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The Bitcoin 2021 Conference, held at the Mana Wynwood Convention Center, included three stages for speakers, an exhibition hall of Bitcoin vendors and art, bitcoin-enabled food trucks, and more. Conference speakers included Ron Paul (former Congressman), Jack Dorsey (Twitter and Square CEO), Michael Saylor (Chairman and CEO of Micro Strategies), Mike Novogratz (CEO of Galaxy Investment Partners), Max Keiser (Co-Host, Orange Pill Podcast & Keiser Report), Tony Hawk (Skateboarding Legend, Entrepreneur, and Philanthropist), Floyd Mayweather, Jr. (Boxing Legend and Entrepreneur), and other influencers in the bitcoin community.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Ben Galbraith (@realcryptoben)

I had the pleasure of meeting Bobby C. Lee, an entrepreneur, founder of BTCC—China’s first cryptocurrency exchange, once the largest bitcoin exchange worldwide, and founder and CEO of Ballet crypto wallets. Bobby Lee is the brother of Litecoin creator Charlie Lee.

Bitcoin 2021 Highlights

Jack Dorsey

Jack Dorsey spoke on Banking the Unbanked and his mission for Square in enabling everyone access to Bitcoin. He spoke of his recent visit to Africa and what he learned regarding the struggles local entrepreneurs have with payments, and his commitment to Bitcoin.

“We don’t need the banks anymore… we don’t need the financial institutions that we have today. We have one that is thriving, that is sound, that is owned by the community… that has this incredible and amazing consensus that always manages to do the right thing… If I were not at Square or Twitter, I’d be working on Bitcoin. If it needed more help than Square and Twitter, I would leave them for Bitcoin,” ~Jack Dorsey

Dorsey Gets Heckled

During Jack Dorsey’s talk, far-right activist Laura Loomer interrupted him yelling, “censorship is a human rights violation,” and accused him of election interference. Dorsey patiently listened and responded, “we’re working on it,” and “we can talk about it.”

Ross Ulbricht’s phone call from prison

An emotionally moving public phone call from Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, recorded from a federal penitentiary. Ulbricht was never prosecuted for causing any harm or bodily injury, and no victim was named at his trial. As a first-time offender with non-violent charges, he is imprisoned for two life sentences + 40 years without parole. A disparity in sentencing, considering that much worse offenders have gotten much lighter punishment. A total miscarriage of justice. Please visit FreeRoss.org and be sure to sign the Petition to Free Ross.

Michael Saylor and Max Keiser

I’ve recently become a follower of Michael Saylor and have been a fan of Max Keiser and the “Orange Pill” Podcast with him and Stacy Herbert. The intro of Bitcoin 2021 Fireside with Michael Saylor and Max Keiser had Keiser entering the stage yelling, “We’re not selling! We’re not selling! Fuck Elon… Fuck Elon!” Saylor talked about his recent involvement in Bitcoin and how it boosted his company, Micro Strategies, and the deeper meaning and purpose of Bitcoin.

El Salvador Declares Bitcoin Legal Tender

Jack Mallers, founder and CEO of Strike, talks about the current monetary situation and recalls his stay in El Salvador for nearly three months, learning about the struggles the locals have with financial stability and educating them about Bitcoin. And receiving a message from the President of El Salvador. Mallers reflects on his talks with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele and learns that ~70% of the population is not in the banking system. And working together, proposed a Bitcoin Bill that would not only legalize Bitcoin as legal tender but include Bitcoin into their reserves. A portion of the bill reads, “Central banks are increasingly taking actions that may cause harm to the economic stability of El Salvador; That in order to mitigate the negative impact from central banks, it becomes necessary to authorize the circulation of a digital currency with a supply that cannot be controlled by any central bank and is only altered in accord with objective and calculable criteria.” El Salvador becomes the first country to declare Bitcoin legal tender!

Win a 2021 Lambo!

Sportsbet.io gives away a 2021 Lamborghini Huracán EVO Convertible. However, the winner chose the cash equivalent of ~$250k worth of bitcoin! A wise choice IMO!

Watch all the presentations on Bitcoin Magazine’s Official YouTube channel

Conclusion

It was such an awesome experience to learn, mingle with Bitcoiners and like-minded people worldwide, and focus on the development and purpose of Bitcoin. To know we are helping pave the way to provide financial inclusion to everyone. For once in human history, everyone on the planet has a chance, without permission, to take absolute ownership of property that is immutable, fungible, and unconfiscable. I look forward to attending Bitcoin 2022 next year, and I hope to see you there!

Many crypto exchanges offer sign-up bonuses. Sign up with one or all of the exchanges listed below to learn more and start trading cryptocurrencies.

Robinhood offers stock and options trading as well as buying, selling, sending and receiving bitcoin and other crypto assets. Sign up with Robinhood and claim your free stock! You’ll get $5-$200 worth of fractional shares from America’s leading companies. You are guaranteed stock when you successfully sign up and link your bank account.

You can even trade stocks that expose you to bitcoin and other cryptos—for example, Grayscale’s Bitcoin Investment Trust (Stock ticker: GBTC) on the NYSE. With GBTC, you can own shares of bitcoin in your traditional stock or retirement portfolio. Bitcoin mining companies include, but are not limited to, Marathon Digital Holdings (NASDAQ: MARA) and Riot Blockchain, Inc. (NASDAQ: RIOT).

You can easily trade crypto with Coinbase. Log in online with your favorite web browser or with mobile apps. For more experienced traders, once you sign up with Coinbase you can access their advanced trading terminal.

Gemini makes crypto trading easy for beginners. The user interface is clean and straightforward. For the advanced trader, Gemini offers a more traditional trading terminal in ActiveTrader. Sign up for Gemini and trade at least $100 to get free crypto. The more you trade, the more you earn!

Important notes! The exchanges listed above are ‘centralized’ exchanges. That means you trust the exchanges to safeguard your assets and honor your trades and withdrawals. Kind of like depositing your cash into a bank versus storing your cash in a safe that you control. So do not deposit what you are not willing to lose! And as we crypto peeps say, “Not your keys? Not your coins!”

There do exist, however, Decentralized Exchanges or “DEX”s. You will need to use a self-custody wallet to interact with DEX’s. Learn more about wallets.

Remember, cryptocurrencies are highly volatile! So trade with caution and, again, never trade more than you’re willing to lose.

Dollar Cost Averaging

Instead of losing sleep tracking the market to trade crypto, one would commit to a steady purchase over time. For example, say you get paid every other Friday. You can then set up a bitcoin savings plan where $50.00 of bitcoin is purchased every two weeks. Bitcoin can be quite volatile at times. Dollar Cost Averaging is a way to accumulate bitcoin without the stress of crazy market movements.

Purchasing $50 of bitcoin every two weeks from January 1st, 2019 through January 1st, 2021, you would have turned $2,650 into $9,109. That’s a 243% gain! See the specs here.

Since 1950 the dollar has lost 90% of its purchasing power. As the dollar’s purchasing power continues to fall due to the endless printing of those dollars, Bitcoin’s fixed supply becomes a solid store of value for the long term.

Don’t worry about timing the market when purchasing bitcoin. You can set up recurring purchases with the frequency of your choice. Not only can you dollar cost average bitcoin but other cryptocurrencies as well.

Set up daily, weekly, or monthly purchasing options to steadily convert your dollars to Bitcoin savings. With Coinbase, it’s easy to set up a bitcoin savings plan. When you sign up with Coinbase, get $10 in BTC when you buy or sell $100 worth of BTC.

How It Works

1. Sign up with Cash App, Coinbase, or Robinhood.
2. Create a recurring purchase plan to buy a set amount of Bitcoin, or other cryptocurrency, of your choice daily, weekly, or monthly.
3. Crypto will be automatically be purchased and delivered to your wallet and stored with a secured licensed and regulated custodian.

Conclusion

It’s always a good time to buy Bitcoin. Dollar Cost Averaging your Bitcoin purchases helps minimize exposure to high market volatility. Steadily accumulate bitcoin over time. With Bitcoin’s limited supply, demand is likely to rise, further lifting its value.

Fortunately there’s an easy way to manage cryptocurrency taxes. Cryptocurrencies use blockchain or distributed ledger technology (DLT). The blockchains in most cryptos are viewable, meaning one can see transaction records. Well, there’s the ledger, and you didn’t have to enter anything! And all you need is a program to decipher the transactions and organize them- in, out, transfers, etc… Some programs use API’s (Application Programming Interface) to link to your custodial wallets, exchanges, and DeFi apps. If you have funds in a non-custodial wallet, you can provide the Address or wallet’s View Key. These programs can then track, record, and calculate all the events you need to complete certain forms needed for filing your cryptocurrency taxes.

Filing your Cryptocurrency Taxes

Since doing my own taxes for over 20 years, I need the tools to complete them easily and accurately… without breaking my brain. I use CoinTracker.io and TurboTax to help me generate the necessary documents for tax purposes.

CoinTracker helps me with calculating cost basis & capital gains, error reconciliation, margin trading, DeFi functionality, tax summary by wallet, and more.

