February 2018

Gold is money. Everything else is credit – JP. Morgan Chase.

Ainslie is a professional Australian company dealing with precious metals. The allure behind gold has been around for ages. In 3,000 B.C., Egyptians were using the shiny aural gem as jewellery. However, it wasn’t until 500 B.C. that gold became a form of currency and a store of value. It effectively became one of the most precious metals of all time. In the modern times, the use of banknotes and fiat currency has provided convenience that couldn’t be had with the use of gold. However, the metal has maintained its price over the ages, appreciating with time, due to a finite, limited supply.

Ainslie was established in 1974 in Queen Street, Brisbane. The company is one of the largest dealers of bullion in Australia, and has the reputation of being honest and fair with prices and quality of the bullion. Over the years, the company has diversified into new markets, including digital currency. The experience gained over the years serving people with precious metals can now be used to help you buy Bitcoin and other leading altcoins.

Ainslie Bullion has been monitoring the buzz around major cryptocurrencies with interest. According to their Press Release, the Bullion is banking heavily on the fact that cryptocurrency might be adopted institutionally. This may come as early as 2018 or 2019. Benefits are likely to trickle down to the small-time players and late adopters of this trade.

Admittedly, this is good news, especially with the massive interest generated by digital currencies like Bitcoin, Ether and Ripple. Institutions like Xrate and Bankorus are trying to solve issues that arise with High Net Worth Individuals entering the altcoin and Bitcoin investment markets.

Infrastructure is another excellent reason for the Bullion to throw its hat into the ring. The company already had existing tech that made it possible to bring digital currencies under its wings. Most notable of this tech is the competitive pricing adjusted to the latest market rates, which makes it possible to mitigate the risks of a coin changing value significantly during the transaction processes.

Finally, it is becoming easier by the day to trade in cryptocurrencies. In fact, it is now possible to live exclusively on crypto.

Ainslie has a straightforward approach to buying Bitcoin and other coins. You can see it here. There are 3 methods you can use to get your crypto.

1. Going to Ainslie in person and purchasing the coins with cash.
2. Calling them via 1800 819 474.
3. Buying the coins online, on their web-shop.

Ainslie offers a person-to-person mode of buying cryptocurrency. They are a legitimate, registered business which is licensed to buy and sell Bitcoin. At the time of writing this guide, buying the coins via this channel is much safer than buying it from other human-human exchange platforms, such as Local Bitcoins.

However, going there in person might be a bit costly, especially if you only wanted to get less than a million Satoshis and you are coming from outside Brisbane.

Buying the Coins in Person

What You Will Need

1. Photo ID for AUSTRAC purposes. This should show your name, date of birth or address.
2. $2,000 or more in Cash, Credit Card (a surcharge will be added for using the credit card) or money in a bank account. Banks supported are Suncorp, Westpac, Commbank or ANZ.
3. Some time to spare – not more than an hour.

What to Expect:

1. A loaded, secure wallet that has your crypto
2. An address that you can use to top-up the wallet with more coins without coming to Brisbane.
3. If you choose, you can also have storage for your coins.

Buying the Coins via Phone

If you are not comfortable with buying the coins online, you can make a phone call to 1800 819 474 and Ainslie will explain to you how you can make an order via the phone. This method is quite easy, and you can order anything from $2000 upwards. People who wish to order crypto above $50,000 can also make an inquiry this way.

Making an Order Online

You can order anything on the web-shop on Ainslie. The shop is currently stocked with the following items:

1. Gold
2. Silver
3. Platinum
4. Rare Gems (Diamond, Rubies, etc)
5. Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Bitcoin Gold (BTG)
6. Ripple (XRP)
7. Litecoin (LTC)
8. Ether (ETH)

To buy, you add the coin of your choice to the cart and check out. You will be required to pay a deposit (to lock the price). Afterwards, an invoice will be sent to you to pay the rest. Ainslie will send you instructions on how to pick your loaded wallet.

If you are purchasing more than $5,000 worth of cryptocurrency, you might want to consider storing it securely with Ainslie Bullion. Here is a comprehensive presser for anyone considering this option.

One of the biggest benefits of storing with this firm is that they are already established in the industry and are compliant with auditing practices like the SMSF. In addition, you pay low fees – 2.5 percent of your currency value, and no other holding fee.

Finally, your wallet is safe from vagaries of nature such as a fire, hard-disk failure, floods, theft or anything else that may come as a freak occurrence. Your coins are sent to the Reserve Vault, which is one of the most robust storage options anywhere in Australia.

