Jason Deane's Blog

I have to have a word with myself about marketing. This is not a blog that is likely to attract the passive perusal of a passing punter, no matter how much alliteration I put in the opening line. It IS, however, a blog you’d want to read if you’re involved in mining – at any level – for Crypto currency.

If you’re not sure what mining is, then you’re probably getting a bit ahead of yourself here, but if you do and you’re already doing it, or thinking about it, then you’ll need to read on.

You see, although crypto is only ten years old, it has already made a massive impact on the world. Like that other game changer, the internet, we’re finding our feet, scrambling to make things work, finding out what doesn’t and pushing the envelope. Is it actually money? Will people really accept it? Will it really grow in the value in the future? The answer is ‘yes’ for the first two and, in my opinion purely based on maths and economics, ‘yes’ for the third. But in any case, if we just make the assumption that it’s here to stay, we need to mine within the rules that exist.

Every country is gradually laying out its position in terms of cryptocurrency and it varies from downright hostile to welcoming with everything in between. However, one thing that is certain is that governments will want you to pay your tax on your earnings. That’s on top of paying for your mining equipment, power, hosting fees and any other bits and pieces that are inevitably required. How on earth do we work all this out and still make a profit?

Well, the good news is that it’s possible. I should point out that everything I am going through here is from a UK standpoint and that parts of this may not be accurate where you are, although it’s likely most of the principles will apply. The bottom line is, though, if you’re not in the UK, you’ll need to check. No, really, you will.

I’ve been mining for some time and have also owned and run several companies of various formats and sizes over the years (the largest having 23 employees at its peak) After a recent – and very long – meeting with an excellent ‘real world’ accountant, I have been able to put together this basic guide on what we believe is the most tax efficient way of doing it. I like to use what I call a ‘real world’ accountant because, although they’re few and far between, they have a better understanding of everything beyond the numbers. For example, the chap I deal with, and have been dealing with for many years, is a multi millionaire in his own right, with a substantial property portfolio, a number of large scale businesses and a simply uncanny ability to calculate very complex outcomes in his head. He knows business, he knows what’s legal, what isn’t and what the tax man will accept with the correct supporting evidence. He’s a smart lad. I say ‘lad’, he’s 70 now, but still as open minded about new business opportunities as someone half his age.

My own mining operation (still quite small compared to many, but growing slowly as profits are steadily reinvested) is owned not by me, but by one of my companies. Of course, I own the company, but it is separate from me with the benefits (and hassle factor) it comes with. The money I put in is classed as ‘capital’, recorded in the books as a long term loan repayable when certain conditions are met, and all the machines it buys are classed as ‘plant and machinery’ since it’s sole purpose is to generate money for the company.

The hosting and electrical costs, which I pay my chosen partner, CyberianMine, monthly can be settled in traditional fiat or Bitcoin and I flit between the two as it suits the company. Accounting in the books for fiat is simple of course, and for Bitcoin I simply take a screenshot of the equivalent value at the time of the transaction and record it as journal entry in the accounts: debit ‘electricity/hosting costs (whatever you want to call it) and credit a control account set aside to act a virtual bank account since no money comes from the company bank account in real terms at this point. At the end of the accounting year, we’ll use these figures to calculate any tax due as if they were simple fiat transactions. It sounds more complicated than it is, but the truth is any good accountant will know how to do this. All you have to do is keep good records, ie make sure you take screenshots and log down the transaction date and fiat equivalent for everything you do in Bitcoin. Don’f forget to include transaction costs as well, they are a legitimate company expense. If you’re really smart, you’ll log these separately in your accounts.

When buying new machines, the same principle applies, except that we’re going to record them as ‘assets’ rather than operational items. This is important, because it means you can claim depreciation on those assets over time to offset the eventual tax bill. Whether you paid £500 or £3000 for your machine, you’ll be able to depreciate it all the way down to zero over time and claim a portion of that ‘loss’ in value as you would any other depreciating asset. In other words, you’ll get a good portion of that money back. Again, your accountant will do this as long as give him or her the numbers they need. You’ll need to pay him or her of course, but those costs can also be offset.

Of course, your business will need internet, phones, stationery and all the other costs associated with running it, literally anything that you need to keep that operation running and what’s allowable will vary between different company set ups. A limited company will allow you to buy a couple of suits a year, for example, without raising any eyebrows with the taxman. Even certain aspects of laundry, cleaning and teas & coffees for meetings is claimable. It’s all about keeping the receipts and having a business case for claiming it, but even then a few hundred pounds a year of what’s called ‘trivial expenses’ for directors is perfectly acceptable. All of this can be offset against the profits in the future, just check with your accountant.

But don’t be silly or try it on. Putting your speedboat respray through your mining business is probably not going to cut it!

At the end of the year, you’ll have a bunch of money in equipment, which can be depreciated and a new book value attributed to it, some cash in the company account, some ongoing liabilities in terms of hosting fees, some Bitcoin (the value of which will be measured in fiat and entered as an asset) and a bunch of costs associated with producing that Bitcoin. Your tax bill be a combination of all these factors. Don’t be afraid to claim every allowance you’re entitled to and also to explore any tax sheltering schemes you can take advantage of. Tax avoidance is perfectly legal. Tax evasion isn’t.

There’s a whole lot more to this of course, but this blog is designed as a highly simplified introduction, created to do no more than to make you think about how you’re setting up your operation. These are the basics, just get these bits right for now and you’re half way there. Even if you have no idea what I’m talking about for some of the time, just keep all your receipts, keep all the screenshots of fiat values of the transactions you do in crypto and find an accountant later on if you must.

I’ll share more information on how the company owned Bitcoin should be represented, and taxation on profits beyond the normal ‘get Bitcoin at x price and sell at y price.’, ie capital gains beyond production profit later on, but, of course, don’t be afraid to ask if you have a question or two in the meantime.

There’s one more thing I should mention: DON’T try and avoid paying your share of tax. Sure, you might get away with it for a while, but in the end, it’s not worth it. The tax man is smarter than you think, and they’re already on to tracking activities which are, after all, recorded forever on the block chain for everyone to see. I have no doubt this will become routine in due course. Do it legally and play the game by their rules. After all, those very same rules give you plenty of scope for offsetting costs against profits within existing frameworks.

And besides, you’ll sleep far better at night.

Looking to get into mining? I recommend CyberianMine, a company I have partnered with since their inception in early 2018. You can simply buy any number of machines from their shop and start mining easily and simply. Using the exclusive voucher code ‘jason25’ will give you 25 euros off each and every machine that you buy as a bonus.

I can’t really believe it’s been well over a year since I started mining with CyberianMine as I blogged about here at the time. Then, my single Antminer S9 (nicknamed’ Eddie’) was happily punching out 13.5 Th/s and collecting sats 24/7. Every day, a small amount of Bitcoin was automatically transferred to my wallet and, like a savings account earning a small amount of interest, it grew and grew. That little Antminer is still whirring away right now, even as I type, in a facility deep in the Siberian landscape. It’s never broken down. It’s an amazing bit of kit.

I’d been mining before of course, with a 16 card Monero operation and a 12 card 1080ti rig that I’d built with the help of a couple of colleagues, but the truth was the former operation gained only 9 XMR over the period (it was using computer downtime only to run and so was only a part-time, although extremely efficient, operation) and ‘Big Blue’ (as my 1080ti rig was nicknamed) mostly only broke even after the crazy days of the late 2017/early 2018 boom. Some of the time it ran at a loss, but that was OK due to the tax efficient way I’d set it up and the fact my objective was – and still is – to ‘stack sats’. I’ll blog about that separately later as it’s something I’ve been asked about a few times. Yes, there really are tax efficient ways to mine, even in the UK. And yes, they’re even legal!

As I was new to ASIC mining, so too was CyberianMine new to the whole scene, and I hadn’t realized at the time just how new the operation was. They’d not been trading for long and some of the questions I’d asked at the time had not even yet been covered in the FAQs. They were still finding their feet, and, in retrospect, it was a gamble sending an unknown company based in Berlin ANY money at all in the Wild West state that the crypto world was in, and, sadly, is STILL in in many ways. But my questions were answered with honesty directly from the Max, the MD, and it just felt like this was an organisation that I could trust. It was the right call.

[image error]Lots of expensive mining kit in Siberia. It’s even bigger now.

I was contacted by people who had read my blog and received mixed comments. Some were supportive, some thought I was crazy buying anything in the bear market that unfolding and that CyberianMine were even crazier trying to set something up now that the ‘boom time’ was over. I think it’s true to say that they would have preferred the market had remained more buoyant at the time they were growing, but it’s a credit to them they persevered and made sure their customers were looked after. It was certainly the case for me and I later found out I was one of their very first. Hell, my machine number was ‘7’. We took a chance on each other, I guess.

