third thing: Ethereum mining won't last forever, but there are other proof-of-work coins out there, so you gotta think of any hardware you buy as a long-term investment."

(Editor's note: NiceHash is actually a highly functional and intuitive feature-replete mining suite that utilizes a proprietary algorithm, DaggerHashimoto, and is very easy to use.  I do encourage new miners to benchmark their hardware, and I myself do still own an account with NiceHash.)

"I don't like being told what to do by the government.  I'm not about to be told what to do by some fuckin' asshat in some no-name office tower, either," the drunk growls.

"That's why I'm recommending you CudoMiner," I say, trying to reassure him.  "With CudoMiner, it has a fairly steep fee, but you receive a lot of neat features to justify the price: remote monitoring, full control over your hashpower and the ability to determine what blockchain you're mining on, and the ability to choose your pay from 4 different coins: Bitcoin, which has a minimum withdrawal of 0.00076; Ethereum, at 0.0115; Algorand, at 20 complete tokens; and Monero, at 0.088.  The reason for the withdrawals is to minimize fees for both you and the Cudo project, and you can think of it a bit like an old-school mining cart.  You wouldn't bring a mining cart out of the mine half-full, would you?  You'd try to fill it up as much as you can before you pulled it out of there..."

"My daddy was a coal miner," the man says confidently.  "This is something I can understand!"

I throw a couple paper dollars on the counter to cover my tab and tip the bartender.  "Very cool, bro," I say to the drunk.  "Listen, I gotta bounce, it's past midnight and I have work in the morning.  That being said, I wish you the best of luck on your journey, and many happy profits down the line.  It's an exciting time to be getting into cryptocurrencies."

"Brother, I didn't expect you would utterly destroy my concept of investment when I walked up and talked to you..." the man starts.

"I didn't expect it, either.  But it happened.  Welcome to the revolution."

I exit the bar.  I wonder how many people just like this guy I've given this speech to... and, like a good virus, how many of my own speeches were repeated by those who listened to me...

In the end, it doesn't matter, because this, this right here... this is how we spread the gospel. 

And all this shit... this is the new gospel of money.  Let's spread the good word.

Thank you for your time.  I hope this was helpful, informative, and somewhat entertaining.  As always, stay curious my friends...

P.S.

Editor's Note 1: If you just want to earn compounding regular interest over-time on whatever your asset is, mainstream crypto or straight up dollars, then ignore all the mining and trading shit and just dump whatever you want interest on in here.  You'll thank me later, I imagine.

Editor's Note 2: I receive a lot of questions about youths wanting to get into crypto but being ... restricted... from gaining access or buying coins. I don't have any advice for you, other than to suggest you engage with a game/cloud mining service like Rollercoin. It's a bit boring and mundane, but it DOES work as advertised, and will enable you to get your hands on some crypto with reasonable withdrawal minimums.

Editor's Note 3: With respect to note 1, Nexo.io has locked down "new asset interest" for American investors as of late February, 2021. I cannot recommend Nexo.io in its current state to new American registrants, as the system will not allow you to earn on your crypto assets due to the Southern District of New York, the Office of the Attorney General, and the Securities and Exchange Commission being somewhat perturbed by the sheer amount of money we are making without needing to use an American bank. Go figure. At some point in the future, an "Earn 2.0" product by Nexo is to replace the current system, and users like myself have "old assets" grandfathered in while NEW assets will not earn interest. Please be aware of this BEFORE you create an account with Nexo.io.

Editor's Note 4: Previously, I made reference to Atomic Wallet. Recent numerous issues involving numerous blockchains and Atomic Wallet has caused me to remove that reference and replace it with Trust Wallet, which I find to be more new-user friendly, anyway.