My money has a bad habit of pissing people off – Robyn Rihanna Fenty. Do you want your money to have muscle and a personality of its own, just like Rihanna’s? Now that the fever of investing in Bitcoin has ebbed a little, could we perhaps use it for buying and selling? Some savvy businessmen (and women) are joining a strong band of early adopters who want to turn a sweet, neat profit. These clever fellows have seen an opportunity somewhere, and are flocking to it.

So, where is this opportunity? These are untested waters, right? How can we know for sure that this isn’t a house of cards, ready to buckle at the slightest gust of the good old economic downturns? Well, it turns out that high risks have high rewards. Not everyone has an affinity for wild adrenaline rushes at 2 AM in the morning, so there are winners and losers in trading. The oldest trick in the oldest book (and these are very, very old books) is simple – mitigate the risks as much as possible.

Mitigating the risks will make you stand out from the crowd. It doesn’t happen suddenly – it has to be there from the start. The biggest part of risk management is knowing where to put your money, and get the most value possible. Once you get a good niche, you are golden. Currently, one of the biggest niches is enabling other people to get access to the cryptocurrency arena.

The Opportunity in LocalBitcoins

The idea is simple: you are helping others get access to Bitcoin and other major altcoins. You are not buying the coins to speculate or HODL, but to sell to others.

The Demand is available. More and more people wish to have a slice of the pie. Some think that Bitcoin’s ship has not sailed yet, and so they wish to be a part of the gold rush.

The Supply is also available. You can get the coins at good rates from Coinbase, Coinmama or other mainstream exchanges. It doesn’t take too much time or money to set it up, and the barrier to entry is relatively low.

The Twist is how you make money. You buy the coins at the current market rates, then sell them at a slightly marked-up price. Although the prices fluctuate wildly depending on the coin and the fever pitch of the market, you should be making a neat profit off the marked-up percentage by providing coins on demand.

A Trading Account is the platform which will connect you with the customers and make it possible to trade money for coins. In our case, the trading account is LocalBitcoins.com. So, the first step is to create an account and fund it. Go to Localbitcoins.com to do so. You will get a page like the one below:

Click “Sign Up Free” and proceed to enter your details. It is advisable to pick a very good username that will convey professionalism and foster trust with your future customers. Would you rather trade with someone named “Slimshady” or someone named “BitcoinTraderPro”?

Keep in mind that the username cannot be changed down the line – hence look for an excellent name. Local Bitcoins are saying that the feature will be introduced in future, and there is no way of knowing when this will happen.

Be sure to create a very strong password. This is because Localbitcoins.com will give you a hot wallet to store your coins. Hot wallets are notoriously known to be unsafe for storing large amounts of money, and so it will be imperative to keep the password safe.

Once you have the account set, you should also use 2FA (two factor authentication) to add an incredibly robust layer of security to the account. 2FA system enables you to get a new pass-code every time you log in. This way, even if someone finds out your account password, they will never log in unless they also have your phone.

Now you are almost ready to start trading! To finalize the account creation process, click the verification link that is sent to your email address (the email ID which you used for registration).

Familiarize Yourself with the Features

On the top right hand corner, you will see a wallet button. When you click it, it will open up a page with the summary of your BTC balances. It also has easy links for sending or receiving the coins. The hot wallet has an address which you can give people to deposit coins into, in return for real cash.

Your account is now ready for funding and trading!

There are 2 ways of funding the trading account. These are Online Trading and Local Trades.

Online trading is backed up by the escrow service from Localbitcoins. It enables you to buy Bitcoin, Ethereum or any other altcoins without the need to leave your house. To do so, you will load fiat currency into the account via the bank transfer, or PayPal or even Venmo.

Local Trades involves finding the local sellers on LocalBitcoins.com, then meeting them face to face in a public setting. This way, you can exchange the money for the coins without fear of them taking off. It is advisable that you go with a friend and wait for a few confirmations to ensure that your coins are in your Localbitcoins wallet.

Local Trades is not backed up by an escrow service from Localbitcoins. By default, it is turned off in the account.

When funding the account for the first time, ensure that you trade with reputable sellers. For example, the seller highlighted above has 3,000+ transactions and 99 percent customer success rate.