At that time ‘hotswap’ (the service whereby a faulty machine is immediately changed out for a spare whilst yours is repaired to avoid interruption in income) wasn’t initially available and you had to pay 10% of your monthly profit to the company on top of your hosting and electricity fee of 0.06 per Kwh. Of course, with the gradual bleed of the Bitcoin price down to $3400 ish over the next few months, the 10% profit became zero and was later ditched altogether and permanently by the company. Personally, I think this was a good move, not just from the point of view of a customer paying less, but also it meant that you knew exactly what your costs were whilst saving a whole load of messy and complicated calculations on CyberianMine’s behalf for each customer.

I kept a close eye on my single S9 and CyberianMine over the next few months. I was still trading cryptos and mining in my own operations, as well as running other projects and writing and publishing my second book ‘How to explain Bitcoin to your mum‘ inspired by an afternoon visiting my childhood home and trying to do just that.

But in truth, I was growing bored of my little trickle of Bitcoin and wanted to up my game. The trouble was, I was also grappling with that age old dilemma that all investors face (especially those of a certain age with responsibilities such as mortgages and children): Do I invest more or play it safe? Of course, my gut wanted as many mining machines as I could lay my hands on, but my sensible side was pointing out the numbers – it wasn’t making any money. For a time, in fact, I was paying just for the privilege of having a noisy machine in Siberia with my name stuck on the side. I was actually doing better just buying and holding Bitcoin directly. It was a compelling argument and for the longest time I sat on the sidelines watching CyberianMine grow and improve as an organisation. I paid the monthly bill with fiat from my company so I could still hoard the Bitcoin I was getting and waited. But all the time, the fact that I had no doubt that Bitcoin would ultimately succeed was still niggling away in the back of my mind. When the good times returned, I wanted to be in and ready. And, of course, I’d already found the company I wanted to partner with.

So it was utterly inevitable that one morning I woke up with one thought:

“Sod it” (or words to that effect), “let’s get stuck in.”

It was April 2019, some 10 months after I’d bought Eddie the S9 and CyberianMine, Bitcoin and I were still here. It was time to go shopping. It was time to up my stake in the game.

I bought a couple more machines. My hash rate went up, as did my trickle of Bitcoin. So, of course, did my bills, but the fact was I could still afford to pay them without having to sacrifice any Bitcoin. Then, without warning as so often happens in this market, Bitcoin jumped broke through its resistance levels and started creeping back up. $7000. $8000. $9000 and then up to the recent high of $13000. Not only was Eddie profitable again, but so were my new machines, even with the big jump in difficulty that accompanied the price rise. Inevitably, I bought another batch of machines, but now lead times were longer and prices were higher as demand suddenly rocketed – clearly, I wasn’t the only one who had been watching from the sidelines. It didn’t matter. It was apparent from the calculations that due to CyberianMine’s famously low power and hosting fees, each and every machine would make money. In fact, I worked out a couple of weeks ago, that Bitcoin would need to drop below $4690 before they started losing money again and I strongly suspect that this fact wasn’t lost on them when they came up their slogan sometime in that last year of ‘Last Mine Standing’. The average cost of mining a Bitcoin today varies (quite wildly) by source, but I suspect it’s somewhere around $6000. Below this level, many miners will switch off their equipment and wait, making it far more profitable for mining operations with the lowest overheads to carry on.

Don’t take these figures as gospel by the way, especially the one about CyberianMine’s break even price. It was correct at the time according to my calculations and specific to my set up of hardware, but was also based on the difficulty of the time (9.06) which will vary as that figure and other factors change. The point is that however you cut the numbers, it’s definitely below the global average whichever source you use.

Getting access to good information had also changed over the last year. Some of these tools were available at that time, but they’d improved and real time calculations have got better. Asicminervalue.com, for example, has a great tool that takes into account current price, difficulty and power cost to give you a real net profit figure for each and every machine type.

[image error]31st July 2019 profitability of a simple and bullet proof S9

For example, my little S9, as of today (July 31st 2019) will give you a net profit of £917.46 a year. That’s profit, not income. Ten of them will give you £9174.60 a year in passive income which is a handy sum in itself, but I know people who have way more than ten and their mining income is measured in whole bitcoins rather than sats. I’m ‘well jell’ as the kids say.

Again, I must stress these are numbers for right now, at this moment. They could be higher at the time you’re reading this if Bitcoin has risen past about $9700 and the difficulty hasn’t changed too much or they could be lower if the price has tanked and/or difficulty has exponentially increased. It’s all about risk reward and, if you’re an investor, you pays your money and you takes your choice. Or not. It’s your call. For me, it’s a ‘no-brainer’ (as we used to say – all too frequently – at Microsoft in the mid to late nineties) and I’ll continue to invest and expand as my finances allow.

So, with well over one year of proper ‘big boy’ mining behind me, albeit mostly at a small scale to start with, what three things would I pass on to, well, anyone who’s interested?

Buying at the bottom of the market whether capital assets (such as mining equipment) or the asset itself (ie Bitcoin) really is as sensible and as profitable as the gurus make it out to be. It’s also the hardest thing to do as it seems to be counter intuitive and you will have to consciously fight the doubt that questions your every decision.
Bad times don’t last, good times don’t last and it’s irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, unless you trade over short periods. Otherwise, think long term if you believe in what you’re doing.
Find a trusted partner who is better than you and learn, hopefully from each other. It’s still a mess out there with daily scams and dodgy deals, seek out and be loyal to the ones who are genuine – they DO exist.

Of course, it should be pretty obvious that if I could add a fourth it would be: don’t sit on the sidelines too long!

As my next batch of machines come on line over the following weeks and the market appears to be hotting up again, I’ll keep you posted on what happens next. One thing’s for sure: one way or another, it’s going to be quite the ride!

If you’re looking to get involved with mining Bitcoin but have questions, feel free to contact me for more information. If you’re looking to buy a machine and get stuck in right now, check out what’s available at CyberianMine’s website, but bear in mind there may be significant lead times or, at times, there may be no machines available.

This is an opinion piece. I have not been paid or provided with any other incentives for writing this article.

I’ve now been in the ‘crypto space’ for a couple of years actively (and a couple of years prior to that poking it with a stick) and someone asked me the other day if my views on Bitcoin in particular had changed in that time. That got me thinking. Have they?

Well, yes. And, no. That’s the short answer, but I suspect they wanted a more detailed answer, so I shall attempt to appease them.

It’s interesting, as an aside, that people who have come across Bitcoin and don’t really understand it think that people who use it are either real geniuses or are complete idiots – there doesn’t seem to be much in between. I certainly would not put myself in the first category, partly because the clever thinking has been done by everyone else except me and partly because this morning I tried to get out of my car with the seat belt still on. Arguably that puts me in the second category, but, in reality, I’m just a normal guy who happens to think Bitcoin is an idea whose time has come, and the fact that I can use Bitcoin but not undo a seat belt at the right time should give everyone some cause for hope?

But I digress …

We all know that Satoshi Nakamto’s original vision was for Bitcoin to be used as a day to day payment system, free of banks and free of any central control. It’s in the white paper and it’s a genius bit of writing if you’ve never read it. (and you should)

But here’s the bit I’m referring to, right there in the opening lines:

[image error]Nakamoto’s original vision for Bitcoin all neatly summed up for us mere mortals.

How does this vision match up with what we now have? Well, to be honest, it’s not quite there.

You see, Bitcoin is slow, arguably too slow for those day to day transactions to be possible. To use the oft quoted example, if you used it to buy coffee, it would be cold by the time you could leave the shop and it would be, in relative terms, expensive to do so. That’s surely not quite what the white paper was saying.

The guys with the big foreheads are working on solutions such as the Lightning Network built on top of the main infrastructure to solve that problem, but the forecast for the success of this is mixed at best. It’s highly technical, creates a new set of issues and definitely wouldn’t work without a very slick and very easy user interface for the average user. There’s also now a whole bunch of other cryptocurrencies, forged from the fire that created Bitcoin, which many people believe will do the job better. Litecoin, Monero, Ripple (XRP technically) are contenders, though many would add a whole list of others including Bitcoin Cash, but I have problems with the latter as is well documented elsewhere in my blogs. The point is, it’s entirely possible now that Bitcoin won’t be used for day to day transactions as originally planned.

But as fast as this part of the remit may be slipping away, Bitcoin has been doing very nicely as a store of value, thank you very much. This, many people think (including myself) is the edge that will ensure its future survival for many years yet.

You see, in bad times, and even in good, traders and investors move their money into traditional safe havens like bonds and gold. It’s been done for years and years and the argument is solid – these assets are generally considered ‘safe’ through stock market crashes or economic troubles and whilst returns might be lower, investor’s money can be protected to some degree without being taken off the trading table completely.

This is all very well if you’re trader, but for everyday folk like you and me, these sort of instruments are not that easy to buy and hold. If you’ve ever tried – like I have – you’ll find there’s all sorts of complications and costs. You need, really, to be a decent sized player and know the right people to make it happen. In short, it’s a faff. Even using a nice simple trading interface like Etoro to buy gold is not without issue. Look at this screenshot I just took:

[image error]

Notice anything?

Well, first there is a fee for holding gold, so a long term investment will cost a small fortune. The second issue is that this is a CFD agreement – ie Contract for Difference. You’re not actually holding ANY gold, you’re betting on the price of it. That’s not quite the same thing.

