Top Five Ways to Make Money and Earn Bitcoins with Pokemon Go

It’s a worldwide phenomenon that nobody heard of a week ago. Heck, even after hearing about Pokemon Go multiple times from many people over several days, I still didn’t know what it was. I had to Google it. :-)

By now you’ve at least heard about Pokemon Go, even if you’re like me and don’t know what all the fuss is about. In a nutshell, Pokemon Go is an App. It’s a game for your cell phone. You wander around looking for funny little creatures (Pokemon) to capture so you can level up and find more funny little creatures so you can level up again. Yup, that’s what all the fuss is about.

But this game has a clever twist… it uses the cell phone’s GPS to find your location and map your surroundings within the game then places game objectives, random Pokemon, etc on the map so you are forced to traverse the real world if you want to go anywhere in the game. You can play while going about your everyday activities, or plan a real world activity to a destination that corresponds with an objective in the game. The phone will even vibrate when you are near a Pokemon or game objective, constantly reminding you there’s no need to pay attention to driving or other real world activities.

People old and young love the game, they can’t get enough of it. You have the challenge of collecting Pokemon mixed with friendly competition, in-game rewards, and a playful sense of treasure hunting and adventure.

The popularity of Pokemon Go has soared so fast that droves of entrepreneurial types are taking advantage of all the hype and earning real cash (and/or Bitcoins) in the process. Here are a few of the ways I’ve seen people making money with the Pokemon craze…

• Pokemon Go Drivers – I’ve seen more than a handful of people offering to drive others around (for an hourly fee) so the passengers can play the game in the real world without having to deal with silly real world stuff. Typical Wage: $10-20/hr.

• Pokemon Go Players – So you want to play the game, but don’t want to play it? Why not pay someone else to play it for you? Now you can and YES, this is a real thing! People are paying others $10 per hour or more to play the game for them. The players will log into your account and wander around their own town, collecting Pokemon for you and increasing your character’s level. I’ve seen more than one parent eagerly hire Pokemon Go Players to help boost their son or daughter along.

• Make posts on new Pokemon Websites, Get Paid in Bitcoin! – Bitcointalk.org is a great place to find a few webmasters looking to pay people to join their new Pokemon Forums and post relevant topics. If you like to post to forums and wanna talk Poke-whateves, this is an easy way to make some Bitcoin.

• Make Pokemon Go Related Videos and Monetize Them – One way to ride the coattail of this gravy train is make a video even remotely related to Pokemon Go then monetize it on YouTube. A quick search there will show the popularity is at a fever pitch, meaning it should be pretty easy to hop along for the ride.

• Write a Pokemon Go Related Blog Post and Monetize It – Um… kinda like the blog post you’re reading right now… except I haven’t really figured out the whole money thing yet. But seriously, it’s a huge craze and if you want traffic to your blog (like I want traffic to my blog), then maybe posting about Pokemon is worth a shot…

So now that you’re “in the know” on Pokemon Go, I’m not sure if you should thank me or curse me.

I’m sorry and you’re welcome.

Bitcoin 10-Day Price Chart - BULLISH Pattern for July 18th, 2016

Current BTC Price as of this writing:  $675.77 USD (Coinbase.com)

I just ran a 10-day Bitcoin price chart and am happy to see a nice bullish pattern emerge with the STRONG POSSIBILITY of a PRICE INCREASE over the next 24-36 hours.

As long as the support level holds, it appears as though upper resistance will be tested again, meaning the price could pop up to the $685-$690 range.

The relative strength is right where it needs to be for such a move to occur, and the slow stochastic just had a bullish crossover (I've pointed out the previous three crossovers in blue and tagged a vertical line through the approximate price at each crossover.  From the chart below, you can see exactly what happen after these crossovers occur (the price moves up).

Nothing in trading or investing is guaranteed, so I urge you to do your own research before risking anything, but by the same token, let's hope this latest crossover will repeat the upward trend.

Chart courtesy of http://bitcoincharts.com.
Additions are my own and released under the same license as the chart.  Info below.

 10-Day Bitcoin Price Chart, 2 Hour Intervals

This chart (with my additions) is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

Please link back to me and BitcoinCharts.com if you use it.  Thanks!

References:

• Bitcoincharts.com - Source of price chart, pre-modifications
• Coinbase.com - Current Bitcoin price

Using the Power of Compound Interest to Invest and Grow Your Bitcoins

There's a classic thought experiment in the investing world that goes something like this...  If I were to offer you a choice between receiving $1 million dollars today or a single penny that will double in value every day for the next 30 days, which would you choose?  I'd take the million bucks, at least until knowing better.  What about you?

