Recently I read an article on Splinter News charmingly named “Hey Idiots–You’re Gonna Lose All Your Money on Bitcoin, Idiots”. No, really, as of the writing of this blog post, that is the actual, honest to God name of the article, written by one Hamilton Nolan and published on Nov. 28th 2017. It goes on to enlighten us about how everyone who has invested in Bitcoin is doomed to lose their money, opening with a rather beautiful little passage:

Bitcoin is a fake and made-up scam. Can you articulate what it is? “Bullshit jargon that means nothing”-you. Hell no.

Ah, already we’re off to a good start. Two sentences in, and two things are already painfully obvious to us. First, the person who wrote this piece has no clue how to write at all, because these four, short sentences make absolutely no sense, grammatically speaking. In his second sentence, “it” doesn’t refer to anything. Can I articulate what what is? Bitcoin? A scam? What are you talking about? His third sentence doesn’t even have a verb in it! Still, attacking a dude’s grammar is low, even when he’s a paid writer, so let’s focus on the other important take-away here, which is that the writer clearly believes that he’s far smarter than us, and that he’s here to enlighten us to the absolute truth that we’re somehow oblivious to. Aren’t we lucky to have finally received a shepherd to guide us dumb sheep? This notion of perceived superiority is further reinforced in the closing sentences of the article.

Remember what I told you. Remember how hard headed you were. Remember who was stupid (you) and who was smart (me).

At this point you might be thinking “Hey, this article kinda sounds like satire. No writer can actually be so delusional, right? That’s hilarious!” And while you’d be right that it’s extremely funny, unfortunately, Splinter News is a legitimate news source (about as legitimate as all the others, I guess). This was written seriously, with the full intent to enlighten us about how stupid we are for investing in Bitcoin, and then some editor looked through and was like “Yeah, y’know what, that’s actually good enough to publish on our official website.” But hey, maybe I’m judging too harshly! Maybe the dude has some kind of amazing insider info about how Bitcoins really ARE a scam, and this is just his crude way of portraying his exposé? Let’s take a look at his arguments and try to deduce where our wise master is coming from.

Here’s a little history lesson for you. Some guy, or somebody, invented a thing called bitcoin, on the internet. Nobody knows what it is but you can buy drugs with it.

Hamilton Nolan here may be reading different history books from me, because the ones I’m into tend to be a bit more specific than “Some dude somewhere did something and nobody knows what it is”. Also, for the record, Mr. Nolan, just because you don’t know what Bitcoin is doesn’t mean that nobody knows. It’s a virtual currency. You know, like the kind that literally every single government on Earth has. Or did you really think that there was a safe somewhere with 75 trillion dollars just sitting there collecting dust? Fact of the matter is that only about 5 trillion dollars actually exist as physical money globally, and the rest of it is in various virtual currencies. The only difference between the virtual dollars you’ve got in your bank account and the virtual bitcoin I’ve got in my e-wallet is that I can’t go to a bank and requested to draw one physical bitcoin. Bitcoin doesn’t work with banks, that’s kind of the point. If you’re still confused about this, please read The Sun’s handy-dandy guide and, um, feel free to message me with any questions. I’ll be more than happy to help.

Still, Hamilton Nolan continues, explaining that there are two kinds of investors – the people who aren’t touching bitcoin, and the idiots.

Then there are the idiots—like you—who say, “Where I can but some ‘Bitcoin’ to get rich, like all my ‘gamer’ friends?” A wise man once said “What goes up must come down” and another, wiser man once said “All This Bitcoin Stuff Is Fake.” It’s not real, folks.

You know, I would assume that making jokes about “haha those dumb no-life gamers” was an activity rightfully left behind in the late 90s, but here Mr. Nolan is, ready to prove to us that he’s not changing with the times and he’s happy with that. The “All This Bitcoin Stuff Is Fake” line, by the way, leads to the only source in the article, so you know it’s got to be important. Who is this “wiser man” that Hamilton Nolan is referring to, who prophesized the death of Bitcoin? Bill Gates? Elon Musk? Dr. Stephen Hawking? Nope, it’s someone even smarter than all of these men combined! It’s… Hamilton Nolan? Yeah, the only source in this article leads to… Another article by the same writer. I’m not a college professor, but I’m not sure that’s how you write an argumentative piece. But then again, as he has repeatedly established, Mr. Nolan is the most enlightened person in the observable universe, so I guess it’s safe to take his word as an absolute, indisputable fact.

For ten thousand dollars I’ll go buy myself a Jet Ski with bad ass stripes on the side. Okay? And you buy yourself a Bit coin. And we’ll see who has more fun.

Well, what do you know. Mr. Nolan believes that people are spending $10,000 buying Bitcoin. Which, of course, is completely understandable considering the fact that he neither knows a thing about Bitcoin nor is willing to learn. So I’ll gently and respectfully nudge him and inform him that most people don’t actually BUY bitcoin – and those who do don’t buy anywhere near one full bitcoin. Yes, you can totally spend a few bucks to buy 0.025 of a bitcoin, and then use that in certain marketplaces and exchange it for goods and services. Also, the vast majority of bitcoin are mined, not bought. And no, Mr. Nolan, before you start asking about how bitcoins occur naturally in mines, they don’t, it’s just an expression. Go look it up, that is your homework.

Ten thousand dollars is a lot of damn money, unlike a “bitcoin” which, who knows how much money it will be a week from now?

Haha, yeah, because regular, government-controlled currency never takes a nosedive. Currency values fluctuate, that’s kind of how it works. Right now, one bitcoin costs $10k, and one week from now it might cost $1k, or it might cost $100k. That dollar that you seem to be worshipping so much, the kind that will supposedly buy you that jetski, recently dropped in value due to President Trump’s shenanigans, and let’s not even talk about the 2008 financial crisis.

