The Grandfather of all Crypto

So far in this series of articles, I have covered getting paid in crypto while you browse the web using Brave browser and getting started with Alien Worlds; a free-to-play digital card-game which occasionally pays out random NFT prizes. I've also covered the process of trading in your mined TLM virtual ore for other crypto or actual cash.

I thought it might be a good idea to provide a quick follow-up on yesterdays exploration of the Cryptotab browser. As I mentioned, the marketing blurb states  'You need to earn at least 0.00001 BTC which is our minimum amount for withdrawing. It won't take long and you can probably reach this amount right on the first day!'. 

So they didn't qualify whether or not that was based on using their 'Cloud-boost' system or not. I'm still testing my baseline so opted not to use it. Result after 48 hours?

As you can see, about two thirds of the way there. At this point I am certain that I have been running the miner for 48 hours. The hashing value tends to hover around the 4k H/s mark which is in-line with other mining programs I've tried and decided to stop using. I have to say at least Cryptotab appears to be well behaved. It doesn't tie-up every last resource on my PC until it grinds to a halt. It's also nowhere near as fiddly to set-up. I will continue to run it for the next 24 hours to hit the first pay-out level and after that I intend to use it as one of my regular browsers rather than an always-on crypto-miner. I often use different browsers for different purposes anyway (right now I'm blogging in Chrome, playing Alien Worlds in Brave and just letting Cryptotab do its thing).

I am still a little put-off by C/T's insistence of linking to a social media account. If you're a little paranoid about this (just like me) then you could always sign-up to a service you haven't used before. While C/T might be totally legit, it's the multi-level-marketing aspect which makes me feel uncomfortable with sharing my main accounts and social media logins with them. On the other hand, it turns out that the Google account I have used had some numbers in the contacts which I saved with names like 'Scammers'. So if my data is sold on, we can all take solace in the fact that somewhere in the world there could be a group of scammers trying to tele-scam another group of scammers. Mental note; in future I will give them more normal names or nicknames that I make up. I don't know anyone named Phillip so that will be a good one to use. Maybe Roger and Viktor will follow. I might even add my own number and label it 'Wes Tinnyotime'. Should anyone be foolish enough to call and say 'Hi is this Wes Tinnyotime' I can quickly reply 'it sure is' and hang up.Ba-dum schwwwwsh!

Anyway I've gone way off-track again. So it's goodbye from me and goodbye from April. This time next week I will review what crypto was worth chasing this month and whether or not it paid out or was worth the effort.

The father of all Crypto

So far in this series of articles, I have covered getting paid in crypto while you browse the web using Brave browser and getting started with Alien Worlds; a free-to-play digital card-game which occasionally pays out random NFT prizes. I've also covered the process of trading in your mined TLM virtual ore for other crypto or actual cash.

A couple of weeks ago I looked into whether or not it was possible to earn free bitcoin. I was left with a conclusion of well it's technically possible but... not really worth the effort. This was based on the fact that so much is now mined in China that it's not worth the energy costs trying to compete. I even read somewhere that many of the alt-coin miners actually mine bitcoin for the developers and then trade a fraction of this to buy the alt-coin to pass on to the person mining.

It's not that bitcoin mining is difficult or there are a lack of people and companies out there desperate to help you to mine some for yourself. It's just that the returns don't warrant running your PC into the ground for a few pennies per day. The only time it makes sense is if you get free electricity (be that solar or through some energy-inclusive rental agreement). The next level down from this is if you can earn some from a background application while using your PC normally and without detriment to whatever you're working on.

This is where today's suggestion comes in. Notice I'm calling it a suggestion at this point, rather than a 'nugget' because I've known about it for a while but ignored it because of my previous experiences with bitcoin. I may have mentioned that I set something up in 2009/2010 and had a few tiny fractions of bitcoin and over the years have lost all trace of my original wallet. I remembered moving the mouse around to generate the random seed for the wallet but not much else. Interestingly, wallets have come a long way since then and I wish paper wallets had been a thing when I got started. I would still probably have lost the paper version but it would have been more likely to survive the numerous hard-drive and flash-memory drive upgrades I've gone through over the last decade. There's a lesson here for everyone

So my suggestion for today is to try CryptoTab (affiliate link / Non-affiliate link) - another replacement browser (similar to Brave; it looks like another Chromium variant). This browser claims to mine bitcoin in the background, but there's a bit of a twist. It asks you to sign in with a Google, Facebook or Twitter account - so your bitcoin doesn't get lost. I'm not convinced that any crypto (which we know means hidden) should be linked to social media accounts.

There's also a hint of multi-level marketing involved and this feels very wrong which is why I've also included the non-affiliate link above. It seems wrong to be earning 15% of someone else's mining proceeds which are likely to be minimal to start with. Also, since I can not remember who first told me about CryptoTab does that mean I get 15% more coins as a result of not having some higher level affiliate who benefits from my download?

There are also lots of on-screen tool-tips and the like encouraging me to try 'cloud boost' which I assume involves paying for some sort of cloud service to mine crypto for me; maybe this is the developers true product. Then you have to ask 'Well if it's such a good money-earning system, why would you sell it rather than use it yourself?' Still, I never did manage to get my few dollars worth of Enj coin that I wanted to test some crypto games for junior  so I figured it might still be worth running a bitcoin miner for a couple of days to convert some of my electricity to bitcoin (and then to Enj). There's logic here somewhere as at least it avoids using debit/credit cards.

According to the Cryptotab blurb, 'You need to earn at least 0.00001 BTC which is our minimum amount for withdrawing. It won't take long and you can probably reach this amount right on the first day!'. Ok so I think we're ready to test this claim. I have had the Cryptotab browser running for about 24 hours now. Initially for 2 hours after download and then I started it up mid-morning yesterday and left it running overnight. Let's have a look at my earnings...

Ok so we're not yet at that magic 0.00001 BTC level; looks like just over a third of the way there. To be fair, $0.20 per day is roughly about what I expected and is comparable to what other mining programs have offered on my PC. At around $0.27 per kw/h for the juice, the truth is it's just uneconomical these days. This is partly due to all the 'asic' miners which are built for hashing and way more efficient at it than a standard PC, especially one that's a few years old now (for full disclosure it's an i7 3770k at 3.5Ghz with 16GB ram and an RX550 radeon card).. 