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At this point, you are now ready to trade. You can now sell BTC at a neat margin for the sake of profits. You can also buy other coins and include in your portfolio. Better still, you can buy them at a lower rate than the mainstream exchanges like Coinbase, from people who would like to offload their coins. It is a fully fledged cryptocurrency shop now!

Your money will be moving a muscle of itself, growing with your nurturing, day-trading hands! Better still, you will be making the dreams of many future owners of cryptocurrencies to come true!

“Money, it’s a crime! Share it fairly but don’t take a slice of my pie.” That’s David Gilmour, making a stash while singing money with the great Pink Floyd.

Let’s face it: unless you’re a Haight-Ashbury hippie during the Summer of Love, money fuels human life on earth. But, the banking system built around it isn’t inclusive and left billions of people on the edge.

Then comes 2017 with its cryptocurrencies worth thousands of dollar, and it’s Blockchain shaking the realm of Wall Street. As a matter of fact, the notorious Bitcoin was first mentioned in a paper written by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008.  This new form of peer-to-peer electronic cash is completely open-source and enabled a “digital currency that could be used without any governing authority”.

Few years down the road, a little over 1500 different digital currencies have seen daylight and a whole new decentralized ecosystem is slowly creeping into mainstream adoption. In the midst of a nearly religious debate over their viability, new institutions emerged. Exchanges, electronic remittance services, lending services, you name it. Even new industries are thriving as we speak like “crypto-mining” and, like Olaf Carlson-Wee, many people have been living exclusively on cryptocurrencies. Let’s take a closer look.

In fact, there are no physical coins or notes in cryptocurrencies. No upstreet bank, and no governing authority. It lives natively on the internet and comes with no third-party fees. The transactions are increasingly fast, and ultimately secure. Thus, their potential of disrupting many aspects of our lives.

Furthermore, sending money from one country to the other will save greatly on bank fees and processing time. All you need is a cryptowallet loaded with the cryptocurrency of your choice.

As Bitcoin is loosing ground given it’s relatively high volatility and processing fees for small payments, other forks emerged with optimized features. However, the Blockchain of Bitcoin is the very crux of most cryptocurrencies and the upcoming “lightening network”, already being deployed on testenet, will cure this very problem.

I personally experienced living off cryptocurrencies for quite some time and found it more convinient than expected. I recall my first attempt to dive into this new world while working as a blogger. I requested payments in Bitcoin and was eager to celebrate the reward of my first crypto paycheck. “It would be French wine, a good steak and some laughter with friends“, I was daydreaming.

The process struck me with its simplicity. I deposited my Bitcoins from my cryptowallet to a MasterCard cryptocash card called “AdvCash”. The rest is as simple as a swipe.

Many options out there empower crypto enthusiasts to use their digital coins in perfect harmony with fiat money. In Australia, Living Room of Satoshi (LRoS) lets you pay for bills, credit cards and bank accounts using cryptocurrencies. It’s highly regarded as an easy way to convert cryprocurrencies to AUD instantly, and with little fees.

The convenience stretch beyond paying bills all the way to shopping or enjoying a good coffee break. Here is a great list that summarizes the options available for crypto adopters.

Another startup, CoinLiving, takes the convenience of living on crypto to the next level. Through their website, they feature many categories where Australian businesses are accepting crypto currencies. It varies from Food & Drinks to Real Estate.

The website acts like a marketplace that ergonomically showcases the shoppers options while relying on customer reviews for more orientation.

All users have to do is to browse for a category of their interest or add their own listing and start accepting cryptopayments the minute it gets approved by CoinLiving.

There are thousands of outlets that accept cryptocurrency payments, which will help you get a handle on this new technology. Like Overstock, Expedia, eGifter, Shopify, Microsoft, Dish and even KFC, cryptocurencies are going mainstream, and might be the coins of a future, nearer than ever. Maybe down the line we will brag to our grandkids about witnessing the birth of crypto. With travel agents, gaming stores, even pizza and fried drumsticks, there’s something for everyone.

This is a free wallet that supports multiple coins and tokens.

Once you have downloaded and installed this app into your phone, you get the usual options: Creating a new wallet or restoring an existing Coinomi wallet.

Next, you are shown a screen with the recovery phrase. You will have to write this phrase down, with the words appearing in the exact sequence as shown by the app. This seed phrase will come in handy when restoring a lost wallet, and is critical to keeping your money safe.

Next, you will need to set a secure password. You need something that is both strong (for security reasons) and also easy to remember. Skipping this step means your wallet can be accessed very easily, and people can send themselves money from your balance.