Now, the truth is that Bitcoin isn’t infallible. It’s the most popular cryptocurrency, but it’s far from ideal – for example, if you use your credit card to buy something, and then the item never arrives, you can call your bank and have them revoke the charge. However, if you buy something with Bitcoin and the item never arrives, tough luck. The fact that you also need to buy yourself a special, mechanical and encrypted wallet for bitcoin is also an inconvenience. But these are actual genuine concerns coming from someone who understands what bitcoin is. Hamilton Nolan has decided that not only does he not understand it at all, he doesn’t want to, and on top of that is willing to broadcast his ignorance to the masses, repeatedly. But the fact remains that if you had invested $1000 in Bitcoin a year ago, you would’ve been able to cash out over a million today. And I think that I’d be able to have a whole lot more fun with my $1 mil than you with your $10k jet ski.

There are many, many, many ways to earn money online. The simplest, and most straightforward, are to simply take on jobs by paying employers, or sell goods or services of your own volition. Many opt to turn to online gambling, or try their hand at building a YouTube channel or a similar venture as a means to get rich quickly. The problem with all of those options is that they’re rather short-term. Unless you get VERY lucky and manage to hit a multi-million jackpot (which has only happened to a few hundred people worldwide in the realm of online casino), chances are that online gambling, or selling your possessions on eBay, isn’t going to keep you afloat for too long, and I’m not even going to explain just how bad of an idea trying to get rich off of YouTube is. No, when it comes to making money – serious, consistent money – online, there’s really only one surefire way you can achieve this, and that’s, obviously, trading. Come on, don’t be so shocked, we’re on a trading site, of course that’s what I was gonna recommend!

Now, I do need to point out that “trading” is a very broad term. Technically, you can just buy stuff for cheap online and resell them for a higher price, and that still constitutes as “trading”, and may be something that we cover in the future (even if I wouldn’t hold my breath). But then there’s trading with resources, stock exchange, and then there’s one of the most fascinating types, currency trading, or Forex. Forex, which stands for “foreign exchange”, refers to the act of purchasing certain currency when its value is low and then selling it when it’s high, making a profit like that. Of course, at first glance this sounds utterly ridiculous, because you’re essentially buying and selling money, but it does make sense. The value of currency, much like the value of stocks, fluctuates all the time based on a variety of factors. For example, when Brexit happened, the value of the British pound plummeted to the ground, so an opportunist Fedex trader would be wise to purchase a lot of pounds, wait a year or two for the situation to stabilize and then sell them for a massive profit.

Of course, you can’t just waltz into the nearest currency exchange office and demand to buy a few thousand pounds. I mean, technically you can, but it’s not really all that effective in the long run, not when the value of currency fluctuates daily. Instead, you’d be much better off using specialized websites that specifically deal with currency exchange in an easy and convenient way. Those are known as brokers, as you may have figured out from the title of the article. Speaking of the title, I do have to admit that it’s a touch click-baity, as I’m not actually going to be telling you which broker is the best one – that’s something you’ll need to figure out for yourself, because at the end of the day, all brokers have minor differences and specialize in different things. If you look at the information on the forex broker comparison of this website you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about – MMs, ECNs, leverage, margins… It’s a lot more than I could possibly explain in this brief overview, so I highly recommend that you take a moment and read through that article before we continue.

Okay, I assume you’re all caught up now! Great stuff, right? To continue my train of thought, leaving technical specifications aside, there’s lots of other details that distinguish different brokers from each other, such as the interface or what currency they support, or whether they’re even available in your country. For me, specifically, a big part of it is whether they have a mobile app or not. Because let’s face it, I’m a very, very lazy person, and I like to trade in bed, in my underwear, while watching Netflix on the big TV right in front of me. The same goes for Forex trading, hence why it’s pretty important for me, personally, to use brokers that offer a decent support for mobile devices. A good example is IG Markets, which has also a good mobile trading app, but I can perfectly understand if the lack of mobile support isn’t something that will turn you off. You see, that’s the whole point of this article – there is no best Forex broker out there, as much as certain ones would like you to believe otherwise. Each one has its good sides and its negative sides. It’s your job, as a Forex trader, to find out which ones are the best and which ones are the rest. Of course, there’s always a couple brokers that are above the rest, but which ones? Well… We might need to revisit this topic in the future!

Hey, everyone! How’s it going? Are you enjoying the world of online trading? Or perhaps you’ve been interested in it and would like to receive a helping hand before you take a nose dive directly into it? Or maybe you’ve only heard about trading from friends or ads and are curious to learn more about it? Whatever the case, I can assure you that you’ve come to the right place! My name is Luke Nolan, and I’ve been making a living trading online for a couple of years now. While it’s true that I don’t have the decades of experience that other experts are boasting (hell, maybe it’s not even right to call me an “expert”, since I don’t have any official qualifications either), I’ve been selling cheap and buying expensive as a full-time job for long enough to be able to live quite comfortably off of it. Now, don’t make any illusions – this is a job like any other, unless you get SUPER lucky (and you probably won’t) you’re going to have to put in a lot of work in order to turn in a profit, and sometimes even hard work isn’t going to be enough. But if you find out that you have a knack for it, you – with a bit of help from yours truly – just might be able to find a job that you’re not only good at, but enjoy! Because trading might sound boring, but trust me, it can actually be really exciting, especially when there’s lots of money on the line and a certain amount of risk involved. If that sounds scary, that’s because it is, but don’t worry – just because something is scary doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try it! So why don’t we go a little bit deeper into the world of online trading and see what we can learn?