Buying bonds? Well, you’d better know what you’re doing, that’s all I’ll say on THAT point.

Buying Bitcoin? Well, have you got a smartphone or internet connection? You do? Well you could get it right now. Buy a tenner’s or a million pounds’ worth (and anything in between) with a few clicks. If you’re a total beginner, you can click here to learn how to set up a basic wallet and get in the game. (Even better, get my book and claim your free Bitcoin to get you started) Remember, with Bitcoin there’s no holding costs and no-one can take it away from you. Ever.

This means for the first time in human history, any person can buy and trade it anywhere at anytime, rich, poor, booming economy or crashing disaster, it makes no difference. And no government, bank or political regime can stop you either, although a few are trying to make it difficult. We’ll see how successful that is as it would be like one country trying to shut down the entire internet. Good luck with that one.

Once people wake up to this on a large scale – and this may take a while as Bitcoin is NOT an easy concept to get your head round at first – demand will grow. But there’s a problem. There really are very few Bitcoins and only ever will be. We know, with mathematical certainty, that there will be just under 21 million, but it will take another 111 YEARS for them all to be minted for reasons I won’t go into here. Also, about 4 million are lost forever for various reasons to do with mainly early adopters being careless with their initially worthless batches of coins. That leaves 17 million for everyone on the planet and, again for reasons beyond the scope of this article, in reality it’s most likely even less. That’s not even enough for everyone in a large city, let alone the entire planet. Demand WILL outstrip supply at some point, ‘wholecoiners’ will be very rich people, or more likely, owned by institutions who will be the only ones who can afford one. The rest of us will be dealing in ‘Satoshi’, ie tiny fractions of Bitcoin.

Think about this: in terms of pure maths and economics, the path is extraordinarily clear with an inevitable outcome. We just don’t know the timescale. I can’t think of anything else – ever – that could ever made that claim at any point in it’s development.

Of course, nothing is ever that simple, and we don’t know what challenges this whole new asset class will take that could even – in theory – derail the whole thing. As I always make a point to say when people ask me about investing in Bitcoin:

“Investing in Bitcoin is very risky.
NOT investing in Bitcoin is even riskier.”

Borrowing from ‘The Matrix’, once you have taken the ‘red pill’, you’re faced with that dilemma. Oh, the serenity of ignorance.

Of course, this is a highly simplified article designed to answer the simple question posed and I have not even mentioned the fact that Bitcoin is the reserve currency of the entire cryptospace or that it is an extraordinarily easy way to send funds to anyone anywhere in the world not only with a 100% success rate (SWIFT only has a 94% success rate according to some sources and is even slower and more expensive) but also WITHOUT bank or any other intermediate being involved. That’s never been possible before now. That’s quite a thing.

Perhaps the question they should be asking me is ‘How do YOU spend your Bitcoin now vs a few years ago?’ and that may be more pertinent because my behavior has changed.

I used to spend my Bitcoin at stores and shops, or directly online and my twitter feed is littered with photos of me buying all sorts of mundane stuff with Satoshi’s creation, but I hardly ever do that now. Bitcoin is my savings account. It’s where I squirrel away as many Satoshi as possible for the future or a rainy day, because maths and logic say that is a sensible thing to do. The risks, for me, are outweighed by the rewards and the sheer level of control I have over my own finances.

So, whilst I think it very unlikely I’ll be buying coffees with it in the future, Bitcoin is perfect for saving up and buying those big ticket items, such as cars, furniture or even houses. Hell, it might even be my pension. It’s a whole new asset class, potentially (in the long run) a safe haven available to all competing with gold and other scare materials. For the moment at least, it seems many are thinking along the same lines.

But one thing’s for sure – with a whole new concept developing at a faster pace than anything we’ve ever seen in history before – we all need to keep our minds open and our beliefs fluid as new uses, issues and applications evolve.

And remember to undo the seat belt BEFORE you exit the vehicle.

 

 

This actually happened to me today, word for word. There’s a great case for Bitcoin in my view, but sometimes the banks just like to make that case even more pronounced, don’t they?

It’s no secret I am a cryptocurrency advocate. I still think Bitcoin will retain the number one spot overall as a way to make infrequent, large purchases and/or a store of value, but I also think a handful of other currencies will exist for fast, day to day transactions for different reasons such as XRP, Litecoin and Monero. However, I don’t believe any of them will actually replace the banking system and nor should they. For various economic and monetary policy reasons, there needs to be sovereign currencies. But perhaps the fact that there is a real, global competitor that is becoming increasingly accessible will force the powers that be to examine how their currency is maintained. Well, maybe. Or maybe I’m just being an optimistic hippie-eque revolutionary again.

But in any case, the banks don’t help themselves as this little article will demonstrate. Let me explain:

I needed to take out £935 from my account today in cash. Like many people, I have several accounts, but this one was with my main bank. Having been a customer for a long time, I have a decent account that actually allows me to take £1000 a day out of a cashpoint using my PIN. That’s quite a chunk of change and, although I don’t do that very often, it’s useful in those rare situations when they arise. However, because I wanted £935 and I wanted that exact amount to show on the statement as a withdrawal, not £940 or £950 I’d get from the cashpoint, I decided to do it over the counter. After all, I was in town, had a few minutes and happened to have my passport with me as I’d needed it earlier for ID on another errand. It would be easy, right?

Wrong.

The queue wasn’t too big for a Friday afternoon, but was moving slowly as only two windows were open. On my turn, I was greeted by a young lady who smiled and asked how she could help. I explained what I wanted to do. She didn’t seem sure, but asked me to fill in a ‘counter withdrawal form’ that she slipped under the window while she checked.

It was quite the form. Name, address, account detail, denominations required, location of withdrawal (erm … is ‘here’ ok?) and so on. I handed it back when she returned a couple of minutes later saying it was possible. (of course it was possible. It’s a current account in my name at this bank, why wouldn’t it be?)

[image error]Utterly irrelevant to this story, but I love the fact that this simple meme sums up central banking perfectly.

 

She took the form and typed in some details. I’d already been over 5 minutes now and I could feel the eyes burning into the back of my head as I was holding the line, now increased to around ten people as the other window was also taking a lot of time, presumably stuck on a similarly difficult customer request. She struggled with some of the entries, but eventually asked me for the debit card for the account. I obliged and she examined it carefully. She asked for ID and, once again, I passed over my passport. She wrote down the number on both the form I’d filled in earlier and the screen and then compared both the signatures of the two and the photo in the passport with the ‘live’ version. I even adopted my ‘passport face’ for her so that they matched up nicely. She verbally verified my address, postcode and date of birth with me.

She then asked me for the cheque book that goes with the account. I couldn’t even remember having a cheque book on this account, much less the last time I actually wrote one.

“Oh yes” she said “we sent the last one out to you in May 2013”

Well, at least I had my answer.

I politely explained that since pretty much no-one uses a cheque book these days (she would be able to see this from my account activity anyway), the banking system has been encouraging us to stop doing so for some years now, AND the fact there isn’t a single high street business that would accept them these days, it was pretty unlikely I’d be carrying it. Surely, the fact that I know all the account details, all my personal details, have the card AND a passport which has already been confirmed as AOK by the bank would suffice? But no. Without the cheque book I was scuppered.

I pointed out that I could simply go to the cashpoint and withdraw it without any ID whatsoever, it seemed a bit odd that the process was so different here. But there was no way round it. I could, however, go to the cashpoint, get out £940, come back, get the denominations I wanted and put the £5 back in by filling out a ‘paying in’ form, so I could correctly reflect the amount I wanted to be able to show on the statement. That seemed messy and the queue was already back to the door, now consisting of over 20 people behaving in a typically British way, ie politely queuing, seething inside, then saying “oh, no problem at all” when the cashier finally calls then up and says “Sorry for the wait.”

I asked her to speak to her colleague. This time she was gone for quite a while. She came back with no less than the Branch Manager, which I was surprised about, especially as this was a big, high street branch. He confirmed that the money could not be withdrawn without the chequebook, but he DID have a work around. He said that if I called the call centre, whilst standing at the counter, go through security again, request the money from the branch, provide a temporary password and ask them to send a message to the branch, they would be able to do it. Wow, it was almost too easy.

[image error]Bank security be like ….

He went on: “Mr Deane, I see you have enhanced services on your account, did you know you can use the cashpoint and your PIN to withdraw up to £1000?”

I resisted the temptation to shout back “Of course I xxxxing know you total xxxxing xxxxxx” (insert words consistent with your own interpretation here) at high volume and instead politely explained why I needed the amount accurately reflected on the statement. Then, I made the call. The queue hadn’t moved. Even the most British of queuers had started to get a bit ‘tutty.’

The call centre was experiencing “unusually high call volumes” as usual when I rang, but I was reassured that my call was important to them and that they would be with me as soon as they could and definitely after Vivaldi had finished playing. The cashier, the manager and I just started at each other through the glass as I held the phone to my ear. The queue stared at the bloke on the phone, presumably wondering why he was taking a phone call while the cashiers were obviously waiting for him to do something.