If you took the penny and doubled the value every day for an entire month, the results start out lackluster at best but then quickly become astounding... you would be a millionaire multiple times over within 30 days!  Here's how it breaks down...

That's the power of compound interest!  Of course, this example is insanely exaggerated and the chance of consistently doubling your money every day forever probably willl never happen but there are a couple very noteworthy lessons here.

The first point to remember is that when you choose a profitable investment, your money WILL GROW OVER TIME.  It takes a long, long time, but if left alone, you will end up with quite a bit more money than when you started.

Second, the amount of time this takes can be significantly reduced AND the final dollar value can be significantly increased with one simple principal... by earning some form of cash flow (interest, dividends, etc) from your investment and immediately re-investing those profits.  When this is done, you earn interest on your interest, and the results start compounding as in the example above.  The more often you receive and re-invest profits, the faster your money will grow.

Third, and just as important, is the amount of time it takes before the full effects of compounding interest start to surface.  In the example above, we see that after an entire week of money doubling, we've managed to grow our penny to a whopping 64 cents.  Pocket change, quite literally.  After two weeks, we're still well under $100, and the $10,485 made after week 3 seems a far cry from the $1,000,000 turned down on day 1.  But then something magical starts to happen and in another 4 days our money has increased over 15 fold!  From there it gets a little silly as the money grows so fast we have trouble keeping up with it.
The point is this... the hardest and most time consuming part of growing an investment through compound interest is building up a respectable nest egg in the first place.  Imagine you started the example above with $10,000, instead of starting with a penny.  It would only take 7 days to become a millionaire.  That's over 4 times faster to reach the same goal and the only thing that changed is the amount of money we started with.

I could keep rambling about the benefits (and pitfalls) of compound interest but this article would never get finished.  Instead, let's see how the ideas above can be applied to investing with Bitcoins in order to make your Bitcoins earn more Bitcoins.

There are countless ways to "invest" your Bitcoins, some are legit, quite a few are not.  One method of investing with Bitcoins is to lend your Bitcoins to someone else for a length of time and then earn interest on the loan.  It can be risky, but there are companies that will mediate the loans and help alleviate some (or all) of the risk.
So it's possible to loan out your extra Bitcoins and make money for doing so.  Then, to do it again, only this time you make money on a bigger pile of money.  The next time you make more money on an even bigger pile of money, and on and on and on.  It just takes time, patience, and discipline.

Over the past couple weeks I've been playing with a couple sites that allow you to loan/invest Bitcoins in this way.  Yes, my profits are starting out small, but I am re-investing ALL of them along with the principal, and I'm repeating the process as often as possible, all while protecting the initial investment.

Now that you've got a primer on the power of compound interest and see how it can be applied to generating Bitcoins, the next article will cover some of the Bitcoin lending services I've tried and my thoughts on the best ways to earn compound interest by lending out your Bitcoins.

Until then, keep letting those pennies add up!

How to Make Thousands of Free Satoshi Daily From a Single Website

Earn Thousands of Free Satoshi Daily from this Website

UPDATE: Sept. 6th, 2016
DonaldCoin.com has shut down due to being banned from AdSense.  Please check my newer posts for websites still giving away free Bitcoins.  The original article follows...

In my quest to find ways to make millions and billions of dollars with Bitcoin, one area that interests me is Bitcoin Faucets – websites that give away small amounts of free Bitcoins on a regular basis, usually a set schedule. Sites that frequently give free Bitcoins will often pay very small amounts each time while sites that pay more will usually do so less frequently.

If you want to earn free bitcoins from websites, it's important to use your time wisely and find the websites that will give you the most Satoshi for the least amount of hassle.

I'm putting together a list of high paying free Bitcoin websites and will publish it in the coming weeks but in the meantime, I found a great site that gives away free Bitcoin! It's easy to use and only takes a little time to earn several thousand satoshi every day.

The site is called DonaldCoin.com and offers a self-replenishing Bitcoin faucet along with several links and “games” that allow you to collect free Satoshi just by logging in and clicking on a few things. There is also a Daily Bonus with a semi-random payout of around 230-350 Satoshi that can be collected every 24 hours. The site also lets you earn/find “gold coins” that can be spent on account upgrades like increased faucet capacity and decreased wait time, or they can even be traded for bundles of free Satoshi.

