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<p>Where can professionals like doctors and attorneys start learning the basics of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies? When is the best time to start investing?</p>
<p>We hope to answer these questions and more during this interview between <em>Bonnie Flom</em> with <em>"Billing Buddies"</em> and <em>Jerry Banfield,</em> cryptocurrency investor. </p>
<h2><strong>Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Basics for Professionals Considering Investing!</strong></h2>
<p> <br /><em>"Bitcoin and cryptocurrency," </em>what do all of these things mean?</p>
<p>I'm grateful that <em>Bonnie</em> has collaborated with me to bring this information today to professionals like doctors and lawyers hoping to invest profits from businesses into cryptocurrencies.  We hope to answer the questions here that Bonnie has asked on the behalf of the doctors she serves as clients based on my experience investing in cryptocurrencies for the last three years.</p>
<p>Would you join us in discovering the very basics of this because if you have seen <em>Bitcoin</em> somewhere or heard about the big price increase, then this might be useful in deciding what is the best thing to do next?</p>
<p>It might be most helpful to learn from all the ways I've messed some things up too because what I've found is I can learn straight from other people's experience or I can go make all the mistakes myself.</p>
<p>I hope this will be useful for all of us today.</p>
<p><em>Bonnie,</em> thank you for doing this interview with me originally as a video call and now as a post also on Steem.</p>
<p>What motivated you to give this a try for the topic today?</p>
<h4><strong>Bonnie:</strong></h4>
<p>I've asked you about this before, <em>Jerry,</em> and I can't quite wrap my arms around it, but I have some clients and they are really interested in investing and I just thought it would be like a service announcement.</p>
<p>I knew you were really ahead of the game. You started buying before the late explosion this last couple of weeks and now might be the time to get in.</p>
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<p>Probably, when you got in it was better, but like you said, you learned through the hardship of good and bad, what to do, and so I'd love to hear you share with us what you found and how we can proceed with it, if it's something we are interested in.</p>
<h4><strong>Jerry:</strong></h4>
<p>That would be wonderful. Even though you do medical billing, that's your main business with <em>"Billing Buddies,"</em> I think it's nice that you have chosen this as a topic because your clients asked about it. I think this would be fun to talk about, and then we can see what we can do with it.</p>
<p>Well, <em>Bonnie's</em> made an excellent presentation here. She has given us this entire list of questions.</p>
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<p>We will go over them.</p>
<ol>
<li>What is cryptocurrency?</li>
<li>What are <em>Bitcoins</em> or what is a <em>Bitcoin?</em></li>
<li>What can I do with <em>Bitcoin</em> and cryptocurrencies?</li>
<li>Why would I want to get involved in investing with them? It's very possible you might not want to get involved in investing with them.</li>
<li>How do you know if you can trust in investing in them, which links directly to number 4?</li>
<li>Where do I get started to purchase them? This is one of the most challenging parts, not just in terms of getting it set up, but then the ego component of it and getting obsessed with purchasing and the pricing.</li>
<li>Any other tips and tricks?</li>
</ol>
<p>Yes, the main tip and trick is to <em>get in when other people are getting out.</em> Right now, there's a huge excitement about <em>Bitcoin</em> and cryptocurrencies. So many people want to get in now.</p>
<p>I bought <em>Bitcoin</em> a few years ago when it was at <em>$170.</em> Everyone was selling, not everyone obviously, but the market was selling. No one wanted to buy it or hardly anyone wanted to buy it at <em>$170</em> after it had been up to over a thousand.</p>
<p>I sat there and I said,<em> "This will never be this low again," </em>and today it's <em>$18,000.</em> I look at it and say,<em> "Ugh. I don't want to buy any Bitcoin at $18,000."</em> It's as high as it's ever been.</p>
<p>Generally, we don't want to buy things as high as they have ever been. We want to buy them, if we believe in them, when others are saying,<em> "This is crap. It's horrible. It's all going to fail."</em></p>
<p>What do you think so far about just the initial thoughts, <em>Bonnie?</em></p>
<h4><strong>Bonnie:</strong></h4>
<p>What I was trying to wrap my arms around, cryptocurrency means more than just <em>Bitcoins?</em></p>
<p><em>Bitcoins</em> are a type of cryptocurrency?</p>
<p>Could you kind of cover that?</p>
<h4><strong>Jerry:</strong></h4>
<p>Yes, in order to do that I will go over and show a lot of different cryptocurrencies. What I'm on is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/redirect?redir_token=ttbnQO2F4Tq4_aefbElTk9VP3g98MTUxNDI2MzI3N0AxNTE0MTc2ODc3&amp;event=video_description&amp;v=9GJG9fBKzyQ&amp;q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.coincap.io%2F"><em>www.coincap.io</em></a><em>. </em>This has a list of a lot of cryptocurrencies on it, not every single one, but lots of them. There are hundreds of cryptocurrencies.</p>
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<p><em>Bitcoin</em> was the first of what we call a cryptocurrency, but now there are hundreds, perhaps even thousands depending on how they are counted.</p>
<p>A cryptocurrency is based on the <em>"crypto"</em> term that comes from <em>cryptographic,</em> I believe, as these are based on cryptographic hashes on a public ledger.</p>
<p>Now, in plain <em>English,</em> that means something that anyone can go look at that is also private and secure. There's essentially a <em>public</em> and <em>private key</em> pair where there's a <em>public key,</em> and then if you run through the encryption you have a <em>private key</em> that can interact with that.</p>
<p>For example, if I have a <em>Bitcoin</em> wallet I've got my <em>private key </em>in the wallet. I can encrypt the wallet even, and then even though anyone can go look and see where my <em>Bitcoin</em> is on the <em>blockchain</em> and see all the transactions I've made with it on the <em>blockchain,</em> I'm the only one that can actually interact with it and do transactions with it, unless someone else hacks it or steals it.</p>
