Did you finally beat Cynthia and her Garchomp from hell? Here's a list of things for you to do!
- Complete Your Sinnoh Dex
Assuming that you haven't skipped any trainers, the only Pokemon that you'll need to complete your dex are Manaphy if you haven't gone to the Pokemon Mansion and Rotom if you haven't gone to the Old Chateau. They're both easy to get. You can get Manaphy registered in your dex by reading a book located in the office of Mr. Backlot and Rotom can be found in the Old Chateau in the room with the TV in the evening, remember to interact with the TV - Rotom isn't in the Overworld.
- A Whole New Island
After you complete your Sinnoh Dex and get the National Dex from Rowan, fly to Snowpoint and talk to the sailor outside the city. He will take you to the Battle Area. After you battle Volkner and Flint with Barry, the Frontier will be unlocked and you can enter. The Survival Area and the Resort Area will be unlocked, but ignore them for now and head straight to Stark Mountain. Complete the story there and go back to the Survival Area. You will see Buck in front of the Battleground, which is now accessible. There, you can fight Barry and the Gym Leaders. Here are some things to do in the Battle Tower:
Defeat Tower Tycoon Palmer once to earn a Silver Print Defeat Factory Head Thorton once to earn a Silver Print Defeat Arcade Star Dahlia once to earn a Silver Print Defeat Castle Valet Darach once to earn a Silver Print Defeat Hall Matron Argenta once to earn a Silver Print Defeat everyone above a second time to earn 5 Gold Prints
- Hunt The Legendaries Down
After you've done all that stuff, it's time to return to the main island. Here are the locations of all accessible legendary Pokemon in the game:
Uxie and Azelf: Lake Acuity & Valor Cavern Uxie is overworld spawn in the middle of Lake Acuity. Interact with it to battle it. Azelf is also a overworld spawn, but in the middle of Lake Valor. Interact with it to battle it.
Mesprit: Lake Verity Cavern Mesprit is a overworld spawn in the middle of Lake Verity, interacting with it causes it to flee. You can now hunt it down with the Marking Map app.
Heatran: Stark Mountain Heatran is a overworld spawn in the cave where Charon was arrested. Interact with it to battle it.
Shaymin: Flower Paradise Shaymin is a event overworld spawn in the Flower Paradise. To get it, you'll need Oak's Letter, an event item. Travel back into the Victory Road and go find the cave entrance that was previously blocked by a fat man. You will find Marley there. Travel through the cave and the routes until you see Oak next to a stone tablet. Complete the story events and eventually you'll find Shaymin. Interact with it to battle it.
Cresselia: Fullmoon Island Cresselia is a overworld spawn in Fullmoon Island, to get there, head to Canalave City and talk to the Sailor who took you to Iron Island earlier. He will now take you to Fullmoon Island where you can interact with Cresselia. It will flee and you can now hunt it down with the Marking Map app.
Darkrai: Newmoon Island Darkrai is a event overworld spawn in Newmoon Island. To get it, you'll need the Member's Card, an event item. Head to the building above the Canalave Pokemon Center and go inside it. Sleep in the bed and you'll be teleported to Newmoon Island. Find Darkrai and interact with it to battle it.
Dialga & Palkia: Spear Pillar Both are overworld spawns. First, talk to Cynthia's Grandmother in Celestic Town, go grab the Adamant and Lustrous Orbs inside Mt. Coronet and head to the Spear Pillar. Dialga's portal will appear and you can interact with the rift to battle Dialga. After Dialga is captured or defeated, leave Spear Pillar and reenter it. Palkia's portal will appear and you can interact with the rift to battle it.
Legendary Birds: Roaming After the National Dex is completed, go talk to Professor Oak, who lives in Eterna City. He will give you a Up-Grade and tell you about the legendary birds. Afterwards, the birds will now be roaming and you can now hunt them down with the Marking Map app.
The Regis: Multiple Locations First, collect the event Regigigas from the PokeMart mailman. The regis will now be obtainable in the following locations: Regice: Mt. Coronet (East of Rt. 216) Regirock: Rt. 226 Registeel: Iron Island After all three are captured, head to Snowpoint Temple, which is now accessible. Complete the puzzles inside and capture Regigigas.
Arceus: Spear Pillar Arceus is a event overworld spawn on Spear Pillar. It is unobtainable in legitimate games. If a Azure Flute is hacked into the games with a AR code, head to Spear Pillar and you will be asked to blow the flute, blow it and a staircase will appear. You can catch Arceus on top of it.
Giratina: Turnback Cave If you didn’t catch Giratina in the Distortion World, you can find Giratina in Turnback Cave. It is located in the Sendoff Springs, where Cynthia was standing after you completed the Distortion World. Once you enter the cave, complete the puzzles and you will find Giratina’s over world sprite, interact with it to battle it. Once Giratina is caught or defeated again, you will be able to return to the distortion world to get the Griseous Orb.
- Beat the League Rematches
The rematches are unlocked after you get the National Dex. By this time, they have Pokemon in the level 70s, so make sure to grind up. The teams remain unchanged. Cynthia's Garchomp is level 78, so make sure you're prepared!