Next, you will need to pick the coin type, which your wallet will store, send or receive. You can choose Bitcoin, Ether, Litecoin, Dogecoin (if you are planning to handle Dogecoin) and any other coin that you will be handling.

Next, you are required to peruse the Terms of Service and other legal disclaimers. You will need to agree to the terms in order to proceed, and use the wallet.

Your dashboard will show you the most prominent exchanges that you can use to buy or sell the coins. At the time of writing this guide, Coinomi could access Changelly and Shapeshift.

The dashboard also lists the coins that you have wallets for. When you tap on one of the coins, it takes you to a screen which will enable you to send, receive or check the balance of the coins.

Here, you can see the public address for BTC.

The “Settings” app has some cool features like the current exchange rates and a link to the support.

Jaxx is one of the most excellent wallets for Android and iOS out there. It is easy to download, install and use. It supports Ethereum, Bitcoin and several other cryptocurrencies out there. Here is how you set it up. First, you download it from the Google Play Store or the App Store for iOS users.

Before installing it, you are required to read the terms of services, and privacy policy.

First, you create a new wallet, or restore an existing one if you already used Jaxx before.

Next, you set up the wallet. For most users, it is OK to pick “Express” when creating it. If you want to tweak things along the way, or wish to get the feel of the inner workings of the app, choose “Custom”

Next, you choose the wallets you wish to activate. You will be shown a list of different coins – from Bitcoin, Ether, Litecoin, etc. It is a good idea to pick around 5 wallets, but you can select everything, even if you do not own some of the coins yet.

Alternatively, if you only wish to activate 1 or 2 wallets, that’s fine.

It will take a few moments to create an interface for you.

Your dashboard or “home screen” will have a list of the different wallets you picked before. You can now send, receive or exchange cryptocurrencies.

The menu is great, since it is very easy to navigate. You can access the tools and settings features very easily. Here, you can see the details about how you can pay lower transaction fees, by choosing how fast you want your money to be sent across the network. Slow transactions will cost less, but urgent transactions cost much more.

The “Tools” feature is one of the most advanced in the industry. With Jaxx, you can easily back up your wallet (just in case your phone gets stolen or falls into a pond). It also gives you a way to view the private keys, pair devices and to transfer the wallet into the paper.

Within the dashboard menu, you can access one of the three transaction features. These are ‘Receive’, ‘Send’ and ‘Exchange’ buttons. With the ‘Receive’ button, you can view the different addresses for your coins, and share with the senders. In case you need some help, the app also has a “Help” menu inbuilt to it.

The inbuilt “Help” menu gives you lots of useful features like converting between different tokens, and backing up your wallets.

By now, you have heard about Bitcoin, Ether and Ripple, and all the hubbub surrounding them. Aside from the fact that they can be used as investment vehicles, you can also use them for making payment in exchange for goods or services.

Did you know that more people are adopting cryptocurrencies around the world? Did you also know that you can use these coins for buying stuff? Here are some wonderful mobile apps that can remove the barrier-to-entry and enable you to get into the action.

Here, we delve into the top 3 wallets that you can use to exchange goods or services with Bitcoin. These are Bread, Jaxx and Coinomi. Without further ado, let’s get started.

1. Bread (Android and iOS, Simple, Bitcoin only)
2. Jaxx (Multiple currencies, Android and iOS)
3. Coinomi (Multiple currencies, Android only)

This is one of the best apps to get started with cryptocurrency, and it is designed for everyone – techies and non-techies alike.

First, create a new wallet or recover an existing wallet.

To create a new wallet, tap on the blue option below:

Set a pin that you can remember

Write down the paper key. The next screen will give you a paper key – or some words that you should write down on a piece of paper and store it well. It is recommended that you laminate this piece of paper. Alternatively, you can type it up and save somewhere safe.

Next, the wallet will sync so that everything Is up to date

Now you are all set! The wallet is ready to receive and send cash. You can buy stuff with the Bictoin in the wallet.

You can send the money.

Or receive Bitcoins. The QR code is the public address, and you can use it to tell people to send money to your wallet.

You can also check your transactions.

The menu is very intuitive and fluid. You can go to settings and tweak things to your preferred setup.

It can also give you security tips:

If you forgot the PIN for a previous bread wallet, you can easily restore it using the ‘restore’ option. The catch is that you’ll wipe out the active wallet on the phone.