<p>These are a giant leap forward financially in terms of having an entire ledger out for the public to look at and the money can be sent globally in just a few minutes most of the time.</p>
<p><em>Bitcoin</em> was the first of all these cryptocurrencies, but I think there's definitely one if not a few that are in position in time to overtake <em>Bitcoin.</em> I don't think necessarily anytime soon, but there are now currencies that basically do everything better than <em>Bitcoin</em> at this point, but what makes a currency valuable comes down to wallets.</p>
<p>What makes the <em>US dollar </em>valuable is that people use it, that people believe it's a store of value. All these different cryptocurrencies then are being run by different people, different communities of developers running different software, and that comes back to your question you asked about, how do you know if you can trust in investing in them?</p>
<p>Basically, investing in these currencies is investing in the people that are using them, the companies that are backing them, the investors that are participating. That's a general overview, how does that sound so far?</p>
<h4><strong>Bonnie:</strong></h4>
<p>That's good, it really is a complex language. I appreciate when I talk with people about medical billing, sometimes it's hard to relate because each terminology that you shared has a meaning to you, but to me, it doesn't.</p>
<p>I've gone on <a href="https://www.bitcoin.com/"><em>bitcoin.com</em></a> and downloaded a wallet, as you would say, and I've secured it with the passphrase and I've invested one time with it to see what it's like.</p>
<p>I understand that I can use that wallet to pay other people if I buy things online or other people can pay me online through <em>Bitcoin.</em> What were some other sites you mentioned, you think a couple might pass <a href="http://www.coincap.io/BTC"><em>Bitcoin</em></a> potentially?</p>
<h4><strong>Jerry:</strong></h4>
<p>Yes, that also ties into the questions you asked. I think we have answered what is a cryptocurrency and what are <em>Bitcoins,</em> and then this gets into what can I do with <em>Bitcoins</em> and cryptocurrency, and then where do I get started or purchase them?</p>
<p>Let's look at this again.</p>
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<p>Now, what we have got are all these different currencies, and then a few of them I think are in a position to overtake <em>Bitcoin</em> because of mass adoption potential. One of the problems with <em>Bitcoin</em> is it's essentially a store of value, but you have to have some value to put into it first.</p>
<p>That means if you don't have any money, then there's little to do with <a href="http://www.coincap.io/BTC"><em>Bitcoin</em></a><em>.</em> Now, sure, you can help or assist with various projects, but if we don't have any money there's not a lot we can do with <em>Bitcoin.</em> On top of that <em>Bitcoin</em> takes some massive fees.</p>
<p><em>Bitcoin</em> was started with the idea that it'd be lower fees than using things like <em>PayPal</em>, credit cards or wire transfers, but <em>Bitcoin</em> now is actually a very similar fee, if not higher lots of times, than sending a wire transfer, that's not an improvement over our existing banking system.</p>
<p>Not only that, but most of the time, if you want to get started to buy some <em>Bitcoin,</em> it often requires us to use our existing banking system, which is also not an improvement over our existing banking system.</p>
<p>Finally, with <em>Bitcoin,</em> what is putting it in the number one position basically is that it has the most wallets, it has the most users and it has tons of transactions. This has actually been a problem because it has overwhelmed the entire <em>Bitcoin</em> blockchain.</p>
<p>Right now, if we send a small transaction with a small fee, it might take days for our transaction to go through. That is not an improvement over the existing banking system.</p>
<p>Now, some of these other currencies have addressed those limitations in <em>Bitcoin,</em> but the problem is user adoption. <em>Bitcoin</em> is number one because the most people use it, buy it and invest in it.</p>
<p>Now, as we go through the <a href="http://www.coincap.io/">list of cryptocurrencies</a>, the main thing that's important is user adoption for the long term, and we don't want to invest or trade in anything just with short-term results. That's one of the tips and tricks I can give you getting started.</p>
<p>When I started out with <em>Bitcoin</em> in <em>2013</em> or <em>2014</em>, the price started out at <em>$600.</em> I looked and I said, <em>"This will be amazing. This is going to be huge,"</em> and I started buying a little bit of it at <em>$600.</em> We can see it is at <em>$18,000</em> today.</p>
<p>I was right about it being a big deal and I managed to lose thousands of dollars being right and impatient, and that's what gets a lot of us in life today.</p>
<p><em>Bonnie,</em> what do you think of that?</p>
<h4><strong>Bonnie:</strong></h4>
<p>I'm kind of getting a gleam of what you are saying. You invested to start with at <em>$600,</em> and then you kind of got nervous and you maybe got out for a little bit.</p>
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<h4><strong>Jerry:</strong></h4>
<p>That's exactly what I did.<strong><br /></strong></p>
<h4><strong>Bonnie:</strong></h4>
<p>So you kind of lost by getting out, but then you eventually reinvested at like <em>$170,</em> and then you stuck in there with that and kept going?</p>
<h4><strong>Jerry:</strong></h4>
<p>I made mistakes all over the place. I started buying at <em>$600</em> when it had been a thousand. I started buying at <em>$600</em> and I bought all the way down to <em>$170,</em> and then I got impatient. I couldn't take the stress of, <em>"When's this going to go up?"</em></p>
<p>I was brand-new, I'd never done any investing. I was like <em>29</em> or something, I didn't hardly have any money to invest, but I put everything I had. I actually borrowed money from personal loans and was buying <em>Bitcoin,</em> but I was too impatient to realize the results.</p>
<p>I sold everything at about <em>$200</em> and some dollars as soon as I bought like <em>20</em> or <em>30 Bitcoin</em> at <em>$170.</em> I just couldn't handle the stress of it anymore and I sold.</p>
<p>But then, after taking almost a year or so off, I realized,<em> "Look, I am right about this. This is amazing."</em> The price went up to about <em>$300</em> over a year from<em> $200</em> and I thought, <em>"Okay. I need to get into this in a rational way, not an emotional and ego-driven way, but I need to get into this in a consistent way with a plan before I've bought anything and I'm all wrapped up in it."</em></p>
