Unless you have been living under a rock the last 6 to 12 months, you know that Bitcoin is taking off – and everyone is kicking themselves for not jumping on the gravy train sooner. Even though Bitcoin was created back in 2009, the price of Bitcoin skyrocketed in 2017. This new age currency was created by someone using the alias of Satoshi Nakamoto, though no one knows who she/he is in real life. The best part about Bitcoin is that there’s no middle man involved – so no pesky banks needed to complete transactions. While you can still complete typical transactions on many of your favorite sites – all anonymously, the current craze is about trading it and getting rich off of it.
How do you make money off of Bitcoin?
Because Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, it works similarly to the way typical payments would go with other currencies. There are several ways to make a profit with Bitcoins, including some of these tasks:
- Micro earnings. It’s very time consuming, but a little bit eventually adds up to a lot. One can complete mini tasks and be rewarded for it such as: pay-per-click websites, bitcoin faucets, micro tasks like checking plug-ins or retweeting something, freelance work, and much more. (The value of Bitcoins is highly divisible, which allows for the currency to be divided in to micro units, and therefore pay the tiniest amount to be reflective of micro tasks).
- Affiliate marketing. This is an influencer-style platform where bloggers or social media influencers are compensated for referring traffic to a Bitcoin business. If you already have a large blog or social media following, this would be an easy option.
“This has to be illegal.”
Wrong. Bitcoin is totally legal – as long as you aren’t conducting any illegal transactions that would also be considered illegal with any form of fiat currencies. With the growing popularity, it is suspected that legislation will be created in order to control the currency method, but until then, there are very little boundaries.
Most Bitcoin exchanges are legally required to conduct in-depth identity checks on customers prior to being allowed to buy or sell Bitcoin – just one more way to track it. The network creates a level of transparency that is a turn off to those who intend to break the law, like with fiat currencies (such as criminals, money-launderers, and even terrorist organizations).
What are some downfalls to Bitcoin?
Despite their current popularity, the Bitcoin currency does have some flaws.
- Transactions cannot be reversed. Because there isn’t a middle man (bank) involved, there is not a figure in place to say, “Approved! Time to reverse the funds.” If you pay with this currency, all sales are final. (Fraud is considered to be decreased because of this feature, so it’s not all negative!)
- Technical issues are common. Bitcoins require hard disk space, which is becoming more and more limited. This makes some who accept the currency concerned because, although the fees for merchants are less than other payment forms, costs could spike to compensate for the lack of space to store the currency form.
So should you jump in?
With the growing popularity of the currency, the value is likely to increase with the demand. Some are purely jumping in, if and when they can, as an investment in hopes that the value does in fact increase. New bitcoins trickle out every hour, and will continue to do so until the maximum amount of 21 million is hit, and when it’s reached the Bitcoin supply will be depleted. At the current cost, it could be considered a gamble, but you may kick yourself later if you pass up the chance now.