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The Crypto-currency Starter Pack

Now you want to get your hands on some crypto but before you can decide which crypto-currency to trade or invest in there are two important decisions you have to make. You must choose a wallet and also decide which exchange or source of crypto-currency you will use. Let us take a look at these two requirements.

CRYPTO-CURRENCY WALLET

A crypto-currency wallet is a secure digital wallet used to store, send and receive digital currency. Most coins have an official wallet. For example, Bitcoin Core Wallet, Litecoin-QT and Ethereum Wallet. There are also universal wallets such as Jaxx (which I use), mycellium, and many more. You will find useful offline wallets like TREZOR which is a Bitcoin wallet. If you are the type that all your stuff in one place then you might want to signup for Coinbase which houses both an exchange and a built in wallet. (Unfortunately, at the time of writing coinbase was not available in Zambia).

A wallet makes use of a Private and Public key in order for it to operate. These keys are randomly generated alpha-numeric codes. To explain this better I like to use the analogy of an email client, email address and email password. Everyone who has an email account has an email address (Public key) which is hosted by a client (wallet) i.e. gmail, yahoo. outlook, etc. In order to access the email address they need a password (Private key). Now, anyone can see your email address (Public key) but should never see your email password (Private Key), unless of course it is a shared account. Anyone can send funds to your public key but in order to send funds from your wallet you must have a private key. Get it? Got it? Good!!!

Here are some wallets which allow you to withdraw cash in Zambia:

www.payza.com
www.payeer.com
www.perfectmoney.is

CRYPTO-CURRENCY EXCHANGE

In my other post I defined a crypto-currency exchange as platforms, usually websites, where you can buy and sell crypto-currencies. These are businesses that allow consumers to trade crypto-currency for other assets, such as conventional FIAT money, or different digital currency (wikipedia).

Obviously the next question will be which is the best exchange. Well, before I can get into answering that question let us look at a few things to consider when choosing an exchange.

a. Firstly and most importantly, you must check to see if the exchange is available in your country (Zambia). These days not a lot of exchanges are available in Zambia. Exchanges like coinbase won't allow you to buy or sell Bitcoin in Zambia.
b. How safe is the website and server. A site which has https:// is a good sign.
c. Transaction fee structure. Consider things like fixed fees, percentage fees and spread.
d. How many and which currency pairs are available to trade e.g: BTC/ETH, BTC/USD, ETH/EUR etc.
e. Multiple options to buy currency like bank card, PayPal, etc
f. User friendliness
g. Good user ratings

Below is a list of some exchanges which are available in Zambia:

spectrocoin.com
localbitcoins.com
cex.io

OTHER SOURCES

Apart from buying directly from an exchange, you can get coins from various sources. Some sources are free whereas others require you to pay.

Free Sources

There a number of ways to get coins for 'free' coins. I say 'free' because there is nothing for free in this world. I will talk about two ways.

1. Paid-To-Click (PTC) Websites

A great many advertising websites will pay users to watch adverts. These are called PTC or Paid-To-Click websites. In exchange for your time, effort, and data bundles obviously, these websites will pay small fractions of crypto for watching adverts on their sites. This method requires a lot of patience because the amounts paid are low (from as little as 0.000000001), the minimum withdrawal limits are relatively high (some are 0.00150000) will take anything from 250 days to 18 months, and that is if you are clicking every day. Some PTC sites include:

coinbulb.com
bitcoin4clicks.com
btcclicks.com
ads4btc.com
adbtc.top

2. Faucets

Faucets are a reward system that give away fractions of cryptocurrency (Satoshis for BTC or Gwei/Szabo for Ethereum). Faucets can be websites or Apps which require users to answer a Google reCaptcha or SolveMedia question for them to receive the reward. Faucets are timed so that there is a delay between consecutive claims. The time can be from 1 minute to 60 minutes and anything in between. Again, this method requires a lot of your attention and patience. Word of caution on this, a lot of Apps claim to be faucets but will never pay out. I recently had an upsetting experience with an app called Freether. Please stay clear. Some faucets that I am currently using are:

gwei.win (web based but works just fine on a phone. Pays out every Sunday provided the minimum balance claimed is 3000 Gwei. I am in my first week of using it. Will update after I get payment...or not)
free satoshi - bitcoin (Android App) - 9 satoshis every 30 minutes. Low withdrawal limit of 590 Satoshis. Already successfully received payment into my coinbase wallet.
bitcoin claim - BTC Miner (Android App) - 150 satoshis every 15 minutes. 0.00400000 withdrawal limit. Yet to reach minimum limit.

Paid sources

These include websites which offer cryptocurrency lending service. You signup on the platform and buy a package. The automated system will then pay you interest of about 30% a month for a pre-determined period of time. For example, one package on www.usitech-int.com pays about 1% a day for 140 days. In other words, they pay you 140% for 140 days, except they pay daily. You can choose to withdraw the payment or re-invest it to increase your earnings. A similar set of packages is available on www.bitconnect.co.

There we have it. I hope this information was helpful. If you have any questions please leave a comment and I will do my best to answer.

Love, Peace and Harmony.


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