- Get the Ultimate Black Trainer Card
This is your final quest on your great journey. To get this special trainer card, you need to: Defeat the League Rematches Win At Least 1 Master Rank Super Contest Play At Least 1 Online Underground Capture the Flag Match Complete the National Dex Earn 100 Wins in the Battle Tower
- For the Completionists
This is super-postgame. You can take the time to grind money to buy all villa furnitures or get access to the Ribbon Syndicate. Both of these require heaps and heaps of money grinding. If you don’t have the time to do these, don’t.
If you've completed all of these quests, then congratulations! You have now completely completed Pokemon Platinum. I hope you had fun! It's time for some shiny hunting. Note: The quests above don't have to be completed in numerical order, but I recommend you do it in that order.
This took pretty long to make, I hope you liked it.
Edit: Through popular demand, the next post will be on HG/SS. Stay tuned!
submitted by Disclaimer: This article my article. You are reading it first, as I didn't post it anywhere else.
Summary - Game developer with $450 million in revenue with $110M net profit valued at Price to Sales (P/S) ~4.2.
- Company seems reasonably valued, operating in growing mobile games market.
- Risk-reward ratio at current price is outstanding due to SPAC-merger rules with the cash NAV set at $10.
Not much information about this company, so I started writing my own research on the company. Here is the investor presentation:
https://nexters.com/images/inv_info/Nexters_Investor_Presentation.pdf If want to understand the valuation of the company, the risk/reward, and the potential I need to answer the following questions:
- What is Nexters Global?
- SPAC is a safe bet?
- Comparison with its competitors?
- $1.9B is cheap or expensive?
Let's begin!
1. What is Nexters Global?
Nexters Global is a fast-growing mobile game development company with
$450 million gross revenue* (2020), 85 million total game installs,
5.4 Million monthly active users, with
10x growth of revenue in the last 2 years. Already
profitable with $110 million net profit in 2020. The management has more than 10 years of experience in creating games. Located in Cyprus (Europe) with roots in Russia (a very strong IT region). They are well known for being in Game Development since early 2005 in the epicenter of the web, social and mobile game development.
https://preview.redd.it/juhbhhuwhmg61.png?width=640&format=png&auto=webp&s=529a0e927aa3bc3205430d97204d3d625f36fc8d Since the launch, the company has proven that it can develop, publish and use marketing to scale its games. With
37% of its revenue coming from the
US/Canada,
23% from Europe,
19% from Asia it is already an
international company.
\In the investor presentation Nexters Global states 310 million net revenue, as at the*
sec.gov reports it is more common (example) to use the gross revenue for gaming companies as their base metrics. That's why here and below I’m using gross revenue. Please see the spreadsheet below with a comparison to other companies. Further plans are:
https://preview.redd.it/t9kdphd0img61.png?width=994&format=png&auto=webp&s=b70e92455e253033e99a91b17b0a1f85012e1e5b - To increase the revenue of existing games (basically, double the revenue in 3 years).
- Launch new titles in 2021: 3 new games announced
- Working on the sequel of their best selling game "Hero Wars 2".
- Use cash to acquire other game developers with great games to amplify revenues using their expertise and marketing/production capabilities to make global hits.
2. SPAC is a safe bet?
There are so many SPACs, that we should be
very selective on what we choose to buy. To do that we need to check if the business is real.
There are different kind of risky SPAC’s on the market:
- Without product
- Without revenue
- Without an addressable market
- Without proof that they can scale
We need to verify that Nexters Global is not on that list. Let’s have a look at the company:
The product? Web, Social, Mobile Games. To check if their numbers are real simply open the game page in
App Store and
Google Play store.
Android Apps by NEXTERS GLOBAL LTD on Google Play Nexters Global LTD Apps on the App Store The top game has more than
50,000,000 installs with more than a
million positive reviews and an average
rating of 4.6. With other games/stores combined, it correlates with the company's stated 85 million installs.
https://preview.redd.it/jwh51gm2img61.png?width=735&format=png&auto=webp&s=428ec2dc85a4a6c1d51c67aa8fa1f7876edd3dab I like that I can see the numbers myself, and also can "touch" the product and how it works. it increases my confidence in owning the stock.
Actually, I have been playing their top-grossing game
Hero Wars for several months last year. And I loved it... loved it so much that I’ve spent around ~1000 dollars within 3 months. And I’ve seen players that spent much much more than me (higher ranked, had much more power and ranks). And there were so many players that they had to add new servers each week, or even daily.
The first impression is that I really like the product. I see how it works.
The revenue. It's huge. In the SPAC world, there are companies that can’t make revenue but predict that their revenue will go up 10-20-50x times in 3-5 years. Usually, such companies are SCAM as they mislead investors with revenue that will never happen.
On another side, Nexters Global
has already $450 million in revenue with a $110M profit. And the growth rate is
+177% YoY. And even the slowdown in growth means the actual
increase in revenue substantially, just by the magic of the compound growth.
I like the numbers very much here.
The addressable market How big is the addressable market? The World’s 2.7 Billion Gamers
Spent $175 Billion on Games in 2020; The Market Will Surpass $200 Billion by 2023. So Nexters Global is well-positioned in expanding market.
https://preview.redd.it/tf41au04img61.png?width=888&format=png&auto=webp&s=7547a1d3c2c8da43554a655d9b32bb4aaf4f2d97 Revenue geography shows that it is also diversified well. The company has proven that it can generate revenue all around the world, not just in its local market. That is very important in order to calculate the valuation of the company.
https://preview.redd.it/sxq08qg5img61.png?width=362&format=png&auto=webp&s=ed9b771d632268efb31d96d57c831d61d8caf12f But how long Nexters can generate revenue? Unlike the traditional PC gaming, where the peak of sales occurs after the launch of the game and then shrinks a lot, in the
online mobile game market - games
get updates each month/quarter to engage customers and make them stay in the game longer.
Games with great engagement + marketing resources can
stay on top charts for many years.
You just reinvest part of your revenue into marketing to earn even more. It works for games with high revenue per player (
ARPPU).
Nexters Presentation: $106 - Average net bookings per paying user(2) (Q4’20)
https://preview.redd.it/jsqcmby6img61.png?width=666&format=png&auto=webp&s=f96f6ef490ee2b16cf6ca01e8508df578bfdd302 Percentage of paying users
increases. Average net booking
increases.
With the
6% of paying users and
$106 net payment - it is quite easy to calculate that you earn
$6.36 from any user that
downloads the app, so you can spend on
advertisement a lot of money and you will
earn even more.
When you have
277% revenue
growth in
2019,
177% in
2020 it won’t just stop growing. Next year double-digit growth of revenue is highly probable.
From a statistical behavior the growth slowdown to zero is very unlikely. If we take examples of other super-hit games from
Supercell (Clash of Clans) and
Playrix (Gardenscapes).
Example: Playrix did continue to grow since 2016 explosive revenue withadding +41% YoY growth in 2018 +35% in 2019.
https://preview.redd.it/so9ijp08img61.png?width=667&format=png&auto=webp&s=6f6acbdf41374f89c045bb07c4b4e5f7dc235bf9 Another example: Supercell's revenue continued to grow at least 2 years after the revenue explosion before slowing down.
https://preview.redd.it/tjjuf159img61.png?width=855&format=png&auto=webp&s=01116616d83bbeeb34bbe98da012d22c3964f5d5 The growth Great games could continue to grow. Nexters Global estimates their net revenue to reach
$562 million dollars. That equals to
~$802 million gross revenue in 2023. And the company is
valued at just 1.9B now. Re-think that.📷
This chart also shows that they project only
+10.5% YoY growth in revenue in its current games after this year's gain. Which I think is too conservative considering the examples above. I understand that they’ve chosen the strategy not to mislead investors and should stay conservative, but I think
they will easily beat their own estimates and
20-25% growth is much more realistic.
The good thing is that
we can track their performance in terms of downloads and revenue in stores. We can stay ahead and know the data earlier than official numbers come out, which brings another level of transparency for investors.
Kismet Acquisition One Corp company
The company is led by CEO and Director Ivan Tavrin, the founder and Principal of investment firm Kismet Capital Group. Tavrin previously served as the CEO of PJSC MegaFon, Russia's second largest telecommunications operator, and before that, he founded UTH Russia, one of the largest independent media broadcasting groups in Russia.
Kismet Acquisition Two plans to target the internet and technology sectors operating in Europe, including Russia, as well as businesses established by founders with Russian origins.
Credit Suisse, BofA Securities and LionTree Advisors served as financial and capital markets advisors to Kismet Acquisition One Corp.
Advisors look good to me. The CEO's background and experience too. Additionally, he was one of the shareholders in the recently launched Russian IPO "
OZON" marketplace. Which is now
+120% up.
The only thing that sounds scary here is the word “Russia” everywhere. Is there an unwanted geopolitical risk? From the legal point of view, every entity is registered under British Law jurisdictions (Cyprus, BVI). So, basically, there shouldn't be any problems.
Well... they would better be in the US as many investors don’t like foreign companies. But there are great examples of super successful
Supercell and
Rovio that were NON-US too. And we know that the Russian Tech-sector is high qualified (Google Founder - Sergey Brin, Pavel Durov - Telegram, Vitalik Buterin - Etherium, and even Russian Hackers is a “meme”).
And as I said before their business looks crystal clear, anybody can check their metrics so they
can’t fraud the data, unlike, for example, Luckin Coffee did in China. Therefore, this kind of risk is eliminated.
3. Comparison with its competitors?
Let's talk about numbers. I’ve tried to compare the game developer to its direct competitors. I've selected only companies with major mobile game-driven revenue.
Here is the full spreadsheet access:
Nexters Global Comparison I’ve marked the concerning metric with
yellow and
red, Good metric with
green, Superb one with
dark-green color.
https://preview.redd.it/tmsosbtaimg61.png?width=1079&format=png&auto=webp&s=2b50cd7a1a54115bb496849c43b3611094fc6309 Please take time to read the numbers and come back after.
Update! With the latest news that Electronic Arts buys GLU Mobile with +39% premium from the market - the sector is officially undervalued. Thoughts on Nexters Global - Nexters is big enough in terms of revenue
- The MAU (Monthly Average Users) is not very big. While you can consider that as a “minus” that's actually the sign of a young company, with the opportunity to attract more users “cheaper” (with high efficiency). When you already big and you have hundreds of million players, you have to spend more and more money on user acquisition.
- No diversification. That’s a red flag. Hearing of 3 titles coming next year + Hero Wars 2 to be developed. And the idea of acquisition of small developers with excellent games to amplify their revenue 10-100 times promoting it around the World is the Next goal for Nexters. This will bring diversification.
