If you’re itching to get in on the cryptocurrency mania and don’t have enough capital to trade in either of the two new futures markets, Clem Chambers’ book is a useful how-to manual. Trading Cryptocurrencies: A Beginner’s Guide (ADVFN Books, 2017) is brief, at only 70 pages of text, but it covers the basics of both trading and mining and explains at least part of the rationale behind these digital currencies. It also issues appropriate caveats all along the way.
If you want to mine, don’t expect big bucks using only your PC—and you can’t even play if you have a Mac. At the moment “you can make pennies [a day] mining with your PC, dollars with a gaming computer, $30 upwards with a mining rig and $50+ with the right ASIC miner. The costs are from nothing to a lot, say $10,000 for a single ASIC device.” And, of course, the cost of electricity to run these hot, noisy devices. The fancier the graphics card (think top-of-the-line NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (NASDAQ:AMD)) the more money you can bring in. But the potential for making money as a miner is ever in flux, as with practically everything cryptocurrency-related.
If, instead, you want to trade, Chambers points to the most reliable sites, warning that the cryptocurrency world is “awash with scammers.”
I personally don’t like trading what appears to be a bubble, so this book isn’t for me. But, if I’m wrong and cryptocurrencies are just in their infancy, traders who want to get on the bandwagon should do their homework. Chambers has made that task a lot easier.