Month: January 2017

Protecting your Cryptocurrency

1. Backup today

You can never say it enough: back up your wallet. If you haven’t yet backed up your wallet, do it now.

Most hardware and software wallets use an industry standard backup protocol called BIP 39 that allows your wallet backup to be 15  English words.

It's important to write the words down, on paper, in order, and securely store the backup somewhere safe from people, water and fire. If you don’t back up your wallet, you could well lose your bitcoin. Forever. Greater security involves using a brain wallet https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Brainwallet

2. Check on your backups

The new year is a perfect time to check on your important papers, including your wallet backups. Can you still access them? Can you still read the words? Are they secure from fire, water and theft? If you've given the backups to someone else (lawyer, accountant), ask them to check their storage.

3. Set a calendar reminder

While we all know we should be checking our backups, wallets and estate plans regularly, it's hard to remember to do it. Add a reminder to your calendar now, to check all these things again in three, six or at most 12 months.

4. Move money off your smartphone

I have never been a fan of having money or bank information on my phone and with the increase in the Cryptocurrency prices, you might be shocked at how much money you've been carrying around on your smartphone.

Now is a great time to move your coins onto a hardware wallet or into cold storage. Hardware wallets are very easy to use, with user-friendly software components, and are considered one of the safest ways to store bitcoin.

While it's great to carry petty cash or spending money on your phone, never carry more Cryptocurrency on your smartphone than you would carry as cash in your wallet. maybe create a separate wallet just for your phone

5. Move your money off exchanges

If you have coins sitting on an exchange, move them out today to a wallet you control.

Most of the popular exchanges pool coins and while you have a "balance" showing on your account, you do not actually control the keys. If the exchange gets hacked you could lose your money. Remember that you only control the chryptocoins if you control the keys: "not your keys, not your bitcoin".

6. Upgrade to two-factor authentication

Add two-factor authentication to your bitcoin-related accounts and to all other important online accounts. The best two-factor solution is a hardware token and you can buy one for just $20–$30.

Otherwise use a smartphone authentication app, such as Authy or Google Authenticator. SMS is not a very good two-factor solution, though it is still better than none at all.

7. Use a password manager

Humans are great at identifying patterns and that makes us terrible at randomness. Password best practises – choose a different random password for each site, never write them down – pose management problems.

For most people, the only way to accomplish this is to use a password manager – one which generates and stores your passwords securely on multiple devices. Popular managers include 1Password, Roboform, LastPass, and the open source KeePass.

Many offer free basic services, with premium services costing less than $80 per year. They're easy to use and in just a couple of weeks you’ll never want to be without one again.

8. Plan for your family

If something happened to you tomorrow would your family be able to access your cryptocoin? While this tip takes time to implement, it's worth it.

It shouldn’t take you more than an hour to make a plan and decide who you want to get what, write down instructions and tell your family about your plan.

Be sure to consult an attorney, to make sure your plan is consistent with local law and can’t be challenged in a court. If you have a will, trust, or other estate plan, let your attorney know that you have new assets that need to be included in your plan.

Getting your first Cryptocurrency is becoming easier and easier, but keeping it safe from hackers, insolvent exchanges, and loss isn't as easy.

These 8 tips will help you bring in the new year with a renewed sense of confidence that you can safeguard the  Cryptocurrency  that you have, especially now that it’s worth a lot more.

David Ogden
Entrepreneur

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

New Year New Opportunities and Resolutions

 New Year New Opportunities and Resolutions

Two years ago I started writing down my New Year resolution. Which helped me keep track of my plans and the direction of my life. This year year marks a period of consolidation and times to consider what we will do when Jay completes his secondary education.

There are some uncertain times ahead due to Brexit. Will Jasmin and Jay be granted permanent UK residency early than the original five years under EU rules. Will it still be possible to retire to other EU countries on favorable terms. We are both working so that we can save for the future, however the weather is still a challenge and I miss warmer climes.

Jasmin and Jay will visit their family in the Philippines this summer who they have not seen for some five years apart from via Skype. We still have a house to sell in the Philippines and it would be great if this could be concluded this summer to release capital.

Hopefully I will pass my retraining tests which will confirm my position at Go Ape as an Instructor for the 2017 season. This helps keep me fit and active. I also hope to have further sailing opportunities with the Jubilee Trust and Old Pangbournian Yacht Club such as the Round the Island Race on 1st July and The Arrow Trophy in the Autumn.

Turning to my various business interests, it would seem to be time to leave Valentus an MLM who promised to be different but then shut down their European warehouse with out notice and also started to enforce rules regarding minimum sales prices. The fact that prices are in USD and deliveries come from the USA results in too low profit margins, and to be honest the products are overpriced .

At the end of 2016 I took up an interest in Cryptocurrency which would seem to offer a number of business opportunities, especially when one considers the likes of Bitcoin have grown in value faster than any traditional currency are increasing being considered as perhaps becoming the new gold standard and replacing the USD. At the moment you can certainly see in the both the short and longer term that cryptocurrencies can offer a better rate of return compared with savings rates from banks and even investment from stocks and shares.

MarketHive continues on its long journey to re-program its software, but has yet to be launched and its lack of funding is delaying it completion, however as we enter the new year it would seem that funding will no longer be a problem and the likes of Facebook and Linked in will have a new business based rival.

For the first time in many years I am not sure of direction, there is a possibility that I could double my net worth, the only thing that is sure is we will remain in the UK for the next two years which coincidentally is the expected time to complete Brexit.

David Ogden
Entrepreneur

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden