Bitcoin Decoded: Bitcoin Beginner’s Guide to Mining and the Strategies to Make Money with Cryptocurrencies is my second published book. It is important to note that I am actually the co-author. My friend and business colleague, Brett Combs, is the other co-author, and was indeed the brains of the tandem when it came to Bitcoin.
He asked me once if I had ever heard of something called Bitcoin, and I told him I thought I had, but wasn’t exactly sure what it was all about. Brett told me what it was, how it functioned, and what its purpose was, and I was awestruck. I told him it sounded like the topic for a book. There weren’t very many on Amazon at that time (2013) about Bitcoin or cryptocurrency.
We conducted a series of lengthy interviews in which I asked Brett to basically explain everything he knew about Bitcoin. It was then my job to edit the content and put it into book format.
There was indeed a market for a book about this topic. We achieved best-seller status on Amazon in early 2014 among books about digital currencies.
Immediately below you can read the introduction and first chapter of the book. If you’re interested in more, there is a link at the bottom of this page from which you can buy this book and others I have published through Amazon.
Introduction
In 2009, a Norwegian named Kristoffer Koch purchased 5,000 Bitcoins for 150 Norwegian Kroner (or about $26 USD) as part of his work on a research thesis on encryption on which he was working. After that, he forgot all about his purchase until early in 2013 when Bitcoin was getting a lot of media buzz. By the time he decided to exchange his Bitcoins for currency, they were worth about $880,000 USD.
In 2010, Floridian Laszlo Hanyecz thought it would be “interesting” to be able to say he paid for a pizza in Bitcoins. He worked out a deal where he transferred 10,000 of his Bitcoins to another guy, who ordered him two pizzas from Papa Johns.
Today, those 10,000 Bitcoins would be worth about $9 million. So Laszlo has a humorous story about the pizza that cost him $9 million.
Twenty-four-year-old Charlie Shrem is Bitcoin royalty, in large part because of his early bets on the virtual currency. In 2011, Shrem purchased “many thousands” of Bitcoins when they were just a few cents apiece. Today, on paper, he’s likely worth millions.[1] He has a sprawling New York apartment and holdings in several Bitcoin-related ventures. Stories like these inspire smiles, or hope, or both.
This book will give you an understanding of how something you can’t hold in your hands has become extremely valuable. And at the end, we tell you — based on our years of experience dealing with Bitcoin — where your best opportunities are to perhaps be one of the next Kristoffer Koch story.
1 Learn to Swim Safely in the Deep End
As you begin to read this book either in digital ink or in print, there are a lot of unknowns and much confusion surrounding Bitcoin — something which you may not have heard about until recently.
Very likely, the reason you have chosen to purchase and read this book is you have heard the buzz about Bitcoin in the media or from friends or co-workers, and you are curious but you don’t really understand much more than its name.
Our objectives in writing this book are to help you understand what Bitcoin is, and bring understanding to the very complex way it is created and functions. It is absolutely critical that you understand how and why it exists, as well as some of the potential pitfalls, before you dive in.
Currently, you need a fairly high level of understanding and expertise to be able to swim safely in the Bitcoin pool. This book is the equivalent of the swimming lessons you took as a kid. You’ll be able to go into the water safely, and be aware of both the potential dangers and thrills of the deep end.
Most importantly, once you’ve finished this book, you will be up to speed on the basics of Bitcoin, and you’ll be able to safely explore what your place in the Bitcoin ecosystem might be at this still early point of its development, relatively speaking. We invite you to journey with us and continue reading.
Attitudes and Beliefs About Bitcoin
In 2013, Google reported that the search for “what is Bitcoin” was among the top 10 searches of the year in the “what is” category. We did a survey on Facebook about some of the attitudes and beliefs about Bitcoin before we published the book, just to verify some of our suppositions about the public’s perceptions of Bitcoin.
We were first of all curious about how many people who saw our survey link on Facebook had heard of Bitcoin. (And we purposely avoided groups that were Bitcoin-centric because we wanted to get some sense of what the average person knows and doesn’t know about the topic.)
We discovered that we are not alone in noticing the recent spike in media coverage on Bitcoin. So most people have at least heard of it. But that’s where the familiarity and comfort level end.
When we asked the people taking our survey what they knew about cryptocurrencies, it was apparent that very few understood that were was a connection or relationship between Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.
Cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin that you might have heard of include Litecoin and Dogecoin are based on the open-source Bitcoin software. Later in the book we’ll explore the motivations for doing so.
We then asked what the survey takers’ level of interest was in Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. Considering that the survey was intentionally not targeted at groups focused on those subjects, the results are not surprising:
What is revealing, though, is that the majority of responders were on the high interest / somewhat interested end of the scale. If we were to conduct this survey at a later point in time, we would expect the percentage of people with interest to continue to increase.
The objective of this book is to be a source of basic information for beginners, as well as to provide insight as to where the Bitcoin/cryptocurrency market is headed and where the average person has the best chance to capitalize upon it.
Also, even though you may be a complete novice right now, we will tell you later in this book how you can become certified as a Bitcoin expert! How prestigious will that be as the Bitcoin movement continues to grow?
We also asked people what their level of comfort would be with a currency that they cannot touch, and that is not easily regulated by any banks or governments:
The responses are not at all surprising. This book will answer the questions about how people are using Bitcoin, and why there are people who have achieved a level of comfort, acceptance and even enthusiasm about conducting business this way.
We asked people who took our survey what information they want to know about Bitcoin and what they would like to see covered in a book on the topic. Many asked:
- What is it really?
- How to acquire it?
- How I might use it to generate wealth?
- How I might take advantage of it from the beginning?
It’s important to note that even though Bitcoin has been in existence for five years, there are many opportunities to get involved:
- An entrepreneur, who invents ways to improve its ease of use
- An investor who wants to buy and sell Bitcoin like a stock or bond.
- A consumer, who will likely be able to save money on purchases using Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, for reasons we will outline here in the book.
- A migrant working in one country who wants to send money to another family member in another country and save money on the exchange and transaction fees.
- A business owner, taking Bitcoin as a form of payment and saving money on merchant fees and eliminating the risk of chargebacks.
You’re here at a point in time where new Internet millionaires are still being created — sometimes completely unwittingly, as we pointed out in the introduction.
When you’re done with this book, you’ll be able to dive into the deep end and be much more aware of the great experiences and the sharks that could both be there.
[1] Charlie Shrem’s success story is under attack. Shrem was arrested on January 27, 2014 for taking part in alleged money laundering schemes. Since he has not been convicted by a United States jury, he is considered innocent until proven guilty.
To purchase this book and-or learn about other books I have written and published, please visit my Amazon author page.
After the book was published, I was featured as a Bitcoin expert on a television news reports in Tyler and Midland, Texas:
