I wanted to write a guide to those of you who are new to the crypto world and things to look out for and things to pursue. There is a TON of information out there and since the Crypto world is every evolving a lot of that information could be outdated quickly. With that being said if you are starting your Crypto Journey off recently I would give this article a read. Maybe even bookmark it! 😁
Overview:
Is it too late to start? Never. Until Crypto becomes mainstream and a reliable payment method accepted by the majority of businesses, you are still getting in early. However there is a ton of information that is out there and the crypto space is ever evolving. I have been familiar with Crypto since around 2010 but I never got into crypto until about 1.5 years ago. In that time I have put zero fiat currency into crypto and I have amassed a substantial amount of crypto.
Proof of Stake vs. Proof of Work:
Proof of Stake means the cryptocurrency gains security by users who have the cryptocurrency lock it up for a certain amount of time (staking) to earn passive rewards from it. For example Tezos is a cryptocurrency you can stake and ever 3 days I earn a little bit of Tezos in return. This is the type of cryptocurrency that "works for you". Once you acquire some you can earn passive income for doing nothing. You just have to acquire some first haha.
Proof of Work is the method of creating new block on a blockchain by using computing power to perform algorithms. This is like Bitcoin where you can mine for BTC and if you are lucky enough or apart of a big enough pool you can earn rewards for you computing power. I personally mine for RavenCoin with my GPU and earn rewards everyday for it in RVN (more about it below).
NFT's:
So what are NFT's? Well the short answer is: Non-Fungible Tokens. What does that even mean? Well NFT's are digital items that are stored in your digital wallet. Once you have a NFT in your wallet it is yours to do with as you please. You can use some NFT's within games like Alien Worlds, Rising Star, Splinterlands, KOGS, etc. Other NFT's are just images like artwork people created and put on a blockchain to sell. NFT's could also be music or really anything.
The thing you got to remember with NFT's is that once you have one you own it. And there are NFT's on different blockchains.
Dapps + Blockchains:
Think of a Dapp as a game built onto a blockchain. They are not all games but programs or games or websites built on the foundation of a blockchain. Blockchains are the backbone of any cryptocurrency. They are what enable the cryptocurrency to do what it does. There are a ton of blockchains and cryptocurrencies. There are even some Cryptocurrencies that are built on the same blockchain. Like Ethereum for example has the Ethereum currency but also other currencies that utilize the same blockchain.
Not all blockchains talk to each other which can be a bummer. It also means that you will need multiple wallets. For example if you want to play Rising Star or Splinterlands you will need a HIVE wallet. If you want to play Alien Worlds you will need a WAX wallet. You can get most wallets created for free and it's a fairly easy process to create one.
Play 2 Win vs Pay 2 Win:
Play 2 Win is a game or program where you can earn crypto for utilizing the program/game. It is 99% of the time free to join and all you need is time and internet connect to use it. Over time you will earn small amount of a given crypto for your time. It keeps it fair for everyone even new players to earn crypto. We like these! 😊
Pay 2 Win is a game or program where whom ever spends the most money on it will get the best equipment and thereby have the best chance to win. We don't like these! 😁
KYC:
KYC stands for Know Your Credentials and it is something everyone who is in the crypto space should understand. There are plenty of sites out there that do not require to know personal information about you in order to play or use their services.
And then there are other websites that require this thing called KYC. What it means is that you have to give them identifying information about yourself so that they can track your buying/selling/winnings/trading's. They do this in order to comply with local laws that they operate under. There is nothing bad about KYC per say. However if you want to stay away from TAX Man then I would highly suggest you stay away from sites that require KYC.
KYC will be needed one day for everyone when you want to withdraw your Crypto into Fiat and put it into your bank account. On that day you have to let the Tax Man know of those earnings because they count as income. This can differentiate from country to country but general rule stays the same.
*I am not against paying taxes on crypto. Quite the opposite actually. I fully support paying taxes on crypto when I turn it into Fiat because at that point it will be additional income but until that point it is just 1's and 0's in the interwebs*
A lot of places are very upfront with their KYC thresholds. Like this place for example:
Mining & Nodes:
This is where you utilize a GPU (graphics card) or a CPU (Computer processor) to perform operations to 'mine' the cryptocurrency and earn rewards for it. You may have heard of the great GPU shortage because everyone was buying GPU's to mine Ethereum. Or the hard drive shortage because everyone was buying Hard Drives to mine Chia. It can get out of hand but that is because there is a lot of money to be made in mining.
Sure Mining is terrible on the world power grid but with such high gains available I can't blame them. I personally mine RavenCoin with my GPU's.
How to mine RavenCoin article here.
This isn't exactly Play 2 Earn because well you will need a decent CPU or GPU to start off but once you get it setup it's a set and forget process.
