Crypto4TheMasses

Crypto Market Update 12/11/2023

G’day folks and welcome to my first post on recent price action within the Cryptoverse. It’s been a green week not just for Cryptocurrencies, but also for stock markets around the world. The Dow Jones is up 0.56% over the past week and the Nasdaq is up 2.59%. That’s a fairly solid week for the stock indices, but crypto gains have put these to shame.

The price of Bitcoin almost touched $38,000 on Friday and has had a bumper week with gains of 5.9%. ETF hype appears to be driving this move, as it now appears highly likely the SEC will approve multiple spot Bitcoin ETFs within the next few months. It seems that the price of Bitcoin will continue to rise until at least one of these ETFs is approved. It is quite possible that this could be a typical “buy the rumour, sell the new” event. Prepare for BTC to experience a sharp dip in price in the weeks following the ETF/s approval.

As well as Bitcoin has been performing over the last week, alts (coins other than BTC) have been on an absolute tear. It seems that a mini alt season is upon us with the hype around the Bitcoin ETF/s also positively impacting most other cryptocurrencies. New coin Celestia, which was just airdropped to users of a number of Ethereum-based chains, has had a great start with gains of 89.5% over the past week. Cronos, the native token of the exchange crypto.com, almost has had an outstanding week with gains of 61.6%. Chainlink and Solana, popular coins from the last bull run, have also been performing exceptionally.

Who knows how long this rally can last. I would speculate that most coins will continue to see positive price action until at least one spot Bitcoin ETF is approved. When this will happen is anyone’s guess. Some are speculating this may occur as soon as next week, while others suggest the first approval will take place at the beginning of 2024. Again, I would not be at all surprised if there is a sharp pullback in the price of alts in the weeks following the first ETF approval. It is my personal opinion that we will experience one more sharp leg down in cryptocurrency prices before the next bull run well and truly kicks off. I would recommend making sure you have some money available to “buy the dip” when this occurs.

The immediate future still looks bleak, not only for cryptocurrencies, but for all markets. Interest rates are at their highest point in years in most countries around the world, with future interest rate rises entirely possible in the coming months. Inflation still remains stubbornly high in many countries, and there is also the possibility of a recession. As always, take care when investing and never put in more than you can afford to lose.

No Risk Matched Betting – A Guaranteed Method of Making Substantial Money

People are always looking for a way to make easy money. How do you find a way of making guaranteed money? How do you find a method that pays enough to justify the amount of time you spend doing it? An easy way to make hundreds/thousands of dollars quickly is matched betting. I myself have used matched betting to make easy money – thousands of dollars. Here I will take you through the steps required to take advantage of the bonus promotions offered by sports betting companies and turn this into cash you can withdraw straight into your bank account.

Sports betting companies make A LOT of money. They prey on those among us prone to gambling and offer odds that weigh in their favour. Although these odds are only very slightly in the favour of the bookies, when you consider the number of people betting on each contest this amounts to a huge profit for these companies. A technique bookies use to attempt to lure in new customers is to offer a welcome bonus. This bonus is usually in the form of a bonus bet and quite often will be over $100. I will give you a quick example (not a real offer in this case). Say you have just signed up to Ladbrokes and they are offering you a 200% first deposit bonus up to $150. This means that if you deposit $150 into your Ladbrokes account, they will give you a $300 bonus bet. Now once you make this $150 deposit this money must be turned over (or bet) at least once before you can withdraw it back into your bank account. Also, not only is the $300 bonus unable to be withdrawn (it is not cash on the betting platform) but the only money you earn from this is the profit you make on the bet, not the stake. I will explain this shortly.