- Remember that Supercell (also a European company, HQ in Finland) with its only best selling game was sold to Tencent at a $10.5 billion valuation. This "Hero Wars" game is currently following its path (in terms of growth numbers & revenue).
- Games are high gross margin projects. I assume this gross margin from the cost of revenue is: AppStore/Google Play 30% commission + spending on maintaining the Servers. That brings me to the industry average of 65%
- Marketing spending numbers are rational (20-40% zone), in order to stay profitable and to maintain modest growth.
- It's already a large scalable company. No “company growth issues” seen through this data. Sign of good management here.
- Unusually high net income seeing here. Assumption: Research & Development costs /Administrative spending / Sales and Marketing is much lower compared to other US companies. Probably they benefit from HQ being outside of the US. That should affect the company multiplicators (P/E) positive.
- With not very high US Market penetration - the opportunity still there.
- Game reviews/rating is essential in mobile games: The higher-rated games = the cheaper is the cost of user acquisition. The longer players stay in-game. The “4.5” rating tells me that customers of this company are very satisfied.
- Fascinating growth. Very young company. The slowdown in growth is expected but compound growth is still very probable.
- Estimated Compound Annual Growth (CAGR) is 25%. Which would bring the company ~$802 million revenue in 2023.
- Is the company valued right? It's more profitable in comparison to its competitors, its double-triple digit growth company with all signs of the trend to continue.
- The company is honest with its estimates and setting very realistic numbers. Other SPACs prefer to predict 10,20,50x revenue in the future even without proving they can scale. This company is doubling-tripling every year and shows estimates of 25% annual growth each year.
I ended up with numbers:
P/S = 4.19, P/E = 17.27. This valuation seems just right with current earnings and the sector, but not with the future growth. As there is a Hot trend in gaming and with outstanding YoY growth could be worth much much more.
4. $1.9B is cheap or expensive?
The current price of $KSMT (“GDEV”) is $10.15 which represents a $1.9B valuation. Before the deal is completed the price cannot be valued less than $10 due to SPAC rules. So there is simply no downside risk at this point..
But can it go up? What is fair valuation? Is there a risk of a selloff from shareholders? How rich the valuation can be in terms of P/E (Price to Sales ratio)?
First, let's find out the risk of insider selling:
Here is the sec report:
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1814824/000121390021005589/ea134294ex99-1_kismet.htm The Transaction is expected to deliver up to $150 million in cash to the Company’s balance sheet before advisor fees and/or redemptions by Kismet Acquisition One Corp. current shareholders, with proceeds expected to be used for general working capital purposes and potential acquisitions. Existing shareholders of Nexters will receive a cash payment of up to $150 million pro-rata to their pre-money shareholdings, and will roll approximately 92% of their holdings into the combined company while agreeing to a 12 month lock-up (subject to certain exceptions). In addition, the founders and the management will receive 20.0 million Earn-Out shares over 3 years (with 50% of the Earn-Out released at $13.50 VWAP and 50% released at $17.00 VWAP), also subject to a 12 month lock-up. The Transaction will be funded by approximately $250 million held in trust by Kismet Acquisition One Corp., subject to any redemptions, as well as the additional $50 million investment by the SPAC Sponsor, Kismet Capital Group, via an affiliate. The investors will have a 12-month lock-up on selling + they get benefits on reaching the valuation 35% and 70% higher from the current price. This means that there will be no insider selling in the near term, which is very positive signal.
Acquisitions Nexters Global plans to use proceeds in M&A (buying small game development studios with great projects that just don’t have enough cash, expertise, or right developer team) to benefit from its situation in order to launch great games worldwide.
https://preview.redd.it/xhypgzqfimg61.png?width=1000&format=png&auto=webp&s=642c03fecbb851984527c46774beb0ecc44eba0a It is a common mistake to assume that great games can be run by small studios or individuals, as in 2020 you need at least a couple of million dollars spent on marketing to understand if the project is worth it, or not. Small developers can’t afford it. On the other side, Nexters can benefit from it really well.
If they are successful in that, we could see 10+ new titles in the future. That could diversify its game portfolio, making this company a safe bet for Hedge funds and other market players, driving future growth.
“Hero Wars 2” game announcement. Hero Wars is the top-grossing game, which generates most of the revenue. With “Hero Wars 2” announcement the company can benefit a lot..
Usually, game sequels can do very well, as they are easier to promote, finding their “fan base” from the beginning. This could create a new source of income, work as a diversification, launch the new cycle of the revenue stream for many years ahead.
Partnership with Playrix founders Here is another thing that I want to focus on:
Bukhman brothers acquired a
43% stake in Nexters in 2018
They are founders of “Playrix” - a private mobile game developer company, currently valued at $7B(valued in Q1 2020). Now more likely
~11B as their revenue increased
1.5 times during 2020.
