I bought some Cardano!
It was remarkably easy to diversify my crypto holdings, even though I'm a simple content-creator with limited technical savvy.
(I'm not necessarily recommending you do this, I'm just showing you what I did, so you can see how easy it is. I'm not being compensated by anyone. This is meant to inform. Date: Feb 26 2019.)
Get a wallet!
After deciding Cardano (ADA) was the cryptocurrency I wanted to experiment with, I downloaded and installed a Cardano wallet called Daedalus. Just as easy as any other program. While running, it operates a local network node silently in the background, which means it uses some computing resources (probably only an issue for older machines). Do NOT skip the "write down your password and store the paper somewhere safe" step.
Daedalus allows you to generate any number of receiving addresses, in case you want to use a different one for each person/company you transact with. Armed with a receiving address for my wallet, all I needed was some Cardano to put in it!
OnePageX
I already posted about this service here. I was excited to put them to the test!
I went to their website, which is very no-frills and easy to understand. No registration or account needed!
The minimum trade from Steem was about 22. I typed 22.5 Steem, entered my wallet receiving address, and clicked 'Start Exchange'.
Up popped instructions on how to proceed, including a 10-character 'deposit tag'. Through my Steemit account, I sent @onepagex the 22.5 Steem, including the 'deposit tag' in the transfer memo.
Without doing anything else, the onepagex website updated after a couple minutes:
An estimated 180 ADA (Cardano) will be mine, cool! That includes 2 small embedded service fees.
The website updated to say "complete" after about ten minutes.
I checked my wallet, and there is was:
Within an hour, I figured out how to use a new wallet, a new exchange service, and a whole new currency!
It was easier than setting up and learning how to use 'online banking' at a traditional financial institution, except much less annoying, and with no glitches.
Little services like this are popping up all over. Decentralized, mainly open source and transparent, nearly-free, and designed to work properly rather than sound good.
Extremely refreshing.
For someone like me, who hasn't participated in the traditional/mainstream/legacy banking world in years, but isn't a tech expert, this sort of thing can't happen soon enough! The big banks have held power over this planet for far too long. Their social engineering, endless wars, and fraudulent financial system are starting to crumble.
I have no bank accounts, no credit cards, no PayPal, nothing at all except a little bit of cash to connect me to that scammy old system.
Now, thanks to Bitcoin, then Steem, and now Cardano, I've got currency that can't be manipulated, that can't be rehypothecated, that can't be revalued by some government regime. I'm the only person who knows the phrase to access those funds. They go where I want them to go. I can cross international borders with millions stored in my memory. I can pay people anywhere in the world within seconds, for nearly no cost.
All that personal power is available to anyone who chooses to claim it. That is changing things.
The internet is a game-changer, and cryptocurrencies are the next level of that. Along with precious metals as a private physical store of value, cryptos put a little power back in the peoples' hands.
(Not financial or environmental advice.)
DRutter