Say you have decided to sign up and take this offer. The first step is to turn over the original deposit and regain as much of your money as possible. To do this you need to open an account with another bookie. What we want to do in this case is to back one team on one site and the opposing team on the other site. And we want to pick a match with identical odds if possible, for convenience sake. In this example we will place bets on the Washington Wizards and Sacramento Kings NBA Basketball game. Washington are paying 1.82 and Sacramento are paying 1.98 (the odds will differ slightly on different sites). Note that we are not betting on a game where a draw is a viable option as this will complicate matters. Let’s place your original $150 as a head to head bet on the Washington Wizards. This will give you a return of 1.82 x $150 = $273. What we want to do is lay this bet on another betting companies’ site. We can bet slightly less than $150 on the Sacramento Kings as they are paying slightly higher. Let’s put $140 on the Kings for a return of 1.98 x 140 = $277.20. Now we have placed a total of $290 on the result of this game. The return will either be $273 or $277.20 meaning that we lose $17 as a worst case scenario. That’s a pretty good outcome for a qualifying bet.

The next step is to turn your bonus into cash which is the main reason we are here – free money. This is done in roughly the same way – backing opposing teams on different sites. Because we only get the profits we make on the bonus bet and not the original stake we want to pick a match that has specific odds. Through trial and error I have found that the highest profits can be made by picking a match where one team pays between $3 and $5 and the other team between $1 and $2. For this example we will also use another NBA match, the Brooklyn Nets ($3.14) and Philadelphia 76ers ($1.33). We want to place our Ladbrokes bonus bet on the team that is the outsider, in this case the Nets. A $300 bonus bet will net us 300 x 3.14 = $942. Not counting the original 300 this will amount to profits of $642. To figure out how much of your money to place as a lay bet on the 76ers we divide the winnings from the other bet (642) by the odds on the 76ers (1.33). This gives you 642/1.33 = $482.71. Therefore you are betting a total of $482.71 of your own money for a guaranteed return of $642. This results in a profit of $159.29. Remember that we need to subtract the loss we made while turning over our original deposit (worst case $17). All up, these bets will give you a return of $142.29. Not bad for less than an hours work!

This article covers an example of a bonus bet offered by only one sports betting company. Once you sign up to as many bookies as possible and take advantage of their welcome offers a lot of money is on the table. We are turning the tables on the bookies with this method and taking advantage of their methods of roping people in to online gambling.

Of course in order to successfully get big returns from matched betting you need a solid amount of money in your savings. In this case we needed to turn over approximately $770 of our own money. With matched betting making money is guaranteed! So you can think of it like an investment. This technique is a proven quick way to make hundreds to thousands of dollars, allowing us to take advantage of the corporation-driven society in which we live and take money back from these rich businesses. I am a huge advocate for making easy money like this (especially from these companies which make far more than they need!) on the journey to achieving financial freedom and escaping the grind of full time work.

What is Bitcoin? And why should you buy some?

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard of Bitcoin by now. You may have heard of people investing in Bitcoin and making insane profits. You might think you’ve missed the boat. I’m here to tell you you haven’t.

Created in 2008 by an entity known as Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin has changed the entire way we look at investing and money. Satoshi created Bitcoin in response to the 2008 financial crisis in which centralised aspects of our financial system led to a worldwide recession, negatively impacting the lives of billions of people. It is not known whether Satoshi is alive or dead, or even if he is a real person at all. The name could even be a pseudonym. Even this aspect of Bitcoin is a strength. Bitcoin doesn’t need a leader or spokesperson to advocate for it in order for it to become successful. It has survived and thrived entirely on it’s own. Bitcoin began trading at just $0.09 back in July 2010. Since then it has increased approximately 415 thousand times in value. If you invested just $10 back in July 2010 you would be a multi millionaire by now. Right now, Bitcoin is sitting at a price of $37,349 USD per coin.

Bitcoin is a currency that exists on a blockchain. A blockchain is a distributed ledger with a growing list of records (blocks) that are linked together securely by cryptographic hashes. Each block contains multiple records of transactions on the network so that as each new block is added it creates a “chain” of blocks. Once blocks are created they can never be changed, meaning that any transactions made on the network can not be hidden or altered. This aspect of Bitcoin means that it would be almost impossible to hide any type of corrupt transactions, as this data is readily available to everyone.

