Why Did I Just Buy That Zcash Mining Contract?

Did I Just Throw Away $61.26 or Buy Into the Future of Cryptocurrency?

A bought a Zcash mining contract from Genesis Mining this morning. I’m feeling a conflicting mix of buyers remorse and excitement. Did I just throw away $61.26 or buy into the future of cryptocurrency?

What the Heck is Zcash, Anyway?

I bought the mining contract without knowing what Zcash is. One article said it’s what Bitcoin was meant to be all along -

What is Zcash?_Zcash (ZEC) is another Crypto currency like bitcoin but with a few different features. Like Bitcoin it is based on a…_www.cryptocompare.com

Another article said investors were getting excited about it -

Investors Are Going Wild for a Digital Currency Called Zcash (And It's Not Even Out Yet) - CoinDesk_"Deafening." That's how market analyst Arthur Hayes describes the enthusiasm ahead of the upcoming launch of a new…_www.coindesk.com

I joined the Zcash Slack channel. There’s a lot of excitement in the channel. Zcash is launching on October 28, 2016.

That’s tomorrow!

Cool, I’m actually early and ahead of the game on something. Count me in!

I guess that’s enough for me! Or at least enough to spend $61.26 on a mining contract.

It’s Not Like I Have Bitcoin Burning a Hole in my Pocket

I wrote an earlier article about setting up my first Ethereum wallet. ZeroGox has been kind enough to send me a some Ether since then. I thought I’d convert that Ether to Bitcoin. Then I’d use Bitcoin to buy the Zcash mining contract.

That was the idea. First of all my Ethereum Mist wallet is taking a long time to sync to the production network. It’s taking a long time. It’s been taking a period of days, since I’m not running my laptop 24x7.

(Note: I discovered Ethereum Mist release 0.8.7 became available as I was writing this article. Maybe that will speed things up!)

That’s OK. I’m still feeling pretty excited about Ethereum.

I tried exchanging Ether to Bitcoin using Shapeshift.io. The transfers didn’t process. Maybe it’s due to some of the recent attacks on the Ethereum network. It could be I did the transfer wrong.

I need to take some time to make sure I’m executing the transfer the right way. That’s going to take more time than I have right now. I’m also going to wait…and wait…until my Ethereum Mist wallet finishes syncing to the production network.

I tried exchanging Ethereum on GDAX too. That’s Coinbase’s cryptocurrency exchange. (BTW, Brian Armstrong, glad to see Coinbase resolved the ID verification issues!)

It turns out exchanging Ethereum to Bitcoin on GDAX is a no-go for residents of New York State. (Don’t worry, New York, I still love you…)

So I’m Actually Going to Use a Credit Card to Purchase Zcash?

Using a credit card to buy a speculative investment vehicle sounds irresponsible to me. Just because I’m Just Rolling WITH It doesn’t mean I’m Just Rolling IN It ;)

I’m only going to have to spend $28 to get started though. That feels OK.

Nope!

Genesis Mining has a $50 minimum for credit card purchases. I had to spend $58, less a 3% discount from a coupon code I found.

And there was a $5 transaction fee tacked onto orders under $100. This felt kind of sneaky on the part of Genesis. I was too far in to pull the plug =at this point though!

The purchase, discount and fees brought my total to $61.26. That’s more than I wanted to spend.

But It’s Zcash, Right!

It’s OK, I told myself, because it’s Zcash! Then I remembered I don’t really know what Zcash is.

It’s about time I did some research. This is from the Zcash About page —

Zcash is a decentralized and open-source cryptocurrency that offers privacy and selective transparency of transactions. Zcash payments are published on a public blockchain, but the sender, recipient, and amount of a transaction remain private.

Well, that sounds good to me. Or at least it better, since I’m not getting that $61.26 back any time soon.

Or am I?

Follow me to stay tuned to this story. I’ll be writing about how this whole thing pans out, one way or the other…

P.S. — If it’s not obvious by now, I’m not a financial professional and this is not an offer of investing advice…AT ALL! This article is an example of a HIGHLY SPECULATIVE INVESTMENT . My investments in cryptocurrencies are experiments. I expect to lose any and all money I invest in them…

If after reading all this you STILL want to invest in a Genesis Mining Contract, you can use my affiliate code aoFNlU to save 3% on your purchase.