All Satoshi/Bitcoin earned on the site are stored in a Scrooge McDuck style vault, waiting to be withdrawn to your account on Faucetbox.com or directly to a Bitcoin Address/Wallet. So far I have withdrawn just over 20,000 Satoshi to Faucetbox and they came through quickly and easily and have since been deposited on a Bitcoin paper wallet that I'll use to help fund new projects in the near future.

How Much Money Will I Make?

That depends on how much time you want to spend on the site and how many times you want to visit in a day. If you spend more time clicking links and visit more often, you will earn more Bitcoin, it's that simple.

But that's not a very good answer so here's a breakdown of potential earnings...

The free Bitcoin faucet generates a set amount of Bitcoin every hour, up to a pre-determined capacity. For my free account, they pay 240 Satoshi every hour, up to a maximum of 400 Satoshi each time I visit and collect free coins. This means that if I visit the site once every two hours, I can collect 400 Satoshi on each visit. If I was able to do this 24 hours a day, I would earn over 4,800 free Satoshi every day from the Bitcoin faucet alone.

But that's not really possible, most of us have to sleep at some point and we've also got other stuff to do throughout the day. A more realistic earnings projection is provided below.

Daily Bonus = Free Bitcoins Every Day

Once every 24 hours, DonaldCoin gives you a Daily Bonus in the range of 230-350 Satoshi. For simplicity, we will say the Daily Bonus averages to 275 Satoshi/day, I don't think this is far from the real average. So along with the 400 free Satoshi earned from every visit (mentioned above), you can also get a couple hundred extra Satoshi every day.

Explore/Free “Gold Coins”

Along with the Daily Bonus, DonaldCoin also offers an “Explore” section. This is just a treasure map image with hidden links that you click on. Click 3-4 links and earn a “gold coin”. The gold coins are also awarded randomly when you collect from the free faucet or daily bonus. Coins can be spent to upgrade your account or get even more free Satoshi. For the sake of this article, we will assume you can earn 5 gold coins in 4 days (1 coin each day plus a random one from the daily bonus or Bitcoin faucet. The 5 gold coins can be traded at the DonaldCoin store for 800 Satoshi (among other items), meaning that this is an extra 200 or so Satoshi every day.

There are more ways to earn even more Bitcoin on the site but I'll save that for a full write-up and review that will be posted soon. For this article, let's focus on quickly making a couple thousand extra Satoshi every day, and be happy with that (for now).

How to Earn Free Satoshi/Bitcoin – Step by Step

Now that you've got a brief overview, here's a step-by-step process to earn extra Bitcoin every day along with approximate earnings expectations...

Step 1

Action: Visit DonaldCoin.com 3-5 times per day to collect Satoshi from the free faucet. You can visit once in the morning, once before bedtime, and then one or more times during the day when you are bored and have nothing better to do. If you stagger the visits throughout the day, you can collect 400 Satoshi from the faucet with each visit and will see that it adds up quickly for very little effort.

Time Involved: 1-2 minutes per visit (including time to log in), most likely less ~ 10 minutes/day

Rewards/Payout: 400 Satoshi per visit x 3 to 5 visits = 1,200 to 2,000 Satoshi per Day

Step 2

Action: During one of your daily visits from Step 1, you will be able to collect the Daily Bonus by clicking a link once you're logged in. Just watch the Daily Bonus banner at the top of your account page and collect it every time it is active.

Time Involved: Less than 1 minute if done in conjunction with Step 1

Rewards/Payout: ~230-350 Satoshi = 275 Satoshi Average per Day

Step 3

Action: A “gold coin” can be collected every 24 hours, just like the Daily Bonus. When you collect the Daily Bonus from Step 2, it's a good idea to collect a gold coin if you can. It doesn't take much extra time and the coins can be traded for Satoshi on the site.

Time Involved: Less than 2 minutes when done in conjunction with Step 1 & Step 2 above

Rewards/Payout: Varies. I collect 5 coins and trade them for 800 Satoshi, which takes 3-5 days and equates to about 200 free Satoshi per day.

Step 4 - (Optional)

Action: Click other links on the site when you're bored. Steps 1-3 just cover the quick and easy ways to earn the most Bitcoins from DonaldCoin on a consistent daily basis but there are several other ways to get extra Satoshi if you want to click links and spend more time on the site. These will be covered in more detail in a future article.

