Right, so that you are not overly-eager (or disappointed) when you read this issue, I have no deep, hidden secrets that have been revealed to me about Bitclub Network's future plans (I can almost feel the audible, global groan of disappointment). I can tell you though that there are things in the background being worked on, observed, planned and discussed that we have not been informed about yet. The "Club" is going places and there will be exciting times ahead, that was very clear from what I heard.

But you should already be well and truly happy with the journey so far. Yes we have had technical issues and bad people trying to hack our funds and other challenges of an irritating admin type nature but all in all we have done pretty well from this.

It was genuine enthusiasm that I felt coming down the line at me from inside the Ferrari in Los Angeles (apologies if you didn't read issue 75 - in that case, the last statement would be meaningless). Not the type of enthusiasm that one could contrive by the way. Even with years of practise.

I also sensed frustration that people in the, so called, developed Western world were not really getting it when people in Asia, Africa, India, the Middle East and even South America were queueing up (literally) TO GET IT. I will come back to that.

I can share with you the sense of passion that those driving Bitclub feel for where it is going and I would also like to share my own feelings as to why you should be encouraging people you know to join us on this journey. This journey, even for those of you approaching the two-years of membership stage, has barely begun.

Along with a determination to find other vehicles of profit for the members; at its core, there is an absolute determination within the main drivers of Bitclub to not just keep up with the Bitcoin mining curve but to get ahead of it and stay ahead of it. Let us put this into context for you. Bitclub want to be a big player in mining. One of the biggest players indeed and I really do get the sense that they will make it to the very top of the mining tree in time.

There was just over $12 million in new funds that came into Bitclub during January 2017 (just in case you wondered if it was all dying down or going quiet). Whilst many "network marketing" businesses are falling by the way side whilst continuing to sell dreams rather than tangible products, Bitclub is making money for its members. It's product is money and that is as tangible as it gets. 

$12 Million in new income in one month from a crowd-funded operation that has been running now for 2 years and 3 months is staggering. And $6 Million of that income has already been spent, turned straight back out, on new mining equipment. 55 Petahash (roughly) of the absolute best mining equipment money can buy has been ordered and will be installed as soon as it gets delivered. A further investment in addition to that $6 million is going into continuing to find good support and technical people. A side of the operation that is proving very difficult to grow.

"John, it is so frustrating, it matters not how much money we throw at it we simply cannot get good technical and support people. We have the money, we want them to join us but they are either simply not up to the task we need them for or they simply don't want to move from what they are doing. We have this one guy, seriously, we pay him $15,000 per month. He is brilliant but he is slow and very, very precise. He is frustrating but so very good at what he does. We are willing to pay others similar levels of money if they are as good as he is or even close, but we can't get these people. We just can't".

I understand that the level of technical ability BCN needs must be staggering. After all, they are constantly fighting off hackers and that is a daily routine on top of the normal development work going on. And when you really study the depth and complexity of their invoicing and mining scripts, the mind is truly blown.

So back to mining...

We will be at over 150 Peta Hash when that current new equipment order is all in place and more of the same or better will be ordered as we move through the year. The kit manufacturers can hardly keep pace with demand right now because Bitcoin mining is seen to be so lucrative. A big part of that, of course, is the newer equipment is getting better and better on the power consumption side. A modern mining rig that performs 10 times better than its equivalent from just one or two years ago will also use one 20th of the power the older rig used.

I remember people telling me that there was no point getting into Bitcoin mining once the last halving happened (July 2016) and block rewards fell from 50 to 25 coins per block. Boy were they wrong, we are hitting more blocks than ever and more than twice (typically) the amount we were when the block reward was 25 coins. I'm no mathematical genius but even I can work out that if you get 20 blocks of 12.5 coins instead of 8 blocks of 25 coins, you do better with the 20 blocks. 

Let us please remember, because this is critical of understanding the mechanics of what you have bought into, that whether the value of a Bitcoin is $100 or $1,000 you get a share of the ongoing block rewards NOT its dollar value. So the split is the split. And your mining deal goes on until mining ceases to be viable for anyone. It isn't for a year or for two years, it could go on for 10 years or even more. And, after Bitcoin becomes non-viable, you are still a member of Bitclub and they, rest assured, will be into other profitable alternatives long before then. 

