Lawmakers in the UK are looking at a potential law that will require online platforms like Facebook and Google to take more responsibility for the content shown on their platforms. The calls for the change in law have come after it came out that both Google and Facebook have been making money off advertisements for pop-up brothels.
What makes this whole sordid affair even worse, is that a number of the brothels that have been advertising on the Google and Facebook have been found to be involved in human trafficking and the exploitation of sex-workers.
A similar bill is being pushed through US Congress that targets internet firms that, “knowingly assist, support or facilitate” content that leads to trafficking. In particular, the US bill is designed to tackle sites like Backpage.com that are packed with sex ads, many of them trafficked women or teenage runaways.
If laws on both sides of the Atlantic come into force, it’ll mean the web giants will no longer be able to turn a blind eye to the types of content and services advertised on their platforms.
If you are reading this, I will take a wild guess that someone just introduced you to cryptocurrency and told you that this is a great time to invest. If that is the case, I completely agree with that person, but keep in mind that the cryptocurrency market is extremely volatile and still very young. It is hard to tell which project is worth investing in and who is trying to scam you for your money. This guide should help you understand the risks of investing in cryptocurrency and where to start.
What to invest in?
Before we start, I just want to point out one thing. If you are the type of person who is looking for “the next Bitcoin” you will probably be disappointed. All those stories that you read online where people became millionaires by investing $100 in Bitcoin 5 or 6 years ago are based on simple math. The number of people who made that much money with Bitcoin is probably a single-digit so don’t be too optimistic.
Now that we are over with that part, let’s see where you should start. If you have no initial idea what coin you want to invest in, then it would probably be best to take a look at coinmarketcap. This website will give you all the info you will need. Pick a coin or token and start by looking at their website. Read their whitepaper and take a look at the roadmap. If everything looks good, do a quick check on the team behind the coin. Most of them will be listed on the website and will have LinkedIn profiles. Checking their portfolio will give you more information than you think.
This should be the very first part of your research. If you like what you see and their idea sounds good to you then move on to social media. If they are serious about their project, they will have active social media profiles and should be open to answering questions. Look at what other investors are saying about them and join discussions on Diskord and Reddit, follow their Telegram updates and make your own decision.
How to buy?
Once you decide on your coin, you will have to buy some. This is done on exchanges, but not every exchange will have what you want to buy. This is where coinmarketcap will come in handy once again. On the coin page, click on exchanges and see what exchange offers trading for your coin. Before you go with the first one on the list, check if they accept FIAT currency. A lot of them only offer trades with popular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin… If no exchange accepts FIAT, do some research on exchanges that you can access from your region. Some will have high deposit fees, some will have high transfer fees, and some will have long verification times. I know that this sounds like a lot, but it will save you a lot of money in the long run. If you can’t buy your desired coin with FIAT, there will be a three-step process that can eat up a lot of money if you aren’t careful.
First, you will need to buy BTC (or any other tradable currency), transfer that to the exchange that has your coin, exchange BTC for your desired coin and then transfer everything to your wallet. This is why you should always keep an eye on the exchange and transfer fees. Robinhood, for example, offers trades with no fees but it isn’t available in every country right now. Other reliable exchanges that accept FIAT are:
Every cryptocurrency has a supported wallet. If you check the website of your desired currency, there should be a list of wallets that support it with download links. Download it and transfer funds from the exchange to your wallet. Under no circumstances should you keep your cryptocurrency on an exchange. More often than not these get hacked, and you can lose everything. You are your own banker here, and you are responsible for the safety of your coins. The best practice is to store everything in an offline wallet known as [cold storage](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Cold_storage).
How to sell?
If everything went according to plan and you made a profit on your investment, it is now time to sell it for cash and enjoy your earnings. This is easier than you think. If you bought your coin on an exchange that accepts FIAT, you should be able to sell it there as well. The only thing you should keep in mind is withdrawal fees. Make sure to choose an exchange that has the lowest fees for your withdrawal option. For example, some will have higher withdrawal fees for direct bank transfers than others but will have lower fees for other options. Be sure to read everything carefully before you make a withdrawal request. Also, keep in mind that every FIAT withdrawal will require an ID confirmation. This is standard procedure when moving money online. Usually, you will need a picture of your passport, ID card or driver’s license with any other document that confirms your residential address. These checks may vary from exchange to exchange, but you won’t be able to cash out without them.