The process of new Bitcoin being released into circulation is achieved through Bitcoin mining. Bitcoin miners group newly broadcast transactions into a block, which is then broadcast to the network and verified by nodes. This requires this generation of a cryptographic solution to a complicated mathematic solution and due to it’s complexity uses a huge amount of computing power (and hence energy). When a correct solution is reached a reward in the form of Bitcoin is distributed to the miner who reached the solution first. This is difficult concept to get your head around, but lucky for you you’re probably not looking to get involved with Bitcoin mining! Enough with the boring stuff, now let’s talk about why you should invest.

One argument against Bitcoin that you may have seen is it’s effect on climate change. Increasingly higher amounts of energy are required to mine Bitcoin over time and Bitcoin has led to the emission of approximately 200 million tonnes of Carbon Dioxide since 2009. While it is true that Bitcoin mining is contributing significantly to climate change, this is more of a societal problem than a cryptocurrency problem. Societies reliance on fossil fuels to produce energy is the culprit here; if renewable forms of energy were more readily available this wouldn’t be a problem at all. In fact, over time Bitcoin is becoming greener as more and more miners are using renewable forms of energy to mine. It is my belief that Bitcoins reliance on energy to produce coins makes the most sense in terms of deriving a value for currency. In order to produce a valuable currency it makes sense that something else valuable must be sacrificed in return. And there aren’t many more precious things out there than energy.

Two important reasons why Bitcoin is such a great investment are it’s fixed total supply and decentralisation. Let’s look at these one at a time because these aspects of Bitcoin are crucial. The tokenomics of a currency refer to it’s supply, demand, distribution and valuation. Bitcoin has a fixed total supply of 21 million coins. No more coins can ever be created. That means that the currency can’t be unexpectedly inflated. Due to basic supply/demand principles, as long as there is demand for Bitcoin the price should go up over time as less and less coins are released onto the market. The last Bitcoin is expected to be mined in the year 2140.

Now let’s take a look at decentralisation. Decentralisation means that the activities of an organisation are taken away from a central, authoritative group and are given to smaller fractions. This means that there is less likely to be a power imbalance and inherent corruption. There are many aspects of Bitcoin that lead to it being fully decentralised. The main ones are that there is no central authority that has control over the network, the network is fully peer-to-peer without any central servers and the ledger is public. Anybody can look on the Bitcoin blockchain and see transactions that have been made. It is a completely transparent system that is incorruptible.

It is my belief that the number one reason why Bitcoin is still the investment opportunity of a lifetime actually has nothing to do with Bitcoin at all. It is because the traditional financial system is a ticking time bomb. The Federal Reserve can turn the money printer on at any time they wish, thereby releasing more FIAT currency (your country’s native currency) into circulation and decreasing the value of all dollars already in circulation. This makes the dollar less valuable over time, leading to higher prices for good and services (inflation). Remember previously we talked about tokenomics? The tokenomics of FIAT currencies are abysmal. If a cryptocurrency had these tokenomics you would never invest in it as it would be doomed to fail. FIAT currency is not backed by an actual commodity such as gold or silver, but by trust in the Government (a centralised entity). Additionally the United States Government has a debt of over 30 trillion dollars. There is no way the Government can effectively repay this debt unless they inflate their dollar and make it less valuable.

Bitcoin is a flight to quality/safety. There is no centralised entity or middleman who can corrupt Bitcoin. It is a currency that was literally created for the people as a response to our banks, hedge funds and Governments failing us in the past. You might think that over $30,000 is a ridiculous amount of money for a Bitcoin. But the price per coin doesn’t matter. The supply/demand is what really matters. With constant or increasing demand over time and less coins released onto the market there is no reason why Bitcoin can’t reach a value of 1 million dollar per coin.