<p>I realized the best way to do that was just to buy a little bit every day. I started buying about <em>$20</em> of <em>Bitcoin</em> a day at about <em>$300</em> and I kept buying all the way up until about <em>$1,000.</em> By then, I had about <em>$11,000</em> or so, and then I traded and did some tutorials.</p>
<p>But then I invested in this currency <a href="http://www.coincap.io/DASH"><em>Dash</em></a> because it has a way to self-fund its own growth through budget proposals. It's a huge innovation in the cryptocurrency world. I bought that when it was about <em>$11,</em> and as you can see it's <em>$900</em> today. But I sold it at <em>$87</em> after just a few months, and I thought, <em>"There's no way this is going to keep going up so much more because life rolls in seasons."</em></p>
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<p>Right now is the worst time to get involved in <em>Bitcoin.</em> It's the worst time to get involved in most of these cryptocurrencies because there's a ton of speculators that have essentially pushed the value up ahead of where it really is, and many of these currencies have not been battle tested by dropping <em>90%</em> in value.</p>
<p><em>Bitcoin</em> has been battle tested. It went down about <em>80%</em> in value and it didn't die. The users kept building the community anyway.</p>
<p>I sold my <a href="http://www.coincap.io/DASH"><em>Dash</em></a> because it doesn't have the potential to be number one, in my opinion. What I want to do is to be invested in one of these currencies that looks like it has the best potential to overtake <em>Bitcoin,</em> because you might as well just hold on to <em>Bitcoin</em> otherwise. A lot of these are good, but being number one tends to have almost all the benefits while being even number two has way less.</p>
<p>I've looked around and I said, <em>"Which of these cryptocurrencies has the potential to be number one and overtake Bitcoin, and which of these isn't blown up in price, is undervalued?"</em></p>
<p>What I came to is <a href="http://www.coincap.io/STEEM"><em>Steem</em></a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.coincap.io/BTC"><em>Bitcoin</em></a> is almost nine years old and <em>Steem</em> is just a year and a half old. All the transactions on <em>Steem</em> are free. They take bandwidth, which means if you are a brand new user and you don't have any <em>Steem,</em> you can't send a thousand transactions or whatever in one day. You have a limited number of transactions you can send, but if you have a lot of <em>Steem,</em> you can make huge applications that use tons of bandwidth on the network.</p>
<p><em>Steem,</em> in my opinion, is what <em>Bitcoin</em> was supposed to be. <em>Steem</em> has no transaction fees, the transactions go through in three to six seconds every time.</p>
<p>If I send you <em>Steem</em>, you will get it in three to six seconds. With <em>Bitcoin</em>, there are these cryptographic hash wallets and you can't memorize them practically.</p>
<p>Steem is more like a social media network in the sense it's got readable usernames and that's what's amazing. On <em>Steem,</em> it also has a built-in blogging blockchain, which now is over <em>500,000 </em>users in the first year and a half, which is amazing growth.</p>
<p>Now, what we can see on my profile here, I'm grateful I'm making about a hundred dollars on every single post on my blog on <em>Steem,</em> which is incredible. That's ten times better than using a <em>WordPress</em> blog. I've had <a href="https://jerrybanfield.com/">a <em>WordPress</em> blog</a> for years and it makes a fraction of what my <em>Steem</em> blog made from the very beginning.</p>
<p>What's amazing is that all this is on the blockchain. As we go through times now, countries have huge censorship and it's not even obvious to most of us that there's huge censorship on the <em>Internet.</em> We think there's not and there's free speech, but it's discrete.</p>
<p>The websites censor at the highest levels. <em>Google, Facebook </em>and<em> YouTube</em> very much exercise censorship in terms of blocking things or removing them. My friend posted an article on <em>Facebook</em> that went viral, which very quickly was censored, and then it wouldn't show anymore in the newsfeed. When you clicked on his website, it wouldn't go to it. It got censored within a few hours of going viral.</p>
<p>This <em>Steem</em> blockchain is set up to be censorship resistant. This means we can post whatever we want to on <em>Steem</em>. No central authority can come in and take it down and say, <em>"Well, you can't talk about this," </em>and then it's not stuck to one specific <em>URL</em> either.</p>
<p>The innovation I've seen in six months on <em>Steem </em>is incredible, with what people are building and the <em>Smart Media Tokens </em>that are being released for <em>Steem.</em></p>
<p>Most big content publishers like <em>Facebook, YouTube </em>and<em> Reddit,</em> most websites with a large existing audience look at <em>Bitcoin </em>or<em> Ethereum</em> and at these other cryptocurrencies, and while these could be used to accept payment, it's more of a hassle to even integrate them and to try to sync them with regular banking.</p>
<p>There's not a good way to raise money off of it either, all the transactions have fees, so that's not a good thing to use like on <em>Facebook</em> for a billion users, to use something that has fees, but <em>Steem</em> is about to release a system called <a href="https://smt.steem.io/"><em>Smart Media Tokens</em></a> that will essentially allow any publisher to bring the <em>Steem</em> blockchain into a customized token onto their own website and that's a huge innovation. In my opinion, the only one of these cryptocurrencies that's worth investing in right now is <a href="http://www.coincap.io/STEEM"><em>Steem</em></a><em>,</em> and that's because they were all I listed.</p>
<h4><strong>Bonnie:</strong></h4>
<p>What is the blockchain?</p>
<p>I keep getting lost there. I don't have a concept of what a blockchain is.</p>
<h4><strong>Jerry:</strong></h4>
<p>Oh, thank you, <em>Bonnie,</em> for mentioning that. The blockchain is, in simple terms, the public ledger of all the transactions that have occurred on the blockchain.</p>
<p>For example, on <em>Steem </em>I have a server that actually contributes new blocks to the blockchain. That means when people are on the user interface on <a href="https://steemit.com/@jerrybanfield"><em>steemit.com</em></a> and click <em>upvote</em> a post, that's a transaction on the <em>Steem</em> blockchain because that contributes to how much new <em>Steem</em> is paid out on the blockchain.</p>