I’ve been using TurboTax for years… TurboTax is an easy do-it-yourself online tax preparation program to help you file your taxes. What I love about TurboTax is that they have cryptocurrency integrations for CoinTracker! With all your crypto trading platforms and wallets linked to CoinTracker and TurboTax, it’s easy to file your taxes. Boom!

Using TurboTax and CoinTracker together saves me the headache of calculating crypto income, gains/losses, and filling out complicated paperwork. It saves me so much time.

Another easy way to get a wallet and buy Bitcoin right now is by using the Square Cash App. Buy, sell, send and receive bitcoin from within the app. Send funds to anyone with a Cash App account or to any Bitcoin address. Get a banking account and routing number for direct deposits or bank transfers. Get a debit card you can customize yourself! Download the Cash App and get $5 just for trying by entering my code XJBJGBH.

I also like using Uphold. With Uphold they have anything-to-anything trading. You are not limited to specific trade pairs. For example, trade Bitcoin for Gold, or Silver for Ethereum, all within the app. Get a debit card that links to your crypto wallets on Uphold. Not only can you spend your crypto, but you can spend supported commodities like Gold, Silver, and Platinum in real-time using the debit card!

Buy Bitcoin with Cash

Buy Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies with cash at a local Bitcoin ATM machine. I like using CoinATMRadar.com for locating crypto ATM machines. CoinATMRadar has has an Android and Apple app.

You know those CoinStar machines where you dump a load of coins into to redeem for cash? Well, you can buy bitcoin at many of those CoinStar machines.

You will need a wallet to purchase bitcoin at most ATMs, but some will print a voucher in which you must go online to redeem. Those CoinStar machines make it really easy to buy bitcoin with cash. Your nearest grocery store with that CoinStar machine might also be a cash-to-bitcoin machine.

Worried about when to buy bitcoin? Checkout When To Buy Bitcoin and learn about starting a Bitcoin Savings Plan.

There are basically two types of wallets you can access your bitcoins and other cryptos with. The first type is a custodial wallet and the second type is a non-custodial wallet. You see, wallets are comprised of cryptographic key pairs- a public key and private key. The public key is the wallet address you can share with others to receive payment. The private key is used to send funds out from your wallet. A custodial wallet is one in which you do not have access to the private key. And a non-custodial wallet, you alone control your crypto with the private key.

Custodial Wallets

For example, if you bought Bitcoin from Coinbase or Uphold, your crypto is held in a custodial wallet. They are essentially acting like a traditional bank holding and moving your funds on your behalf. It’s important to note that you may be able to access funds in the account with a custodial wallet if you forget your login credentials, like if you lost the password for your banking app. Most custodial wallets require your identity details, otherwise known as “KYC” (Know Your Customer), and can assist you in the recovery of the account in question by verifying your identity.

Non-custodial Wallets

A non-custodial wallet is a wallet in which you alone control with access to the private key. A non-custodial wallet, for example, is kind of like a safe you stash your money in, and you alone have the key to access it. Similarly, if you lose your private key, you lose access to your funds… forever. Being your own bank requires due diligence!

There are different types of non-custodial wallets for Bitcoin; full node wallets and wallets that use remote nodes. Full node wallets contain the entire distributed ledger or blockchain. A full node contains all the transactions that have ever occurred since the beginning of the blockchain to the present. That’s a lot of data! So if you don’t keep your full node wallet online constantly, you will need to sync to the current block to access and spend your funds. This can take quite some time. Wallets that use remote server nodes, like Electrum and Coinomi, load quickly and do not occupy much space on your device. Here are some non-custodial wallets:

Electrum (pc and phone app)
Coinomi (pc and phone app) [DApps]
Bitcoin Core (available only on pc) <- Full node wallet
Coinbase Wallet – non-custodial wallet offered by Coinbase (phone app) [DApps]
Ballet Wallet – cold storage wallet- great for beginners

For beginners, custodial wallets like Cash App or Coinbase provide you with a wallet app to quickly and easily access your funds.

If you like the idea of being your own bank with full control of your crypto use a non-custodial wallet like Coinomi or Coinbase Wallet. Please read the instructions very carefully on backing up your account/wallet. Remember if you lose your private key and/or password you forever lose your funds. Always backup! And NEVER, I repeat NEVER share your private key or backup seed phrase with anyone. Anyone with access to your private key or backup seed will have access to your funds! If anyone ever asks for your private key or seed phrase, it’s a scam!

For beginners wanting to hold bitcoin for the long term, I suggest using a cold-storage wallet like Ballet. Check out these beautiful hardware cold-storage wallets here: BalletCrypto.com and use discount code CRYPTOBEN for a 5% off discount. Keep these as you would cash and store them somewhere safe. Anyone who has access to the card itself has access to your funds!