It’s simple:
If you have some cryptocurrency, and wish to buy something here, that can be arranged.
The easiest way is to use Coinbase. There are many good exchanges out there, but Coinbase seems to be the easiest for newbies. The best thing is, you can get “free money” from Coinbase to pay for the stuff.
Free Money
Coinbase has a “rewards” program where you get paid (in cryptocurrencies) to watch short videos and take easy quizzes.
The rewards are small – $3 or so is typical – but, over time, they can appreciate in value as the interest in the currency increases. Here’s what I’ve made in rewards so far (as of May 10, 2021):
It’s a little over $200, for watching instructional videos.
The ones at the top, I watched around a year ago. They’ve appreciated in value, a lot!
The ones at the bottom, I watched recently, and they dropped in value, though, not too much. Also, it’s not like I put any money into the system. This was free money.
Sign up with Coinbase through this link, and I might get a commission if you buy crypto on there.
The Videos
The videos weren’t boring. They were short explainers that described each cryptocurrency. Each is trying to find a niche in this new financial system. Watching the videos helps you learn about the product, and also, cryptocurrency in general.
Whether you think bitcoin is legit, or a big ponzi scam, you can still watch these videos and learn how these companies/capitalists are thinking.
Odds are, nearly all these products will “fail” and be swallowed up by a bigger company. That’s just capitalist consolidation. In the meantime, they are flush with venture capital money, and trying to get mindshare.
This gives the entire system a kind of flaky, bullshitty quality. It’s slick, but seems fake.
It’s not really “fake”: it’s promotional.
The companies are trying to identify and build lists of early adopters who are open to taking financial risks. At this point, we are not “early adopters”, but the people who come after the early adopters, but we are still a valuable customers, because we take risks.
Customer acquisition costs in finance are, according to a random blog I found, $175 per customer.
Think about those numbers above: they paid $3 in fake money to get me to watch a video, and now, I’m blogging about them. Holy moly, talk about “growth hacking”.
Buying Stuff Here
Anything I have in here, in inventory, or on Ebay, you can buy with crypto.
For example, I have a book and DVD combo for sale on Ebay for $8 + shipping. The shipping comes out to around $4. So the total is $12.
Coinbase will do transfers of crypto between users, for free. No fees. (Normally, on an Ebay sale, I pay 13% in various fees to complete a sale.)
So, you transfer $12 worth of crypto to me, and I’ll delete the listing on Ebay, and mail the product out to you.
The trade will need to be arranged online, through chat. You can reach me through the contact form. Contact me there, I’ll set up a chat and we can walk through the process.
The info I’ll need are: your mailing address, what you want to buy, and your Coinbase contact.
If you want to see what else I have for sale, using “funny money”, so you can get big discounts, check out my Listia and Simbi accounts. Both will give you free “coin”, so you can get stuff for the cost of shipping.
How to Time the Market
Watch videos when the market is down. Then, later, when the market is up, you can turn around and convert the coin into one of the stablecoins, or spend them by transferring them to me, to get goods in return.
My general policy will be to convert the coin into a stablecoin, or convert to a staking coin that’s down.