NOTE: The information provided on this site should not be considered financial advice and is provided for educational purposes only!

Welcome to Turbocharged Bitcoin, a site where hopefully you will learn from my mistakes about Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. On this site you will learn what cryptocurrencies are and how they work. I will be making extensive use of YouTube video playlists that contain, what I believe to be, the best videos available at describing each topic.

For playlists that cover a single topic, please don't feel that you must watch all the videos in the playlist. Watching the first video is usually sufficient, and the others are there for people who want to dive deeper into a topic. Some playlists have videos about specific products or sites, like Bitcoin wallets or dealers. In those cases you may want to jump directly to the video that covers the item you are interested in.

Some of the links on this site are referral links for affiliate programs I participate in. Clicking on these links will not cost you any additional, should you decide to purchase the product or use the service, but will help me keep this site up-to-date. And in some cases, these links will even get you a discount! So, if you decide to buy a product or use a service you learned about here, please consider clicking through using one of my links.

Thank you!

What are Bitcoins?

Bitcoin is a type of digital currency in which encryption techniques are used to regulate the generation of units of currency and verify the transfer of funds, operating independently of a central bank. Here is a video playlist that explains, in increasing levels of detail, what Bitcoins are. I've added two great documentaries on Bitcoin at the end. I highly recommend watching these!

What is Blockchain Technology?

The blockchain is a digital ledger in which transactions made in cryptocurrencies are recorded chronologically and publicly. All cryptocurrencies are built on top of Blockchain Technology:

Why Acquire Bitcoins?

So now that you understand what Bitcoins are, we need to examine why you should want to own some Bitcoin. I believe, based on information provided in the following video playlist and personal experience, that Bitcoins have the potential to increase in value to unimaginable levels, in a relatively short period of time. I purchased my first Bitcoin when the value was $1,180 USD. In just 2 months the value went up to $2,500 USD and continues to climb. The current value in US Dollars can be seen in the widget at the top of the page.

Of course, there are no guarantees this trend will continue. And, Bitcoin has seen some dramatic decreases in value in the past, but has always rebounded over time to new highs. For these reasons I do not invest money I can't afford to lose, no matter how unlikely, and I believe in holding cryptocurrency assets for the long term. If these videos don't make you want to run out and get at least a small amount of Bitcoin, nothing will (This is one playlist I recommend you watch all the way through, if you have the time):

Bitcoin Wallets:

At this point you might be wondering how do you store your Bitcoin. In a wallet, of course! But not a fancy, leather wallet like you carry your cash in, a digital wallet. Digital wallets are an entire subject unto themselves, beyond the scope of this tutorial.

However, it's important to understand what they are and some of the different wallet options you have. There are desktop wallets, phone wallets, online wallets, browser wallets and hardware wallets to name a few. Video #1 does a great job of explaining Crypto Wallets.

Keep in mind, you may have to settle for whatever wallet(s) are available for a particular coin. Not all coins can be stored in any given wallet. Check the coin's web site for the wallets that are available for that coin. There are some newer wallets that allow you to store as many as 300 different coins in one wallet. My favorite is the Atomic Wallet. It is available in both a smart phone version and a desktop/laptop version. The Atomic Wallet has additional features such as swapping one coin for another and staking, which will be covered later. The Atomic Wallet is described in video #2.

Video #3 is a comparison of the three most popular hardware wallets. Hardware wallets are the safest way to store large quantities of Bitcoin, because not only do you control the private key, but it is locked inside the hardware and never revealed. Hardware wallets are considered cold storage. You can easily send coins to cold storage wallets, but it is slightly more difficult to get the coins out than with an online wallet, for instance. I personally own a KeepKey (Amazon) and I love it, but video #3 also compares my second favorite, the Ledger Nano S (Amazon) and the Trezor (Amazon).

One of the newest hardware wallets, CoolWallet is interesting in that it is the size of a credit card! For more information on CoolWallet watch video #4.

How to purchase Bitcoin:

You should now have your wallet all setup and ready to receive Bitcoin. Don't forget to take all of the security steps to ensure that your wallet is as secure as possible. Now for the fun part, loading Bitcoin into your wallet.

You have a number of options. You can purchase Bitcoin from someone you know, from someone locally, you can use cash, a bank account or a credit card. Here are my recommendations:

If you want to use a credit card or a bank account, these are good sites:

• Coinbase.com: A well established dealer. You don't have to use the Coinbase wallet, you can use the wallet you've already setup, above. If you use this Coinbase.com link, you will get $10 worth of Bitcoin on your first purchase over $100.
  
  
• Coinmama.com: You can buy with cash here as well! Watch video #2
  
• CEX.io: Easy to use interface and are available internationally! Watch video #3.

The fastest way to buy Bitcoin is with cash. Here are some cash sites:

• BitQuick.co: I've used them a number of times, and have had excellent results. Watch video #4.
  
• LocalBitcoins.com: Buying Bitcoin here is safe if you use a dealer that has a lot of trades under their belt and have good feedback. Watch video #5.

