I put together a quick beginner's guide for people new to the crypto space who are interested in investing. You can go check it out if you haven't read it already. I'm hoping it is a good resource for those who have family and friends who may be interested in crypto but don't quite know where to start (and many of us have a hard time explaining bitcoin to others, let alone ethereum or any other number of different systems). The basic principles of it are: Save, Read, Buy, Use. Again, these four principles are outlined further in the article, and I'd recommend anyone in this space internalize them as much as possible.
But there is one piece of advice that I think is the most important, that reflects one major mistake I made in the dot com bubble, greatly reduces risk, and will leave a person better off regardless of the up and down movements of the market. Before I give this advice, I'd like to talk about my two biggest mistakes in the dot com bubble of the 90's.
One, I wasn't invested at all. I graduated high school in 1997 and only really knew about saving money in my savings account. A major bull market was going on and while I had been one of the first on my block to get a 2400 baud modem with America Online, I never thought to open a brokerage account and put a little money into the stock market. The follies of youth, amirite?
The second mistake directly links to my best advice: I should have looked into a job in the growing technology sector. I absolutely loved the internet, loved gaming (lots of time spent my sophomore year playing Starcraft), and would have found little problem getting a technical job. Instead, I picked a career track that had extremely limited opportunity that it turns out, I wasn't even interested in. I had to pivot at age 25 and joined the military for new training.
This is My Advice to You
I don't care if you're 15, 55, or somewhere in between. There are a ton of jobs and opportunities opening up in the crypto world. If you find yourself refreshing ethtrader or blockfolio daily (hourly...minutely?), if you happen to have the desire to be a part of a big change in our world, if you have always wanted to work for a startup, this may be your opportunity. Brendan Eich, founder of Brave, recently tweeted about looking for developers for his platform:
As part of our @attentiontoken work, we are hiring Ethereum devs. They are in demand! DM me if you have experience and interest. Thanks.
BrendanEich (@BrendanEich) July 11, 2017
There are not a lot of blockchain developers right now...but there probably will be in two or three years.
I am currently pivoting my career away from the military and into computer security. I'm near 40, but it's time to learn C. At 22, I would have thought I was too old to learn something like coding (I had weird ideas then). My local college has an online "Intro to C" for $100, which is a really good deal! I'm eager to learn Javascript as well, although I don't plan on being a developer; I'm in the cybersecurity business.
In the meantime, I do some freelance writing about crypto and have kept my eyes open for opportunities. I'm involved in some good online discussion groups, which you can find fairly easily. My advice is to find a group that matches your interests, and dive in deeply to learn from others in the field. r/ethereum is a good place to read great articles. Every ICO has a slack or rocketchat where the developers/founders talk to interested parties. Meetup.com is an incredible resource too that can help you find fellow enthusiasts in your area. If there isn't currently a Bitcoin meetup in your area, start one! I guarantee you'll find some people who share your passion about it.
Note: Slacks are a great place to begin finding like minded people, but BEWARE of the SLACKBOT SCAMS! Just keep in mind that it is very easy for a person to write code to make the slackbot put out a phishing attempt and DO NOT CLICK THE LINKS!
Let me restate this to be as plain as possible: if you have time to spend an hour or two of your attention every day on crypto, put that time to good use and learn some skills that will help you make some money! Steemit and writing work for me. Find out what works for you! We're in boomtown right now and anybody who is spending brain power in this space should be finding out how they can help build it up.
Do you have a skill that might be marketable in this space? Let me know in the comments below!