pull down to refresh
5 sats \ 4 replies \ @BitcoinHandsOn 27 May \ on: How to create an e-commerce website? AskSN
Think first about how you'd market it. That's extremely important.
Would you put it on Amazon? Would you use Amazon ads (very expensive, maybe not worth it). Or would you just sell it on your own, and find other ways to market?
If you just want to sell some ebooks, you could consider http://Gumroad.com, or maybe https://www.lemonsqueezy.com. All payment processing, etc, would be taken care of with these 2 companies.
If you need a website, and you're new at this, you could do worse than trying something simple yourself, like https://carrd.co/.
A lot of the anti-family propaganda out there IS, I believe, fiat related. Don't have kids because:
- the climate crisis is ending the world (that whole climate hysteria is very much fiat related)
- career is the most important thing (you need to keep on working to keep the fiat machine running).
- women especially - don't worry about having kids, your 20's is a great time to focus on career, your 30's is when you can maybe start thinking about kids (if you even want to - climate crisis, remember?)
Any more specifics on how to reach out to local universities?
For instance - what types of groups would be interested? What might they be interested in, what would be a good initial offering?
I just published this book Bitcoin, Hands-On: 28 “learn-by-doing” exercises to master the basics of managing your own Bitcoin, including wallets, transactions, and self custody.
I'd love to talk to university students, and walk them through it. But it's not an orange pilling book, it's more of hands-on self custody book.
I tried quite a bit through...now I'm forgetting what service I tried to use. This is many months ago. But it never worked, Telegram never accepted the number.
Could you suggest a specific site?
Are you able to get a telegram account without a phone number? I tried a while back, couldn't do it.
Buying P2P is a great goal, and may be manageable if you're 1 to 1.
But honestly, only maybe 1 in 100 people that are interested in bitcoin will be able to buy P2P at the beginning, without a lot of help. There's way too many barriers.
Below I copied the exercise #3 in my book - Bitcoin, Hands-On: 28 “learn-by-doing” exercises to master the basics of managing your own Bitcoin, including wallets, transactions, and self custody
It's a basic guide on buying bitcoin. I tried to strike a reasonable balance between being doable, and privacy conscious.
Feedback welcome!
Exercise 3: Buy Bitcoin
In this step, you’ll actually purchase bitcoin, using whichever source you prefer from the options given below. In the exercise after this one, you’ll move some of that bitcoin to the wallet you created in Exercise 2.
How much will you buy? Choose an amount that you’re comfortable with, probably less than 50 to 100 USD, or the equivalent in other currencies.
This should be an amount small enough that you’re not worried about losing it, but large enough to be able to do all the exercises. You’ll pay transaction fees to move the bitcoin around to different wallets, but otherwise the bitcoin is yours to keep. And you’ll learn more about transaction fees as you go through the exercises.
A reminder—when you’re buying bitcoin in this step, you’re not buying it on an exchange traded fund (ETF), because then you wouldn’t be holding and managing your own bitcoin. Instead, you’re buying bitcoin that you can receive into your own wallet, in self custody.
Since there’s so many different sources to buy bitcoin from, I can’t walk you through the process of setting up an account and buying bitcoin, because it will be different everywhere. But I’ll give you some general thoughts about the best ways and sources to buy from.
Also, a note about keeping your bitcoin safe—at this point, you just need to take very basic security precautions. This is because:
• The amounts that you’re dealing with are small.
• The wallets you’re working with are temporary. Once you’ve finished the exercises, you’ll send the bitcoin to another wallet.
Where should you buy bitcoin? KYC or P2P
There are two main ways of buying bitcoin, KYC (“Know Your Customer”) and P2P (Peer To Peer).
KYC is what most people use, in countries where exchanges are available. It means using a centralized exchange, which follows government “Know Your Customer” laws. On a KYC exchange, you need to open an account, linked to your government ID, to purchase bitcoin. You will need to go through an identity verification process. This usually includes submitting photos of government-issued ID, as well as facial scans.
P2P means you’re not going through a regular exchange. Instead, you’re buying from a peer—someone who owns bitcoin and wants to sell it.
If you’re lucky enough to have a friend or family member who’s willing to sell you a small amount of bitcoin, then the transaction can be very simple. You hand the friend or family member some cash, and give them a bitcoin address from your wallet. Then they send you the bitcoin (minus the transaction fee).
But often, P2P trades will be done online, via one of the secure, private services mentioned below.
One of the main benefits of buying P2P is increased privacy. If you’re buying peer to peer, the only other person that knows about the purchase is the seller. However, if you’re buying from a KYC exchange, your personal information is available to both the exchange, and the government. And considering how often companies have been hacked and their customer database stolen—it’s not just the government who could get your data. Criminal gangs could get it as well.
The problem for people just starting to buy bitcoin is that for these P2P services, you need to already own at least a small amount of bitcoin. This is because usually a bitcoin bond or escrow needs to be set up.
KYC Exchanges
If you’ve decided that for now, you’ll use a KYC exchange, you have many options.