Step 5 - (Optional)

Action: Promote DonaldCoin using the Affiliate/Referral system. This doesn't really fall into the “quick and easy” theme of this article but it is worth mentioning because passive income is a key component to becoming wealthy and is my all-time favorite way to make money. It takes a lot of time and effort up-front to build up referrals and start making money from your efforts but it can prove very profitable. Put in the effort once, earn money time and time again with no further commitments.

The referral system at DonaldCoin pays you every time one of your referrals collects free Bitcoin from the site. Once you've referred someone, you're done... You just sit back and hope they keep collecting free money because every time they earn Bitcoin, you do too. Referral/Affiliate programs aren't all roses and gravy but it is definitely worth mentioning and passive income should be a long term goal of everyone looking to make insane amounts of money.

Total Expected Earnings: ~1,675 to 2,475 Satoshi Daily - Potentially More

If we leave out Step 4 and 5 and just focus on Steps 1-3 (collecting free Satoshi), we can expect to make somewhere around 1,700 – 2,500 Satoshi per day for only a few minutes of time. Spend less time, make less. Spend more time, make more. Sure, it's not a fortune, but it is consistent and free and anyone with a couple minutes and an internet connection can do it.

Since finding the site, I've been visiting and collecting free Bitcoin every day and I definitely don't spend much time there but the money is definitely real. I just collect the free coins when I'm bored or think about it and so far I've made around 25,000 Satoshi for very little effort.

Sure, that's not much (currently about 16 cents, US) but it is something for (almost) nothing and the real key for me is this helps build up a bankroll which I can invest and grow my bitcoins and eventually get rich in the process. I wish the same for you.

Until next time, Happy Bitcoin Hunting!

Bitcoin Price Charts - July 2016, 3 Days After Block Reward Halving

The Bitcoin price has been in a sideways squeeze for a few weeks now, trading in a comparatively tight range.  With the hype over the block reward halving dying down, we may be set for a move in the Bitcoin price.  Here are the current 10-day and 5-day Bitcoin price charts along with the usual technical indicators and my own markups for support and resistance levels.  It looks like we could see a minor bounce upward in the week ahead, although overhead resistance is not far from the current support level (and they are converging quickly).

The 10-day chart does show a few good bullish signs, including a shift in the support slope, moving average crossover and improvement, and two recoveries after breaking support.  Also, StochRSI (an indicator of relative strength) shows that the market is likely oversold in the short-term which could mean the price will move upward to test resistance levels.

This week is tough to gauge as there is no definite trading pattern that I see and the price is still just kinda bouncing sideways.  So please look the charts over and form your own opinion.  My recommendation for this week... watch the support and resistance levels, look for the price to test upper resistance, and otherwise sit on the sidelines and wait for the market to decide where it's going.

Charts courtesy of http://bitcoincharts.com with my own personal additions.  License info below.

5-Day Bitcoin Price Chart, 1 Hour Intervals

 10-Day Bitcoin Price Chart, 2 Hour Intervals

These charts (with my additions) are licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

Please link back to me and BitcoinCharts.com if you use them.  Thanks!

Bitcoin Mining Reward Cut in Half – July 9th, 2016 – What this Means for Bitcoin's Future

The virtual currency Bitcoin hit another milestone a couple days ago when the reward for generating new Bitcoins was cut in half. Previously, when a new block was generated, the miner (or mining pool) responsible for generating the new block was awarded 25 Bitcoins for the efforts. Now with the reward halving come and gone, the same amount of effort produces only half the rewards, 12.5 Bitcoins (it actually takes more effort now as the difficulty for solving a block increased at the same time the reward decreased).

All of this and the Bitcoin price remains relatively flat, trading around $650 USD per Bitcoin as of this writing.

Many expected the price of Bitcoin to double when the reward was cut in half, and in many aspects, this makes a lot of sense. After all, the electricity cost and maintenance/upkeep of mining equipment hasn't changed – it still costs roughly the same to generate a new Bitcoin block, but since the reward is less, the price should be more to compensate, right? Well, maybe, maybe not.

Let's rewind to the end of last year when talk of the Summer 2016 Bitcoin halving first started hitting a fever pitch. At the time, Bitcoin was trading at $300-350 each and mining enthusiasts were snatching up and setting up Bitmain's Antminer S7 just as fast as they could.

Since then, the price HAS doubled. And for the last several weeks the price of Bitcoin seems stuck at approximately double the price of Q3-Q4 just last year.

So has the doubling in price already happened and we just missed it because it was slow and gradual and happened over months instead of overnight? Or is the price increase of the previous months just a glimpse of what is to come? At this point it is still too early to say, and the Bitcoin markets appear indecisive with most traders still sitting on the sidelines.

As mentioned in my previous posts, the Bitcoin price is being squeezed sideways. It'll move up a little or down a little, there's some panic selling here and some fickle buying efforts there, but overall the price is just kinda bouncing along in a sideways trading range with signs of trepidation and indecision. I don't know what the market is doing and I don't think it knows yet either. Hopefully a better trading pattern will emerge soon.

Is Now a Good Time to Invest in Bitcoin?

One recurring theme that has been popping up along with the reward halving chatter, is whether or not now is a good time to buy and/or invest in Bitcoin. Those bullish on Bitcoin say that it is now more rare than ever and more difficult to earn new Bitcoins. Those who are bearish on Bitcoin say the market is in a bubble, is too fickle/volatile, and that whales are waiting to dump their Bitcoin hoards and beat the price down.

Both Bitcoin bears and bulls have valid arguments, but the Bitcoin markets and price are on the fence so until that changes, I'm on the fence and undecided as well.

Points to Consider Before Buying or Selling Bitcoin in Today's Market

Before dumping your life savings into Bitcoin or trading your hard earned coins for cash, here are a few points to consider:

• In the last several years, the price of Bitcoin has been much higher than it is today, with a stretch of time in the $1,000+ range.
• In the last several years, the price of Bitcoin has been much lower than it is today, substantially lower. The market is volatile, offering high risks and high rewards. Don't invest more in Bitcoin than you can afford to lose.
• With recent events, Bitcoin markets remain undecided in a sideways holding pattern. Indecisive markets can mean big swings up or down... Making an investment decision right now means significantly higher risks, but also potentially huge rewards.
• It will take time for the full effects of the reward halving to be felt. New blocks (and Bitcoins) are generated approximately every 10 minutes while maintenance and electricity bills are usually paid on a bi-monthly or monthly basis.
• If the Bitcoin price doesn't go up soon, entire hordes of mining equipment will either be operating at a loss or taken offline due to an inability to run profitably. This would lead to a DECREASE in the difficulty of generating a new Bitcoin block, or at least keep the difficulty relatively flat for one or more adjustment periods.
• Antminer recently released their newest SHA-256 ASIC miner, the S9. This miner offers a huge leap in efficiency and mining power and is being unleashed in bulk on the mining community. As more S9's come online (as well as next gen miners from other companies), more Bitcoins will be generated quicker until the difficulty rises to slow them down. Yet another factor playing on the Bitcoin price.

At this point it's tough to say exactly what will happen with Bitcoin's future but one thing's for certain, Bitcoin use is increasing worldwide and it isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Bitcoin Price Charts - 5 Days Before Reward Halving

With most of us groggily heading back to work after a long weekend of celebrating America's independence, it's anybody's guess what may or may not happen in the Bitcoin markets in the week ahead.  Tuesday may be a bog of indecision as we fight relentless hangovers and struggle to get back to "the daily grind".  Or tomorrow may prove explosive, the Markets never seem to leave any possibility out.

According to BitcoinBlockHalf.com, we have just under 5 days until the dreaded "Bitcoin Halving" occurs.  That is, the reward for successfully generating a new block will be cut in half from 25 Bitcoins to 12.5 Bitcoins per block once another ~600 new blocks are generated.  The estimated date of the reward halving is July 9th, 10:50 AM Eastern time, but this will change depending on how quickly the next six hundred blocks get mined.

Sometimes it'd be wonderful (and profitable) to see the future: Where's Marty McFly and the Doc when you need them?  Unfortunately, nobody knows for sure what's going to happen to the price of Bitcoin leading up to (and after) the reward halving.  But to help you make an informed decision, I've generated a few prices charts and posted them below.  It's interesting to note the similarities and differences between the 2-day, 5-day, and 10-day charts, showing possible trends in the coming hours and days.

Charts courtesy of http://bitcoincharts.com with my own personal additions.  License info below.

2-Day Bitcoin Price Chart, 30-Minute Intervals

5-Day Bitcoin Price Chart, 1 Hour Intervals

 10-Day Bitcoin Price Chart, 2 Hour Intervals

These charts (with my additions) are licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

Please link back to me and BitcoinCharts.com if you use them.  Thanks!