Ever since I joined Hive and started earning crypto I never really looked at it as 'real' but more like a video game currency. A kind of monopoly money if you like.
Funnily enough you CAN buy monopoly money on Ebay look!
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Monopoly-Money-Cash-For-Simpsons-Boutique-Disney-Edition-Games-/302567462586
But can you pay for it with crypto? hahaha
The other ironey is that as my friend @ajerkoff would concur fiat paper money IS monopoly money in the 3D world game we call reality.
But I kept hearing of people actually making a living from their Blurt earnings and also naysayers asking me if I'd ever tried to withdraw any money out into the real world. No I hadn't. Maybe I was scared to try?
I'd been moving my hive over to blurt as it powered down bit by bit and also had to change the process as Blurtlink died so I was learning how to do it through the Ionomy exchange (as advised). Part of the process meant I had to sell the hive for bitcoin (I couldn't find a way to just swap straight to blurt yet). So I ended up with a balance of bitcoin which I was going to eventually change to blurt when the downpowering was done. (It's still not done!!)
So anyway I was conversing with Sol Luckman (the famous author) on Mewe as he posted some excerpts of his Angels Dictionary which I thought sounded amazing. I'd already decided to buy his Cali The Destroyer at some point so took a chance and asked how much for all his books in one go as he accepted crypto. His quote was within my range of bitcoin balance so I took a leap and decided to try purchasing with it.
As it was my first time it was a bit scary, wondering if I could get every bit right and not send my bitcoins out into the ether never to be seen again. I took my time and double checked everything then clicked the send button.
Sol told me the 'money' had arrived and he was sending the books. So now all we had to contend with was the postage systems which I'm hearing are falling apart in some parts of the world.
Well I can now report that my first crypto purchase arrived safe and well on my doorstep today. I'm so chuffed because I have proved to myself that what we earn on here IS REAL and can buy us real stuff. I've also got the full list of Sol's books which will not only entertain me but educate me on the next phase of my research into the energy aspect of healing and sickness.
Hopefully when I'm all jenned up on how the body energy system works I can write some energetic articles and earn more crypto while helping people to heal. It comes full circle.
I'm not supposed to quote stuff from his books unless I write a critique. Well maybe I will......
Gotta read em first tho.
Maybe I should also mention my recent win with Monero? My sister sent me some money for a polytunnel which I did not want to leave in the nasty old banksters pocket where they could steal it like they did with the Canadian Truckers. SO I decided to take another big dive and buy Monero with it. Had to bury my fear of doing it all wrong again or even not being able to WITHDRAW it back when I needed it.
Well I can also report another win on that front because a couple of weeks later when I did need the money I found it had grown by almost 200 euro's!! So I managed to withdraw, holding my breath, and still have Monero left in my Kraken exchange. It's all going so well I might take another leap of faith and actually get me a 'WALLET'. That will be another story. We'll see. One step at a time........
Happy days Blurtian campers!!
Hmm. I want to congratulate you, however I'm uncertain on the wisdom of using bitcoin for small purchases. By small I mean less than thousands of dollars.
Years ago when I actually bought in 3 small times the fees for Bitcoin transactions would have erased my investments, so I bought Litecoin instead as it was so much cheaper and faster.
I do believe that one fundamental difference of crypto is depending on the fees it just isn't wise to use it as one can effectively pay 10x or more for the items because of the ludicrous transaction fees (coupled with the long wait times many block chains have).
Don't even get me started on the headache of the long password strings making it such a headache if one would be in public and want to transact, lol.
Because of this, when I was first enticed into Steem all those years ago, I was sure it would see mass adoption quickly simply because it negated the heavy fees and wait times. Evidently the long password strings are a major cause for it not being adopted by many. Although the other thing killing adoption for most is the wildly fluctuation values in short bursts of time.
Many wouldn't want to sell an item only to see their store of value devalue by as large a drop as we see sometimes in crypto, and many buyers on the other side of that wouldn't want to pay say 100.00 for something and then a major run comes along and tomorrow that 100.00 is worth say 125.00 or more.
