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3 Reasons Why You Need A Cryptocurrency Hardware Wallet
We are officially in uncharted territory now with bitcoin hitting an all-time high of over $19,000 as of earlier today. I remember when I first got into bitcoin and people were saying it would never go above $5,000. At any rate, most people are hearing about bitcoin from either word of mouth, family who have already invested, or various news outlets. This is an unprecedented time as BTC has never been this high and currently, there is no end in sight.
Some of you may be wondering “Now that I have bitcoin, what do I do with it?”. Well, you can obviously hold it on your online account, likely at Coinbase. You can spend it on some popular websites like overstock.com for a new pillow or expedia.com for vacation packages. You can also send it to family overseas or as a Christmas or holiday gift.
But how secure is your bitcoin really? As you may have heard, there is a very tumultuous history with bitcoin being used for a wide array of nefarious activity and even being used to launder dirty money in some cases. In my opinion, this only validated its utility, as bitcoin does not care who you are, where you live, or what financial or social status that you have.
Below are 3 major reasons why you need a cryptocurrency hardware wallet, and quick:
1.) MULTIPLE BITCOIN EXCHANGES HAVE BEEN HACKED – You may have heard in the news that exchanges such as Poloniex, Bitfloor, and the infamous Mt. Gox (in 2011) have all had issues with bitcoins being hacked and online wallet accounts stolen and being drained to ZERO.
The issue with leaving your coins sitting on an exchange is that THEY (the exchange you bought it from) control the private keys and therefore are in complete control of your cryptocurrency. Once it’s purchased, you can transfer your coins to various wallets either on your desktop, another website, or preferably offline onto a bitcoin hardware wallet, where it has zero chance of being hacked. This is the smartest way to hold your money. You wouldn’t buy an investment property and give the bank the only copy of your keys would you? I didn’t think so.2.) BITCOINS ONLY HAVE ONE PRIVATE KEY – The private key is the holy grail to your bitcoin. Without it, you don’t have control of your coins. Period. The way the protocol works is you have a public key (Your wallet address), and your private key (your bitcoin itself). Together they form a digital signature that authorize the control and ownership of bitcoin and their transactions. I don’t know about you, but if I am investing in something valuable, I want to retain control of it and protect it, not trust a 3rd party to do so. You can review an article here where a man “accidentally” threw away a hard drive with over 7,500 bitcoin on it (currently valued at over 125 million dollars as of this writing)
3.) TAX REASONS – Now this is a bit controversial, as this topic is still not perfectly clear in terms of how bitcoins are taxed. Because they are not issued by a bank or a government agency, the IRS cannot subpoena any other organization for your spending habits and overall holdings. Because it is decentralized, they don’t have a single point of failure to intimidate to hand over your personal information. Except for the recent incident where the IRS requested all user data from Coinbase containing user transactions that exceed $20,000 (You can read more about it here).
As it currently stands, if you hold your cryptocurrency offline, how can the government subpoena your hardware wallet if they don’t know where it is stored? It would be like if you had 30 bricks of gold buried in a secret place and the IRS knocked on your door and told you to hand it over. You have plausible deniability as they have no way to confirm it unless you handed it over to them voluntarily.We specialize in offering the industry’s most trusted hardware wallets offline, and believe in having the intangible, tangible. Feel free to contact us through the contact form if you have any comments or questions regarding this. I would be happy to assist and clarify any questions you may have. Happy wallet shopping!
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Travala Review (2020) | Booking.com Is Dead, Start Spending Crypto On Traveling EASILY!
What Is Travala?
Meet Travala, The Blockchain Booking Solution. Travel is one of life’s great pleasures, but it’s hardly an inexpensive one. Bookings providers make bank from unwary travelers, and finding the right price can be a matter of luck rather than skill. Or, if you prefer AirBnB, you’ve got those hidden cleaning fees –– the main purpose of which seems to be to clean your pockets. Fortunately, one company is offering a crypto solution to the traveler’s troubles. Travala is a next-generation online travel agency (NOTA) whose booking platform combines decentralized technologies and tokenized incentives.
Using blockchain technology, Travala offers the travel industry cost efficiencies, a secure payment platform, and an easy-to-implement loyalty rewards program. Travala (formerly known as Concierge) concluded its initial coin offering in April of 2018, raising around US $2.6 million in funds. Since then, Travala has seen dramatic growth in its partnerships with hotel providers and aggregators. The platform currently offers access to more than 565,000 properties across 210 countries.
