Steem and Bitshares have such great potential.
I am so excited about what’s possible. It’s amazing that I can send money to people who live oceans apart from me.
However, I think there’s an element that I’ve been missing. Crypto isn’t just for sending tips to people in far away places. It can be used with the person next door. I’ve been helping people get started with crypto in person by selling them crypto for cash with no fee.
I just started because people asked me about crypto and I’ve been sharing my experience. The next step was to help them get a Bitshares wallet and send them a few Bitshares. Of course, once people see the potential, they want more than just a few coins. Offering to sell them more is a great way that I can help people get into this new economy.
Why This Makes a Difference
People are having a difficult time getting started with crypto, even if they are interested because it can be difficult to understand how to take dollars (or their local currency) and exchange it for crypto.
I believe we think about this in an overly complicated way because we are used to dealing with banks or other financial institutions for almost everything having to do with money. Even though crypto gives the promise of peer-to-peer money, we still automatically think about how to use a bank or a credit card to get crypto. This makes things difficult, time consuming and expensive (due to fees). The trouble people often experience with Coinbase is an example of this.
The promise and freedom of crypto is that it’s person to person, peer-to-peer. We don’t have to use those financial institutions anymore.
I can help someone set up a Bitshares account and transfer crypto to them within ten minutes! The actual transaction is usually less than three seconds. This reduces the friction and gives people a much better first experience with crypto.
Why Bitshares?
Bitcoin is the cypto-coin that’s in the news right now, but I don’t recommend it for people who are just getting into crypto now. It’s much easier to sign up for a Bitshares account. I prefer the wallet model for security, which has a downloadable digital backup key combined with a passphrase for security. It’s very secure, but it’s also easy to get started with Bitshares compared with Bitcoin.
Also, the fees are low compared to Bitcoin, which also makes for a better experience as a first time crypto buyer.
Once they get #Bitshares, they can buy other coins on the Bitshares DEX (Decentralised Exange). If you buy Bitcoin, it’s not easy for a beginner to convert that to other crypto currencies. It is easy if you start with Bitshares.
Bitshares has a lot in common with Steem, in fact they were created by the same person - @dan Larimer. So Steemit and Bitshares go well together. I can transfer my Steem Backed Dollars to my Bitshares account using OpenLedger for a very low fee or @blocktrades for a higher fee. Blocktrades is a little easier for a beginner, but both methods are not difficult.
You Can Help Friends and Family Get Into Crypto
If you’ve had success with Steemit or with trading, I encourage you to talk with friends and family. If they show interest, help them set up a Bitshares wallet and send them a few coins. If they’d like more, sell them more for cash. These actions, done by many people, will cause an economic revolution that will #BypassTheBanks
This helps people get into crypto… and it also helps you get some of your Steemit earnings out to cash. You don’t have to do any complicated transfers or connecting of bank accounts. You can just send people Bitshares (or Steem) and they can give you cash. This is how it is meant to be.
Resteemed!!! I love your attitude towards sharing your knowledge with friends and family to help them get a handle on evolution of currency.
Thank you! I think spreading the crypto message person to person may be most effective. I've really enjoyed my experience doing it so far. It's been a very tangible way that I can make the world a better place.
Great post! I've been pretty obsessed w/ Bitshares lately. SO.MUCH.POTENTIAL. It's what I wanted to build when I helped start Euro Pacific Bank. Can't change things from the inside, gotta build a new system.
Thank you for commenting! Great to connect with you. Bitshares does have SO.MUCH.POTENTIAL. :-)
Nice post mate :)
Thanks Tony. Glad to be supporting you in your work to tell the world about Bitshares. Go Bitshares!
Great post Matthew. Especially this part -
"Even though crypto gives the promise of peer-to-peer money, we still automatically think about how to use a bank or a credit card to get crypto" -
I've noticed this in my social network as well. It's almost second nature for people to load up their coins and go to coinbase when they want to sell. When I tell them that there is likely a deep network of peers around us that would be interested in paying them directly for crypto with no fees I can tell it had not even crossed their mind. The cultural programming of financial institutions runs very deep. Posts like this help clear up the misconception that individuals need financial intermediaries in most situations.
I totally never thought to ask around when I needed to sell for fiat rather than going to Coinbase, but then, I am the only in-person person I know who has started using crypto!
Interesting, but how and where would person-to-person transactions involving fiat occur?