After a few minutes, the call centre representative answered and I went through security, explained what I needed and she took me through the same details that were on the form I’d filled out at the start, nearly an ice age ago. She asked me to set a password  out of earshot of the cashier (for which I had to walk away from the counter for a moment, eliciting a comical moment where the next man in the queue finally thought his time had come, approached the counter, only to be shoo’ed away with his tail between his legs by the cashier and her boss.) and I could only think of one word that fitted the scenario: “BITCOIN”.

All was well. She asked me to stay at the counter as it could take up to 5 minutes to process the request. Then she added:

“Were you aware, Mr Deane, that you could simply withdraw this at a cashpoint using a card and PIN as my account was authorised to allow a withdrawal up to £1000 in a day?”

I had to take a breath and all I could muster was “Yes”. I simply couldn’t do it again.

We hung up. All we had to do now was wait. I looked at the cashier through the glass, a little forlornly I think because she mouthed “I’m sorry” out of the gaze of the manager who was looking down the line of narrowing eyes looking at him. His ‘Manager’ badge was enormous, but that had simply made him a target for the twitchy queuers.

Finally, the instruction came through on the screen and the relief on all of our faces was obvious.

“How would you like the money?” She asked. I explained my preference, but it seems she’d overlooked that she didn’t have enough cash in her till, so it was a few minutes before she was able to get some more to make up the amount. Finally, THIRTY TWO minutes later from when our little adventure had begun, I had my hands on my own cash in a little envelope which, presumably, was my free gift for being so patient. However, something was still amiss.

As I took my cash and placed it in my pocket, I asked the teller:

“Aren’t you supposed to ask me the password first?”

I wasn’t that bothered and had made damn sure I’d got the money before mentioning it, but it was clear from her face that she’d forgotten to ask me that, thereby completely negating the phone call they’d insisted I’d make to set it up in the first place. Whoops. To be honest, I just wanted to say ‘Bitcoin’ in a loud voice in a now completely packed bank and was a bit disappointed that I now wouldn’t be able to. Ah well, such is life.

I didn’t give anyone a hard time, get sarcastic or lose my temper (except in my mind) but I couldn’t help thinking and rethinking how different this would have been if I’d used Bitcoin. Or XRP. Or Litecoin. Or anything, in fact, other than my own cash that I had entrusted to others to look after for me and ask permission to get. 10 out of 10 for security, guys, but 0 out of 10 for application of common sense.

And no, I don’t need reminding that I could have got it from a cashpoint with no ID, or phone calls or staff.

Seriously.

Don’t.

 

Jason is a cryptocurrency evangelist, speaker and author of ‘How to Explain Bitcoin to your mum’, a lighthearted, jargon free explanation of the global phenomenon spreading across the world, suitable for novices, experts (and mums!) everywhere. Comments welcome. Click here to get in touch. 

This is a tough blog for me to write.

I may have to publicly admit I was wrong about something I was very passionate about. I don’t like being wrong, I like admitting it even less (as my other half will testify to!), but the facts are indisputable. Let me explain.

People who follow my blog know that I have often talked about Wirex since my first blog on the subject . It’s that cool looking debit card that allows you to spend your crypto at any location that accepts traditional debit cards. Any conversation about crypto that I have been engaged in I have inevitably produced my Wirex card. Any talk I’ve given has warranted a mention and even my second book “How to explain Bitcoin to your mum“, a book that reached Amazon’s Finance Book charts, has a whole section on the card and it’s uses. I have to say I felt quite honoured when Pavel Matveev, the CEO of Wirex, tweeted me a photo of my book on his desk, apparently having enjoyed reading about his company therein.

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In fact, I’ve promoted this card so often over the last year I have received several inquiries as to whether I was on the payroll! The answer is an emphatic ‘no’ – I’d not even used the referral links when recommending the card to people! I’m just very passionate about a product I believed is filling the gap between crypto accumulation and real world use. And, in my defence, it does this pretty well.

But, recently, it all started to go wrong. It all seemed to start with an obligatory password reset.

Getting the email about this was unexpected, but I did complete the instructions as requested. Shortly afterwards, however, I received an email from Wirex telling me that my account had been blocked and to contact support. Intrigued, I logged in to my account and noticed that this time I had to verify the device I was using which was odd as it was the same one I always used. It was indeed blocked, but it also now seemed to have an extra £600 in it from a transaction I didn’t recognize. Who the hell is Mr Mendes? or Mr Napper? And why had one transferred money to me referencing the other?

In some ways I was reassured. It must have been a dodgy transaction and the system had picked it up. This actually isn’t the first time this had happened to me, with both my PayPal account and my personal bank account being the recipients of unexplained deposits on two separate occasions, albeit several years apart. In both cases, as here, I simply reported it, made sure I didn’t spend any of it, and the money was reversed out and presumably tracked back to where it came from. My Paypal account had also been frozen temporarily while it was processed, but in the end no harm was done.

I contacted support as requested on the same day I got the email announcing the block on February 20th and got an acknowledgment. 48 hours later I’d had no response, so chased again on the 22nd. Obviously, a help support agent picked it up and unblocked the account. I logged in, the transaction was still there. I was confused, but no sooner had I logged in than I got another email from Wirex; the account was blocked again.

This was immediately followed by another email confirming that the balance had changed. It had been changed back to what it had been previously including this mysterious £600 balance. So …. this was legitimate? But I didn’t know who these guys were? This seem more and more odd. It was irrelevant anyway as the account was still blocked.

So I raised another ticket and received another acknowledgement. The next day I was relieved to receive the following. It looked like Wirex were on it!

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After this, however, it ‘went dark’ at Wirex. I chased again on the 26th, and yet again on the 1st March  but with no response. But then I had an idea – I’d had some direct conversations with Wirex’s Twitter guys over my book and various other promotional things I’d done for them, so I raised a Direct Message and received a prompt reply; They’d look into it for me. Sure enough, a few hours later, I received a new message from Anthony apologizing for the delay due to a ‘high load’ (as before) and explaining that they were still waiting for a reply from their ‘bank partner’. There was no explanation as to what this meant or what we were waiting for exactly, but I thanked him anyway and asked him to let me know anything as soon as he did.

It went quiet again for another few days. I was still promoting the card, but secretly hoping no-one would ask me to do any transactions with it as it remained blocked. The next communication from Wirex was as devastating as it was bewildering:

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What the hell? Excuse me? What violation? And how does it help sending a link to a huge list of terms of conditions without any clue as to what it could be? At best, this was rude and at worst, well, it makes you sound like a criminal doesn’t it? My journalist side was also peaked though – just WHAT was going on here? It was time to do some research and ask around, perhaps there was more to this than I was aware of. I wrote back to Anthony and politely, but very firmly, asked for clarification on this and then settled down to see what I could dig up. I also raised it with the ‘Escalation Team’ but this has thus far been a dead end as over a week later I still haven’t received an acknowledgement, let alone a reply. I’m assuming this is not a real team.

The research I carried out shocked me. On Bitrust, Wirex had a score of just 1.92 out of 5. Other sites weren’t much better and even the best I could find was ‘Average’ on Trustpilot. I read all 786 reviews. The words “scam”, “thieves”, “terrible service” and “they stole my money” were rife. I was certainly not the only one facing a total shutdown of service and communication.

Further analysis revealed what I suspect might be happening. The reviews have an unusual split, with a high number of great reviews being offset by an disproportionate number of extremely negative ones – 24% to be precise. That’s a pattern you don’t see too often. The reason is clear: It seems Wirex does work exactly as it supposed to – and even I can testify to that. However, if things go wrong, well, you’ve had it, mate. You’ll be treated with contempt, ignored and have your account taken away with no explanation. Oh, and your money on the card? No, you’re not getting that back either. There’s talk of legal action, threats and even police involvement, not once but many, many times. That’s OUTRAGEOUS. Just who have I been promoting all this time? Well, I’m certainly not comfortable promoting it any more.

Meanwhile I was still chasing clarity on what was going on. I still needed to know on what grounds I was being ‘thrown out’ of the Wirex community. Could I even open another account? What do I do now? I chased via another email and contacted the people I had conversed with before via Twitter, but noticed they too were no longer responding. It seems once you are barred, you really are completely ignored as other people had found. It didn’t seem to matter if it was not even your fault.

A few days later, I got another response from Anthony. He hadn’t addressed any of the questions, but he had found time to write back:

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It’s not well written, but I get the gist … and just what ARE these activities he’s referred to?

I responded again asking more questions and requested escalation again, but it seems that the people who were writing the negative reviews really weren’t making it up. Something is very, very wrong at Wirex and they’re either operating a dodgy system or, as I’d prefer to think for my own sanity, have grown so fast they’ve made a mess of the backend and are simply ignoring it. That strategy is very dangerous. As ex-brand manager of Microsoft, I can tell you we had to spend millions of pounds and install company wide processes to try and offset the ‘arrogant, non-caring’ image we had cultivated for ourselves whilst going through enormous growth in the mid to late nineties. Trust me on this, it’s much easier to fix it now than later. I can even give you a few pointers.