Typically at the moment on my main club account (and this is my average worked out over the year to date) I get, as in receive, 0.014 Bitcoin per day from mining (it is a founder position) and that, based on today's Bitcoin value ($1,046 as I type these words) is $14.64. 

Not a fortune I hear you say? But that is $5,343 if you annualise it. But let us be more conservative and say that my average over the year so far is higher than normal for some reason. Let's just say that it was more like just 0.1 Bitcoin per day - well then it would be a miserly $10.4 per day or $3,796 annualised. Ten years of that, five years of that even is well worth having me thinks.

And just so we are absolutely clear that is the INCOME from mining. There is, in addition, an amount of my mining share of Bitcoin going back into to purchase partial shares every time I get a mining pool pay out. So that could easily be another $7 to $10 going back into re-investment on new, additional pool shares. Thus, if we really equate the value of my original $3,500 dollar mining pool investment it could be said that it is producing the equivalent of $7,900 or even $9,000 per annum.

(note to those of you that know from previous conversations - I, of course only ever invested $599 at the outset - I think it fair to assimilate this as if I had actually put the entire $3,500 in from my own pocket).

So tell me Padawan - if I had put $3,500 into a bank account or even a fairly speculative investment where there were potentially high risks - could I expect the $3,500 back PER YEAR? I think not. But, I hear you say, there are risks with this too. What if Bitclub (who right now as we speak are investing fortunes into a new company called Coinpay - and did you notice that you were given shares in that by the way) were to crash and burn - then this investment is highly speculative as well.

Let me tell you something. Even the biggest businesses on the planet can go bust. Enron was a monster with some peculiar accounting practises. It went bust. Banks have gone bust. British Home Stores, a bastion of British high street business, went bust as did Woolworth. So the "could go bust" argument applies to all businesses that one could decide to invest in or did invest in not just network marketing companies.

You should listen to the passion in Russ when he says "Jeez man, what are we supposed to do before people will trust that we are making them money and doing the best we can by them."

He has a point. All I ever seem to hear from people these days is a bunch of moans and groans about how hard it is to make any money and how poor Bitclub support is curiously followed (sometimes - I am cherry picking to be fair)) by "oh have you heard about this latest Crypto currency company? Their coin is going to replace Bitcoin, it's really great and within the next few months every merchant on the planet is going to be accepting it"

These people are often highly intelligent people who can actually go out there and find out what the value of Bitcoin is right now on their own and (more importantly) how long it has taken to get to where it is today and how few merchants (in real terms) will take it for payment. And they expect this latest bit of Crypto fluff to do it all within a few months. HELLO!!!

That's partly Russ and partly me talking but we do have a problem here in the UK and maybe to a degree across Western Europe. We don't get it. And we don't get it because we don't live it and feel it on a day to day basis. Allow me to elaborate.

We are comfortable. We have plastic cards by the sack load. We can sit at our computers at home and direct our money from our bank account to any number of businesses, merchants, other banks or people at the touch of a button. To us, if we are into the idea of Bitcoin at all, it is as a novelty or a little bit of rebellion.

We don't get that in 4 billion other households around the world that the ability to move money with a press of an index finger does not exist. It is, for some, as alien as democracy or freedom. We don't get that at all.

And we don't get, in our comfortable Western armchairs, how it is exactly because of the revolution that Bitcoin is causing in these less organised and less privileged countries around the world that Bitcoin will drive forward and become more and more valuable to us all. 

And we don't encourage others to join us in Bitclub because we are too frightened that we might recommend a company that turns into bad business. We don't even want to look at the evidence we have to hand directly, as members of some 18 months or more standing, that clearly demonstrates that we can acquire Bitcoin through our mining pool shares by sitting on our butts in our comfy armchairs. 

Oh and, of course, there's the "too complicated" argument. Oh yes, it's far too complicated to actually buy Bitcoin so that you can buy a Bitcoin mining pool share. Really? Compared to what, gold for example? Because, of course, you can just walk into the bank and buy gold whenever you want, right? That isn't complicated. It just comes out the ATM on demand doesn't it. Hey there are people who even buy gold bullion bars because it is so easy.

To buy Bitcoin you take money from your bank account and you turn it into Bitcoin through someone or some organisation that exchanges fiat currency for Bitcoin. There are loads of them. There's a link below that you can check out if you don't believe me. 

