Chinese Blockbuster “Alibaba” Launches Cryptocurrency Mining Platform

[…When asked his feelings on digital currency, Ma claimed to be “totally confused,” explaining that “even if it works, the whole international rules on trade and financing are going to be completely changed.”

At the same time, Ma – whose net worth tops $46 billion – was quick to praise the advent of blockchain technology, suggesting his company had already looked into ways to harness this tool. …] (1)

Alibaba Group Holding Limited

(Chinese: 阿里巴巴集团控股有限公司; pinyin: Ālǐbābā Jítuán Kònggǔ Yǒuxiàn Gōngsī) is a Chinese multinational  e-commerce , retail, Internet and technology conglomerate founded in 1999 that provides consumer-to-consumer, business-to-consumer and business-to-business sales services via web portals, as well as electronic payment services, shopping search engines and data-centric cloud computing services. It also owns and operates a diverse array of businesses around the world in numerous sectors.[2]

In 2012, two of Alibaba’s portals handled 1.1 trillion yuan ($170 billion) in sales.[3] At closing time on the date of its initial public offering (IPO), 19 September 2014, Alibaba’s market value was US$231 billion.[4]

As of January 2018, Alibaba’s market cap stood at US$490 billion.[5] It is one of the top 10 most valuable and biggest companies in the world.[6]

References:

  1. alibaba-launching-crypto-platform
  2. Alibaba_Group – Wikipedia

How to Invest in CryptoCurrency – A Guide for Everyone

Of the many and diverse interests of mine, I include the emerging technology and upcoming revolution in finance, the CryptoCurrency [CC], Smart Contracts [SC] and the BlockChain [BC]. This makes sense as it fits in well with my technological background and interest in all things internet and information technology.

My first experiences with CC’s go back to 2012 when I was first looking at Bitcoin. I was interested in mining and how the various video cards of the day would perform to mine the BTC. Unfortunately, beyond doing some initial research and some trials with faucets in 2014, I did not invest early in Crypto. Some of the early amounts were still in present in my wallet and the small amount had grown considerably even left alone, from about $1 to $20 in a couple of years. This is shown in my current balance below.

Yesterday, January 13th 2018 marks a first. The day I spent my money on cryptocurrencies online and put myself at risk, and this is after much careful deliberation. I am starting with $200 (Canadian Dollars) with a plan of  investing $100 weekly in strategic ways to build my nest-egg. This will require some amount of discipline to maintain this schedule however I believe is doable and easy to duplicate.

Blueprints for Success – A New Blog

When someone finds a way to produce a product or service better than other’s they create an opportunity to profit from their advantage. My past experience working as a professional engineer in a number of consulting and design firms, including my own company, have proven that these methods work. It takes time, research, trial and error, and finally reporting.

Accumulating knowledge in a book is an evolving task and takes time. As I move forward, I plan to divest to you, the reader, my methods. What I did, how it is working, and other related concerns, opportunities or just prognostications. For this I will be creating a separate yet to be named and soon to be launched blog.

The First Steps – Make a Budget

Making the decision to start investing took some time on my part. Of course budgeting was crucial and ensuring that I had a stable source of income to commence a savings and investing program. I will be able to establish more detailed plans as my investment grows.

Wallets and Exchanges

This alone is a seemingly large and complicated topic. At present I will leave out most details and explanations for later posts, focus being on getting started.

At this time I am using Coinbase as both my on-line wallet and exchange.  Eventually I will have more wallets, some online, others on my digital devices. The wallet is where individual CC’s are digitally stored. These include online wallets, wallets stored on devices such as computers and phones, and hardware wallets. More later.

I created an account and linked my bank account via a Visa/debit Card which I already obtained from my bank for online purchases. I had done this a couple of weeks prior to making my first transaction.

Transaction Details

The first transactions were two purchases where I bought $100 of Bitcoin and $100 of Ethereum. The amounts include transaction fees and worked out to purchase 0.00538 BTC and 0.05557 ETH and have been detailed as seen in the screenshot.

ScreenShot - Coinbase - 01#1141018

Figure 1. Screenshot of Coinbase Cryptocurrency Transactions 

Also shown in the activity which is a third transaction I made to acquire some mining power, where some of the recently acquired BTC were forwarded to the provider from the Coinbase wallet.

Transaction Fees

To Be Discussed (TBD).

Mining

I decided to experiment with hiring some computing power online from the cloud using the provider FFLAK. Upon registration you receive a 14 day trial and 100 Gh/s mining power to mine Bitcoin. I upgraded to add mining of Ethereum at a rate of 2 Mh/s in one transaction using $40USD of BTC, and upgraded another 2 Mh/s with $40USD of LTC. See Transaction Fees.

On the calculator provided the projected return from my initial $80 investment annually is $348 after service fees deducted which is 435%. A pretty good rate of return, worth making an initial trial investment.

ScreenShot - FFLAK ETH Calculator- 03#1141018

 

Figure 2. FFLAK Mining CC Calculator

Prior to investing, I have been experimenting with mining and faucets. Since October of last year I have been mining a pre-ICO CC using my browser. This currency uses a novel approach to mining and I have accrued over 60 tokens over the past 4 months. Visit JSECoin to learn more.

ScreenShot - JSECoin - 02#1141018

Figure 3. JSE Coin Browser Mining Program

Faucets and Games

TBD.

ICO’s – Initial Coin Offerings and Airdrops

TBD.

Cryptocurrency and Value Propositions

TBD.

Disclaimer

No guarantees or warranties are implied or expressed by the author. Risks are inherent when investing in speculative ventures, and not all information may be included when opinion based statements and projections are made. The reader is advised to perform independent due diligence.

All readers and investors are assumed to be self-governing and able to formulate their own opinions and make independent decisions. No liability will be assumed by the author, his assigns, or the corporate entities mentioned in these published articles, for any losses.

Any payments made to the author are generated by referral links. These generate a small return and is the only financial reward provided to the author. This is in return for his time and expertise spent in sharing this valuable information to you the reader. Please follow the provided links as a small, no obligation courtesy.

Referral Links:

  1. Wallet and Exchange:  Coinbase 
  2. Mining Contract:  FFLAK
  3. Browser Mining: JSECoin