<p>Therefore, the new user clicks <em>upvote,</em> that transaction is sent to my server or mostly it's other people's, but sometimes it is sent to my server, and then my server adds that transaction on to the blockchain. Therefore, the blockchain is the entire collection of everything that's ever happened.</p>
<p>On the <a href="http://www.coincap.io/BTC"><em>Bitcoin</em></a> blockchain, any of us can look back and review all of the transactions that have happened. If I have all the addresses I've used, I can look and see every single <em>Bitcoin</em> transaction I've ever made on the blockchain.</p>
<p>The blockchain is essentially the public record of all the transactions including where all of the money is stored. Right now we can look on the <em>Bitcoin</em> blockchain and find where all the <em>Bitcoin</em> is stored. We can essentially see everyone's wallet on there.</p>
<h4><strong>Bonnie:</strong></h4>
<p>Does the blockchain have all the cryptocurrencies in it and you can dig down and look at the transactions for <em>Steem,</em> or dig down and look at the transactions for <em>Bitcoin?<br /></em></p>
<h4><strong>Jerry:</strong></h4>
<p>Each of the cryptocurrencies, at least in theory, has its own blockchain. Now, in practice, if we look at the list of these currencies some of them are purely speculation and start-ups. I won't name any in particular, but some of them don't really have their own blockchain.</p>
<p>Some of them are what's called an <em>ERC 20</em> token that's created on <a href="http://www.coincap.io/ETH"><em>Ethereum</em></a><em>,</em> which means that technically it's not its own token, it's just on the <em>Ethereum </em>blockchain and it doesn't truly have its own separate blockchain.</p>
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<p>A lot of these newer ones are just currencies that have been put on a different blockchain and <em>Steem Smart Media Tokens</em> works the same way in terms of, let's say you launch a token with <em>Steem,</em> then that token will actually be on the <em>Steem</em> blockchain.</p>
<p>The main blockchains are <em>Bitcoin, Ethereum </em>and <a href="http://www.coincap.io/LTC"><em>Litecoin</em></a><em>.</em> I don't know much about <a href="http://www.coincap.io/XRP"><em>Ripple</em></a><em>.</em> <em>Dash</em> has its own blockchain and many of these currencies in the top have their own blockchains, but not all of them.</p>
<p>Some of them are essentially just on other blockchains, and I don't want to be invested in something that doesn't even have its own blockchain or that doesn't have its own huge community within an existing blockchain.</p>
<h4><strong>Bonnie:</strong></h4>
<p>This is so technical.</p>
<p>https://steemitimages.com/DQmPgSDjq9wmh6AnGskKftvhZbNqVchvnnLY3iuJGVdHFsQ/S122-08.jpg</p>
<p>Do you ever help people?</p>
<p>Do you do consulting to help people learn about this or is there anything you offer to go further?</p>
<h4><strong>Jerry:</strong></h4>
<p>I have a <em>Discord</em> channel for answering questions on a daily basis, it's on <a href="http://jerrybanfield.com/contact/">jerrybanfield.com/contact/</a>. There's a free channel where anyone can hop in there and participate, ask questions, and then I've got a <em>Members</em> channel and a <em>Partners</em> channel.</p>
<p>You have got access to the <em>Partners</em> channel. I check them and I go in order of the <em>Partners,</em> then <em>Members,</em> and then the free channel. If there's a lot of chat in the <em>Partners</em> channel, I may not see the free one that day.</p>
<p>You have access to the <em>Partners</em> channel where you can ask questions and you  essentially get a priority response, and I also buy and sell <em>Steem</em> directly with partners. If you wanted to buy some <em>Steem,</em> you could send me money on <em>PayPal</em> directly and I would be able to send you <em>Steem</em> directly back.</p>
<p>The easiest way to make a transaction is to transact directly with another user using existing payment methods. If we want to make transactions another way there's a bunch of tutorials I've got on my <em>Steem</em> blog that shows how to do that, which is at a <a href="https://steemit.com/@jerrybanfield"><em>steemit.com/@jerrybanfield</em></a><em>.<br /></em></p>
<h4><strong>Bonnie:</strong></h4>
<p>Okay. You know, what I keep thinking of is my son in the <em>mid-90s</em> came home from grade school and they had this investors' project that they were doing, and he said we should invest in <em>eBay,</em> but we had never heard of <em>eBay.</em> He kept telling us this was going to be the thing. Well, it was. It really did come out. While there's been many other sites that tried to duplicate <em>eBay,</em> but still <em>eBay </em>is predominantly the one that you go shopping on if you want to buy or sell online.</p>
<p>Then, <em>Amazon</em> is also out there, of course, but that's more for merchants in my eyes. I don't know, it probably is for smaller sellers too. I'm thinking that you are onto something that's going to be really big.</p>
<p>In the last two weeks, it's hit it. You have told me about it probably for a year now, and it's finally come out in the news, and like you said, now is not the time to buy because it's so popular.</p>
<p>All right.</p>
<p>How do we get started?</p>
<p>Where would you start?</p>
<h4><strong>Jerry:</strong></h4>
<p>The key place to get started is education, to learn more. Sometimes it's helpful just to learn where not to start. One of the worst ways to get started is to go get a wallet on <em>Bitcoin,</em> and then to start buying a lot of it or a significant part of it.</p>
<p>Even just buying a little bit, if it becomes an ego trip, then it can be a big distraction. If you just open a wallet and buy a little bit of it thinking,<em> "Well, I wanted to get in on this. Now, I know I have some," </em>then that's fine.</p>
<p>What I did, I bought a little bit of it, didn't think very much of it, and then I started getting into it and buying a bunch of it, trading it back and forth, and a lot of people I know start trading on all these exchanges even getting into things like margin trading trying to make money.</p>
<p>I was at my brother's wedding months after I had started, I was sitting there on the way to his wedding trading <em>Bitcoin</em> on my phone and that's about the worst thing we can do getting started, to jump in without even realizing how much we don't know that we don't know.</p>