Guess what, buying anything precious that isn't fiat currency (cash) is complicated compared to cash because the banks control the movement of cash. They hate Bitcoin because they can't control the movement of Bitcoin and take their pound of flesh from it as it moves around. If they could they'd be holding street parties and giving the stuff away! 

Here's another point. Do you think it is?

a) Easier or 

b) harder 

for someone in Indonesia or Malaysia or Brazil or South Africa or India to exchange cash for Bitcoin than it is for someone in, oh let's say the UK?

Well, let me tell you, it is much, much harder and yet, it is in countries like these where people are flocking to get a slice of Bitclub and these people generally have much smaller funds to risk than we do.

I know many people who wouldn't even blink at losing $500 (the smallest mining pool entry point at Bitclub) and in those other countries they can't wait to get that money into Bitcoin through Bitclub and share the potential with their colleagues.

Right now, anyone joining Bitclub Network not only gets to share mining pool returns as our mining operation grows, but also earns Coinpay tokens (that is Coinpay shares). Coinpay when it is launched, partly because of the reasons I have given above, will spread across the Far East, India, South America and Africa like a wild fire. Why will it spread like Wild fire? Because it goes direct to the heart of what people in those countries experience daily. A way to buy things without the banking structure behind them that gives them the luxury of plastic and technology that we have. 

And, with the promoting of Coinpay and the spreading of the word comes a new income stream for those people that will help them to build wealth in Bitcoin. And that income stream is going to put money in our pockets as well.

Of course it is likely that we are all too comfortable to want to build an income in Bitcoin. After all, we've only seen it increase from around $250 to $1,050 over the last 18 months and of course it could go down again, wouldn't that be terrible as we accumulate more and more of it through mining. 

I wonder now, with hindsight, how many people you know that might have wanted to share the experience you've had with this over the last 18 months. Seriously, just consider that question for a moment. All of those people were deprived of the experience because you were too worried to tell them. And now you're probably too worried to tell them in case it's too late. 

Strangely, that was the common reason 18 months back why people wouldn't come in then. It was too late. What was going to happen with Bitcoin had already happened. Huh? So it went from $250 to over $1,000. Well guess what, it is likely to do something very similar again over the next 18 months. You see unlike spending cash to buy Bitcoin and then leaving it at that. Using Bitclub means that you can spend to cash to Buy Bitcoin that you then invest in mining for more Bitcoin which can lead to you having far more than you would have had just form buying the Bitcoin and hoping for growth as you hold it.

Maybe the mining industry will get too competitive. Maybe legislation will come in to make Bitcoin too hard to get into. Maybe the rewards from Bitcoin mining will reduce, maybe Bitclub will go bust, hell, maybe Bitcoin will go bust. 

Maybe this, maybe that. I know, let's just list the same things we all listed 18 months ago. Guess what, the same old fears are always going to be there and in another 18 months, another bunch of people who could have made some money from Bitclub will not have done so because YOU wouldn't tell them about it. How selfish is that?

It's all too complicated isn't it. Well, I have a trip booked into the future of Bitclub and I think the only thing that you need to know about something complicated is that it is only complicated until you've done it then it seems oh so simple and you wonder why you didn't do it before.

There are going to be some very happy Bitclub members in the future I think - did I mention that just about everybody that came into Bitclub in a founder position with me back in 2015 and early 2016 have made all of their money back in Clubcoin value alone?

Wow, that's the first time I mentioned Clubcoin but, then again, it's too late now, Clubcoin giveaways have ended...

The honest answer is that I am not sure why this is the case but there was talk in the last news feed from Bitclub about the changes they are making to the mining script. My guess is that this (the change) is what is causing the "total" to not populate. Either this or there is simply a menu re-write going on and this has disappeared as part of that re-write.

There is nothing to fear as this "totals" record is only a summary of where you are - a bunch of zeros here does not indicate that anything has gone missing because it was never a wallet record that expressed anything other than the total Bitcoins accumulated through mining.

Unlike the Bitcoin wallet total, the green mining earnings indicator was purely an instant view of what had accumulated to you so far through mining. The total of re-purchases and actual Bitcoin earnings paid into your wallet. In short there was nothing there to hack.

I suspect there will be a news bulletin soon clarifying this but I have sent messages upstairs just in case. Just remember that the total shares figures are still correctly showing below and the Bitcoin you've had from mining has already passed into or passed through your wallet.