How to buy Bitcoin

If you’re reading this, you’ve probably heard of cryptocurrency. Bitcoin is the most popular form of cryptocurrency, which is probably why you’re trying to figure out how to buy it. Created by Satoshi Nakamoto in response to the 2008 financial crisis, Bitcoin is a fully decentralised peer-to-peer currency. There is no middleman and no person or group of people that are able to control it, which means it is a unique technology that survives and thrives completely on its own.

The price of Bitcoin has increased exponentially since it’s creation as a result of all of the above. So how do you buy it? The good news is that you don’t need to buy a whole Bitcoin – you can buy a fraction of a Bitcoin, so don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re priced out of the market.

There are two main ways to buy Bitcoin and other forms of cryptocurrency – either via a centralised or decentralised exchange. A decentralised exchange (or DEX) only allows you to exchange cryptocurrency for other forms of cryptocurrency. You cannot link your bank account to a DEX, and fiat currency (i.e., traditional money (such as the US dollar)) cannot be used on the platform. DEXs are good in that they adhere to the decentralised principles of cryptocurrency and you’re not relying on a centralised entity to do the exchange for you. However, the fees for converting between cryptocurrencies are often high. If you’re buying something like Bitcoin – which is probably available on every centralised exchange in existence – we recommend using a CEX to make your purchase.

The most popular centralised exchange in the world is Binance. Other well known and reputable CEXs include Kraken and Coinbase. We recommend using Kraken, as they seem to be the most trustworthy CEX. They often publish proof of reserves and endeavour to hold assets equal to the value of crypto held on the platform. You can use this referral link to Kraken to get $10 of free Bitcoin – https://kraken.app.link/GPWUgwj3vEb

To begin, you must sign up to the platform via the app or website. You will probably be required to provide information such as your drivers license number, as these exchanges are required to report your trades to the tax department. After signing up, you can link your bank account to the exchange and transfer fiat currency to the platform. From there, you can easily convert it to Bitcoin or any other form of cryptocurrency. We recommend sticking to the “blue chip” cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin and Ethereum) if you’re relatively new to investing in crypto. You’ve likely heard people trash-talk cryptocurrency over the years and liken it to a ponzi or pyramid scheme. Granted there are an enormous amount of cryptocurrency projects in existence. And the intentions of some of the founders of these projects are suspect at best. Investing in something like Dogecoin is a lot riskier than investing in a completely decentralised cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin.

Once you’ve made your purchase, you can choose to either leave your crypto on the exchange or transfer it to a digital wallet. By leaving it on the exchange, you’re essentially trusting it to hold onto your coins for you; which defeats the purpose of cryptocurrency. Many people learnt this lesson the hard way with the capitulation of the centralised exchange, FTX. If a centralised exchange goes bankrupt with your coins on the platform, there’s a good chance you’ll never see them again. Transferring the coins to your own wallet allows you to take custody of your asset/s. It’s comparable to holding cash instead of putting it in the bank. You can choose to purchase a hardware wallet, which looks similar to a USB memory stick and can be disconnected from the internet. This allows your coins to be safe from hackers. However, if your hardware wallet is damaged, there is a possibility that your crypto may not be recoverable. Other options are “soft” wallets, such as Coinbase or Trust. These are apps you have on your phone, where only you can access your coins. Be mindful that there is still a possibility of your device being hacked and your crypto stolen, so theoretically it is not as safe as a hardware wallet. However, believe this is unlikely and recommend a soft wallet as the best option to store your crypto.

Your wallet should have an “address” which you can send your coins to from the exchange. When sending your cryptocurrency from the exchange to your wallet, it is always best to send a test transaction first (particularly if you’re a beginner). It is easy to make a mistake when copying/pasting your wallet address and people often send coins over the wrong network. Send a small amount first (a couple of dollars) and check that the crypto ends up in your self-custody wallet. If the first transaction is successful, it should be safe to send the rest.

You should now have all the information necessary to make your first Bitcoin purchase. Welcome to the world of cryptocurrency! We highly recommend investing in Bitcoin regularly. Given that Bitcoin is totally decentralised and has a total fixed supply, there is nothing stopping it from continuing its exponential price rise.