<p>The best way to get started is with education, to just learn more about things before we have any money in the game because when we just jump into things and put money in, then we get this skewed perspective.</p>
<p>It's like football teams or political parties. We just pick our side or our team and then everyone else stinks because they are on some other team or my team's the best just because it's the one I picked.</p>
<p>It's good to do some more research before investing and I don't want to invest in anything where it's as high as it's ever been. If we look at the market today, most of these currencies are as high as it's ever been.</p>
<p><em>https://steemitimages.com/DQmZVTV5EpsyWmvNcJEjiHu218yuGvqDdLA1EKHjxB9fiMx/S122-09.jpg</em></p>
<p><a href="http://www.coincap.io/STEEM"><em>Steem</em></a> actually has been to <em>$4 </em>before and it's <em>$2</em> today. When I bought into <em>Steem,</em> it was anywhere from <em>80 cents</em> to <em>$1.30,</em> but it's been as low as <em>7 cents.</em></p>
<p><a href="http://www.coincap.io/DASH"><em>Dash</em></a> had been <em>$14</em> when I bought into it at about <em>$11.</em> <em>Bitcoin</em> has never been higher than <em>$18,000.</em> This is the absolute worst possible time to buy in. Even if it does go to <em>$25,000</em> or <em>$50,000</em> eventually, it'd be just better to see how far down it is going to go.</p>
<p>Everything comes in seasons in life, and I can tell you the last winter for cryptocurrencies was brutal. <a href="http://www.coincap.io/LTC"><em>Litecoin</em></a>, for example, which is <em>$300</em> today was up to <em>$40</em> four years ago, and it went all the way down to something like a dollar and it stayed there for years.</p>
<p>I don't know how many years exactly, but it stayed very low for a long time. If you had bought it at <em>$40</em> you would have had to have something in terms of faith to be able to hold it as it went down to almost nothing, and then wait until this year where it finally went back to <em>$40.</em></p>
<p><a href="http://www.coincap.io/BTC"><em>Bitcoin</em></a> might be at <em>$100,000</em> someday, but it might go down to <em>$1,000 </em>first or it might go down. Almost everyone that's been in this for a while expects a crash.</p>
<p>There's a lot of sketchy things that seem to be going on with at least one, if not all or many of the exchanges right now. These dollar amounts on here for the market cap are almost completely imaginary.</p>
<p>https://steemitimages.com/DQmYDD5TLhHpPpDU6FGAh8L96kL4ARvQ6mMgSdAgXRXKx2s/S122-10.jpg</p>
<p>Now, technically, they are correct, but what about someone who lost a thousand <em>Bitcoin</em> in a wallet and can't get to it. That <em>Bitcoin</em> is not really on the market. The <em>Bitcoin</em> price will probably continue to go up and up over time, but it was <em>$1,000 </em>a year ago or less and it's <em>$18,000</em> today.</p>
<p>It's just likely that it's going to come down, and therefore, an ideal thing to do if we want to look at these, is to just watch and see what they do. One of the main errors we make as humans is the rollback or the hindsight error.</p>
<p>I had <em>60</em> <em>Bitcoin</em> in <em>May,</em> when I sold my <em>Dash</em> masternode for <em>$87,000,</em> which is <em>$900,000</em> today. I had <em>60 Bitcoin </em>and it was at<em> $1,700.</em> It just went up almost double in a few months and I said, <em>“It's gone up too much. I don't want to hold any Bitcoin."</em> I sold almost all of it to <em>US dollars </em>except for what I bought into <em>Steem.</em></p>
<p>Yes, if I'd held my <em>60 Bitcoin,</em> I'd have like a million dollars right now. If I had simply held my thousand <em>Dash,</em> I'd have almost a million dollars right now. I do have over <em>$200,000</em> of <em>Steem</em> today, but the funny thing is I feel worse about having sold my <em>Dash</em> at <em>$87 </em>and watching it go up to <em>$900,</em> than I feel good about having bought it at<em> $11</em> and selling it at<em> $87.</em> There's no perfect system.</p>
<h4><strong>Bonnie:</strong></h4>
<p>Right, but in the end, you have made a considerable amount. You have lost quite a bit too, but by learning the ropes it has paid off to some extent.</p>
<p>You have got <em>$200,000</em> in <em>Steem</em> and I suppose it would be really hard to track how much you had to actually put in and how much you lost to get that <em>$200,000.<br /></em></p>
<h4><strong>Jerry:</strong></h4>
<p>Yes, the time and energy were gigantic. When I first started messing around with <em>Bitcoin</em> all I did is lose money. I bought into it right after the huge excitement, essentially at the same time as now.</p>
<p>This is going to be the next big thing, and then maybe it's not going to be the next big thing right away. Well, maybe this isn't going to take off. I bought into it right then and put a ton of time and energy into it. I was checking the <em>Bitcoin</em> price all the time and I managed to lose <em>$5,000 </em>after putting in probably hundreds of hours fooling around with it.</p>
<p>If you think like, <em>"Look, I believe in this. I'm going to buy a little bit every day,"</em> and say, <em>"This is awesome, I definitely want to get in. Bitcoin is going to be a great store value,"</em> then one of the best ways is to just set a certain amount that we can afford to lose every day.</p>
<p>You can say, <em>"Look, I'm going to buy $10 or $100 or whatever a day,"</em> and just buy that every day regardless of what the price is. Then, if the price goes up to <em>$50,000</em> and drops to <em>$5,000,</em> and goes back to <em>$20,000</em>, there's no ego in it.</p>
<p>There are websites you can set up an automatic daily purchase like <a href="https://www.coinbase.com/"><em>Coinbase</em></a><em>, </em>which is a wallet I use and you can buy <em>Bitcoin</em> automatically on it every single day. That's what I did for months.</p>
<p>I think it is a great thing to do that with <a href="http://www.coincap.io/STEEM"><em>Steem</em></a>. Just buy a little bit of <em>Steem</em> every day. I think the <em>Steem</em> price is on its way to <em>$10</em> in the short term and <em>$100 plus</em> in a year or so.<em> Steem</em> is the only cryptocurrency that's got a good shot of passing <em>Bitcoin</em> in wallets and whoever has the most wallets wins.</p>
<h4><strong>Bonnie:</strong></h4>
<p>What I've done so far is I've started a wallet with <em>Bitcoin,</em> and then I went to <em>Coinbase</em> and bought <em>Bitcoin.</em></p>
<p>How do those two link together?</p>
<h4><strong>Jerry:</strong></h4>