I think the way crypto is set up is much like the stock market, which I noticed the first time I saw a chart. Imagine a world where folks bought and sold with stocks, only with the added headache of these obscenely long passwords to access them, lol.
The withdrawal part has me in knots as well. I've never done it to this day, and if one looks at reviews from the few places it can be done they have a long reputation as thieves, not releasing ones holdings in a fiat cash out. Freezing those crypto the moment someone initiates a conversion to cash out. Usually under the pretense of not satisfying their KYC although they never had an issue with the KYC while one was handing their fiat over to buy. So many institutional crooks in crypto, and while the governments pretend to regulate for "our protection" they conventionality look the other way year after year at this institutional theft.
OK maybe I shouldn't have classed myself as a crypto nerd coz I still don't know what the f all that meant. When you sell Hive the only option I can see is for bitcoin then you can swap them for blurt? Thats the only reason I had bitcoin sitting on ionomy and I just saw a chance to try purchasing something. If the fees were huge I never noticed them.
No worries, I'm still a newb when it comes to this despite my time in it now. I was ranting against the dynamics, not anything you did and apologize that it may have come across in that way.
I grew curious after reading your comment on not noticing the fees. Internally at an exchange one wouldn't see them as the transfer is an internal shift within the exchange and not on the blockchain itself.
I remember when I bought in years ago single transactions for Bitcoin were costing close to 20.00. So as you can see from that at that time one wouldn't want to use it to transact unless one was dealing with large sums of money.
On looking into the fees now it looks like it's down to just a couple of dollars which while it can still be high for a really low transaction is much more palatable.
I haven't had time to look, but I wonder if Litecoin is still cheaper and faster (Bitcoin takes so damn long). I was really sure that the speed and cost for Steem (and Hive and Blurt now) would help give it a dominance that has never been realized.
yeh I think it was a small fee, not much different to a bank fee and the time it took was worrying as I just assumed it was lost in the ether and I'd done it wrong but went to check in the morning and it had gone through fine.
It was a big step in my learning curve and no I didn't think you were having a go, As if you would! Even if you did I'm no snowflake and can take constructive criticism especially from someone I respect.
Ps i use the exodus wallet because its really nice to use. I know geeks say its fees are too dear but its not too bad and the convenience is worth not being the cheapest wallet
https://www.exodus.com/
Thanks for the advise. Sounds perfect for me. Been looking at a hard wallet too as ajerkoff said. Max Igan said crypto will all be controlled by 2024 the other day.
Yes, i saw that, i do have a trezor too and am thinking about what Max is saying
Gracias por compartir tu publicación en #Blurt. Tu esfuerzo significa mucho para nosotros; por eso has recibido un voto positivo.
Te invito a votar por @blurtlatam como Testigo / Witness
---
We invite you to use the tag #blurthispano. You can find us on Discord.
Manually curated by Geeklania.
We invite you to vote for @blurthispano as Witness.
Posted from https://blurtlatam.com
It is incredible how the world has changed, some years ago I never in my life thought that I could acquire any type of service, electronic equipment with cryptocurrencies but already two years ago it has been the common denominator for my day to day life. I wish more businesses would adapt to this new reality and be able to purchase products using only a qr code or a usdt deposit.
@blurtlatam, @blurthispano @vickyguevara curate
I'm not really au fait with the QR code thing if it has to be used on a mobile. They are using smart phones as a tool of control so I am refusing to own one. So if have no mobile and no printer you can't use QR codes.
Thanx for the curation heads up xx
Monero and Zcash are my fav cryptos because they both do a decent job of not being traced. Unlike bitcoin!
Which one of those books would you recomend starting with?
It depends what you're interested in. I've been having strange vivid dreams lately so Snooze was calling me but I had intended to start with Cali the destroyer.
https://dxe.pubpub.org/pub/dreamadvertising/release/1
https://www.science.org/content/article/are-advertisers-coming-your-dreams
https://thehustle.co/are-advertisers-going-to-infiltrate-our-dreams/
https://futurism.com/the-byte/corporations-advertisements-in-dreams
WTAF?!!!! 😱
Also, keep in touch with Blurtconnect-ng family on Telegram and Whatsapp
Thanx @chibuzorwisdom for the appreciation xx