It's a shame the reality has not matched up to the advertising blurb as there's a summer promotion underway from Cryptotab so if you're not already aware of it, you are likely to be seeing a lot of adverts for it over the next month or two as their advice for users is to funnel others to their referral links to increase earnings potential. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if they decide to up the first 24 hour earnings rate to ensure that new users get that first pay-out.

Next week will be a good time for a review of my past months progress and a round-up of all the crypto schemes I've looked at. I realise that recently my blog has strayed from it's tech fixes and commentary into what is already an overly saturated market of crypto news and views. Still there may be value to others somewhere in the information I put out there. It's not my usual domain so you can be sure I'm not being paid to promote any of these things, so the data I present is likely to reflect other peoples results except where there are reasons why this might not be the case (such as the external factors around the time I started playing Alien Worlds).

Anyway that's it for today. Just a reminder that the usual disclaimers apply as ever.

Usual disclaimers

================

I'm not a doctor, legal professional or financial advisor. This article reflects my own opinions and should not be taken as financial, legal or medical advice. Do your own research and never invest anything you cannot afford to lose (including your time).

Alpha, Beta, Gamma... Theta?

This is a recap regarding an article I created two weeks ago (which I then completely forgot that I wrote) so let me (re)introduce you to Theta. Not just part of the Greek alphabet, Theta is actually an interesting project which combines crypto with peer-to-peer video content distribution. It's quite beginner unfriendly so here's my brief take on how it works.

To start with, anyone can tune in to watch. Just head over to theta.tv but let me explain a little first. Anyone can visit this site and become a paid viewer. You are asked to sign-up to get a login to start accumulating theta's operating currency (known as tfuel). The first thing to know here is that tfuel earned this way can only be spent in the theta store or on subscriptions to your favourite theta streamers. At the current time, the main streamers are Nasa, The World Poker Tour and a handful of gamers. There's also usually a couple of shows per week from CryptoStache.Viewers (that's us) are encouraged to chat with stream hosts and we earn 'coins' as well as tfuel for watching. These 'coins' are used to buy tickets in 'predictions', which are small quizzes set-up by the streamers to encourage participation. Some of these streamers are obviously great people and will post predictions such as a 'free yes' (where you just click yes) or a 'free no' (just click no). These are sort of free but not. They cost 100 'coins' to enter but just watching any stream for a few minutes will net you more than 100 coins. In return for taking part in predictions, you can claim a daily reward, which could be more coins, an emote to use in chat, an increase in the cap of coins you can earn by watching or maybe something else.  

The second part of Theta is called the 'edge node' which is an application you have to actually download. You will also need to set-up a wallet to use this. Setting up a node is not compulsory so if you just want to watch theta streamers and spend your earnings at their web-store that's fine. The edge node however lets you become a part of the theta network and in the process you will earn tfuel which can be traded outside the web-store. By running the node, you are helping power the network. The node allows you to turn on 'edge-caching' which uses your upload bandwidth to relay streams to other users, reducing the load on theta's own servers and in return they pay you an amount of tfuel. You can also activate 'edge compute' which gives some of your cpu resources to the network to help encode video content and also at the moment allows your spare processor power to be used for the folding@home protein folding application (currently working on Covid solutions). 

Since both of these are optional, you can turn them on or off as required. I've found the node software to be responsive enough to use these features even while working so I tend to turn off the edge cache when others are in the house but leave the compute option going. It can be an issue if you are trying to run 3D games so I've now relegated my node to an old laptop. This is currently doing a great job and appears to create less heat than when I try to run Alien Worlds on it. It's also freed up my main PC which is good  because there are more profitable uses for this right now, but I want to support theta as I like the concept. A lot of streamers complain about Google strikes against their account for reasons they were not aware of. For those who have chosen to stream, build up a following and work for an algorithm that requires regular content to get promoted, this can be a kick-in-the-teeth as Google frequently removes the ability for that content to generate revenue for the creator. Theta is a more decentralised approach. It's actually possible for streamers to cut-out the middleman and stream directly to other viewers.

I love this concept which is why I'm still running the node. I tent to shutdown all my equipment at night so my tfuel earnings are currently around 1 tfuel per week. At a current value of $0.30 (according to coinmarketcap.com), I'm actually running this at a loss due to the electricity costs but I can't help loving an underdog. I blame YouTube; for all the adverts they now add to their content. Their model is sooooo outdated. Brave browser has shown that our attention has value yet YouTube doesn't reward the end-viewer at all. Instead, it harvests their data and uses it to target adverts. 

I would be interested to hear what streamers think about Theta. Typically, when a streamer changes platform it can be difficult for them to convince their audience to follow. Theta.tv does not have the most user-friendly interface at the moment and I'm sure I've only scratched the surface. Despite this, I am using it regularly. The daily rewards keep me going back to it just to find out what the next reward is. It's important to point out that tfuel is not Theta coin which is a shame (Theta is currently valued at $10.88 while tfuel is worth $0.29 at the time of writing). There seem to be more wallets and exchanges which support Theta coin than the token (tfuel) which those using the platform are expected to use. This may be because theta.tv is just one project and there might be others in the pipeline but it does come across as a bit of an 'Upstairs/downstairs' scenario (that's a reference to social classes for those unfamiliar with the old TV show).

As a crypto-newbie, it's good to see Theta has something going for it. There are so many cryptocurrencies now that it's hard to tell which are worthwhile. Having a major project or use helps to reinforce that there's a good reason for the crypto to exist and a reason to own it. So here's my current list of one-liner descriptions and why they might have long-term value:

Bitcoin: The original funny money now being bought-up by big finance?

Etherium: Has many legit uses (Beeple, NFT's, game tokens like ENJ)

EOS: Underpins WAXP which has a great eco-system and cheap NFT minting

Theta: Potential future YouTube disruptor

The after 2-weeks update

=======================

So, two weeks on and how is this going? Well I'm now up to 3.05 tfuel (just under $0.88 at current prices). Obviously this is not going to be a big earner and I still think it's a shame that you don't get paid out in actual Theta coin. I haven't seen any reference to a minimum earning amount so it will be interesting to see if I get my 3+ tfuel next week. To give some idea of value, this tfuel mug is currently listed at $11 or 39 tfuel. So that's 39 weeks for a mug. Also a lot of the big ticket items do seem to be out of stock like this Playstation4 which is a mere 1,731 tfuel which would take 33 years at my current earnings rate (and it states it can only be redeemed in the USA). For 104 tfuel, you can take a gamble on a tfuel crate, if they come back in stock. There'a a chance to win 500 tfuel (about ten years earnings). 