These are two services I've used to easily convert one cryptocurrency into another:

• Changelly: This service supports many cryptocurrencies and is fast and easy to use! I've used it and highly recommend it. Watch video #6.
  
• ShapeShift: If you own the KeepKey wallet, it has ShapeShift built in. I use this feature when both coins are supported by the KeepKey wallet. Watch video #7 for how to use the ShapeShift site or video #8 for using ShapeShift from within the KeepKey wallet.
  
  Finally, these are the exchanges I use most to purchase altcoins with Bitcoin, Ethereum & Litecoin:
  
  
• Binance: I've used Binance quite a few times and I'm very happy with their service. If a coin I'm interested in is listed on Binance, I will buy it there. Binance allows trading Bitcoin and Ethereum for other altcoins. You can also save money by paying the fees in BNB, their own altcoin!
  

What are Altcoins?

There are now over 14,700 cryptocurrencies with a total market capitalization of around $2.61 Trillion USD. All cryptocurrencies, other than Bitcoin, are referred to as altcoins. You can see the complete list on coinmarketcap.com.

Just as you should diversify your total portfolio into a variety of asset classes (Stocks, Precious Metals, Real Estate, etc.), it's a good idea to diversify your cryptocurrency portfolio. These are the cryptocurrencies I currently own with portfolio percentage:

• Bitcoin (BTC) 36% The first and most popular cryptocurrency
• Ceek VR (CEEK) 23% Connects music artists, athletes, and other digital content creators directly to their fans in virtual worlds.
• Ripple (XRP) 16%Global Payment Solutions
• Ethereum (ETH) 11% A decentralized platform that runs smart contracts
• Solana (SOL) 5% Scalable Blockchain Infrastructure
• Cardano (ADA) 2% 3rd Generation Blockchain Technology
• Enjin (ENJ) 1% Blockchain Product Ecosystem
• Algorand (ALGO) 1% The Blockchain for FutureFi
• Polkadot (DOT) 1% Decentralized Web 3.0 Blockchain
• Dogelon Mars (ELON) 1% The official coin of Mars
• Stellar Lumens (XLM) 1% Made to support digital representations of any currency
• Shiba Inu (SHIB) 1% A Decentralized Meme Token that Evolved into a Vibrant Ecosystem

Bitcoin Businesses:

There are opportunities to make money with Bitcoin, but I believe most are not legitimate businesses. I've been in two businesses, GladiaCoin and Control-Finance, that looked great at first, but eventually fell apart and a lot of people lost a lot of money! I would steer clear of any program where you deposit some amount of Bitcoin and they pay you back a daily percentage. Especially if they pay big bonuses for referring new customers (MLM). I honestly believe they are not sustainable businesses and are very high risk.

So what ways are there to make money with Bitcoin?

• Mining: Most cryptocurrencies are mined in one form or another. Most coins are mined through what's called Proof Of Work (PoW), which requires a lot of computer processing power. I've looked into mining various coins and have come to the conclusion that it's just not cost effective. This is mainly due to the fact that it costs more to power your mining rig that the value of the coins mined. However, there is one coin, Burst, that is mined through Proof Of Capacity (PoC). PoC allows you to mine with available Hard Drive space. For about 5 months I mined Burst with 6.7TB of hard drive space on an old Windows PC that was sitting in my garage. The Burst video, above, explains how to get started. I was mining with pool.burstcoin.ro, and for a while I was mining over 35 coins a day. I recently stopped mining Burst when the network dificulty rose and the price dropped, resuilting in a return of about 9 cents per day.
  
  There's a new cryptocurrency called Pi. This coin was developed by Stanford PhD's, and is in the very early stages. As of this writing, it's not available for purchase on any exchange, and therefore does not have any value, yet. Since it cannot be purchased on an exchange, the only way to get Pi is to "mine" it on your smartphone. The app can be downloaded from the Pi website. The Pi app is a free, energy-light mobile app. It will not drain your battery or use up your CPU, RAM or Network bandwidth. Once you install the app, it will ask for an Invitation Code. Please use my username kewharton. Each time you invite a friend to mine Pi on their phone you will both earn one Pi, plus your earning rate will go up. The mining rate starts at 0.25 Pi per hour. I am currently mining about 0.5 Pi per hour. Every 24 hours you will stop mining and must open the app and push the button to restart the mining process. That's it. This is a great opportunity to accumulate a new coin for free that is in its very early stages!
  
  
• Staking: There is another form of mining called Proof Of Stake (PoS). There are coins that can be PoS mined, or staked. Unlike traditional mining, where you need specialized hardware, called ASIC's, or one or more powerful Graphics Cards (GPU's), with staking you only need to own coins to be paid a staking reward. Each coin has different rules, but in general you just need to own coins, keep them in a desktop wallet, let them mature and usually you need to keep your wallet open on your computer. The time needed for each coin to mature before staking begins varies from one coin to another.
  