<p><em>Coinbase</em> is an exchange and a wallet, which means that on <em>Coinbase</em> we can change our <em>US dollars</em> to <em>Bitcoin,</em> and then if you have got a <em>Bitcoin</em> wallet what you can do is send your <em>Bitcoin</em> from <em>Coinbase</em> over to your <em>Bitcoin</em> wallet.</p>
<p>I think it is ideal for most of us to keep <em>Bitcoin</em> and any cryptocurrency in our own wallet. All of my <em>Steem</em> is in my <em>Steem</em> wallet, in the likely point of a crash, which I think the big cryptocurrency crash last time happened after <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mt._Gox"><em>Mt. Gox</em></a> went down.</p>
<p>That was the largest <em>Bitcoin</em> exchange at the time. Actually, the largest <em>Bitcoin</em> exchange now has a good shot of going down again, even though it's a different website.</p>
<p>https://steemitimages.com/DQmaDnPzjHmCfgFWynF22NvZSS1MRGJzt7TiJQKD83LnRCQ/S122-11.jpg</p>
<p>We want to keep our <em>Bitcoin</em> off of centralized websites and exchanges, and keep it in our own wallet. If we buy on <em>Coinbase</em> for example, it's good to put it in your own wallet.</p>
<h4><strong>Bonnie:</strong></h4>
<p>Okay.</p>
<p>So step one is to get education and research. I got that from you. You have a lot of tutorials at <a href="https://steemit.com/@jerrybanfield"><em>steemit.com/@jerrybanfield</em></a>, right?</p>
<p>Is that the link to go to?</p>
<h4><strong>Jerry:</strong></h4>
<p>Yes, exactly, or you can just google <em>Jerry Banfield.</em></p>
<h4><strong>Bonnie:</strong></h4>
<p>Okay, so once we have a wallet with <em>Bitcoin,</em> we invest in a site like <em>Coinbase</em> and get the <em>Bitcoin,</em> and then transfer that back to our wallet.</p>
<p>Is that the right process?</p>
<h4><strong>Jerry:</strong></h4>
<p>The easiest process for smaller amounts, like say a few hundred or a few thousand. I think <a href="https://www.coinbase.com/"><em>Coinbase</em></a> or <a href="https://www.bitstamp.net/"><em>Bitstamp.net</em></a> are two of the best.</p>
<p>I've got a link on my website that you can use to get <em>$10</em> if you use my link to join, and I get <em>$10</em> too.</p>
<h4><strong>Bonnie:</strong></h4>
<p>What is that link?</p>
<h4><strong>Jerry:</strong></h4>
<p>I will go over to my website here and show that for you.</p>
<h4><strong>Bonnie:</strong></h4>
<p>That would be wonderful.</p>
<h4><strong>Jerry:</strong></h4>
<p>If I go to my website, then I've got a link called <a href="https://jerrybanfield.com/resources/"><em>Gold Mine</em></a><em>.</em></p>
<p>https://steemitimages.com/DQmWgwUBJmezEfvDL7qp8m7NJpwJXjE8fQEwjDV5k7kXcnD/S122-12.jpg</p>
<p>The idea is there are all these valuable things on here that I use.</p>
<p>Then, there's a <em>Coinbase</em> wallet where it says, <em>"Insured Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin Wallet."</em></p>
<p>Now, it is insured against theft and it is insured if your <em>US dollars</em> are in their <em>US dollar</em> bank account. It is not insured against price changes. It is not insured against misuse by a user, which includes, for example, if your roommate comes in and sends all your <em>Bitcoin</em> out.</p>
<p><em>Coinbase</em> is an insured <em>Bitcoin, Ethereum</em> and <em>Litecoin</em> wallet and it only works in some countries though. It works in the <em>US,</em> but it doesn't work in every country.</p>
<p>If you want to get started on <em>Coinbase, </em>would you please go to my <a href="https://jerrybanfield.com/resources/"><em>Gold Mine</em></a> on my website, and then click on the link to <em>Coinbase?</em></p>
<p>You will see it says, <em>"Jerry Banfield invited you to try Coinbase!"</em></p>
<p>https://steemitimages.com/DQmPadiipD6N1SBFXAKHKeKgHPejJsDhyL5SUYFTeStfkSt/S122-13.jpg</p>
<p>When you sign up using this link and buy or sell <em>$100</em> of <em>Bitcoin</em> or more, both of us get <em>$10</em> in free <em>Bitcoin.</em> I'm grateful that about <em>500</em> people or so have done that already, and that's how to get started with<em> Coinbase.</em></p>
<p>Another great website is <a href="https://www.bitstamp.net/"><em>Bitstamp.net</em></a>, but for smaller amounts like a hundred dollars, a few hundred dollars or a few thousand dollars, the simple thing is just to buy it on <em>Coinbase.</em></p>
<p>I've got a post on my <em>Steemit</em> blog that shows eight different websites we can use that are similar to <em>Coinbase.</em> It's at <a href="http://steem.guide/"><em>Steem.guide</em></a> where I list all the basics about <em>Steem</em> and <em>Steemit,</em> and it also has tutorials showing how to buy and sell different currencies there.</p>
<p>The best to do is we buy in on <em>Coinbase</em> or <em>Bitstamp,</em> and then we just leave our <em>Bitcoin, Ethereum</em> or <em>Litecoin</em> in that wallet because that's easy, it's easy to withdraw and cash out back to <em>US dollars</em> at some point.</p>
<p>Now, if we want to start putting in larger amounts, I'd say over ten thousand dollars would be a good threshold, then that would be better kept in a wallet that's not on one of those websites because what happens is, if <em>Coinbase</em> or <em>Bitstamp</em> goes down, which is possible, and especially some of these other exchanges seem like a good possibility, then we could actually lose everything.</p>
<p>If you were holding a <em>Bitcoin</em> worth <em>$18,000</em> for example and someone steals the <em>Bitcoin</em> out of that exchange's wallet, then that gets passed on to the users. <a href="https://www.bitfinex.com/"><em>Bitfinex.com</em></a> already had that happen, it had millions of dollars of <em>Bitcoin</em> stolen. They created some system to try to reimburse users, but the fact is these exchanges have tons of money all tied up in one spot.</p>
<p>They are a huge target for theft not just externally, but internally from the people who have access to them. You are looking at one of these crimes you'd watch a movie about. You can steal a hundred million dollars and go live off on an island and potentially totally get away with it. </p>
<h4><strong>Bonnie:</strong></h4>
<p>So what I hear you saying is if you buy from <em>Bitstamp.net</em> or <em>Coinbase.com,</em> transfer it to your <em>Bitcoin</em> wallet, to securely hold it, or one of your <em>Steemit</em> wallets to securely hold it?</p>
<p>https://steemitimages.com/DQmWgZVjXtmt7fQ9zz7nPZSqmvyt66CpdHFpRQsHX7QAYq5/S122-14.jpg </p>
<h4><strong>Jerry:</strong></h4>
<p>Yes, if it's a larger amount because if we got a few hundred dollars or a thousand or a few thousand, we actually lose a significant amount just sending it from one wallet to another if we are using <em>Bitcoin.</em></p>