I highly recommend anyone knew to crypto to setup a Theta Node asap. I have long been an advocate of the Theta blockchain and have ran a Node for over a year and don't regret a second of it. It's a lightweight software that you setup and let run and it will earn your TFUEL. You don't need some crazy computer specs to run it but you do need a PC that will stay on 24/7 for best results. My article here about it.
Faucets and various Earning Sites:
For those of us who have been around the block we have seen sites come and go. We have seem some cool projects rise and fall. With seeing that I have a pretty good idea on what sites will stay around and which ones I do not trust at all. To this day I still miss the Moon Faucets, they were truly the greatest Faucets around but have since been turned off.
If you are knew here are the sites that I recommend you start off with to start building your Crypto portfolio for free (other than your time).
Publish0x:
This goes without saying but Publish0x is a great blogging site. You can just come here to read articles and earn free tips. Or you could start writing your own articles and earn even more. I have personally earned $917.52 from Publish0x since January 2020.
Ampleforth $75.60
Basic Attention Token $270.89
DAI Stablecoin $4.51
Ethereum $233.29
iFarm $168.45
Loopring $116.62
Project Hydro $48.16
The beauty in Publish0x is that they rotate the tipping tokens so if you stay with this site for any length of time you are bound to earn a few different tokens.
Rising Star:
This is a free to play game where you are a musician going on gigs (missions). You earn Starbits for each gig which you can then use to buy card packs to get better cards so that you can earn even more Starbits. It is game where you just perform a few click and came back after the timer is up and perform a few more clicks. It's a perfect game if you are at computer all day to play every once in a while throughout the day.
https://www.risingstargame.com?referrer=trocproclock
https://www.risingstargame.com
Splinterlands:
This game has been around a while and it is not going anywhere. People swear by this game and I do to. Now you can start playing it for free but to really get the most out of it you need to spend the $10 investment to buy the spellbook. Anyone who plays the game will tell you the $10 in well worth it. The game consists of cards that you battle 1v1 with. Each battle has different rulesets and it keeps it interesting.
When you buy the spellbook you can perform daily quests to earn free cards. And each Season you can earn more free cards. Those cards are yours and you can sell them or use them as you see fit.
https://splinterlands.com?ref=cherokee4life
https://splinterlands.com/
Noise.Cash:
Noise Cash is a twitter like platform. You post short messages and interact with other people. Within the environment you can send 'hearts' to people's posts. Those hearts have a chance of tipping the author a small amount of BCH. It has a built in wallet that collects your heart tips and you choose how often you want to get paid. I have mine set to $0.50 to pay me but you can change it to 1 penny if you want.
If you want to check it out then make sure to follow me :) https://noise.cash/u/TrocProcLock
Brave Browser:
You didn't think I was going to forget the easiest one of them all did you? Brave Browser is a Web Browser built on Chromium (Google's Open Source software for Google Chrome). It works will all Google plugins and such. It was built by former Firefox guys and it amazing fast. Why should you use it? Well if for nothing else it blocks all Internet ads by default! And secondly you can opt in to see a few ads an hours as pop ups and if you do they will pay you for your time in BAT tokens. BAT is Basic Attention Token and it the utility token for the Brave Browser.
Notable Sites:
I personally utilize Alien Worlds every day. This site lets you mine for resources with your NFT's. It has become very stagnant of late and I can recommend it to new cyrpto people because I am not sure if it is going to blow back up or go offline.
https://play.alienworlds.io/
RollerCoin is another game. I personally haven't withdrawn from it so I can't say without a shadow of a doubt that it does pay out. But at the same time it is just a fun game to play none the less.
https://rollercoin.com/?r=khm90umg
https://rollercoin.com
GreenRabbit is a staking "game". You buy NFT's that let you passively earn the Shell token. I haven't been able to get a read on the long term success of this game but I had extra crypto laying around so I got a few NFT's to stake and have been collecting my Shell since. Time will tell on this one.
https://www.greenrabbitgame.io/play
I would be remiss to not mention R-Planet. R-Planet was creating to stake all your unused WAX based NFT's. This has some serious highs and some serious lows. If you have any unused NFT's I would still recommend using this site but don't put anything there you don't mine losing if the site goes down.
https://rplanet.io/staking
Koloboks is another game that has gone through some changes. You buy little Koloboks guys and breed them and send them on missions and you can earn NFT's or KBucks. The ROI used to be a lot better then what it is now.
https://wax.kolobok.io/koloboks?hl=en
Alcor Exchange is the Exchange that you can use to trade most of the cryptocurrencies from WAX based games.
https://wax.alcor.exchange/
There are things I might have missed in this article. And if I did I apologize but will add anything that I see mentioned in the comments that needs to added. As always you need to DYOR (Do Your Own Research) and see what works best for you. The suggestions I put into this list is what I would tell one of my friends who was knew to crypto to check out.
If you have any questions please please please just ask. I would love to help in anyway I can.