Please read these articles in Bloomberg and Forbes first:
- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-29/billionaire-gaming-brothers-emerge-as-tencent-s-biggest-rival
- https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&u=https://www.forbes.ru/milliardery/410509-nash-rost-ne-svyazan-napryamuyu-s-lokdaunom-milliarder-igor-buhman-o-tom-chto
Summary from the articles:
Cashing out (selling out to Tencent or Activision Blizzard) is not interesting right now. We are growing every year. Game industry multiplicators of public companies were priced wrong . This year has changed it. And this trend will continue as top games can grow for many many years, reengaging users with updates. Playrix is not interested in IPO's at this valuation. They want to wait until the market changes and start pricing gaming companies at different valuations, not the 4-5 year revenues, but maybe more like Tech companies are valued now (P/S 20-30 instead of 4-5)? I can assume that Playrix founders are
interested in the long-term success of Nexters Global SPAC-merger in order to change how markets price the gaming companies as they want to bring Playrix to an IPO in the future. They want to wait until the market starts pricing gaming companies at different valuations, not the 4-5 year revenues, but maybe more like Tech companies are valued now (P/S 20-30 instead of 4-5)?
So, for the Bukhman brothers who own
43% shares,
Nexters Global is a long-term play company. They don’t want/need to cash out.
I also think that at some point,
Tencent could just buy 20-30% of the company through the open market (buying shares). Why? Because it is common for Tencent to buy a stake in gaming companies that earn a lot of cash and priced at these valuations.
https://preview.redd.it/uphpbubcimg61.png?width=804&format=png&auto=webp&s=4f35889049fa9302786bf65d1b83f02a92d71eef
Summary
In my personal opinion, this is a great company with a bright future.
Valuation seems reasonable and there is a big upside if any of those happens:
- Company starts to actively search for acquisition targets (we will see from press-releases)
- Company launches "Hero Wars 2" title
- The company beats its own low guidance estimates (which I think the most probable)
- Company launches more titles which enter “Top ranks” in AppStore/Google Play store.
- Aggressive Tencent/Other major Gaming Holdings buying.
At this exact moment, the fair valuation of the company will move to
$3-4 billion dollar. (+100% upside).
At this right moment of the time as the price is near $10 there is literally no risk in a pre-merger state, as SPAC can’t go below $10 price by its concept.
Disclosure: At the moment of writing this article I do have a position in $KSMT, that is not more than 10% of my entire portfolio. I do not plan to sell at any nearest time in future. Stocks are risk assets and this is not investment advice.
submitted by Welcome to the /Bitcoin Sticky FAQ
You've probably been hearing a lot about Bitcoin recently and are wondering what's the big deal? Most of your questions should be answered by the resources below but if you have additional questions feel free to ask them in the comments.
It all started with the release of
Satoshi Nakamoto's whitepaper however that will probably go over the head of most readers so we recommend the following articles/books/videos as a good starting point for understanding how bitcoin works and a little about its long term potential:
Some other great resources include Michael Saylor's
"Bitcoin for Everybody"' course, Jameson Lopp's
resource page, Gigi's
resource page, and James D'Angelo's
Bitcoin 101 Blackboard series. Some excellent writing on Bitcoin's value proposition and future can be found at the
Satoshi Nakamoto Institute.
If you are technically or academically inclined check out
developer resources and peer-reviewed
research papers, course lectures from both
MIT and
Princeton as well as future
protocol improvements and
scaling resources. Some Bitcoin statistics can be found
here,
here and
here. MicroStrategy's
Bitcoin for Corporations is an excellent open source series on corporate legal and financial bitcoin integration.
You can also see the number of times Bitcoin was
declared dead by the media (LOL) and
what you could have earned if you didn't listen to them! XD
Key properties of Bitcoin
- Limited Supply - There will only ever be 21,000,000 bitcoin created and they are issued in a predictable fashion per the inflation schedule. Once they are all issued Bitcoin will be truly deflationary. The halving countdown tells you how much time until the next drop in block rewards.
- Open source - Bitcoin code is fully auditable. You can read and contribute to the source code yourself.
- Accountable - The public ledger is transparent, all transactions are seen by everyone.
- Decentralized - Bitcoin is globally distributed across thousands of nodes with no single point of failure and as such can't be shut down similar to how Bittorrent works. You can even run a node on a Raspberry Pi.
- Censorship resistant - No one can prevent you from interacting with the bitcoin network and no one can censor, alter or block transactions that they disagree with, see Operation Chokepoint.
- Push system - There are no chargebacks in bitcoin because only the person who owns the address where the bitcoin resides has the authority to move them.
- Low fee scaling - Most wallets calculate on chain fees automatically but you can view fee estimates and mempool activity if you want to set your fee manually. On chain fees may rise occasionally due to network demand, however instant micropayments that do not require confirmations are happening via the Lightning Network, a second layer scaling solution currently rolling out on the Bitcoin mainnet.
- Borderless - No country can stop it from going in/out, even in areas currently unserved by traditional banking as the ledger is globally distributed.
- Trustless - Bitcoin solved the Byzantine's Generals Problem which means nobody needs to trust anybody for it to work.
- Pseudonymous - No need to expose personal information when purchasing with cash or transacting.
- Secure - Blocks and transactions are cryptographically secured (using hashes and signatures) and can’t be brute forced or confiscated with proper key management such as hardware wallets.
- Programmable - Individual units of bitcoin can be programmed to transfer based on certain criteria being met
- Nearly instant - From a few seconds on the lightning network to a few minutes on-chain depending on need for confirmations. Transactions are irreversible by normal users after one confirmation and irreversible by anyone (including miners) after 6 confirmations.
- Peer-to-peer - No intermediaries taking a cut, no need for trusted third parties.