  Things to consider: Most high yield staking coins seem to suffer from the same basic problem, massive inflation. Since these staking coins are being added to the circulating supply at a phenomenal rate, the law of Supply And Demand dictates that the value of each coin will decrease. If the amount of coins you hold and the rate at which you earn rewards can keep ahead of the curve, you may do OK. If you do decide to try staking, make sure it's because you believe in the coin and it has a good long-term future.
  
  
• Crypto Cashback Rewards Programs: These are businesses that will reward you in Bitcoin when you make a purchase through them. Crypto cashback programs enable shoppers to earn rebates in the form of Bitcoin, or other digital currencies, when making a purchase. The idea behind crypto cashback programs is to entice shoppers to spend more by incentivizing them with free cryptocurrency.
  
  
  • FOLD - This is my favorite program. To earn Bitcoin rewards you use the app to purchase a gift card with a credit card then purchase your product or service with the gift card. Once the gift card has been purchased, the Bitcoin are immediately added to your Fold app wallet. Once your balance reaches 50,000 Satoshi, you can transfer your balance to your main Bitcoin wallet. You will immediately be rewarded 20,000 Satoshi just for signing up! They also have a prize wheel you can spin once a day to earn additional Bitcoin or higher rewards percentages.
  • CoinRebates - A web-based crypto cashback platform that enables users to earn bitcoin while shopping at popular retailers, such as AliExpress, Booking.com, Groupon, Macy's, Microsoft, and Walmart. To earn rebates, you simply add a bitcoin address on the platform's homepage, select the merchant where you want to make a purchase and off you go. After the purchase has been made, your bitcoin wallet will be credited with the available percentage rebate for that merchant within 30 days.
  • Lolli - To earn Bitcoin sats back, online shoppers add a browser extension (available for Chrome and Firefox), create a Lolli account, and shop at any of the supported merchants. The browser extension will recognize the retail platform and reward you with your percentage rebate in bitcoin within around 30 days. Lolli enables bitcoin users to earn up to 30 percent "sats back" at retailers such as Expedia, GAP, Hilton, Sephora, Postmates, and many more.
  • Pei - The Pei app enables shoppers to earn cashback in both Bitcoin and US dollars. To receive cashback using the Pei app, shoppers link their debit or credit cards to the app and make purchases wherever they want. Rebates from merchants within Pei's supported retailers' network - which includes over 120,000 merchants - are automatically earned in the form of "Pei points." Pei points are received and stored in the mobile app and can be cashed out in BTC or USD.


• Trading: Like trading stocks, you make money by buying a coin at a low price and selling it at a higher price. I may try this with a small portion of my holdings, but I won't be getting into it seriously. One trick I did learn is to sell by converting your coin into USD Teather (USDT) or USD Coin (USDC). Moving your funds into USDT or USDC is like selling your coin. When you want to buy another coin, just convert a portion of your USDT/USDC into that other coin. As I mentioned above, a good site to use for converting one coin into another is Changelly. Or, if you decide to use the Atomic Wallet, many coins can be swapped right inside that wallet! I would suggest doing a lot of research before trading cryptocurrencies as a business.


• Buy and hold: In my opinion, this is the safest strategy for the bulk of your holdings. Research the list of coins I've provided in the previous section, and put a little money into them. Then just hang onto them. Cryptocurrencies are free market driven. It all comes down to supply and demand. That is why Bitcoin is going up in price so rapidly. The supply is somewhat fixed and the demand is high, as we saw in the videos, above. So if a coin has a reason why people will want to own and use it, it will most likely perform well over the long term.


• Online Businesses: As I already mentioned, most Bitcoin businesses are high risk. If you find a Bitcoin business that looks interesting do some due diligence using the following checklist:
  
  
  • Who is the domain name registered to? Avoid businesses with private registration.
  • Does the business have a verifiable business address?
  • Can you find out who the owners are? Any legitimate business will publish who owns the company.
  • How long have they been in business for? If they have been in business for a number of years, you are probably safe.
  • Can you independently verify their claims. If they say they are mining Bitcoin or doing Forex trading with your money, find out if that's true from an independent source.
  • Look for reviews. Not the "This is great, join my team" reviews, but reviews from a source that is trustworthy.

I personally believe the safest way to make money with cryptocurrencies is to buy and hold.

Continuing Education:

If you decide to get started in cryptocurrencies, it's important to keep up-to-date. The following is a list of videos that may help to round out your education. This list will get updated from time-to-time as I find important new videos or existing videos become stale. These links will cause a video to immediately play in a separate window.

• How to Avoid Crypto Scams
• WARNING: Cryptocurrency Scams and Ponzi Schemes Everywhere!
• Avoid Scams and Phishing Attempts With These Awesome Tools

Where do I go for important cryptocurrency news and updates? I watch a lot of YouTube videos. Here is a list of the channels I watch:

• Louis Thomas
• Crypto Tips
• Lark Davis
• Bitboy Crypto
• Digital Asset Investor
• Moon Lambo