Resources
The time between buying some cryptocurrency and making a profit can sometimes be very long. It is best if you make a long-term investment and don’t expect too much too quickly. Right now there are more people invested in cryptocurrency because they believe in the technology and the long-term effect than people who want to make a quick buck and cash out. If you are in it for the long term, you should be up to date with news on your cryptocurrency but don’t overdo it. Almost every cryptocurrency has a subreddit on Reddit; this is a great place to talk with other community members and get news updates when they come out. Telegram groups are also great sources of information. All of this info should be available on the cryptocurrency’s official website. Check the info once a day and continue with your daily activities. You don’t want to spend too much time on price checking and long discussions. It will lead nowhere, and you may end up spending your whole day talking about cryptocurrencies, which won’t make the price rise or fall.
I will have to mention that the market is very volatile one more time. Investing more than you can afford to lose can leave you broke or drive you crazy. When you make a huge investment, you will be emotionally affected by every price fluctuation. Long-term price surges will raise your expectations, and sudden drops will have a really bad effect on your mood and daily life. Just remember that cryptocurrency is young and you are an early adopter. You may be witnessing history so just sit back, relax and enjoy the ride. When you think you’ve had enough, cash out and don’t look back.
Never panic sell
Huge price drops are very common right now. This is because almost every coin is still very dependant on Bitcoin and every Bitcoin price drop will cause the whole market to go down. When this happens, remember why you bought your coins in the first place. Panic selling won’t solve anything. You will probably end up with a 50% loss, and in a month everything will be back to normal. If you only invested what you can afford to lose there is nothing to worry about and remember, you are only locking in a loss if you sell.
Common terms
When interacting with any cryptocurrency community, you will run into some terms that you won’t have seen before. Here are the most common ones:
FUD – Fear, uncertainty, and doubt. This is a very popular word when the prices start going down and the “I told you so” people get their 5 minutes of fame.
HODL – Hold on for dear life
FOMO – Fear of missing out. When a price starts going up, it has to come down at some point. On the way up if you get a feeling that you have to buy or you will miss the boat, you are getting affected by FOMO.
Moon or Mooning – huge price surges that will bring in big gains for investors.
ATH – All time high. When looking at the price chart, this would be the highest price a currency reached in its lifetime.
Bag holder – This is an investor or a trader who has been holding for too long on a particular cryptocurrency and now has to face the consequences of that decision.
Knowing the potential of a cryptocurrency
If you think that every single cryptocurrency can reach prices of $10k per coin you need to redo your math. There are a few key things to keep in mind when looking at the potential price ranges for a particular cryptocurrency; circulating supply, max supply, and market cap.
The circulating supply determines how many coins are being traded right now. If a coin has a low circulating supply the price is probably higher due to high demand and low supply. If you are looking at a coin’s long-term potential then max supply is what you should be interested in. If a coin has only 1000 units in circulation right now and will release another million units into the market in the future this would cause a huge drop in price due to huge supply and low demand. The market cap is simple math. Coin value times the circulating supply gives you the total market cap. So a coin can reach a market cap of Bitcoin but have a 10 times lower price because it has a circulating supply that is 10 times bigger than Bitcoin’s circulating supply.
Be careful who you trust
While you will mostly find a lot of useful information on the internet you are bound to run into scams. Don’t believe everything you hear or see, especially on Youtube. The cryptocurrency expansion brought in a lot of “experts” that are usually young and very rich. They will make you believe that they made all their money by investing into cryptocurrency but the story is often very different. The latest scam that left a lot of people without their life savings was the Bitconnect scandal. This platform was offering about 1% daily returns on investment but was actually a Ponzi scheme that had to fall apart eventually. It was mostly promoted by these Youtube “experts” who were making money on referrals. If something sounds too good to be true it is probably a scam.
That’s it for now. If you have some knowledge of your own that you would want to share be sure to leave it in the comments. Stay safe and always do your research before investing!
Lead: You’ll soon be able to scratch that DJing itch without an expensive or temperamental needle.
DJing was once derided by fans who couldn’t see the attraction in people playing other people’s music. But since the dawn of disco and through the ascendancy of Hip-Hop, House, Techno, and whatever the latest and greatest forward thinking minimal music genre will be, DJs have become the kings and queens of the party. Everybody wants to be a DJ.
Being a DJ used to mean carting round boxes of records with you everywhere. Then things went digital, which meant a USB pen and a pair of headphones was enough unless you wanted to scratch that is, which requires the record player needle to feel the musical grooves of the record and be dragged back and forth across them. There was a technical solution for that, however, with timecode vinyl allowing the needles to pick up how long a record had been playing and then transmit the data to a laptop that would blast out the music at the corresponding moment.
Needles can be expensive and temperamental, raising problems for DJs. Problems that a brand new device aims to solve. The Phase, which will cost around $300, is a pair of sensors that are placed on the turntables. The sensors send information about their movements to a receiver that then works similarly to the software playing timecode vinyl. With early demos showing no lag and impressive responses, even to complicated movements, The Phase could be about to make scratch DJing cheaper, and easier while also addressing some key industry issues for pro DJs.