With other people you know who have crypto or who want to buy crypto from you. If you've made SBD, you can sell them to your friends and family in person (in your living room, if you'd like).
^^^ This. For bitshares or steemit you just need the person's human readable name. For other cryptos you can send to the other persons public address for cash or services or anything! If you don't have any peers in crypto... well then it looks like you've got some people to share crypto with!
ok, good point. maybe we don't know as many people anxious to get into crypto as you!
Hey @john-robert. Thanks for your active participation in the comments section of this post. I appreciate it! #BypassTheBanks!
Good post. You might be able to enlarge the scope worldwide. I would be happy to help you. followed ya
The possibilities are exciting. Yes, I'm going to keep spreading this message. If we can get people to think in terms of "peer-to-peer" with crypto, it will be impossible to stop. But if people hold onto the mentality that they need to transfer to and from a bank account, the adoption of crypto for real world transactions will be slowed.
Good to connect with you here!
Greetings, @matthewdavid,
I just discovered you and this fine article of yours today. It seems we are thinking along the same lines. Please see:
Following you now.
😄😇😄
We are definitely thinking in similar ways. I am being the (Ex)Change that I want to see in the world. Great to connect with you!
Very happy to have met you here on Steemit... Steem on! ;)
BTW, here's one more recent article on the topic, with more to come:
Great post, and a very noble duty Sir! It's a very smart idea, introducing new starters to BitShares :)
Really good points. I did this with my father. I set him up with a bitshares account and then sent him some BTS and other currencies to get him started. A friend of mine who works with a foreign national who could not setup an account at the central exchanges(due to drivers license irregularities) helped him setup a Bitshares account and then sold him $100 worth of bitcoin, as you described above. Good stuff!
Great work! These are exactly the kind of stories I like to hear.
Thanks mate for writing this post......
It really helps me a lot
From this post i can say people definitely will read this post as it tell everything about cryptocurrencies
I really like bitshares. i wish I had bought more of them while the price was really low. @ironshield
Absolutely man, I am doing the same thing. I've gotten a bunch of people into crypto through bitshares. I am even creating real world value when I can. I have a friend who designed a PV solar array system for me and did some general contracting work organizing the project. After hearing me speak so highly of Bitshares and the Larimer projects, he let me set up a portfolio for him to pay for his work! And then less than a week later he was wanting to put some of his own money in.
This is one of the big pieces of how we are going to really shift things! It's going to take boots on the ground and people presenting options to other people that will eventually create mass adoption. And I completely agree that Bitshares is a great platform for an easy and satisfying user experience. In the end, this is what will drive widespread use - performance.
Great work @matthewdavid, following you now.
Both of these coins are great coins with huge potential , so will be getting onto this gravy train for sure
I really like the line "Helping those who are on a limited budget to profit from Cryptocurrency" in your profile. Excellent! I think we are doing similar work. Keep it up!
Guess that's what attracted me to your post. I've been sharing everything I know with others, however I have had my share of critics. Some of my critics have been pretty brutal. I did however gained a following from my son in law, he turned an initial investment of $180 aud and now is sitting on $1400. Those same critics are now returning,rather sheepishly. Love your approach.
Great article Matt..thanks brother...Happy Holidays
Great post. Next time give them BTS in exchange for other services like automotive repair, or plumbing etc.
Yes! This is exactly the kind of thing that I am looking for opportunities to do. I also plan to write more about it, too. This is a new peer-to-peer economy and I'm doing all I can to be an active participant in it.
Using OpenLedger (which is the exchange which uses BitShares, no?) if you deposit $100 worth of Steem into it, and then trade for no profits, and then attempt to withdraw the $100 back out as Steem, you will lose about 7.5% of your Steem in this example, due to fees presumably. If we compared this to an ATM, it would be like getting charged $7 to withdraw $100 out of your account. Casinos are barely that greedy. While being TOTALLY open to how great decentralized exchanges could be, can you explain why it costs so much to withdraw funds OUT of this BitShares-based exchange?
I can't, as I haven't checked the fees with OpenLedger. If someone else here knows more, please comment and respond to @harpooninvestor's question about OpenLedger fees.
I'll take a look and see what I can find out, too.
I just checked this out by doing a transfer and paying close attention to the numbers sent and received. I sent 0.638 SBD from my Steem account to openledger-dex and in my Bitshares wallet I received 0.638 SBD.
That's right. No fee at all. I got exactly the amount I sent with nothing shaved off.