I'm sure I just need to find the right video on how to boost my earnings. I'll let you know if I find it somewhere on Theta.tv.

That's it for now

Usual disclaimers

================

I'm not a doctor, legal professional or financial advisor. This article reflects my own opinions and should not be taken as financial, legal or medical advice. Do your own research and never invest anything you cannot afford to lose (including your time).

Alien Worlds - Earthling Invasion Aftermath

So far in this series of articles, I have covered getting paid in crypto while you browse the web using Brave browser and getting started with Alien Worlds; a free-to-play digital card-game which occasionally pays out random NFT prizes. I've also covered the process of trading in your mined TLM virtual ore for WAX tokens (and potentially other crypto or actual cash).

The Aftermath

================

If you've been following along, it looks like my initial discovery of Alien Worlds and the WAX blockchain came at a particularly lucky time. A week or two into the game, factors in the world outside of the player interface resulted in my apparent creation of around $200 from nothing, other than my time, electricity and internet access charges. I was stunned to be honest, although the main thing missing from this system (like others) is a button to 'withdraw'. Sure there's always a button you can click where you can easily buy more (be it tokens, shares, coins or any other asset) but the lack of an equally prominent and effortless way to return value to the end user is what typically turns me away from ever transferring money into these systems. I am working on my crypto-knowledge but so far this piece of the puzzle evades me.

I can see why this difficulty exists as who wants to end up behind bars for money laundering when that obviously is not the reason they built their games and systems. My response was to re-invest my gains into art NFT's to support the independent artists being drawn into the WAX eco-system. I am now however somewhat perplexed by what seems to be some sort of hidden penalty on my account. Since my other half has also been playing, we have both acquired the same set of tools for trillium mining (and despite the game not telling you this, my increased CPU usage while playing this minimal animation game suggests it really is crypto mining in the background). 

We have both been using a standard shovel, standard capacitor and standard drill on the exact same plot of land, but while my other half has been receiving around 0.1-0.2 TLM per mine, my own rewards have dropped to 0.0001 to 0.0002 TLM or I get a 'nothing to mine' message. I've also noticed its been a very long time since I had an NFT drop. Is there something hidden going on behind the scenes and a lack of transparency for the players I wonder? There is no visible sign of my account being blacklisted for any reason, nor have I received any email to suggest I have somehow broken any terms of service. I can only presume that either there is some sort of bug affecting my account or some sort of hidden account age limit after which players are expected to become payers to further benefit from their interaction with the game.

Sadly this is where my timing is not so lucky as those mining tools are still very expensive on the marketplace. I am also reluctant to invest while mining yields seem so much lower. I would guess this is because people un-staked the TLM they had in planetary pots to sell off during the gold rush. 

My other half was not far behind me in signing up so it will be interesting to see how her mining yields are affected in the next couple of weeks. In fact at one point I had most of the family playing along which I suspect is what caused the reCaptcha issues. Since there appears to be no rule against having multiple accounts, I might set up a new one  to see if it eventually suffers the same fate. This YouTube video by Cryptostache suggests setting up another account to get a custom username is acceptable and I cannot find anything in the T's & C's to suggest having multiple accounts is disallowed. 

I'm also curious if a new account might benefit from better NFT drops. As I mentioned earlier, I had not got any for a few days and so far the best any of the family have had is the common level (the rareness of NFT's can be 1 of 6 levels: Abundant, Common, Rare, Epic, Legendary or Mythical). Good luck with your own planetary exploration if you are currently playing or have been inspired to have a go.

Usual Disclaimers

=================

This article is purely for entertainment. My opinions are my own and do not constitute any sort of financial, medical or legal advice. I post about things that affect me while I'm learning. As mentioned in this article there can be external factors which means your experience could be very different to mine.

Alien Worlds - The Invasion

So far in this series of articles, I have covered getting paid in crypto while you browse the web using Brave browser and getting started with Alien Worlds; a free-to-play digital card-game which occasionally pays out random NFT prizes. I've also covered the process of trading in your mined TLM virtual ore for other crypto or actual cash.

The Invasion

=============

Wow; what happened? I can only describe it as the Earthling invasion! As a result of the intercrypto link between the Alien Worlds game and Binance, there was a bit of a gold rush (or should that be dollar or wax rush?). People were even posting videos on YouTube about how they were making $200 per day playing Alien Worlds. The result was a lot of down-time as the system appeared to struggle to cope with the increased number of players and a few changes such as the addition of Google's reCaptcha which has now pretty much killed the game for me.

The Binance investors will have their free trillium and NFT drops for 30 days but they may not get the big pot of alien gold they thought. The gold rush saw the price of tools used for mining 'go to the moon' to use the current most fashionable expression in crypto. So, those receiving any of these NFT's may not understand that prices have become inflated and are likely to start a massive downward trend. Why is this? Well with all the new miners, the planetary pots of mineable resource (TLM) have been well and truly plundered. It's unlikley that anyone who had huge quantities of TLM staked to the 6 planets resisted the urge to unstake and sell it. The result is those resource pots  are now looking very depleted. Roughly about half as full as pre-gold rush levels. They may still replenish on a daily basis but I'm convinced they are not refilling to the same  levels as before, or maybe they are just becoming depleted so much quicker.

And the new planet? Well planet Binance has not yet appeared. It will apparently be a gas planet (with no land ownership). It will be interesting to see if the market-place starts to fill up with mid-quality NFT's once it appears. If so the value of those currently 'hodling' is likely to be affected. I'm sure that whenever it appears, it will coincide with something that gives benefits to investors which will be denied to those who maybe just spent possibly hundreds of dollars on over-priced tool NFT's. From my perspective, it was fun and the gold rush was exciting but now it's not really worth my time investment any more. As I started to earn wax, I reinvested this into NFT's from new artists via the  marketplace and there were occasional free drops which mean I'm now a digital art collector. It is however becoming too annoying to have to keep clicking on buses, traffic lights and crosswalks especially when some of those images are so grainy and unclear. I would like to set-up a gallery of the NFT's I've obtained as I think that would be cool but I don't think I'll be investing much into WAX while I'm battling with reCaptcha so much. 

My top tip for anyone creating NFT drops on wax right now not to rush. There are literally hundreds of new drops every day. Also, avoid creating packs full of 'parts' which combine to create the full item (very annoying with the reCaptchas). Ask yourself 'what value does this give to the potential buyer?'. If you're only selling to make money, the chances are buyers are only buying to flip. At the same time consider how your art should be perceived. Is it a Monet or a Van Gogh, a one-off where some day people will possibly pay millions; or is it a girl in a white tennis dress where everyone could own a copy without breaking the bank. I'm sure digital NFT frames and personal galleries are coming - iFrames for all? probably combined with an app so you can show and trade from your mobile all day. 

I personally would like to keep my NFT's for ever as I curated the collection myself. I do however realise this is unfair to the artists if they released them for less than they are worth to other buyers. It's something I will need to consider further. At least with NFT's, the artists will get a cut of any future sales if I ever do sell any of them. I think it will become a normal part of life. When we get double-sided phones and the back displays our personality and we'll be able to switch in & out new NFT's just like changing our ring-tones. We will all become art-dealers and NFT's will replace post-cards. That is the future I suspect.

As for Alien Worlds? I might have another look in the Autumn to see if I can buy back the slightly-above basic tools I sold off to fund my NFT collecting (I hope to pay a lot less than I sold them for). Good luck if you're trying to persist with the gold rush.

Usual Disclaimers

=================

Don't use this articla as a replacement for qualified advisors. My opinions are my own and do not constitute any sort of financial, medical or legal advice.

Why reCaptcha might bring down the mighty Google

Let me point out one thing straight away. I like Google. I'm not just saying that because DeepMind may be scanning everything I put out into the world (and I mean the world, not just the Google ecosphere). I like Google because I generally get something worthwhile from using it. Be  that this free blogging space, free email, storage, basic office apps, sat-nav with traffic alerts; generally Google does good things for the average person even if the price is no doubt some US group with a three-letter acronym being able to discover anything they like about me.

Compared to Facebook which tries to track my every move over the web by installing tracking cookies on every site possible without giving me anything useful in return, Google is an every day essential. Recently however I have been critical of YouTube - a service which gives nothing back to the everyday viewer and encourages content makers to buy into their everyone-is-a-potential-buyer mentality. I recently wrote an article about how Theta.tv is attempting to bypass the central-controlling service model and encouraging viewers by paying them (radical, I know!).

Since then, I have become increasingly aware of how frequently I am now being hit by Google's reCaptcha system. You see a while back the big G told us all that our data could be spied on over the networks we used and so they insisted that everyone should sign-in first so their data could be encrypted using the https protocol. Yes it's true that data was generally unencrypted although anything transactional would have end-to-end encryption (remember the little gold SSL padlock on the URL bar?). So in fact, all this reasonably unimportant stuff like news articles or forum posts could be viewed by anyone scanning what was going on across their network. Did I really care if a network techie could see I was reading an article in the local online rag? To be fair, anyone with those skills is generally too busy to care more about the 99% of detritus floating along networks.

The big G's quest to have us all identified down to the tiniest data point is however a reason they should be worried. As a NASA spokeswoman mentioned on their theta-stream yesterday, 'crypto' means hidden. Crypto is all about the right for privacy to do whatever you like so long as nobody gets hurt in the process. So what happens when a service like reCaptcha actually causes financial harm. Let me give an example of how this happens.

An artist decides to jump on the NFT bandwagon and release their latest project not knowing whether or not anyone will buy their work. Informed speculators see what is being released and wait patiently for the sale to begin. At the absolute second of the art going on-sale, they click buy. The reason is to get the lowest possible mint number; the equivalent of the first newspaper off the press or the first manuscript of a book. Up pops a reCaptcha box, delaying the completion of the deal and now instead of the first mint, our buyer has number 137 or 214 or any other number which isn't 1. So this is how we have proof that Google's supposed 'frictionless' system leads to... well friction, resentment and probably a good amount of justified anger too.

It seems to be only the genuine people who are disadvantaged by this system. Google's own video service (YouTube) contains a plethora of videos about how to circumvent the system using an api-key (used by developers to build this system into their projects). There's also plenty of articles online talking about how this shoddy, grainy-image monstrosity has affected their business projects and lost them customers. So why is it still used?

Maybe because it's free to website owners? So maybe people who would use a free bot to fight off unwanted bots rather than paying a moderator to check their comments/reviews are exactly the sort of people who deserve to be losing customers. In an era when jobs are increasingly under attack from these digital misfits, it reminds me of how a previous employer showed they cared about their employees by giving everyone a contact number to an outsourced care and advice service. I think you can guess what everyone thought about that.

The Fixes

========

So what can you do if reCaptcha decides to block you from validating these spot-bot-checks? Well there's the commando approach of finding an extension or service to do away with them completely or if this seems a bit radical, you can just turn everything off and go do something else for a while. You should also check your browser is up-to-date and you could also try these temporary fixes. 

To be quite honest, I'm sure the big G could actually be a lot more helpful when it comes to fixing this issue. They could at least attempt to identify which device on your network appears to be generating this supposedly high number of searches. Occam's razor would suggest that all things being normal, the device I'm currently using is the one at fault. Of course this might not be the case if another networked device was hacked, but when my PC is being punished and my network stats clearly show an absence of heavy network usage, never mind search requests... well all I'm saying is something just doesn't add up. Draw your own conclusions.

No more YouTube strikes plus FREE crypto - the future of TV?

Some of us are of an age where we remember a life before iPhones and iPods. A world where file-sharing systems were popular. Napster was the best known of these and eventually had to fall in line with the commercial world because of numerous lawsuits. The technology behind it never really went away though. Even now, file-sharing is built into Microsoft's Windows operating system and is turned on by default, enabling you to get windows updates quicker (and reducing their costs in the process; and since every PC I buy comes pre-loaded with windows I make sure to turn this off on principal).

There are a lot of these double standards when you start to take notice. Gaming websites with terms and conditions which prohibit you from using bots for financial gain, even though they are backed by financial systems which use trading bots; for financial gain. So it's nice when something comes along and attempts to restore balance by giving power back to the guy on the street.

Now let me introduce you to Theta. If you're not already familiar with the service, it's like YouTube and Brave browser combined into one. Essentially, anyone can go to theta.tv, create an account and then get paid in their TFuel currency to watch videos. While the amount of Tfuel you get for this is quite low, you can perform this activity using Brave browser, so now your attention is being double rewarded. This is purely the consumption side of Theta; and there is more. Remember that file-sharing service? Theta also uses your upload bandwidth to share the video content you watch with other viewers and this is where it gets interesting. Also, once you register an account, you become eligible for the daily rewards which include things like free NFT's. You can access these from your avatar on the right hand side of the site. Right below the 'create a channel' option. You can also make predictions on the outcome of streamed games etc. to earn more rewards.

Not only does Theta have some interesting and powerful backers (due to the fact it's success will save their companies millions), but it also serves a purpose for the small guy. It's possible to create video content and then share it in a peer-to-peer way, bypassing the need for a big centralised service with dodgy algorithms and the word Tube in its name. The big risk for Theta is that users will use this facility to distribute copyrighted content, eventually resulting in a Napster-like service shut-down. On the other hand, any YouTuber who has received an account strike for not knowing their rules inside out might do well to start putting their initial edits out on Theta. They will have more freedom, help build the platform and be a part of a system which rewards viewers for watching.

This idea may well be inline with the 'Great Reset' - that idea proposed in Davos by the WEF. As we move towards a civilisation where most things are made by robots, there has to be a way for people to earn enough to cover the necessities; otherwise people are going to insist on taxing the output of those robots, or maybe they will create an anti-robot anonymous-type group which goes around smashing all the autonomous devices which have replaced humans (ATM's, traffic cameras, CCTV, Amazon's walk-in and take stores, self-driving cars etc.). Conspiracy theorists might suggest that population reduction is now part of the plan to fix climate-change and reduce the population to the level required to still function however this would require trust between the leaders of nations who frequently oppose each other. Would any nation really destroy it's own potential defending army? Anyway I'm going off topic and I prefer to delegate my opinion on how many people our planet can support to those who have researched the topic

Coming back to Theta, the idea of a non-mainstream video service was a key element of the 'Running Man' film; a way to get the truth out there by showing unedited footage. We have seen that Theta can reward viewers for watching (so viewers are likely to turn up en-mass at some point), and we can see that content makers are incentivised by more freedom, but what about the lost revenue from all those annoying adverts? I suspect this will be where those which are favoured by the algorithm will start talking more and more about any shortcomings they find with Theta (obviously more to do with financial losses). It's not all doom and gloom though. First off, content producers are more likely to have modern, powerful computers used to edit and encode their content. With less editing required, they could use this equipment to run Theta Nodes. Essentually, that surplus editing time can be used to spread the love (in the form of other peoples videos). Doing this will also earn the nodes operator an amount of TFuel.

Having run the edge node software for about a week now, you can see that it's not a highly prosperous activity netting 0.8 TFuel for seven days operating 9am-9pm but remember this service is not yet anywhere near as well known as YouTube. It's possible viewers will hand over the TFuel they earn to content producers if they themselves have no interest in the crypto token. It's also very important to point out that TFuel and Theta tokens are completely different things. Theta tokens link to the governance of the system while TFuel is the everyday token most people will earn or gift (and presumably buy,  sell and barter). You do have to wonder why governance could not be embedded in TFuel as those acquiring it are likely to be those with a following on the old Tube. I personally wonder why a second token was even needed at all. After all, anyone who mistakes the two can check how much Theta their node has earned and then get a nasty shock when it twigs that they have not earned 0.2 Theta (currently at $12.29), but 0.2 TFuel (currently at $0.3344).

Still, Theta is another system you can throw on an older computer and use to turn it into a crypto-heater while simultaneously showing support for a worthwhile video sharing service. With the node software, you can choose (YES, you get to CHOOSE) whether or not to take part in the Edge-cache (sharing your upload bandwidth) or the compute module (using your idle CPU time to encode other peoples videos or take part in the protein-folding system which is currently working on Covid medicines). If your PC suffers, you could also choose to disable both of these and just use the stream viewer - although for that you just go to theta.tv; no node required).

A Word of Caution

==================

Ok so this all sounds like a wonderful system; what's the catch? Well it's new and appears to be a closed system for now. It appears to be easy to invest into but difficult to cash out. According to the official faq, you can use TFuel to '...donate, spend in the shop or subscribe to your favourite channels'. The fact it's listed on CoinMarketCap suggests people are trading TFuel through exchanges outside the 'official' system.

Theta are launching their new main-net in 77 days time so expect to hear more about them over the next couple of months.

Usual disclaimers

================

I'm not a doctor, legal professional or financial advisor. This article reflects my own opinions and should not be taken as financial, legal or medical advice. Do your own research and never invest anything you cannot afford to lose (including your time).

Alien Worlds; More Strategy

So far in this series of articles, I have covered getting paid in crypto while you browse the web using Brave browser and getting started with Alien Worlds; a free-to-play digital card-game which occasionally pays out random NFT prizes. I've also covered the process of trading in your mined TLM virtual ore for other crypto or actual cash.

If you've been following along, you should now be familiar with WAX and you might have noticed a load of other NFT's on the AtomicHub market-place. Today's tip comes from the CryptoMonkeys collectible cards. Apparently if you stake your trillium (TLM) to planet Neri, you could win free CryptoMonkey NFT's to add to your collection.

I need to check if this is still ongoing, but the monkeys have also published a guide of which of their plots you should mine. You need to mine a minimum of 19 TLM on one of their plots to qualify. This link shows the lands they own and some mining strategies for each plot.

Is it worth trying?

=============

Well you have to balance the possibility of a free NFT from them with their high TLM mining commission (19%? ouch... there are lands as low as 0.5% - like Naron 12:14 at the time of writing). Then again if there's a good market for their NFT's, you could possibly end up with more WAX this way than from a whole week of mining with newbie-tools. Remember it can take several days to unstake your TLM so maybe check on Alcor first and decide if your trillium is going up in value (when you might want to sell) or down in value (when you could stake some for a rainy day). Of course another option might be to wait it out for a good transfer rate between TLM and WAX and then convert to WAX tokens which you could then stake to the WAX network, possibly earning interest. 

At the moment, the Alcor exchange is down for TLM/WAX conversions but it should be back on Tuesday. The reason it's down is for a new feature called 'Teleport'. It sounds as though TLM miners might very soon have the ability to trade their TLM for other currencies via the Binance exchange. Another item on my list of things to look into then.

Haven't played it yet?

=================

You might want to check out this article on Publish0x.com from a player who got lucky with NFT drops and cashed out some, but reinvested part into better mining tools. So far I haven't had to pay out anything to play Alien Worlds. It seems to be free to play, has random rewards, a fair amount of strategy and a growing community. And speaking of strategy, I noticed another article on Publish0X about selecting mining tools. I would love to find some info on NFT drop rates but so far master Google is still in another galaxy.