- Portable - Bitcoin are digital so they are easier to move than cash or gold. They can be transported by simply carrying a seed (a string of 12 to 24 words) on a device or by memorizing it for wallet recovery (while cool, memorizing is generally not recommended due to potential for forgetting the seed and the potential for insecure key generation by inexperienced users. Hardware wallets are the preferred method for most users for their ease of use and additional security).
- Scalable - While the protocol is still being optimized for increased transaction capacity, blockchains do not scale very well, so most transaction volume is expected to occur on Layer 2 networks built on top of Bitcoin.
- Divisible - Each bitcoin can be divided down to 8 decimals, which means you don't have to worry about buying an entire bitcoin.
- Designed Money - Bitcoin was created to fit all the fundamental properties of money better than gold or fiat
Where can I buy bitcoin?
Bitcoin.org and
BuyBitcoinWorldwide.com are helpful sites for beginners. You can buy or sell any amount of bitcoin (even just a few dollars worth) and there are several easy methods to purchase bitcoin with cash, credit card or bank transfer. Some of the more popular resources are below, also check out the
bitcoinity exchange resources for a larger list of options for purchases.
You can also purchase in cash with
local ATMs. If you would like your paycheck automatically converted to bitcoin use
Bitwage.
Note: Bitcoin are valued at whatever
market price people are willing to pay for them in balancing act of supply vs demand. Unlike traditional markets, bitcoin markets operate 24 hours per day, 365 days per year.
Securing your bitcoin
With bitcoin you can
"Be your own bank" and personally secure your bitcoin
OR you can use third party companies aka
"Bitcoin banks" which will hold the bitcoin for you.
- If you prefer to "Be your own bank" and have direct control over your coins without having to use a trusted third party, then you will need to create your own wallet and keep it secure. If you want easy and secure storage without having to learn computer security best practices, then a hardware wallet such as the Trezor, Ledger or ColdCard is recommended.
- If you cannot afford a hardware wallet there are many software wallet options to choose from depending on your use case. Mobile wallets like BlueWallet are generally more secure than desktop wallets. Beware of fake mobile wallets and check reviews from reputable Bitcoin websites. Avoid paper wallets or brain wallets.
- If you prefer to let third party "Bitcoin banks" manage your coins, try Gemini or Unchained Capital but be aware you may not be in control of your private keys in which case you would have to ask permission to access your funds and be exposed to third party risk. There is a saying in the community, "Not your keys, not your coins" meaning if you don't store your coins in a wallet that you control the keys to then you do not really own your bitcoin as you have to ask permission from the third party in order to move them.
Note: For increased security, use Two Factor Authentication (2FA) everywhere it is offered, including email! 2FA requires a second confirmation code or a physical security key to access your account making it much harder for thieves to gain access. Google Authenticator and Authy are the two most popular 2FA services, download links are below. Make sure you create backups of your 2FA codes.
Avoid using your cell number for 2FA. Hackers have been using a technique called "SIM swapping" to impersonate users and steal bitcoin off exchanges.
Physical security keys (FIDO U2F) offer stronger security than Google Auth / Authy and other TOTP-based apps, because the secret code never leaves the device and it uses bi-directional authentication so it prevents phishing. If you lose the device though, you could lose access to your account, so always use 2 or more security keys with a given account so you have backups. See
Yubikey or
Titan to purchase security keys.
Both Coinbase and Gemini support physical security keys.
Watch out for scams
As mentioned above, Bitcoin is decentralized, which by definition means there is no official website or Twitter handle or spokesperson or CEO. However, all money attracts thieves. This combination unfortunately results in scammers running official sounding names or pretending to be an authority on YouTube or social media. Many scammers throughout the years have claimed to be the inventor of Bitcoin. Websites like bitcoin(dot)com and the r / btc subreddit are active scams. Almost all altcoins (shitcoins) are marketed heavily with big promises but are really just designed to separate you from your bitcoin. So be careful: any resource, including all linked in this document, may in the future turn evil. As they say in our community,
"Don't trust, verify".
- Avoid using ad-based search engines like Google or Yahoo: ads are shown based on how much the advertiser bids, and scammers can easily outbid legitimate providers for ad space, since immoral ways of earning money are far more lucrative than moral ways. Use DuckDuckGo instead, which has no ads, and never tracks you as well.
- Ignore private messages offering services.
- Never enter your seed words in a website of any kind. Hardware wallets will recover by displaying possible seed words on their own interface, never on a website.
- Always check addresses on your hardware wallet before sending or receiving. Some malware has been known to replace addresses in your web browser or that you copy-and-paste.
- Avoid clicking on links like that look like links, such as https://www.google.com/, without first hovering over it and actually checking where they go to. Just because a link is labelled with an HTTPS address does not mean it actually sends you to that address. It is trivial for someone to comment a link on Reddit that looks like it will send you to one website when it actually sends you to another, and you might not notice the difference until a scammer has gotten all your money, or you have downloaded and installed software that steals your money.
Common Bitcoin Myths
Often the same concerns arise about Bitcoin from newcomers. Questions such as:
- Is Bitcoin a Ponzi scheme?
- Will governments ban Bitcoin?
- Will quantum computers break Bitcoin?
All of these questions have been answered many times by a variety of people. Here are some resources where you can see if your concern has been answered:
Where can I spend bitcoin?