<p>Now, with <em>Ethereum</em> and <em>Litecoin</em> that's not an issue. However, for just getting started it may be a lot easier to just keep the money in the wallet on the exchange because the biggest problem I think with cryptocurrencies is the ability to lose it and the ability for us to get locked out of our own wallets.</p>
<p>If I lose my <em>Steem</em> account password, I'm done. There are <em>$200,000</em> of <em>Steem</em> and no one can help me with it either. Now, if someone steals or hacks my password and I have my password, unlike <em>Bitcoin,</em> <em>Ethereum </em>or <em>Litecoin,</em> I actually do have a shot at keeping my money in<em> Steem.</em></p>
<p>That's why I used my <em>Steem</em> wallet because I can put it in and power it up and even if someone gets a hold of my password, which is the highest level of security, I have a very good chance at only losing like <em>7%</em> or less of what's in my account.</p>
<p>Now, if someone gets a hold of our <em>Bitcoin</em> or <em>Ethereum,</em> or any of these other wallets, that's it. Picture it like having all your money invested in the stock market by comparison and if someone signs into your <em>eTrade</em> account or whatever, it can instantly be cleared out and sold.</p>
<p>That's the biggest problem with cryptocurrencies. Not just that, but we can lock ourselves out of it. I was paranoid with my <em>Dash</em> masternode and almost a hundred thousand dollars in there. Literally, if I lost the password for it, no one could help me get back into it and that's probably happening a lot.</p>
<h4><strong>Bonnie:</strong></h4>
<p>Why are you investing all this energy to do this?</p>
<p>What is behind it all?</p>
<p>Why take the risk?</p>
<h4><strong>Jerry:</strong></h4>
<p>That's an outstanding question, <em>Bonnie.</em></p>
<p>The cryptocurrencies have a lot of liabilities and in many ways, they are not as good as just having money in the bank or using something like<em> PayPal.</em></p>
<p>What these cryptocurrencies offer is huge potential to help us connect and transact directly with each other person-to-person, and that is a huge benefit.</p>
<p>Things like <a href="http://www.coincap.io/STEEM"><em>Steem</em></a> with no fees that literally just have enough users with wallets and have an application, we could do things like go to the grocery store and instead of paying the grocery store directly, we actually could have it instantly set up where I make the payment for like the tomatoes at the store, and then the grocery store gets their part automatically, the person who picked up the tomatoes and the warehouse. These currencies have some incredible possibilities.</p>
<p>On <em>Steem</em> specifically, this is the one website where we actually get a fair share of what we contribute.</p>
<p>When I post on <em>Facebook</em> and get a thousand likes, I don't get any money. Meanwhile, <em>Facebook</em> gets inventory to show ads based on the attention I've driven with the post. If I do something that goes viral on <em>Reddit,</em> it has the chance to make money on it, I get nothing. That's the same thing on websites like <em>Twitter.</em></p>
<p>Cryptocurrencies have massive good for the average person and for connecting, for even raising our consciousness on the planet. <em>Bitcoin</em> makes it so much easier in countries like <em>China</em> where it can be difficult to turn <em>Chinese</em> money, I think <em>Yuan,</em> into investments on a global scale. <em>Bitcoin</em> has been huge in <em>China</em> because it's a way out essentially of <em>China.</em> It's a way we can just instantly transact all over the world.</p>
<p>I'm excited because of what this can do for the average person and that's why I'm excited about <em>Steem.</em> It's one of these cryptocurrencies that truly looks like it has a lot of value for the average person who hasn't bought any of it.</p>
<h4><strong>Bonnie:</strong></h4>
<p>I could ask you questions all day. I keep thinking of things, but to get started I really need to do some research.</p>
<p>Could you give me a to-do list?</p>
<p>Where do I read this first, go to that second?</p>
<p>Anything like that.</p>
<p>Check this out.</p>
<h4><strong>Jerry:</strong></h4>
<p>Yes, I think it is best to start with <a href="http://www.coincap.io/STEEM"><em>Steem</em></a> because of everything I've shared. I think it is best to get started with something early because <em>Bitcoin</em> has been out for nine years. Some of these other ones that are at the top have been out for years although some of them are brand new and have almost no real value, but they are worth a ton for some reason.</p>
<p>I'd say learning about <em>Steem</em> is the ideal way to get started because what most of us want to do is to have been in early on something. We want to get the biggest possible return out of our investment. I'd say going to my <a href="http://steem.guide/"><em>Steem.guide</em></a> might be a good thing to do to just read about <em>Steem,</em> to see all these different things that are going on on <em>Steem</em> like the account security or blogging on <em>Steemit.</em></p>
<p>In my opinion, this is the best opportunity for most of us. I just have <a href="https://steemit.com/budget/@jerrybanfield/introducing-steem-budget-proposals">a new system</a> and <a href="https://steemit.com/budget/@jerrybanfield/first-steem-budget-investor-payments">it's returned an equivalent of <em>62% APR</em> to investors</a>, those that have essentially delegated me <em>Steem Power.</em> Not even actually giving me money, but just giving me the voting power on <em>Steem.</em> I explained that in my last two posts and how that works.</p>
<h4><strong>Bonnie:</strong></h4>
<p>Where do we get to your posts again?</p>
<h4><strong>Jerry:</strong></h4>
<p>You can just google <em>Jerry Banfield</em> and you will see my blog on <em>Steemit,</em> or you can go directly to <a href="https://steemit.com/@jerrybanfield"><em>steemit.com/@jerrybanfield</em></a>. It's also on my website, anything that goes to my blog, there's a link right at the top that goes to my blog on <em>Steem.</em> We can just click that and go there.</p>
<p>https://steemitimages.com/DQmcwnM4cSX3cMyBhX48LAjRJ61PhsKbVE4aQEBKPF7rVwv/S122-15.jpg</p>
<p>I just did <a href="https://steemit.com/budget/@jerrybanfield/first-steem-budget-investor-payments">a post showing about these investor payments</a>. For example, <a href="https://steemit.com/@freedom"><em>@freedom</em></a> gave about <em>$200,000</em> worth of voting power, not even actual money, but voting power, and then he got <em>$500</em> back in <em>36 </em>hours for that.<strong><br /></strong></p>