Twitter on the other hand appears to be where the A/W crew are putting out their future plans. I found this tweet quite insightful regarding the fighting & questing aspect which hasn't made it into the game yet.

The last additional topic I want to mention relating to the A/W universe is R-planet. Apparently you can stake A/W NFT's here for additional rewards in Aether. I haven't had chance to look into this yet so I will update as and when. 

Finally... A postcard from Naron 16:2

================================

My son has been mining here and got a free NFT this week in the form of a postcard from Naron; a nice scenic snow-topped mountain. It's a nice touch and shows how the community are adding more to the base-level content.

Earn FREE Bitcoin - Is it possible?

So far in this series of articles, I have covered getting paid in crypto while you browse the web using Brave browser and getting started with Alien Worlds; a free-to-play digital card-game which occasionally pays out random NFT prizes. I've also covered the process of trading in your mined TLM virtual ore for other crypto or actual cash.

Today, let's look at possible ways to earn Bitcoin. I found this video on YouTube from Guy at the Coin Bureau channel. He suggests avoiding mobile games and a few other things... well watch the video. I wanted to know if the things suggested in the video would apply to people in the UK and if they were really genuine. After all, if it sounds too good to be true...

Anyway I watched the video and then looked into each suggestion. Here's what I found

The Fold App.

===============

This appears to be a cash-back rewards site where the cash-back comes in the form of bitcoin. There appear to be two different levels of membership - 'Premium' or 'Intro'. Premium costs $150 per year but has no activation fee. Intro on the other hand has no annual fee but a $21 'activation' fee. It may be that I've got the wrong end of the stick on this one and the app might be free to use and these costs only apply to obtaining a visa card from Fold. As a non-US dweller though the 3% international transaction fee on both would also have me questioning it's usefulness to people in the UK. They also state the cards are only for US residents. Reviews also suggest the reward game may only apply if you spend $100 in a transaction and the only UK store where you could use this app is Starbucks. I know Starbucks might not be the cheapest coffee but I doubt I'll ever spend $100 in there, so for now I'm ignoring this one.

Comments check

=================

At this point I checked the video comments and to be fair Guy points out that the Fold app and Lolli are for US residents. He also states that you now have to go on a waiting list to be a part of Coinbase Earn. I had a look at this to see if that was worth the effort and the current list of learn to earn opportunities added up to $31. I would say this puts it in the further research pile. A free $31 is enough to cover an indie game title or two on Steam or some other game crypto to get you started on Enj games or similar. It all boils down to whether or not there's a buy-in transfer required and the size of that waiting list.

Crypto.com Card

================

This appears to be an app with a linked  pre-payment card. This is like a debit card but you load it with money by transferring funds to it. A good idea if you shop online as having your credentials stolen from a hacked shopping site should mean the hackers are unable to spend any more of your money than you have pre-loaded onto the card. However I am discovering that user feedback is essential when considering crypto services and I have read a lot of very negative reviews about crypto.com on the Apple app-store. It sounds like they make it very easy to deposit GBP but nigh on impossible to withdraw it. One reviewer on the app store even suggested moving coins to a coinbase or binance wallet instead. 

Brave Browser

=============

It's good to see that my own advice on signing up for this one is aligned with Guy's video but these others now have me crossing my fingers that Brave is genuine. Brave browser doesn't actually pay out in Bitcoin though. It supposedly pays out in BAT tokens (nothing to do with Batman). I've covered getting started with Brave browser here and I will post on my eventual success/failure to extract earnings.

Verdict          -    NO !

===================

The premise of this video is to avoid penny-earners and delve into some higher untapped earnings potential. Guy stated it was not about mobile games and yet I think Brave browser does fall into this category since my own earnings experience suggests that $1 per week is typical (and since the minimum to create the Uphold wallet is $25 that's at least another 22 weeks before I can test if they really do pay out). At least I have time to look into this. Maybe being in the UK is the reason why we don't have many opportunities to join in these free Bitcoin schemes but possibly genuine ones don't really exist.

As we can see the crypto road to success crosses many minefields and I'm not going to be as critical as other reviewers yelling 'SCAM' at all these things. Sometimes projects take a while to get going and to sort out issues and then other problems can arise when things scale up. As ever, my findings here are personal research and should not be construed as financial advice (usual disclaimers!). For now I will continue chasing pennies with Alien Worlds and hope for a bit of luck on the NFT drops. For what it's worth, I agree with Guy that penny-chasing activities are seldom worth the time investment. I do however think they serve a purpose which is to allow us to self-educate while minimising risk; and if they add in a bit of entertainment along the way they are serving their purpose.

Oh Well

=========

It should be remembered that the video I have commented on here is now almost a year old and we have seen just how much the world can change in a year. Guy is the first to point out his video's are for entertainment only and I still think he does an excellent job of explaining some pretty complex topics. If you are looking into crypto as a result of the convergence of gaming and crypto, I encourage you to have a look at the other videos on his channel, especially if you are considering a hardware wallet purchase at some point.

Earn Interest on your FREE Crypto

 

So far in this series of articles, I have covered getting paid in crypto while you browse the web using Brave browser and getting started with Alien Worlds; a free-to-play digital card-game which occasionally pays out random NFT prizes. I've also covered the process of trading in your mined TLM virtual ore for other crypto or actual cash.

Today, let's look at something interesting....

interest !

So yesterday I traded in some of my trillium for WAX tokens as shown in a previous post and then I staked those few tokens  using the 'Staking Rewards' option on the left side of the WAX wallet. Having no prior experience here I opted to hit the 'feeling lazy' button to see what would happen. I logged in again today and from my stake of 3.89940998  wax, I've earned 0.00021538 wax. That's roughly 0.006% overnight.

So this might be a better option for improving your crypto balance instead of staking trillium to planets. After all with more wax you could get better mining tools and increase how much trillium you get per mine. This is a good strategy in itself as it results in fewer clicks to earn more and should help prevent you running into the lack of cpu or net issues.

