I’ve been planning on playing around with some crypto currencies, now that I’ve earned a few Steem Backed Dollars. So today I decided to take some of that money and convert some of it to Bitcoin and some to Ethereum.
Bitcoin because it seems to keep on going up in value, even when it goes down.
And Ethereum because it’s about to be on the Chinese exchange, and in theory, that should make its value go up.
At least that was the theory.
So I transferred SBD 110 to Poloniex (where I already had an account from my first test of removing money from Steemit). Then I tried to sell it for Bitcoin.
I think I should point out at this juncture that I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing when it comes to… pretty much everything, but especially crypto and currency trading. At this stage I’m pretty much a ‘point and shoot’ trader.
So I tried to sell SBD 100 for Bitcoin. That didn’t work. It just sat there and no-one bought it. I tried to see if I could swap it for Ethereum, but it didn’t seem to be an option. So I tried again, this time putting up SBD 50. Boom! It sold instantly. So I did it again. Boom! another SBD 50 sold.
“Well that worked”, I said to myself.
The next step was to send it to my Jaxx wallet. That was pretty easy. A bit of a nervous wait for five minutes or so, but no worries. Sure enough there was my Bitcoin in my wallet.
I was feeling pretty good by this stage, so I decided to use the ShapeShifter functionality in the wallet to change some Bitcoin to Ethereum.
I figured it would be instant, since it’s just inside the wallet. I should have read up on tis first I suppose. What happens is this - your Bitcoin gets sent to the ShapeShifter site and they do the converting (maybe on another exchange??) and then send it back. There is a charge for this, which I wasn’t factoring into what I was doing. It’s not huge, but still, it is a cost.
So I sent off a bunch of Bitcoin (0.0522 of a Bitcoin. Ok, so it’s not a lot of Bitcoin. But it’s a start)
And then I waited. And waited. And waited some more. And when I got sick of that, I waited some more. Then I started looking up the help section and forums and stuff. Seems like you can wait for 22 hours or more for the transactions to go through. WTF???
I had made my exchange request TWO HOURS ago and nothing was happening. I had 6+ confirmations, which is supposed to be a good thing. So I did some digging and found out………. Nothing useful to someone who does not live and breathe crypto blockchainy hashiness. It all meant nothing to me.
I did find one bit that said – ‘received’ and it had the amount I had sent and stuff, which looked promising. So I went to the ShapeShifter site and started filling in the help form, hunting down my keys and hashes (I still have no idea if they were the right ones). I wrote a bit of a message explaining what I had done. I copied and pasted some output that had actually changed now to say ‘completed’.
Completed my arse!!
My wallet was still without Ethereum.
It was completely devoid of Ethereum.
There was an Ethereum drought of epic proportions.
Bitcoin I had, but Ethereum I did not.
It was an Ethereum wasteland, filled with nothing Ethereum-like.
It was…. Hang on what’s this?
I had a balance in my Ethereum wallet! It had worked!
So I carefully closed the tab with the irate message to the lovely people at ShapeShifter, making sure not to hit the submit button along the way. Whew! That could’ve been messy.
And so it came to pass that I had a wallet filled to the…. well, a little bit in the bottom, of Ethereum.
That was so much harder and longer than it needed to be.
And this is where crypto currencies are so much like Linux. Those that are into that sort of thing, who like the tiny details and the long keys and holding their left forefinger to their right ear while balancing on one foot and singing ‘Ba Ba sheep of indeterminate colour’ in order to get things done, are going to have a good time.
But for the rest of us who just want to transfer some money and exchange it so we can buy stuff or save it or whatever, this is stupidly arcane and long winded. The technology around blockchains might be magical and death defying, but the bit that meets the people is absurdly complicated and stupid.
The coin that will see genuine mass adoption is the one that takes the Microsoft Windows approach to its human client, base and makes it simple and easy for someone who doesn’t have a degree in quantum computing to manage their money.
So how are my investments going?
I’m glad you asked. About as well as could be expected really.
I’ve lost $7 on the value of my Ethereum so far, and gained $2 on my Bitcoin.
This is quite fun really. I can’t wait to see how much I have lost tomorrow.
Check out my stories here on Steemit
Running Deer
Running Deer - part 1
Running Deer - How legends are born
Charlie Rabbit
Meet Charlie Rabbit
Charlie tides up
Charlie Rabbit and Margery Mouse
Charlie Rabbit and Margery Mouse make music
Little Peppers Adventures
Runaway Rabbit and the hungry fox
Maybe and the land of purple rainbows – A Little Peppers adventure
How Pappa Pepper and Monster Truck the Pepper got their wild hogs - a Little Peppers Adeventure
Dark Angel Regiment of the Space Marines - Mission Files
First Squad Sniper Elite - Zaresith mission
Other stories
Also don't forget to check out my Dad's blog
Who else can tell you stories about impersonating an officer, stealing a military aircraft to go on a booze run, or steal military aircraft and go on an unsanctioned bombing run - and that's all before he turned 18!
Check out @len.george and find out what other madness he got up to!
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