The fact is that you really measure a company based on how they deal with it when things go wrong. They always go wrong at some stage so you get to see how they think about you, how much they want your business and what the company’s values are. It’s also a great opportunity, as the best PR people know, but more on that later. In this case, I now knew my place. I was the lowest of the low and not even worth responding to.

I think was so offended by this because of the way I have promoted this company so tirelessly and so consistently for so long without expecting any compensation, payment in kind or any other form of recognition save that of knowing I’m doing my part to spread adoption of crypto. But it possible I just caught them on a bad day? Or, in this case, days? I need to be fair if I’m being critical.

In a final attempt to try and get to the bottom of it, I wrote this blog and invited a response from Wirex’s PR team – possibly the only team within the company who would not ignore me. Within an hour I received a response from Amelie, part of the PR and New Media Communications Team, apologizing, assuring me that it would be looked into and answers would come. History is littered with companies that have made monumental mistakes and then turned them around at the last minute by being sincere, holding their hands up and doing something to compensate, turning a customer with a truly negative experience into their biggest advocate. And I’m not really talking money here which research shows has a surprisingly low, short term effect, I’m talking about a gesture such as senior brass getting involved personally, or sending a hand written letter or inviting people to see the offices – the sort of thing that shows you want to re-build a relationship. Perhaps, just perhaps, it was all going to be OK.

I could tell from the page stats that Amelie was true to her word in that she circulated the blog internally. It was read many, many times on a hidden URL. She requested any further information I might like, so I submitted some questions, some based on the research I’d seen, to get a comment. This was promising.

Her response, submitted on time as promised, was a bit, well, ‘corporatey’. Here it is in it’s entirety:

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It reminded me very much of the sort of stuff we put out in the heyday of Microsoft I referred to earlier. Technically correct, toeing the party line, containing an apology and fixing the problem. All the tick boxes are there. My account, hitherto all but deleted if I tried to log in, was restored. There’s a good explanation, and a reason why resources were strained at the time. The problem was resolved. I should be happy, right?

The trouble is, this would have been fine – more than fine really – right at the start. But Pandora’s box had now been opened and what was noticeable from Amelie’s response was the absence of answers to specific – admittedly ‘harder’ – questions that I’d raised:

Why was it never sent to the ‘Escalation Team’ as I requested? (I still haven’t had an acknowledgement!)

If I hadn’t written this blog, would it be true to say that my account would never have been reinstated?

What reassurances do I have that this won’t happen again?

And, most importantly …

Why is there such a vast number of people making the same complaint as me – and much worse – so consistently? These negative reviews are WAY too many, WAY too samey and going on for WAY too long for there not to be a systemic issue of some sort. This, THIS was the moment to tackle it head on, an opportunity to acknowledge, open up and deal the problem directly with specific, concrete steps. The time for ‘working on it’ has surely passed.

I emailed Amelie again pointing out that some of these questions hadn’t been answered, but her response that she felt they had been. She invited me to resubmit them, but since they were already in the email trail and clearly not addressed, there seemed little point.

Perhaps I’m being overly picky and my experience as a PR/spokesperson for a large corporate in my former life is generating cynicism. But if it had been me, I’d have escalated this to the top, dealt with it hard, fast and head on and turned it into a force for positive going forward – there’s no point trying to hide away from what is plainly on the net if you look for it. It’s true there are far bigger influencers out there than me, but that doesn’t matter here. This should have been a ‘do whatever it takes to get him on board and see if he will help us sort it’ moment. But it was all a bit, well, ‘low key’ and ‘minimum requirement’ wasn’t it? I even got another email from Anthony, the guy who had sent me the rather rude ‘go away and don’t bother us again’ email, cheerily informing me that my account was now unlocked and would I rate his customer service? I’d better decline I think.

So what’s next?

I’ll keep my Wirex card, but I just can’t be passionate about it. I’m just not convinced that the support or, more importantly, the desire to support is there at the moment. I don’t want to risk going through weeks of hassle again or losing any money, something that appears to remain a possibility. I won’t be necessarily negative – that’s not professional or required – and I genuinely don’t believe it’s a scam company as some people seem convinced it is. But there’s definitely a feeling of ‘growth before customer experience’ and that can be very dangerous in the medium and long term. I sincerely hope they get it sorted – it’s a great app – and perhaps one day we’ll meet up for a drink and discuss old times, like a couple of ex-lovers who still miss the good things that the other bought them.

I’ll do some detailed research on what the alternatives are and come back to you, dear readers, with my findings … unless, of course, you have your own suggestions. I’d be happy to hear them.

And, as for you? Well, you pays your money and you takes your choice. Wirex DID sort it, in the end, but it felt a bit half hearted and it took a lot of effort on my part. Perhaps your use will all be fine and you’ll never have to experience what I – or many others – have. And anyway, is anyone else any better in this crazy, growing market?

Let’s hope so … and I’m going to find out. In terms of global adoption of cryptocurrency, this is far too important to get wrong.

Watch this space!

It’s easy to forget just how young the crypto ‘industry’ is.

I even do it myself sometimes. Compared to many people I was in quite late, specifically the autumn of 2013, and even then I poked it with a stick rather than got actively involved. It was just so damned hard to buy anything and I wasn’t even sure I understood it properly. It all seemed a mass of messy information – much of it contradicting itself – and it took real perseverance to get anywhere. Yet, despite all of this, I could see the potential. It would surely only be a few short years before Bitcoin, and perhaps a few select altcoins, would be the primary method of transacting globally.

But that was well over 5 years ago. Global adoption is still a distant goal and I still can’t buy coffee using Bitcoin anywhere. Well, as easily as you can with a contactless card anyway. As some of my regular readers know, the cafes I owned at the time were early Bitcoin adoptees, but frankly, it was a hell of a pain in the arse to take those payments. The cafes are sold now, but I’m not so sure it’s that much easier even now, in 2019.

[image error]Me (left) posing with a customer making one of the first Bitcoin payments in Quantum Web Cafe a few years ago, using the early, clunky version of Bitpay. Took about 5 mins of faffing about.

So, is it all over for Bitcoin et al? If we haven’t even managed to sort this yet in all this time, it’s got to be a dead duck, right?

Well, no actually.

I often see the analogy of crypto now being equal to the internet in the early 1990’s (I wrote a blog on a variation of that subject previously) and if you were actually there and you spend some time really thinking back, it’s an even closer analogy than may first be apparent.

You see, the early internet was also a wild west of outrageous claims and scams, a regulatory nightmare for official organisations and law makers and full of people who were well meaning but had absolutely no idea how to make it work beyond a conceptual level. Companies were increasing their values a hundredfold by adding the words ‘dot com’ at the end of their names and people bought the stock without really understanding how it was going work. It boomed, it crashed. It wasn’t ready. The tech hadn’t caught up with the hype. We’ve seen the same over the last couple of years with crypto.

Internet history is also littered with failures. Back in 1996, for example, IBM launched the ‘World Avenue Online Mall’. It was revolutionary. Groundbreaking, even. For the first time, major US retailers were coming together in a sort of virtual mall powered by IBM, a veritable retail portal. They were first to market in many ways with this concept and it should have been a lasting success. And yet, I bet you haven’t even heard of it.

The trouble was this was 1996. Even at Microsoft, where I worked at the time, only senior management has access to the internet on their PCs and almost no-one had it at home. Only dial up was available and it was, well, crap. Processing fees for credit card transactions were expensive and hard to set up, as was being part of it for the retailers. Even so, we all knew about it at Microsoft and there was a sense of “Why didn’t we think of that?” in the air.

A year later, global use of the internet had gone from (very approximately) 50 million users worldwide (roughly where Bitcoin is now) to around 100 million users worldwide. (compare than to the 3.5-4 BILLION users now!) Yet, The World Avenue Mall was finished. The model was flawed, and the number of users was just too small. The press announced it’s closure on July 9th 1997.

Did this prove that on-line retail was never going to work? Ask Amazon, another company that was vilified by the press at the time as being one that would never break even, let alone make money. I think they seemed to do OK in the end.

[image error]The Amazon.com offices in 1999. “It’ll never make profit”

Market downcycles are the best time for development. It sorts the wheat from the chaff. You’re not blinded by huge daily increases in your net worth because instead you’re focused on delivering, as efficiently as possible, your product or solution. This has been true for the cryptosphere as well, where it is currently a full time job just to read the articles about the next developments from the various communities as they happen. Like thousands of ants working to build an efficient nest to live and thrive in, developers, solution finders, influencers, investors and engineers and quietly, confidently and relentlessly building huge swathes of a new global approach across the entire planet. Disruption is coming, and, to be frank, it doesn’t matter whether with you agree with it or not, it’s coming. To quote “Field of Dreams”, “If you build it, they will come”. They’re building it. They’re going to come.