Be warned at this stage that while staking your wax tokens is made very easy here, there is no option in the cloud wallet to unstake them again. So it was off to YouTube and I found the answer here. Just in-case this video ever vanishes, the process is to visit wax.bloks.io and log in to your wallet. Be sure to spell bloks without the 'c'. Click login (top right) and select WAX cloud wallet from the pop-up. Click on 'Stake CPU/NET' on the left side and you should see the 'unstake' tab in the middle of the screen. Select your account name from the drop-down list and it should show how much you have staked which I would guess is split 50/50 between CPU and NET when you click that 'feeling lazy' button in the wallet..

At this point I should point out that my attempt to unstake my humble 3.899 wax failed with a 'not enough ram' error. I suspect our accounts receive a free nominal amount of resources each day to enable us to take part in the games and if we become hooked then we reach a point where we must pay-in to continue playing or wait for the next resource refresh (next day?). This would suggest that games which have frequent interactions with the system will cost players more than those with only occasional interactions.

From the gamers perspective, I can imagine these resources eventually being a reward for watching adverts which is what typically happens on games from various app-stores. It would be a shame if this happens as delaying gamers getting into their current favourite game by making them watch an advert for another game they have no interest in is detrimental to the whole experience. It would be far better if the current system remains as-is. Surely there are others ways for advertisers to get in on the action (maybe a reward screen when a valuable item is found?)

I've found WAX to be great for low-intensity gaming. It hasn't yet got a good action or mmo title unless I missed it, but I suspect these are likely to appear in time. Being able to earn free crypto while we wait by playing a few mum & dad games is a really good option and will hopefully result in funds being there if/when the teen blockbuster games materialise. As a lifetime gamer though I can't help thinking there are still obstacles which need to be overcome. For me right now, the most important of these is an easy way to swap wax for Enjin coins or any other flavour of the month token without going through systems which look like banking systems. After all, I got started with wax because it seemed simple and there was no request for debit card details but it's the Enjin-backed games that look most similar to games I would play myself.

Totally Free NFT's

 

So far in this series of articles, I have covered getting paid in crypto while you browse the web using Brave browser and yesterday I covered getting started with Alien Worlds; a free-to-play digital card-game which occasionally pays out random NFT prizes. Yesterday I went over getting started and the process of trading in your mined TLM virtual ore for other crypto or actual cash.

Todays tip is how to get completely FREE NFT's.

========================================

Yes there are some genuine artists out there creating NFT's and giving them away. There are others asking for trivial amounts. Who can say whether these people will ever achieve glory or not. Maybe you could support the next Beeple before anyone has heard of them?

Today's link is how to find NFT drops. Just follow this link

Scroll down the list and you might just find some listings for FREE or very low priced NFT's. You can use the tips from my previous posts to get a few free wax tokens to help support unknown artists. As an unknown EDM musician, I know just how much a little support is really worth. If you put months into a YouTube video and nobody watches it, you can soon reach a point where you consider giving up. Of course true artists can't as it's a core part of their being so if you now have some free wax, consider supporting those who are giving away their life's work for nothing in return.

Free Crypto - Part 3

So far in this series of articles, I have covered getting paid in crypto while you browse the web using Brave browser and yesterday I covered getting started with Alien Worlds; a free-to-play digital card-game which occasionally pays out random NFT prizes. Yesterday I went over getting started and the process of trading in your mined TLM virtual ore for other crypto or actual cash.

There's one more aspect which needs to be covered. If you continue to play Alien Worlds (in the hope of a free valuable NFT), what happens if you get duplicate NFT cards? Luckily there's already an online marketplace where you can trade in your duplicates and maybe swap them for other more useful cards. Today it's time to have a look at AtomicHub.

To get started, you need to give AtomicHub access to your wax wallet. You do this by clicking the wax symbol on the right of the magnifying glass at the top of the screen. Once you've allowed the site to access your wallet, you will see your wallet id (top right corner). Click the down arrow here and you can select inventory which will show all the NFT's you have collected. If you just want to offload duplicates, you can tick the box to only show duplicates.

Clicking on the individual card will bring up details about it and if you scroll down on this screen you will see a recommendation for how much you should sell it for. There's also a trading graph so you can see how much these items have been worth over time.

It's probably right to assume that most things will go down in value over time as the market place becomes flooded with them. As rewards are random though, it's not impossible to get something worth more as you continue to play. Should this happen, you might consider trading the valuable item for wax tokens and maybe consider using some of this to buy better mining tools.

You may have noticed your basic shovel card has a pick-axe in the top-left corner with a value below it (usually 1). This value affects how much trillium you will gather from each mining session. You might also have noticed the snowflake in the cards bottom-right corner. The value here is how much luck the tool has (higher luck = better chance to find NFT's). The best tools have higher mining-power (the pick-axe value) and/or higher luck (the snowflake). They might also have higher recharge times so there is also a strategic element. If you want to focus on mining trillium, you might want long recharge times but higher yields which means fewer clicks with longer delays between them. If you want to find more NFT's, maybe shorter delays and higher luck will be your focus. 

If you decide to invest in more tools, it's worth remembering you can only use three and your recharge time is based on the combined value of the two highest. The charge time multiplier of the plot of land you mine on will also affect your results. If you choose to hunt NFT's, try to get tools with the highest luck (snowflake) level possible. If you want to focus on earning trillium, choose cards with the highest mining power (pick-axe stat) and shortest recharge time. In this case it's also worth changing where you mine. Look for a planet with a spot where you pay less commission to mine there (while the default is 20%, there are plots which only charge 1%).

Free Crypto - Part 2

 Yesterday I posted about setting up Brave browser to earn free tokens while you surf the web. Today I have an internet card game for you.

Some info

=======

This game is well suited for anyone who spends a lot of time browsing the web. You can leave it running in a browser tab. It won't slow your computer down like traditional crypto-mining. You will however need to go back to the browser tab running the game every few minutes.

Get a free wallet

==============

If you already know what a WAX wallet is and have one, you can skip this step. If not you can get a free wax wallet here. You will need a wallet to store all the free goodies which will soon be coming your way. All you need to set-up the wallet is an email address. Just follow the instructions.

Ready to Play?

===========

Alien Worlds is the game we will be playing but read this whole article through before you start. This video on YouTube explains how the game mechanics work. Essentially it boils down to a couple of mouse-clicks every few minutes. As you get in-game rewards the time between rounds will get longer until you only need to click once every couple of hours.

Before You Start

==============

The good stuff I didn't know about when I first started playing this. Each time you click the 'mine' button you will earn a small amount of trillium (TLM) which you can think of as a virtual metal ore. The amount of ore you mine is added to a total amount in the 'Tokens' section of your WAX wallet (see the pic above). There are factors which affect how much you will earn each round of mining but for a beginner with no additional tools  you should expect 0.05 to 0.3 trillium per mine.