All across North America, a post-modern Santa Claus is showering unsuspecting households with unexpected (and mostly unwanted) gifts – and no one really knows why.
A woman who would prefer to be known only as “Nikki” got a $25 vibrator, headphones, and a Bluetooth cord in multiple deliveries. Retirees Kelly and Mike Gallivan are the lucky recipients of over 25 mystery packages, none of which they ordered. Meanwhile, multiple Canadian students are receiving everything from wireless headphones to lights bulbs, and – yes – sex toys.
What’s going on? Some researchers are convinced that it’s a scam to increase products’ online ratings – but Amazon says it doubts that theory. Clearly someone has far too much time – and money – on their hands.
Most Earthlings would be quite thrilled to discover alien life, but sadly, we might miss out on their messages – thanks to cryptocurrencies.
SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), which leads the planet in looking for signs of cosmic communication, is having its work seriously undermined by the lack of graphics processing units (GPUs).
Turns out GPUs are great for mining non-Bitcoin cryptocurrencies, and so many people are joining the fad that there’s currently a worldwide shortage of the tech.
Bad news for SETI, but if a Hawaii science team is right, and aliens could use their messages tohide malicious code, it might not be a bad thing that ET is stuck on hold.
When Chris Hughes helped Mark Zuckerberg launch Facebook back when he was in Harvard, he never imagined how successful there project would be or just how much money it would make him. Since amassing his fortune, however, Hughes has become much more attuned to a problem that is growing across America, massive inequality.
“… (there) are tens of millions of American workers who are temps, part-time contractors, people who don’t have the kind of financial stability we used to think of as a job,”
According to Hughes, up to 90 million Americans are living precariously, due to an unstable income and a Universal Basic Income could help them live more securely. He claims the scheme could be paid for by only taxing people earning over $250,000 a year and with minor adjustments to the tax code. A Universal Basic Income would then be paid to everybody, rich and poor, meaning there could be no claims that it is unfairly benefitting the poorest people in society.
Hughes even cites the state of Alaska, where since 1976 residents have been receiving annual endowments, paid for by oil revenues. Last year nearly 740,000 people received $1,100 each.
If you’re thinking of robbing a bank but don’t fancy the gun-toting mayhem, jackpotting might be for you.
Get a smart friend to hack into the bank’s ATM network, then hang around and wait for the machine to spit out all its bills. You don’t even have to enter the bank.
Sounds good, right? That’s what two guys in Massachusetts thought when they allegedly tried it at the end of January. They are accused of hitting several ATMs and raking in ten grand.
If found guilty, they’ll be charged with fraud, not robbery. But that still carries a maximum of 30 years in prison.
Maybe it’s best to stick to the day job after all.
The DroneGun Tactical is just what you need stop low-flying, camera-toting drones dead in their tracks – facially controlled or not.
Point it at any buzzing blighter less than one kilometer (two-thirds of a mile) away, pull the trigger, and it should do a swift 180 and return to its operator as you follow, arrest warrant in hand. Pay a little extra for the optional GPS blocker to force it to land immediately.
The DroneGun Tactical is made by Aussie company DroneShield, and has enough juice to down a dozen or so drones before recharging. The bad news is that due to FCC rules, it’s totally illegal for the general population to use one, but that only makes us want one more.
It looks like the world’s most exciting entrepreneur is so strapped for cash that he’s reduced to hawking novelties on Instagram.
After the success of his $20 Boring Company baseball caps, Elon Musk has made good on his promise to sell flamethrowers to the masses.
The 500-dollar lame-throwers aren’t exactly military grade, but that hasn’t stopped problems getting them shipped, with Musk rebranding them as “Temperature Enhancement Devices”.
Needless to say, the hype ensured that all 20,000 got sold within days, with many now fetching several times their retail price on eBay.
We have to ask: Is this the best you can do, Elon? With SpaceX’s earningsshrouded in mystery, and Tesla losing$16 million every day, the answer might sadly be “yes.”
Sprint and Dynamics Inc. have unveiled a single super-smart card to replace your current deck of credit, debit, and loyalty cards.
Although as thin as a conventional bank card, the Wallet Card has an e-ink display and buttons to scroll between functions. And unlike Venmo and Apple Pay, you can pop it into an ATM to grab cash, too.
But the real innovation is that this card has a cell phone antenna that allows it to update data so you can look at your latest balance, lock an account,or perform transactions.
That’s all great – as long as you’re okay with your bank tracking your location.
One card to rule them all. Sprint and Dynamics unveils a super-smart card to replace all your current ones. Although once you use it, you won’t disappear but rather get tracked.