I have no doubt the infrastructure will ultimately be there and the problems will be solved. Problems that seem insurmountable right now, such as combing speed, security and decentralisation in a perfect blockchain. Or solving Bitcoin’s power problem. Or creating a legislative framework that is certain and makes sense. Or finding a way to store crypto easily and safely – something the industry seems to fail at constantly. All of this issues – and many more – are being beaten into submission by teams of extremely skilled and entirely dedicated people. But, for me, that’s only part of the issue. That’s backoffice stuff. At the front end, we have another set of issues to solve before we go mainstream. And that, too, is coming.

For me, it’s about the user and their experience. It’s about making it so damn easy to use xxxxxxx (insert name of your preferred cryptocurrency here) that it doesn’t make sense to use anything else. More has been happening on that recently than I’ve seen in some time and this is the part that excites me most. When you build it, and they come, the momentum is formed to solve the remaining problems. The Network Effect is achieved.

I’ve spoken about Wirex before of course in a previous blog and I continue to use their services. Why would I change? It’s cheap, instant, easy and does everything I need. It’s hard to make any further improvement here. I even talked about it in some detail in my second book ‘How to Explain Bitcoin to your Mum‘.

But making crypto easily spendable through debit cards is just the start. Focus on adoption is growing rapidly. Just a quick search on the net reveals the projects and announcements that have surfaced in the last few weeks alone – all of them are fantastic for the space.

Paying employees in crypto is now possible. It was previously fraught with difficulties to do with fair value and taxation, but not now. It can now be done quickly, easily and legally as explained here. Personally, if I still owned a company with employees, I’d be stockpiling it to reduce my payroll later on as the price inevitably rises, but that’s just me …. or is it just me?

Phone makers, especially Samsung, are coming in on the act in a move which, if I’m honest, I didn’t see happening for some time yet. Integration of crypto buying, storing and spending on a native level is a game changer. At a stroke, the next wave of phone upgrades will see millions of people set up for crypto, even if they don’t yet know it. Education might have to come later, but the mere fact that the capability is there from the get go is going to intrigue a certain percentage of people immediately.

And then there are people like David Gold who are working to make crypto user friendly through the Foundation of Interwallet Operability.  We’ve been here before of course. Think back to DOS. Then to Windows 3.1 and then Windows 95, if you can think back that far. If you can’t, maybe you can remember having to press keys multiple times to send texts on a tiny black & white screen compared to today’s fully specc’d word processors at our finger tips. The transition drove adoption and made it so easy that even people who have to wear reading glasses can happily and easily text each other.

[image error]Hey millenials, that’s how we did it in the 80’s and 90’s. That’s file explorer for you. Not even a C drive here. Would PC power and adoption have grown so much without the GUI’s (Graphical User Interfaces) that we know today?

These are just a few examples, there are dozens of other projects, large and small, being developed simultaneously with a view to making the use of crypto a simple, daily ‘non-event’. Mass adoption is coming – I have never, ever doubted that – but I’ve never been sure of timescales or which currencies will actually win through. My portfolio is varied, and I add to it all the time, although I spend too, such as XRP through xrptipbot and Bitcoin through Wirex. For me, this is just a natural step of using it, but in x amount of time, this will be the norm for increasing numbers of people.

And of that part, I am absolutely certain.

 

Having been refused advertising back in the day by Exchange & Mart for wanting to use a mobile number instead of a landline, then barred from Ebay for life in a bizarre turn of events despite having perfect stats for over 10 years and, finally, having my ads removed from Gumtree because I offered Bitcoin as a payment option, I now find that I am on the Facebook naughty list for promoting my most recent book.

The book, an innocent little affair called ‘How to Explain Bitcoin to your mum‘ is an easy to understand lighthearted, yet thorough, explanation of what Bitcoin is and how it works, written for a complete beginner. As the title suggests, it was written with my mum in mind who doesn’t understand or use the internet and doesn’t own a mobile phone. Just try explaining Bitcoin in THOSE circumstances! (I’m please to report, incidentally, that the book did have the desired effect and my mum no longer thinks I am going to prison for operating a giant worldwide scam.)

As most writer’s do, I’d set up an ‘Author’s Facebook‘ page to peddle my wares and happily – and innocently – added my books and the obligatory blurb. So far, so good.

A few days and posts later and I got a message from Facebook. Apparently, they loved my last post about the book SOOOO much that they felt I ought to promote it. I declined, but that wasn’t the end of the matter. It seems Facebook were SOOOO keen for me to promote it, they would give me £15’s worth of credit to do so. Well, Facebook, if you say so, then I will.

I followed the usual procedure, refined the audience, checked my spelling (something I have to do at least twenty times … and still with no guarantees) and pressed submit. Facebook seemed pleased and sent me a cheery message saying that they’d approve it and we’d be off.

A few minutes later I got an email with a very different tone. “Who the hell do you think you are?” said the message in, admittedly, completely different words but with no doubt about it’s meaning. “Don’t you know we don’t allow adverts that deal with binary options or ICOs?” I did actually, but since this was neither I was a little taken aback. I wan’t even that bothered about promoting the post in the first place, but now I wanted my ad to run. And only because you told me not to.

Misleading or deceptive practices? That hurts.

I noticed there was a handy little button that said ‘Ask for a second review’ so, of course, I pressed it and stated my case.

I explained politely, and without a hint of sarcasm (for once) what an ICO was and what Bitcoin was. I also pointed out that neither had anything to do with Binary options and, even if they did, it was STILL irrelevant as this was a lighthearted book explaining a concept and NOT a promotion of a financial product or service. So there.

I didn’t actually put ‘so there’ although I did think of doing so. I re-read it, to make sure no sarcasm or haughtiness had crept it and pressed the submit button.

Minutes later I got a response. Here it is in it’s entirety:

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Note the subtle addition this time. The text is almost identical to the previous ‘party line’, but this time the words ‘or cryptocurrency’ have been lazily added on the end. Can’t help thinking it might have been better to add that in the first place, although even that opens up a whole debate there and then whether we should be tarnishing the entire industry globally with the same brush.

At least they wanted me to have a great day. Which was nice.

But then it got worse.

The ad for my other book ‘MONEY: Yours, mine or ours’ (a self-help book about achieving financial balance at home with your partner that comes complete with funky pre-formatted spreadsheets to fill in as you go through the book) suddenly stopped running too, although it had been successfully doing so for some time. It also was now ‘promoting financial products and services that are frequently associated with misleading or deceptive practices’. Just like that, all of a sudden. How odd.

Out of curiosity, I wondered what would happen if I clicked on ‘Promote your website.’ Nope, that was now off limits.

‘Get more page likes?’ – No way, Jose.

‘Get more link clinks’ – Forget it mate, you’re ‘aving a laugh.

In fact everything to do with promotion of this page or my books was (and still is) no longer available. Wow. That’s harsh.

I noticed there was ANOTHER little button that said I could provide feedback for their reviewing team. So I did.

I was, again, very polite and merely pointed out that we could all save each other a whole bunch of time and hassle if, perhaps, Facebook didn’t offer people money to promote posts that they didn’t want promoting in the first place. And then penalize them for doing so. I also mentioned that they had given me a nice little blog story and if they’d like to make a comment to include, I’d be happy to do so. Also, I hoped they’d have a truly wonderful day.

I’ve not heard anything back as yet.

Of course, there will come a time when we’ll look back at this quaint time of Facebook not allowing even a mention of Bitcoin in the same way as we remember Exchange & Mart not accepting my ad simply because I wanted to use only a mobile number, but right now it’s a little, well, rude. Not to mention inconvenient waiting for them to play catch-up.

And as for me, having managed, entirely innocently, to upset Ebay, Gumtree and now Facebook, I have to wonder what would happen if I actually went out of my way to be difficult.

I wonder indeed.

What do YOU think? Is Facebook taking this too far or do you think they’re right? Always interested to hear your view

For me, it’s been a year since I bought my first XRP. Only a year. That seems impossible.

Although I’d been following cryptos for quite a while prior to this, I still had this false belief that I wouldn’t be able to invest in it. Seems crazy now in retrospect, but it’s true.

You see, a few years earlier, I’d tried to buy some Bitcoin. This was before it was as easy as it is now, and after many hours of trying to work it out I still hadn’t. Literally no-one I knew had even heard of it let alone bought some, so there was no-one to ask. Not only that, I’d started to think I was going to lose my money if I handed it over to what appeared to be some very dodgy sites. Eventually I gave up, but I was scarred by the experience. Not only did I now have a belief that it was ‘impossible’ to buy except for those few very techy people who could work it out, I also believed (wrongly) this applied to all currencies. And what was I thinking anyway? It was obviously mad buying Bitcoin at $3 because it had clearly achieved all the growth at that point, right?

So, with my false belief in place, I sat back, took my place as an interested observer and read all I could about the markets and the technology, looking and hoping for another way in. I’d started to look at other coins and really rated Litecoin, Monero, Ethereum and this new kid on the block (as I saw it) Ripple, or XRP as it is more correctly known.