According to CEO Matt Luczynski, Travala is on average 15% cheaper than mainstream competitors like Travelocity or Booking.com. Via Travala offers services similar to those of current travel booking platforms. From user experience, it appears as if the company is already delivering the functions outlined during the ICO.User Experience. While this author hasn’t yet booked any hotel offerings through the Travala, there are plenty of reviews from those who have.
One frequent traveler used the Travala platform to book a stay in a room that was “spacious by Hong Kong standards. The author says “Travala packaged everything up nicely, all-inclusive price and you could see exactly what you were paying.” The review also includes a cost comparison between Travala and Booking.com, highlighting the transparency on taxes and final costs.
How Does Travala Compare To Other Top-Rated Travel Sites?
Another user, by the handle Xen, recounted the step-by-step process of booking a stay for two in Brisbane, Australia. According to Xen, “The price was around 15% cheaper than Booking.com,” a difference of about US $100. Xen’s articles demonstrate the search, payment, and check-in process, as well as the process of sending AVA tokens from a Neon Wallet to pay for the trip. Travala also offers a detailed outline of the transfer and payment process. In addition to NEO or AVA, travelers can choose from more than 40 cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Litecoin, BNB, Zcash, or even Dogecoin.
Travala Payment Options: Users also can pay via Pay Pal, which in turn accepts Visa, Mastercard, and other credit rating cards.The AVA Token Use CasesThe Travala platform offers AVA rewards to users who “Help grow the platform through authentic reviews and other content.” This incentive aims to offer a genuine review system for customers as they shop.Users have access to an additional 10% in savings through a combination of the SMART discount and loyalty program. The program has tiered layers, with growing rewards according to the number of AVA coins staked in the users’ wallet.
Users can also collect rewards by referring new members to the platform. In addition, all refunds are given in AVA tokens, regardless of the original currency of payment. For rewards, Travala distributes its native token (AVA) based on the exchange value of the token on the day of the payment.
Is Travala The Only Crypto-Focused Travel Company?
Travala isn’t the only blockchain startup looking to corner the travel industry.
Lock Trip is a hotel and vacation home rental platform, that is currently in beta version. The service aims to take 0% commissions on bookings” and offers access to more than 100,000 hotels. Prices are listed in the native LOC token, and according to CEO Nikola Alexandrov, their prices are so competitive they are not allowed to display them publicly.
Beyond a travel booking platform, Lock Trip also offers an open-source distributed database as a turnkey solution for marketplaces to source inventory easily. Similar projects include Winding Tree, which offers the open source infrastructure for travel inventory distribution. Suppliers can distribute their inventory directly to points of sale, and buyers can access stock from a solitary system without any fees.Looking forwardIn January of 2019, Luczynski revealed an extra fundraising round.
Rather than a coin offering, the business will certainly hold a standard equity-based Series A round, together with crowdfunding. 95% of offered equity would certainly be designated with Series A, with the staying 5% to be dispersed with the crowdfund. The increased funding will certainly be utilized for speeding up development tremendously to include even more individuals as well as reservations to the system. The Travala system is presently a functional as well as online item with a smooth interface, smooth individual experience, as well as the capability to pay with fiat or several cryptocurrencies.
The system has actually expanded instead swiftly in its very first year of procedure as well as looks for to proceed that development with a funding shot of financing. The writer purchases electronic possessions, that includes Zcash as well as Bitcoin pointed out in this article.
Travala Review: Final Verdict
Overall, my experience was actually really good. It was fun to be actually use my crypto in a real world scenario, and also earn more crypto at the same time. I am starting to see the real world economics and incentives that cryptocurrency can provide and legacy financial system will soon face a reckoning! If you are looking for new solutions to not only save money, but easily spend your crypto for travel or other services, then you need to look no further!
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What do you think? Will you ever spend your cryptocurrency on travel and save? Let us know in the comments below!
Cheers,
The Crypto Renegade
The issue with leaving your coins sitting on an exchange is that THEY (the exchange you bought it from) control the private keys and therefore are in complete control of your cryptocurrency. Once it’s purchased, you can transfer your coins to various wallets either on your desktop, another website, or preferably offline onto a bitcoin hardware wallet, where it has zero chance of being hacked. This is the smartest way to hold your money. You wouldn’t buy an investment property and give the bank the only copy of your keys would you? I didn’t think so.
As it currently stands, if you hold your cryptocurrency offline, how can the government subpoena your hardware wallet if they don’t know where it is stored? It would be like if you had 30 bricks of gold buried in a secret place and the IRS knocked on your door and told you to hand it over. You have plausible deniability as they have no way to confirm it unless you handed it over to them voluntarily.