<h4><strong>Bonnie:</strong></h4>
<p>Wow!</p>
<h4><strong>Jerry:</strong></h4>
<p>What's cool on <em>Steem</em> is that we can just buy some <em>Steem</em> and there are all these ways to essentially power it up, and then make money off of that. That's <em>10</em> times better than lots of these other cryptocurrencies like <em>Bitcoin,</em> because if you have <em>Bitcoin</em> in your wallet, you don't get anything.</p>
<p>If you want to make money with your <em>Bitcoin</em> it often involves risking it a lot as well like loaning <a href="http://www.coincap.io/BTC"><em>Bitcoin</em></a> out to others, which might cause all of it to be lost. With <em>Steem</em> there are so many ways to make money that don't even involve risk because you have voting power, and if you don't like what's being done there, you are not getting a returning ticket back.</p>
<p>I'd say where it starts to learn about <em>Steem,</em> take a look at my posts on <em>Steem</em> because this is the one with the biggest return potential. <em>Bitcoin</em> may go up to <em>$100,000</em> someday, but that's only <em>10</em> times where it is at right now, whereas a lot of these cryptocurrencies are going to go down a lot.</p>
<p><em>https://steemitimages.com/DQmTM2iFXDKu4m4cnu9Wfq7oDGVi1U2xqXAsA3mM8T6wex8/S122-16.jpg</em></p>
<p><em>Steem</em> has been twice as high already. I've been talking about <em>Steem</em> since it was in the dollar range and it's already up double, and I'd say that <em>Steem</em> has got the best shot to go up a hundred, even five hundred or a thousand times over the next several years.</p>
<p><em>Steem</em> already has the most transactions out of any blockchain, which is a good sign, but once people start using <em>Steem</em> and the further <em>Steem</em> develops, there's no need for most of these other blockchains.</p>
<p>Now, some have unique abilities, some will be able to do things, but <em>Steem</em> is the first mover on the social media network, with a built-in blogging platform and free transactions. It's just like <em>Bitcoin,</em> that first-mover advantage is gigantic. That's why <em>Bitcoin</em> is number one even though in terms of features it's technically inferior to almost every other one.</p>
<p>It was first, and <em>Steem</em> is the first mover on essentially the mass adoptable cryptocurrencies. You can sign up on <em>Steem</em> without investing anything and have a very good shot at making several dollars a day in posts, which may not be a big deal in countries like the <em>US</em> or the <em>UK </em>where the wealth is high, but somewhere like <em>Nigeria, Indonesia, India </em>or<em> Nepal,</em> you can sign up and have a very good shot within a few months to be making a few dollars on every single post. The dollar is very strong and that's a huge deal.</p>
<h4><strong>Bonnie:</strong></h4>
<p>Right.</p>
<p>This has been really helpful, <em>Jerry.</em> I'm really glad we are doing this presentation because I started off with <em>Bitcoin</em> in trying to get my arms around what a blockchain is, what cryptocurrency means, how to buy and sell, what the risks are, and you have really addressed them.</p>
<p>https://steemitimages.com/DQmYnanM3dZLfzi6cuFdUBpatKkDsYo1fRt31Xq8qyWt6rU/S122-17.jpg</p>
<p>I'm going to start with that <a href="http://steem.guide/"><em>Steem.guide</em></a> and really check that out.</p>
<p>I really thank you for your time.</p>
<p>This has been really helpful.</p>
<h4><strong>Jerry:</strong></h4>
<p>Well, thank you very much, <em>Bonnie,</em> for recommending this topic today.</p>
<p>I hope we have had a good discussion for our viewers today and I appreciate you have <a href="http://jerrybanfield.com/call/">scheduled a call with me</a> every month this year.</p>
<p>So, thank you.</p>
<h4><strong>Bonnie:</strong></h4>
<p>Thank you.</p>
<p>It's been very helpful.</p>
<p>Have a great day.</p>
<h4><strong>Jerry:</strong></h4>
<p>Well, thank you.</p>
<p>I hope you have a wonderful day as well.</p>
<p>And for you that have read or watched, we appreciate you being with us and we hope you have enjoyed this. </p>
<h3><strong>Final words</strong></h3>
<p> <br />Thank you for reading this blog post which was originally filmed as the video below.</p>
<p>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GJG9fBKzyQ</p>
<p>If you found this post helpful on <em>Steem,</em> would you please <em>upvote</em> it and follow me because you will then be able to see more posts like this in your home feed?</p>
<p>Love,</p>
<p>Jerry Banfield with edits by <a href="https://steemit.com/@gmichelbkk">@gmichelbkk</a> on the transcript from <a href="https://steemit.com/@deniskj">@deniskj</a></p>
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</ul>
<p><br /><strong>Our Most Important Votes on Steem are for Witness!</strong></p>
<p>Would you please make a vote for jerrybanfield as a witness or set jerrybanfield as a proxy to handle all witness votes at <a href="https://steemit.com/~witnesses">https://steemit.com/~witnesses</a> because we are funding projects to build Steem <a href="https://steemit.com/budget/@jerrybanfield/introducing-steem-budget-proposals">as explained here</a>? Thank you to the 2500+ of us on Steem voting for me as a witness, the 2 million dollars worth of Steem power assigned by followers trusting me to make all witness votes through setting me as proxy, and <a href="https://steemit.com/@followbtcnews">@followbtcnews</a> for making these .gif images!</p>
<p><a href="https://steemit.com/~witnesses"> <img src="https://steemitimages.com/DQmfG2kraPru5ZtbCaVZg5tcw92S3wSMbVcKZd6hwSjY8om/vote%20for%20jerrybanfield%20witness%2023.gif" alt="Vote Jerry Banfield Steem Witness" width="100" height="100" border="0" /> </a></p>
<h3>Or</h3>
<p><a href="https://steemit.com/~witnesses"> <img src="https://steemitimages.com/0x0/https://i.gyazo.com/e41b5378209532d6b282543f780b0278.gif" alt="Jerry Banfield Steem Proxy" width="100" height="100" border="0" /> </a></p>
<p><strong>Let's stay together?</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>If you want to stay updated via email, will you sign up either to get new emails daily at <a href="http://jerry.tips/steemposts">http://jerry.tips/steemposts</a> or join at <a href="http://jerry.tips/emaillist1017">http://jerry.tips/emaillist1017</a> to get an email once a week with highlights?</li>
<li>If you would like to build a relationship with me online, would you please visit <a href="https://jerrybanfield.com/contact/">https://jerrybanfield.com/contact/</a> because I would like a chance to get to know you?</li>
</ul>