There was something utterly compelling about XRP. It was the best business case I’d seen since Bitcoin, there was a powerful, passionate (and possibly slightly crazy) community attached to it and they had real, actual banks and impressive names working with them. Hell, I even loved the fidget spinner logo, now replaced with the pseudo-sportswear style up and down arrows (also very cool). I became utterly fascinated with it.

In fact, my very first blog article was about Ripple. It’s a fun read not only from the perspective of my naivety which shows slightly throughout the article, but it also highlights how new I was to writing blog articles at the time.

Now, fast forward a year, and how things have changed. We’ve had a crazy, FOMO driven $3.84 peak (in which I will admit that I offloaded some of my beloved XRP), a crash (in which I bought it all back – and more) and whole load of fascinating developments.

First, partners. Too many to mention. In fact Ripple stopped announcing them separately in the end because there were too many, instead rolling them together into ‘groups’. Can you imagine being in that situation? It amuses me to imagine the social media people pushing back in the end because it just got ’embarrassing’ to come out with announcement after announcement. If you haven’t seen it, the list is simply HUGE and you can check it out here. It might be a slightly clunky spreadsheet driven system, but it’s solid information and the status of each implementation and which of Ripple’s products are being used is clearly indicated.

Second, products. Ripple has three main ones called xVia, xCurrent and xRapid. This is not a technical blog and there are people out there who can explain the intricate details far better than me, but the point is, broadly, that there is a natural progression/transition between these products. The ultimate goal is that some, many, most or all organisations would be using xRapid as their defacto standard for payment transition across borders, currencies and banks, a faster, cheaper and more reliable form of the SWIFT system we have come to know today. In one year, Ripple have done what they said they would – roll out the first applications, create stability, and then begin to follow on with the ‘main act’ – xRapid – thereby ensuring they are walking before they are running. These are banks after all, and these guys needs years and a whole lot of legislation to change anything. They have to be super, super careful and carry out extreme due diligence. It’s a long process and XRP is very much a long term bet, but one, in my view, that is well placed to do extremely well. At the point where xRapid has any major adoption at all, the demand will be exponential to what it is now which will almost certainly affect price of each asset.

And, of course, a tiny portion of XRP is burned with each transaction and the current rate can be seen on the Ripple partnerships spreadsheet linked to earlier. Today, for example, it’s at a rate that would take hundreds of years to burn through, though it will change as the fiat value of that XRP changes. This means that although there is a huge reserve of XRP (100 billion, although most is slowly being released from escrow), it is a deflationary currency, thereby increasing value over time as supply diminishes.

Third, speed. XRP is incredibly fast and if you haven’t tried a transaction yet, you should. You barely have time to click between windows when sending between your own wallets, for example. For many, this makes XRP a real contender to replace Bitcoin as the daddy of them all. This isn’t actually that unusual if you think about it. Although many cryptos are designed for a specific purpose, there’s no reason why almost any of them couldn’t be used a global currency if everybody started using one (ie ‘valued’ one) more than another. The argument goes that once adoption via the banks starts and the asset becomes highly sought after, it’s speed and security will give it the edge over the others to be the standard. Personally, whilst I understand that this is definitely technically possible, but I’m not sure that it will happen any time soon, or even at all for a whole host of reasons that I’m not proposing to go into here. But I do accept that this would be no bad thing if it did.

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XRP’s speed has led to a whole host of applications though, that perhaps other cryptos have not seen. I think it’s telling that Wirex added XRP to its offering of Ethereum, Bitcoin and Litecoin, particularly as it highlights the difference in speed between them when transferring to the wallet. Use in relative terms is still low, but I see new cards arriving in Twitter feeds everyday and know that it is growing even as I type these words.

Perhaps most excitingly is the real cutting edge stuff that’s going on right now. This blog, for example, is Coil supported, something that is neatly explained by Stefan Thomas (creator of Coil and ex CTO of Ripple) on this little Medium article from May this year. No surprise he chose XRP of course to act as the micro payment currency of choice, but the asset’s sheer speed would have made it a serious contender in any case. Coil is just starting it’s life, but it’s a model that I believe could work very well in the first place and as a mechanism to drive use in the second.

But development is not only limited to ex-Ripple employees. There are individuals, such as Wietse Wind who are doing amazing work developing slick micro payment systems of their own using XRP, such as XRPtipbot (also running on this site among many, many others) and XRParrot. The latter is still in development and the former is really only adopted in the passionate XRP community right now, but it’s so simple to use and set up I predict that this will expand beyond those broad borders within a short period. See that blue button at the top of the sidebar under the search box on the right? You just press it to send a tiny tip, usually around 0.75 XRP. Yes, it really is that easy.

Last (for now) and certainly not least, is Codius, a platform for securely executing smart contracts and other types of smart programs which has chosen – you’ve guessed it – XRP as it’s native currency as payment mechanism for running contracts on nodes. This project is fascinating, as it isn’t specific to any particular programming language, effectively creating a blank canvas type platform to run any form of smart program, with the nodes providing the ‘grunt work’ for it to run being paid in XRP. Right now, I’m actually setting up a Codius node myself simply because I want to support the network and see it grow (I doubt very much the income will exceed the cost at this point) and I will blog about it later.

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All this in twelve months? The reality is, to avoid this article being thousands of words, I have only briefly summarized what has happened in that time. And of course, if these things had happened during the craziness of December 2017, no doubt the price would have doubled or even tripled its all time high at that point, but we find ourselves in a bear market in terms of price at the time this article is written. But that is irrelevant in my view. Like many investors, I want to see great returns on any investment I make, but with XRP there’s something more going on. It’s got me passionate about the investment. I want to see the banking system reinvigorated and updated. I want to see automatic or discretionary reward systems for content providers. I want to see systems like Codius remove all barriers to technical creativity going forward. In short, I want to see it work. And I am now convinced it’s just a matter of time.

And my price prediction? Far, far too dangerous to try and put a price on it, I only believe it will be ‘substantially’ higher than it is now in an indeterminate amount of time directly related to legislation and adoption rates. Put it this way, I’m hodling and buying. And I don’t propose to change that behaviour anytime soon.

You, on the other hand, can’t take my word for it. You’ll need to do your own research, because this, dear reader, is only my humble, and very passionate, opinion.

It’s a fair question. ‘Cryptocurrency Evangelist’, as it quite clearly states on my business card, could mean, well, anything.

Since it’s a question that comes up time and time again, I’ve had to develop an ‘elevator pitch’ style response which goes like this:

“I advocate and promote the adoption and development of cryptocurrencies at all levels, from personal use right up to corporate acceptance through writing, speaking and use of social media”

This, inevitably, leads to the question “What’s a cryptocurrency?” so I have to have an answer ready for that too which runs as follows:

“A cryptocurrency is a new form of money that exists only in digital form and can be used as a payment mechanism anywhere in the world without having to use a central banking system”

In my experience of using these lines, my general feeling is that people will have some inkling at least of what a cryptocurrency is from my definition provided, but the ‘evangelist’ bit? Not so much.

[image error]See. I’m serious. It really does say ‘Cryptocurrency Evangelist’

I’ll be honest, it wasn’t my word to start with. I stole it from 1997 Microsoft, but I feel confident they won’t come after me now as its been nearly twenty years since I left my job there as Brand Manager. You see, I was there for ’95, ’98 and the scary-as-hell (at the time) Y2K bug. I was also there when this weird new concept of ‘the internet’ came about. It was a radical, crazy idea that seemed to be here to stay, despite what the nay-sayers thought – and there were many of them.

But, for those of you who know your technical history, you’ll know that Microsoft was late to the game with the internet. They’d missed it completely on it’s first big push, and Netscape dominated the market with a 98% share. The first Microsoft Internet Explorer was slow and clunky by comparison and we hadn’t even got the internet on our PCs in the office in Reading yet. Yes, really.

This is all changed when Steve Ballmer, at the time Bill Gates’ number 2, came over to the UK on one of his regular visits to ‘sew the seed’ of internet fever. The whole company was changing direction – and fast.

I liked Steve. I got to spend a bit of time with him on several occasions over my years at Microsoft and I loved his huge personality, his booming voice that got slightly squeaky when he got passionate or excited about something (which was pretty much everything) and his undeniable total passion about what he was doing. His famous catchphrase at the time was ‘Revenue, Revenue, Revenue’ as a focus for the company, often accompanied by banging a large walking stick style prop on the floor of whichever auditorium he was in with each utterance of the word.

This time it was different. With most of the UK subsidiary present (it was only a couple of hundred in those days) and a big build up, he promised to reveal his revenue forecasts for the internet side of the business for the following twelve months. The moment came to finally reveal the slide. It was a giant zero, the size of the wall it was projected on. Pause for effect.

[image error]Ballmer. Brash, loud, american and yet, still likable.

There was a surprised silence, followed by murmuring. How could it be nothing at all? The reason, Steve explained, was simple. Microsoft was late to the game, they had already lost the game in many ways. It was necessary to re-position the whole company as utterly “internet ready,” a phrase we used a lot on those days, like we did recently with “HD Ready” TVs a few years ago. It seemed we were to invest a fortune and expect not a single penny of return for at least a year. It was aggressive, decisive and fast. We were all to get involved and drive internet adoption and, of course, Microsoft’s position in it. We were all, whatever our rank or position in the company, about to become ‘Internet Evangelists’.

