My journey so far

So, I recently started to explore the world of cryptocurrency on a whim. I was trying to find a way to bring in some extra cash on the side of my day job. I first started of by doing some of the survey apps or programs that pay you pennies per survey. Don't get me wrong, I still got a few dollars worth of stuff out of those apps. Namely Amazon gift cards for varying amounts and a few dollars to my PayPal account. I was really just wasting my time the more I look back on it.

However, during that time I randomly stumbled across bitcoin through a screen lock app that had it as one of their payouts. Trying it out, I created my first wallet (at the time I found Coinbase and am still using it though not as actively). Of course, the constant volatility of bitcoin made me very nervous. I was still in the process, or rather the mind set, or trying to bring some extra stable cash on the side. However, the more I watched and stayed with bitcoin/Coinbase, the more I saw the gradual uptrend in bitcoin's price. This made me very excited. Also, during this time, I found a few more bitcoin faucets to add to my tiny trickle of income.

I was kind of pleased with myself to see my wallet's value growing. However, I really wanted to see where this would take me. I begin to look for was to add to my trickle of bitcoin income. I then found the minergate phone app. Stupid of me, I know. I was young and inexperienced in the world of cryptocurrencies and mining. I then found out that minergate offered a PC version of their app/software. I downloaded and starting mining on my home computer. Sadly still kind of not what I was looking for, but it was pushing me in the direction I wanted. So I had my faucets and my minergate software running. Not bad at all.

It was in the minergate chat room, that I discovered the world of cryptocurrency exchanged. Yes, I do now know that Coinbase has their own exchange, but I didn't know it at the time. Remember, young and inexperienced. But back to my story. I then began taking my earnings/cryptocurrency and putting it into an exchange. I was recommended to use Poloniex from the minergate chat room and so I did. Not a bad choice, honestly. There are a lot of different cryptocurrency pairings, though I am a little disappointed that there isn't a USD pair on the exchange.

After everything was said and done, I had my cryptocurrency on Poloniex and found that it offered a lending program. Nice, now I can earn interest on my cryptocurrencies. At this time, all I had was some small amount of bitcoin and monero to loan out. Hey, its still something. Then trying to find more ways to add to my Poloniex account, I found a decent cloud mining contract at Genesis mining. That greatly increased what I was able to loan out. Yay me.

However, my college education began to kick in. I did man to get a degree in economics and business and had to take a couple finance classes to earn it. The exchanges looked like a good way for me to make some money, once I had the capital base. So therefore I began looking for more information on cryptocurrencies and trading. I found several people that I started to follow to learn more. In the process I found another exchange that I plan on using to trade on. This one had USD pairings on it. I know Coinbase has GDAX but I still felt drawn to Bitfinex (update: still nervous about Bitfinex considering their wire transfer issues). In the mean time, I started taking courses on trading and cryptocurrencies. You can never stop learning. One of the courses advise that I start keeping a log, or even a blog, to see how my journey goes.

So here I am, starting to log my journey from this point forward. We'll see how this rabbit hole goes. Catch everyone on the flip side.

Referral links:
Knolix - Bitcoin Faucet - Xapo instant payout - http://www.knolix.com/58fde7e964730/
Minergate - Mining software/app -
Coinbase - wallet - https://www.coinbase.com/join/581643f719ddf604c06fffe8