It’s important to purchase from a bitcoin-only exchange. An exchange that is bitcoin-only will have fewer points of failure. And more importantly, they won’t try to sell you other, inferior cryptocurrencies, that they make more commission on. Companies that sell anything other than bitcoin (exchanges such as Coinbase, Kraken, Robinhood, Binance) are not recommended.
There’s a saying among bitcoiners that expresses a core belief—that Bitcoin stands alone, and is fundamentally superior to other cryptocurrencies.
Bitcoin, not crypto.
Here’s some KYC exchanges that are Bitcoin-only. This is not an exhaustive list, and this information can change quickly, so do your own research. Also, the exchange should make it very clear that they will actually allow you to withdraw your bitcoin, to your own wallet.
Strike (Many countries) https://strike.me/
Swan (US) https://www.swanbitcoin.com/
Unchained Capital (US) https://unchained.com/
River (US) https://river.com/
Cashapp (US, UK) https://cash.app
Relai (Europe, Swiss-based) https://relai.app/
Bull Bitcoin (Canada, Europe) https://www.bullbitcoin.com/
P2P exchanges
In general, using a P2P exchange can be a little more challenging. Also, even more so than with KYC exchanges, you’ll need to stay informed because the P2P markets can change quickly. But on the plus side, you get the best possible privacy, and that’s worth a lot.
Below are some of the more common P2P exchanges. For more options, take a look at this site: https://kycnot.me/.
Robosats https://learn.robosats.com/
Bisq https://bisq.network/
Peach https://peachbitcoin.com/
Hodl Hodl https://hodlhodl.com/
Vexl https://vexl.it/
Robosats requires a Bitcoin Lightning wallet in order to use it (see the Resources section at the end of this book for more information on Lightning), but it’s one of the most popular and easiest P2P exchanges.
In the next exercise, you will need to have already completed the purchase of bitcoin. It needs to be ready to send, from the exchange to your own receive address.
I did start with a bit of a "what is money" spiel, but not very long. I had sent some materials to people before the workshop, but it seems like nobody watched/read them.
I had planned to give a short talk, then go through the exercises in my my book Bitcoin Hands-On with the attendees.
I contacted people I know in town, and also a local neighborhood group.
Most people really DO want to learn about bitcoin. They're hesitant about:
- not understanding, feeling foolish about not understanding
- being scammed
It was all questions. I had a very short slide show, that I expected to last about 15 minutes. When I realized that people weren't prepared to actually purchase any bitcoin and do the exercises, I extended the slide show by asking for a lot of audience feedback and questions.
Let's see, what came up. The quantum thing. Lots of talk about inflation.
I did give them some free sats to play with. I had them play with CoinOS a bit, and sent some sats around. Started a little circular economy.
Honestly though, I think that's a distraction, at this level.
They first need to understand a bit about private keys, what is a wallet, what are addresses and transaction fees. Zapping sats around, while fun, doesn't help in that regard. And it doesn't help them understand self custody (of course CoinOS is not self custody).
I explain in depth (in the book) the differences between kyc and p2p, and the benefits of p2p.
But in all honesty the only people who would START with p2p, on their bitcoin journey, are extremely rare. It would definitely intimidate your average person.
What's like this, but on anything other than a Mac - like Windows, phone, etc?
Basically, what are the "alternative' hardware wallets?
The Nunchuk app is one, I think.
When moving to self custody, often people are withdrawing significant chunks of bitcoin from an exchange.
That's very stressful, because it's something people don't do all the time. In fact, they may have done this a total of ZERO times. The software is unfamiliar, the hardware is unfamiliar, the terminology is unfamiliar, AND you're dealing with potentially large amounts. Yikes. No wonder people avoid self custody.
There needs to be a "baby steps" path into self custody. Practicing with tiny amounts. Learn through doing what a private key/seed phrase is. Learn through doing what "recovering" a wallet means.
I wrote a the below book to walk people through a carefully curated set of exercises to get them comfortable with self custody, and understand how it works in practice.
I'm prepping for a workshop on my new book
Bitcoin, Hands-On: 28 “learn by doing” exercises to master the basics of managing your own Bitcoin, including wallets, transactions, and self custody
I have it set up right now as an evening seminar, spread out over three days. Just now I finished a slide deck. It'll be very simple and very short, mostly an interactive talk to spark conversation (What is money? What is good money? What's wrong with fiat) and then we'll be heading straight into the book, and going through the 28 exercises.
I sent them some preparatory steps they should go through ahead of time (load Strike or another similar app, get some money into it) because that can take a while, what with the KYC, debit cards transactions being declined, etc. That whole process is a good advertisement for bitcoin, really.
I have about 16 people coming. These people are not bitcoiners, but they're interested.
Definitely not a Ledger. The security issues with Ledger are not pretty.
If you did buy a hardware wallet, make sure it's Bitcoin only - that limits the list quite a bit. And also I suggest that you use Sparrow Wallet to coordinate transactions, instead of any wallet software associated with the hardware wallet.
If you want to pursue the USB stick option - here's some detailed instructions on how to create a wallet with a USB stick/TailsOS written up by @Natalia a while back How to MAKE your own Cold Wallet 🕶️.