Business cards were re-printed, posters appeared, training session happened, web sites were being ordered left right and centre and the PR machine went into overdrive, guided by ‘Corp’ – the unseen powers that be in Seattle. The entire company started talking about ‘the internet’ to customers, suppliers and even friends and family. These people were going to hear about and use the internet anyway, it was critical they heard it from us ‘Microsoftees’ first.

As we all now know, it worked. Within a couple of years Netscape Navigator was dead and Internet Explorer was king, for a while anyway. The new versions of Office were internet enabled, and whole new swathes of code based on internet working was added to Windows. Research showed that people thought of Microsoft as an ‘internet’ company. Job done.

Fast forward 25 years and not only did I steal the name for my own purposes, I have also stolen the genuine passion and interest in ‘spreading the word’ of my chosen field of specialism. For the second time in my life I am an ‘evangelist’.

I will chat to anyone who wants to about cryptocurrency, or answer any question I can. I will answer any email or comment with as much detail as possible, and point people to other resources that may help them. I’ll read several hours a day on new developments or applications and share it with groups and networks. I will pay for as many things as I can with crypto, tell people I’m doing it and, if they’re interested, I’ll show them how. It’s passion driven by a genuine desire to see this work, for everyone of any race, colour, background or financial status. A passion to see it possible for a person in a first world economy to trade directly with someone in a developing nation without borders or sanctions, or even a bank calling the shots. Just their product and smartphone.

I’ll admit to being a bit Utopian about it, and I’ll be the first to acknowledge the myriad of problems it brings to governments, tax systems, tariffs and crime fighting among many others, but each of those problems also brings new opportunities, and possible solutions that, for the very first time in human history, could be dealt with on a global scale through a border-less currency system. That’s quite a thought, isn’t it? It’s enough to get anyone excited, right?

So, next time the question comes up, I’ll simply point them to this website.

Unless they ask “what’s a website?”

In which case I’ll need to have a quiet word with Steve Ballmer.

OOOh, that’s a question. And one I’m asked more and more these days. I always answer it WITH a question (not that if affects my ultimate answer), and always the same one:

“What is it you want to buy it for?”

The answers vary and are sometimes quite vague, because the people who ask this are usually those who are still sitting outside of the cryptocurrency sphere that many of us have now got so used to. They’re basically intrigued, interested and want to get involved in some way. I remember being there myself only a few short years ago and a simple answer would have been great, but the trouble is, I couldn’t find one. There seemed to be as many doomsayers as there were evangelists and none of it made sense. I’m not entirely sure it that’s different today from an outsider’s point of view.

But, if you ask me now, although I’ll qualify it as you see below, the answer is universally “no, it is definitely, definitely not too late.” Some, myself included, may even say you’re a little early to the party. Hell, they’re still setting up the tables and getting the paper plates from the store. You might be surprised by that statement so let me add a few paragraphs to explain the thinking.

If you’re buying purely as an investment, ie you’re not interested in spending it or converting to other currencies, then, in my view, it’s not too late. Bitcoin may be a dinosaur in terms of technology and age (it’s over ten years old already!), but it is also the unwritten ‘reserve currency’ of the crypto world. It’s your ‘go to’ universally accepted and recognized coin that anyone dealing in cryptos is happy to take. As cryptos go, it’s a ‘safe’ bet. This is where it gets interesting though.

Exact figures on how many people use Bitcoin/are aware of Bitcoin/own Bitcoin are hard to come by and estimates vary wildly, but the only area that they agree on completely is that it is a tiny percentage of the global population as of this moment. Today’s price, therefore, is not a reflection of future demand. In theory, any application of the network effect will drive the price proportionately, resulting – on paper anyway – in these very high price predictions you sometimes read about in the press. It’s not an unreasonable assumption actually, especially when you consider that there will never be enough Bitcoin in existence for every person on the planet to have one. There will – categorically – only ever be 21,000,000 in existence, but in reality they’ll be somewhere around 15,000,000 that are actually usable since so many have been lost or locked up over the years. For most of us, we’ll be dealing only in Satoshi (one hundred millionths of a bitcoin represented thus: 0.00000001 BTC). There’s not even enough for every millionaire to have one, they’ll be dealing in Satoshi too. Only the very wealthy or the very early adopters who are still holding will have more than one. Once you apply basic economic theory of supply and demand, the price can only go up.

This assumes, of course, that Bitcoin won’t be surpassed by a younger, better upstart in the meantime, or regulated out of existence – and that is where your risk comes in. My personal view on the former is that the although there will be (and already are) better currencies than Bitcoin, it is far too established to change the base currency easily at this point and Bitcoin will likely co-exist with a couple of other major currencies for different purposes as I wrote about here. On the latter, well, the chances of all countries coming together and agreeing anything at all, let alone cryptocurrency regulation, are so slim it’s negligible. This is a global phenomenon, and you only need one country on the entire planet to agree it’s the future and it’ll never be possible to regulate it out of existence – exchanges will simply move there as we have already seen they are willing to do. It’s arguable whether it would still have the same value of course, but as long as people are willing to buy and sell anything (money, cryptos, drugs, gold, you name it) there will always be a market.

[image error]See that? That’s Subway accepting Bitcoin, that is.

If you’re buying to use it, then of course you’re not too late. In fact, to return to my ‘party’ analogy earlier, you’re not only early, you’re taking the mick by turning up with your sleeping bag a full 24 hours before it’s even started and demanding breakfast in the morning.

You see, actually spending Bitcoin has always been, until recently, quite tricky. I owned some retail stores during this time and used Bitpay which was clunky and slow back then. Some big companies such as Expedia and Steam accepted it, and others, like these examples, have been hot and cold about accepting it, sometimes doing so and sometimes not, usually linked with transaction cost price spikes. Adoption, price volatility and network speed have always been the problem. But like all things in the nascent and uncharted crypto world, these problems are being worked on.

Price volatility is the result of many factors of course, but it is also that the market so small, minuscule in fact, compared to, well, anything else. The whole market capitalization is currently around the quarter of the size of one company – Amazon. This means slight movements can trigger large price changes and it can easily be manipulated by anyone with a few million dollars where no regulation currently exists. My personal view is that as the market grows – which I believe it will – this will become less of an issue, but this is likely to be a long time off. Even regulation, which is managed by country and not globally, can’t provide a universal answer. If price volatility scares you, well, walk away now. It’s not going away any time soon.

The main solution to slow network speed is the Lightning Network, which, without going into technicals, is a way of managing the transactions on the blockchain hugely more efficiently than they are being managed at the moment. In other words, it’ll be a hell of a lot faster than it is now, which is one of Bitcoin’s shortcomings. This is some way off yet, but if it is to achieve any sort of global adoption, this problem does need to be addressed.

The question of adoption is the one that fascinates me the most. Everyday, new retailers come on line, and some bow out (usually temporarily), a bit like an active Twitter account that ebbs and flows with followers depending on your tweets, but overall the trend is very definitely up in terms of places where it is accepted. Interestingly though, actual usage figures have dropped in the same period, almost certainly due to the drop in price resulting in people hoarding and holding out for a better price rather than spending. This is a symptom of what I call ‘fiat thinking’ as we still measure everything on put own currency rather than Satoshi and will do for some time yet. Perhaps we always will.

[image error]Although still a tiny, tiny percentage, more and more establishments now accept Bitcoin. For once, big organisations have no advantage over smaller players. Power to the people!

Recently, however, companies have been attacking the problem from the other angle, making it easier to spend your cryptos from your wallet in the first place. Wirex, who I wrote about here, are a great example of this, and it’s a beautiful, simple system that makes the spending of Bitcoin (and Litecoin and Ripple) as easy as using a contactless Visa card. We haven’t seen the effect of this yet, but I suspect this is exactly the sort of thing that can make a major difference in the pace of adoption. They’re not the only ones of course, similar systems are being developed, trialed and launched all the time, the momentum is building and it is – surely – a matter of time.

You’ll notice I haven’t, directly anyway, mentioned institutional investment. It’ll come, I’m certain of that because if there’s one thing you can trust these guys to do it’s to sniff out new opportunities and get the returns as soon as is possible. However, my view is that we, the people, have just as much impact on the future price and adoption of Bitcoin as the big institutions do, perhaps more so. This is an astonishing statement and almost certainly the first time this has happened in history. That’s quite a paradigm shift that will take quite some time for most people to get their heads round.

So, is it too late to buy Bitcoin? In my opinion, no. It’s as simple as that and I’m still stockpiling both Bitcoin (well, I’m spending a little because I find it enormously satisfying to buy a round at the pub with it) and certain other cryptos on a daily basis, even now. I understand of course this is not without risk given the unknown unknowns that lie ahead, but this is an incredibly exciting time and, for me, I want to be part of it in the same way I wanted to be part of the internet growth in the 1990’s.

And we all know how that turned out, right?

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