In the time-honored tradition of goal setting for the new year, Bitcoin Magazine has compiled a short list of seven possible New Year’s Resolutions for Bitcoiners as we head into 2019. Building a strong Bitcoin community begins with individual efforts, some small, others more ambitious and labor intensive.
What might you do to contribute to the Bitcoin ecosystem this year?
Teach five people about bitcoin and help them set up a wallet.
Anyone can become a Bitcoin evangelist. Chances are that there are a number of people in your family-and-friends circle who are BTC-curious but not sure where to start. Seek them out, answer some questions and help them to set up a wallet. There are plenty of easy (non-custodial) options[1] to choose from, no matter where they are in the world.
Make sure that they understand how to secure their wallets and their seeds and that they understand the power and responsibility that comes with having total control over their funds.
Then send them a few satoshis to get them started.
Set up a full node.
Have you set up your own full node? Well, if you haven’t, you should.[2]
Nodes are essential to ensuring the security of Bitcoin. Running your own full node is also the only true way to validate your own bitcoin transactions without having to trust anyone else.
Sure, this might be a bit more of a labor-intensive resolution to actually fulfill, but it’s worth it — not just for you but for the whole network.
According to Bitcoin.org, here’s what you’ll need:
- Desktop or laptop hardware running recent versions of Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux
- 200 gigabytes of free disk space, accessible at a minimum read/write speed of 100 MB/s
- 2 gigabytes