As you earn trillium, you can also TRADE IT for real dollars here. I  reached around 100 trillium before finding out it had real world value and only learned this by watching this video which explains the trading process. 

Random NFT drops.

================

There's also a chance you will get free NFT's from mining. This game attempts to combine learning about how crypto works with digital card collecting. These are intended to be similar to Pokemon cards or the football stickers many of us collected in our youth (or cigarette cards if your memory goes back further). There is no 'album' yet although I suspect that could appear at some point. The problem with albums is that some of the cards are so limited in supply that it would be impossible to complete.

The digital 'cards' are pushed into your wallet when they are discovered. An important note here is they might not show up in-game until next time you log in. I played for a fortnight before I discovered I even had any. For this reason I suggest keeping your wallet open in another browser tab and reload the tab every couple of hours. The game is still under development so not all cards have use just yet. Character cards are being rewarded ready for the 'Thunderdome' button (left side on the home screen). This is for some sort of battle mechanic which the developers intend to implement in the future.

The Marketplace

=============

There is clearly a push to create a digital version of collector cards whether we want it or not. This means there has to be a way to trade with other people. If you want to trade with people you know and trust, you can click the transfer arrows at the top of the NFT cards to send them to another persons wax wallet. You can also send trillium to another user by clicking on the send button (right-side panel of the wallet). There is also a marketplace where you can trade with other people online. Just follow the link and click on the alien.worlds filter on the left side to see what others are selling. The sales history button (bottom left) will also let you see what trades have taken place - useful for research.

If you keep playing you will eventually end up improving your tools and finding more NFT's as you mine. You will get duplicates of the same cards. You can offer these for sale using the WAX trading tab in your wallet or you might like to explore 'Shining' if you have four or more of the same card. More about this in a bit.

Land

=====

It's worth mentioning at this point that you may see NFT's for various plots of land listed at some eye-watering prices. NFT's for land DO NOT drop as random prizes. They were available from the developers website in very limited numbers (3,000). There is nothing ruling out the possibility of further planets being created at some point in the future but as it stands there is currently no way to acquire land (except from another ridiculously generous player or the marketplace). Sadly these are too much of a stretch for me at the moment so if virtual land is appealing, I suggest a search on YouTube.

Where can I find out more?

======================

Try the Alien Worlds Community Portal

What is staking?

==============

As far as I can tell, staking is lending your mined trillium to a planets reward pot. As you don't need trillium for any sort of in-game replenishment, I opted to stake mine once I had earned 10. I don't know how much of a factor this was in affecting my NFT drops but it did seem like I wasn't getting them before I started staking. Once your trillium is staked it takes several days to get it back so you risk being unable to remove it from the game and convert to $USD etc. when you stake. This means your in-game currency is tied-up in-game and you might miss out on a really good exchange rate. I haven't yet un-staked any trillium so I don't know if you get back more, the same amount or less. 

Any other tips

=============

Once you have multiple mining tools, you can equip them in the mining hub. When you do this, a trash-can icon appears in the cards title box after its name. This does not delete the card, it unequips it - useful if you want to unequip an item to trade or gift it to someone else. Hopefully this will be replaced by a more obvious unequip button below the tool in a future version.

Shining

========

Nothing to do with Jack Nicholson films. If you obtain 4 identical NFT's and a lot of trillium, you can convert them into a higher-level shiny version. This destroys the four originals but creates a new card which might have minor stats improvements. See this video for more information.

Does free really mean free?

=======================

After a couple of weeks I got a message about 'not enough CPU'. This is not about the Alien Worlds game but a feature of the WAX crypto network it runs on and suggests that all WAX-based games may eventually have this issue. It appears that the blockchain requires investment from time-to-time in the form of WAX tokens. This is explained with a really bad analogy to airlines, airports and tickets. My understanding is that if you run out of NET or CPU, it's possibly because there is a lot of trading of the underlying crypto-currency. RAM on the other hand seems to be about the amount of data on the blockchain you are using at the time. My solution for now is just to stop playing for the day once any of these events occur. It's not helpful to intermix computing terminology and airports into a wacky explanation of blockchain (after all my network is fine, I have enough ram to play this and my cpu temperature is ok according to the read-out on my PC).

You can keep an eye on your CPU, NET and RAM usage using the 'resources'  button on the right side of your WAX wallet.

Final Verdict

===========

When I first started playing Alien Worlds, I didn't really think of it as playing or collecting. I think there are things which need improving. It would be nice to have some animation on the mining screen and while you wait for your tools to recharge. It would be nice to have an audible prompt when your tools are recharged and you can mine again. It would be great if little animated miners could jump up & down on-screen if you unearth an NFT reward. It would be good to have a digital sticker-book page in the wax wallet which shows all the in-game NFT's and highlights which ones you have. Yet for all these things I am still playing it, just to see what else there is to discover. It can be quite complex with six planets comprising 3,000 plots of land, which are linked to different planetary reward pots, have different luck factors to influence your NFT drop rate and also different charge time multipliers affecting how frequently you can mine there. I imagine some people will try it and just cash-out anything they earn. Others will stick around and collect the NFT's and hope the developers build a bigger game around this NFT lucky-dip system. I'm undecided yet but will likely keep the good finds but use some of the trillium to complete my challenge.

The Bottom Line

===============

Ok so the final target for me is some coins in a crypto-wallet but maybe you don't want WAX tokens? Well you can always use an exchange like CoinGecko to convert the WAX into something else as explained in the previous video on the subject. At this point I also want to mention Bitrefill which allows you to turn crypto into gift cards for various UK stores. As crazy as it sounds, we are sort of there with that virtual game world where a random number in a game might just pay for your next console. We should probably expect to see more of this to come. Let's just hope it doesn't turn us into a nation of gambling addicts or day traders. If you are currently working from home or able to use this as a timer between tasks then why not have a go. My first challenge is complete at this point after trading in just over 10 TLM. Sure I'm no bitcoin billionaire but after a few clicks today I now have a whopping (sic) 0.8 WAX. It's a start. Yes it might have been cheaper to turn the computer off and save electricity but I have also been entertained, kept warm and avoided parting with any debit/credit card details.

CHALLENGE COMPLETE - YAY !!!!!