Check out
spendabit or
bitcoin directory for millions of merchant options. Also you can spend bitcoin anywhere visa is accepted with bitcoin debit cards such as the
CashApp card or
Fold card. Some other useful site are listed below.
Store | Product |
Bitrefill, Gyft | Gift cards for thousands of retailers worldwide including Amazon, Target, Walmart, Starbucks, Whole Foods, CVS, Lowes, Home Depot, iTunes, Best Buy, Sears, Kohls, eBay, GameStop, etc. |
Spendabit, Overstock and The Bitcoin Directory | Retail shopping with millions of results |
NewEgg and Dell | For all your electronics needs |
Piixpay, Bitbill.eu, Bylls, Coins.ph, LivingRoomofSatoshi, Coinsfer, and more | Bill payment |
Menufy and Takeaway | Takeout delivered to your door |
Expedia, Cheapair, Destinia, Abitsky, SkyTours, the Travel category on Gyft and 9flats | For when you need to get away |
Cryptostorm, Mullvad, and PIA | VPN services |
Namecheap, Porkbun | Domain name registration |
Stampnik | Discounted USPS Priority, Express, First-Class mail postage |
Coinmap and
AirBitz are helpful to find local businesses accepting bitcoin. A good resource for UK residents is at
wheretospendbitcoins.co.uk.
There are also
lots of charities which accept bitcoin donations.
Merchant Resources
There are several benefits to accepting bitcoin as a payment option if you are a merchant;
- 1-3% savings over credit cards or PayPal.
- No chargebacks (final settlement in 10 minutes as opposed to 3+ months).
- Accept business from a global customer base.
- Increased privacy.
- Convert 100% of the sale to the currency of your choice for deposit to your account, or choose to keep a percentage of the sale in bitcoin if you wish to begin accumulating it.
If you are interested in accepting bitcoin as a payment method, there are several options available;
Can I mine bitcoin?
Mining bitcoin can be a fun learning experience, but be aware that you will most likely operate at a loss. Newcomers are often advised to stay away from mining unless they are only interested in it as a hobby similar to
folding at home. If you want to learn more about mining you can read the
mining FAQ. Still have mining questions? The crew at
/BitcoinMining would be happy to help you out.
If you want to contribute to the bitcoin network by hosting the blockchain and propagating transactions you can
run a full node. You can view the
global node distribution for a visual representation of the node network.
Earning bitcoin
Just like any other form of money, you can also earn bitcoin by being paid to do a job.
Site | Description |
WorkingForBitcoins, Bitwage, Cryptogrind, Coinality, Bitgigs, /Jobs4Bitcoins, BitforTip, Rein Project | Freelancing |
Lolli | Earn bitcoin when you shop online! |
OpenBazaar, Purse.io, Bitify, /Bitmarket | Marketplaces |
/GirlsGoneBitcoin NSFW | Adult services |
A-ads, Coinzilla.io | Advertising |
You can also earn bitcoin by participating as a market maker on
JoinMarket by allowing users to perform CoinJoin transactions with your bitcoin for a small fee (requires you to already have some bitcoin).
Bitcoin-Related Projects
The following is a
short list of ongoing projects that might be worth taking a look at if you are interested in current development in the bitcoin space.
Bitcoin Units
One Bitcoin is quite large (hundreds of £/$/€) so people often deal in smaller units. The most common subunits are listed below:
Unit | Symbol | Value | Info |
bitcoin | BTC | 1 bitcoin | one bitcoin is equal to 100 million satoshis |
millibitcoin | mBTC | 1,000 per bitcoin | used as default unit in recent Electrum wallet releases |
bit | bit | 1,000,000 per bitcoin | colloquial "slang" term for microbitcoin (μBTC) |
satoshi | sat | 100,000,000 per bitcoin | smallest unit in bitcoin, named after the inventor |
For example, assuming an arbitrary exchange rate of $10000 for one Bitcoin, a $10 meal would equal:
- 0.001 BTC
- 1 mBTC
- 1,000 bits
- 100k sats
For more information check out the
Bitcoin units wiki.
Still have questions? Feel free to ask in the comments below or stick around for our weekly Mentor Monday thread. If you decide to post a question in /Bitcoin, please use the search bar to see if it has been answered before, and remember to follow the community rules outlined on the sidebar to receive a better response. The mods are busy helping manage our community so please do not message them unless you notice problems with the functionality of the subreddit.
Note: This is a community created FAQ. If you notice anything missing from the FAQ or that requires clarification you can edit it here and it will be included in the next revision pending approval.
Welcome to the Bitcoin community and the new decentralized economy!
submitted by Have you come across these ads online in the past few months? Here are the ads on
gumtree and
carousell, and here is what they typically say.
Singlish Speakers Needed | We will pay you $18/hr and up to $3300/month!
We need people who can speak English with a Singaporean accent AND one mother tongue (either Malay, Tamil or Mandarin Chinese) and record their conversations.
Comfortably chat with your family or friends at home and earn money!!! The speech audio will be used to train AI algorithms to better understand Singaporean English.
As the title suggests, this was a part time job that paid an exceedingly generous amount compared to the other jobs on the platform at the time. The job was supposedly from a company called
LiMuHan Consulting Pte. Ltd. The job description again emphasizes the great pay, flexible hours and that anyone who can speak English with a Singaporean accent is qualified. By recording your conversations with friends and family 8 hours a day, one can earn up to SGD 3300 a month, a figure approaching fresh graduates with a Bachelor Degree from local universities. Payout was to be done by peer-to-peer funds transfer (PayNow, PayLah) or bank transfer.