Can you give a reference to the 7% (or 3.5% each way) number that you got? I'd like to check that out. From my experience, there is no fee.
Blocktrades, on the other hand, does charge a fairly high fee. That might be where those numbers are coming from. Please let me know.
No, not blocktrades, we mean OpenLedger. We also found deposit fees to be zero, so NOW you need to do the opposite, and move the Steem you deposited on OpenLedger BACK to your Steemit wallet. NOW what was the fee for that?
Just did it again with an even smaller amount, 0.087 SBD. Transferred to Bitshares via OpenLedger and I got 0.087 SBD to trade with (bought Bitshares, of course). No fee at all.
think you miss-read our post, "... then attempt to withdraw the $100 back out as Steem, you will lose about 7.5% of your Steem in this example, due to fees presumably..."
This is the key phrase, the fee is charged as an EXIT fee, so try to get your Steem back out to your Steemit wallet, and THEN tell us what you found.
Great article.... Upvoted and resteem.... We let the world knows
Thank you! Good to connect with you. Looks like we have some common interests.
This is a great read, @matthewdavid! I haven't seen bitshares yet, and am definitely going to check it out. I totally agree that you can bypass the bank by doing business online, accepting crypto, and making sure you use retailers that accept crypto. This supports the growth of the different blockchains, encourages growth, and helps people become independent of the chrony's at the bank!
Definitely check out Bitshares. Let me know if you have any questions and I'll be happy to help.
The BitShares volume is just too low to take it serious - maybe for total beginners, but then they will also not really figure out, how the market works on the bigger exchanges. I like the idea, but I don´t believe, that BTS will become a serious player in the field....
with more volume, an easier interface and some marketing...this thing could be HUGE. I'm actually trying to put a team together to take a serious dive in to the potential.
Thanks for commenting. Bitshares is so much more than just an exchange. The Market Pegged Assets are something to really look into. It's a feature that can be used for zero interest "loans" to use for margin trading. No other exchange has this... and it's a big deal. So while the volume may be low now, I've increased my crypto holdings over 10 times (mostly due to trading on the Bitshares DEX). It may not be for everyone, but it is easy to get started with and has practical use right now.
This is an important point to note. You can give yourself an interest free loan on Bitshares and then buy more bitshares or Steem or whatever. Then sell it later and increase your bitshares holdings. And you don't need to get verified!!! Try that on a central exchange. Yes, as it was pointed out the volume is low compared to some central exchanges, however, if you look on cryptofresh you will see fillorders/accountcreates/transfers have increased substantially since January. Add to that the recent announcement of a new smart asset called bitXCD(Eastern Caribbean dollar) which opens bitshares up to seven caribbean nations, and Bitspark's launching of Zephyr and their commitment to launch more currencies in the future, and Stan Larimer's recent post regarding new business development activities and you can start to see a picture where volume will most probably grow as we move forward. If you want know more about giving yourself an interest free loan on bitshares, you may want to check out Tony Peacock on the Go Bitshares youtube channel.
Thank you! I was not aware of the margin trading with a loan. Just watched the video of Tony Peacock - I will try that for sure! Thx!
You're most welcome.
^This^
BitShares has resilience built into it via its decentralized nature. When all of the centralized exchanges fall under fire from oppressors and succumb to the demands of a failing legacy financial industry, BitShares will be waiting in the wings to absorb that clientele and deliver on the promise of cryptocurrency and the blockchain.
Great article! :) Always like reading your posts
Thank you! I appreciate that.
Earth is FLAT!!!! THE globe in the background is a lie lol.. Have fun here and welcome! I saw your post on twitter, NICE WORK!
Thanks for letting me know you saw the post on Twitter. I didn't know it was being shared there. I appreciate the welcome and thanks for commenting!
haha it was mine!!! thts why I left! they censor me and I didn't look at it.. I am trying to wake them up over at twitter. great introduction post!
"Bypass the banks" is code for gas the Jews. This is textbook anti-Semitism!
I consider myself Hebrew and view the Torah as the Way Of Life, so that's definitely not where I was coming from with this post.
@matthewdavid can I have a few of those brajncella so I can understand this complex cryptocurrency pleasssse
Crypto-currencies can be confusing at first. It took me a couple months of reading and research before I felt confident in my understanding. Steemit is a great resource. I did so much reading here and found about things that i would not have otherwise known about.
Do you have any particular questions on crypto?