Kansas City Bitcoin Group Hosts Meeting On How To Gain Wealth Through Digital Currencies

By Michael Hooper

KANSAS CITY, Mo -- A Kansas City Bitcoin group recently hosted a meeting where participants learned about opportunities to gain wealth through digital currencies.  

A record turnout of 70 people showed up for the Kansas City Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency Meet Up Nov. 3, 2017, at Office Port K.

Tim Lawrence, organizer, led the discussion on Smart Contracts, ICOs and Segwit 2X.

"Some day we're going to look back at this time and say, 'we were there at the beginning,'" Lawrence said.

The group included a variety of people, businessmen, real estate specialists, code developers, lawyers, programmers, gamers and bloggers. Many were young, under 30, but most were middle aged people, they all shared a curiosity and interest in Bitcoin and Crypto Currencies.

I met one investor who had gotten into the Initial Coin Offering for Ethereum, July 2014, when you could buy 2000 ETH for one Bitcoin, which at the time was around $500. In other words, this investor was able to buy one ETH for $0.25. Today one ETH sells for $300. So you know this investor I met had done quite well.

I also met another man who has been mining Bitcoin for over a year. He said he has a couple of miners that cost more in electricity than the BTC revenue, but he is banking on Bitcoin going to $10,000, even $20,000 some day.

The smart contract discussion was excellent. A smart contract is a digital contract on the Ether blockchain, where services such as the transfer of a given amount in a cryptocurrency are made dependent on the occurrence of previously programmed conditions.

Tim Lawrence showed us a great web site called Ether Party where users can build smart contracts without having to be a coder of Solidity, the language for Smart Contracts.

An entrepreneur in real estate said she is considering using smart contracts in her rental business. All that she has in her normal rental agreement can be put into a smart contract, including her wallet address, where a renter could send Bitcoin to pay for rent.

Another site for helping build smart contracts is Ether Scripter. The advantage with a smart contract is that a person could build in consequences for damaging property. Smart contracts make it easy to lock in these types of conditions.

During the discussion of the ICOs, a member of the group showed a portfolio of crypto currencies that he had purchased, often in the pre-ICO process. What he found was that the price of the coin typically jumped when it first began trading but would decline after many of the early investors had sold out. So in many cases, it was better to wait until several days of trading had occurred before buying the new coin.

A participant told investors to do their due diligence before investing in an ICO. Some of these ICOs are just an idea under development. Make sure you understand what you are getting into. Some ICOs are shaped like multi level marketing or Ponzi schemes, so be careful.

I shared my experience trading PotCoin. I bought the coin last spring, then a week later, the coin jumped in value 83%. The reason was PotCoin's announcement that it was sending Dennis Rodman to North Korea to promote sports and peace. Because I thought Dennis Rodman would be unable to bring peace between North and South Korea, I quickly sold PotCoin for an 80% return. The price fell after I sold.

Then someone in the back of the room, a man who looked straight out ZZ Top, said he had traded in HempCoin, PotCoin and several other currencies multiple times for a profit. Wow, that gets my interest for coming to the next meetup event. Friday, Dec. 1, when there will be discussions on Mining and Trading.

A miner asked me what was driving the price of Bitcoin. Hysteria, I said. He said he thought talk show host Glenn Beck was helping to drive the price of Bitcoin by promoting Bitcoin on his talk show. "Digital currency is coming because it is the way we live," Beck said on this show. "It makes sense."

When discussing Segwit 2x that occurs on Nov. 15, Tim said Bitcoin owners will have a duplicate currency on Segwit 2x blockchain along with their original Bitcoin. This will be similar to what happened when Bitcoin Cash was started in August. Those who owned Bitcoin before that event got a duplicate amount of coin in Bitcoin Cash.

Some traders sold their Bitcoin Cash immediately after it was given to them. I sold most of my Bitcoin cash for around $300, but perhaps I should have held on, Bitcoin Cash is currently trading for about $600.

The meeting lasted about two hours and was filled with lots of valuable information.

One presenter made a profound observation about Bitcoin. This is one investment where you can get in before Wall Street jumps in. That is true. I mentioned Bill Miller, a legend on Wall Street, who put 30% of his fund into Bitcoin in 2016, a move that helped him earn a 70% return this year. Miller is highly respected on Wall Street. I expect big institutional investors to follow in his path.

During a small group discussion, I mentioned to one investor that CoinBase was adding 35,000 accounts daily, and one day this week added 100,000 accounts. With limited supply and growing demand, the price of Bitcoin is likely to rise.

"I'm going to buy more Bitcoin right now," said the young investor.

Disclosure: The author owns and mines Bitcoin and also owns Ethereum and Ripple. This article is not a recommendation to buy anything. Do your own research.