Visiting the website of LiMuHan consulting reveals that it is clearly a
shell company:
- Only one ongoing project, the Singlish recording one.
- Their services tab contains three entries: Market Entry Services, Strategic Business Introductions and Professional Advisory Services all linked to the website of Cross Border Partners Advisory Services LLC, a consultancy from Tampa, Florida, USA. From my own research, there are no clear links between LiMuHan and Cross Border Partners.
- Checking their domain, it was only created in June 2020, through wix.com, a website building platform and is only registered for a year.
- It is stated clearly in the job description that the recorded voices are used to train AI algorithms and there is seemingly some links to NUS, as there is a question about participating in a similar project in NUS. I could not find any other evidence linking this job to NUS
Once you indicate your interest through WhatsApp, you will be asked to fill in a Google Form. In the
Google Form ( PM me for the link), you are required to provide some information about yourself, but nothing that would immediately allow for identification. The information required were:
- Full name (As per IC)
- Full name of your conversation partner (As per IC)
- Age (must be 18 years old and above to participate)
- Gender
- Ethnicity
- Mother Tongue
- PayNow/PayLah Number & Bank account number
The rest of the form contained instructions on how to do the job, what app to use and so on. There was great emphasis on using Singlish and your mother tongue (Mandarin, Tamil or Malay) in conversation, in addition to the importance of speakers engaging in genuine conversation without reading texts, playing games or other activities.
After signing up, you will be asked to record an hour of conversation with an assigned partner and submit your audio file on another google docs link. In this document, slightly more information was required to be provided, such as Dominant language, Level of education and Occupation. In addition, a signed
Speech Data Collection Authorization Letter was required. Reading the letter, it is clear that your speech data would end up with
Beijing Surfing Technology Co. Ltd. and
Surfing Technology (Tianjin) Co. Ltd located in the People's Republic of China. Highlights within in this contract are:
- Voice data will be stored in the People’s Republic of China, and the two companies (named Party A in the letter) will not be held responsible for any consequences, which are caused by or related to any third party’s misuse of the data, algorithm and technology that are legally provided by Party A.
- Collected speech data may be shared in every country and region that these companies conduct their business. (This means that an AI that can specifically recognize conversations in Singlish can be potentially accessible worldwide)
- Any dispute resolution should be submitted to China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (CIETAC) for arbitration which shall be conducted in accordance with the CIETAC's arbitration rules.
Visiting the
website of the companies reveal that they are indeed an AI data provider. Providing speech, facial and autonomous driving data. On the website, we see that the company is affiliated with the largest tech giants in China:
- Face++: Controversially known for using facial recognition technology to find criminals by scanning through China’s vast security camera surveillance network.
- Alibaba Group: One of the worlds largest internet and AI companies.
- Baidu: Also one of the largest internet companies in the world. Offers China’s search engine, maps and encyclopedia service.
- Sense Time: An artificial intelligence company established in Hong Kong.
- Tencent: One of the worlds largest video game, social media and internet service companies responsible for QQ and WeChat.
The market for AI Training Datasets (text, images/faces and audio data) is growing rapidly (CAGR 22.5%) and is expected to be worth $4.8B by 2027 (
Grand View Research). An AI based on
NLP can only work as well as it’s training data allows it to, and abundant, reliable training data is the key to producing a good AI program. In 2016, an
AI chatbot built by Microsoft was taught to be racist and misogynistic because twitter users fed it with comments that were of that nature. Needless to say, collecting data on Singlish speech could only mean one thing: an AI was going to be trained to recognize and transcribe Singlish conversations. Even as someone with only a conceptual understanding of AI and Speech Recognition technology, one could immediately see how these kinds of datasets could be abused.
The information presented above inevitably raises a lot of questions that can be asked or investigated, most prominently:
- National Security: Due to the nature of speech data collected, the possibility of spying on Singaporeans by the Chinese cannot be ruled out. Depending on the magnitude of the problem, this could be a huge national security concern. Mobile phones that have both software and hardware made in China such as Xiaomi, Huawei, Oppo etc. are very popular in Singapore. Historically, China has not been particularly strict with privacy and have used smartphone technology for spying before, such as in Xinjiang. Furthermore, the freedom to distribute the speech data means that, it is possible for any country (or person) in the world to train an AI that can transcribe and transmit speech data in real time in the form of a malware or mobile app.
- Ethics & Privacy: AI has been making waves lately in the news. From how it will allow driver-less cars to how it can improve healthcare and medical diagnostics. However, a side of AI that is less explored in the media is ethics. Imagine your Lazada or Amazon app in your phone listening in to your conversations and figuring out that your wedding anniversary is near, then suggesting a bouquet of flowers for you in your notification? Not everyone would be comfortable that the device they carry around and depend on everyday is listening in on them. Are we trading off something important here as a society?
*P.S. i investigated and collected all this data late last year, but was afraid to post it out for fear of backlash, but decided to post it now after recent events, particularly with TT. I contacted major media outlets in Singapore and shared my findings with them, but none of them have reported on this so far. I have also shared my concerns with PDPC, but they came back with an email saying basically as long as consent is obtained by the company it is fine.
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