(Via Wealth Management)
It's always interesting when people talk about things as if they were experts despite having very little knowledge on the subject at hand. Earlier I blogged about a great TED talk: Why Incompetent People Think They're Amazing. We are ALL guilty of this phenomena, but of course some more than others.
(Via Odyssey)
I am hyper aware to this reality which is why I live by the purported Socrates credo: "I know nothing but the fact of my own ignorance."
I could be wrong... could. But where do I turn to in order to have some semblance of confidence?
Data. Research. Learning. Community. Industry. And DATA.
How is it that I maintain an optimistic outlook throughout life despite all the trials and tribulations?
Because the opposite is being a pessimistic, negative Nancy - and who wants to have that energy throughout life. Ugh.
I digress.
I am still running into a lot of nocoiners. Those that preach pessimism because they haven't taken the time to learn. To see what all the "hype" is about.
According to Urban Dictionary:
A Nocoiner is a person who has no Bitcoin. Nocoiners (usually Socialists, Lawyers or MBA Economists) are people who missed their opportunity to buy Bitcoin at a low price because they thought it was a scam, and who is now bitter at having missed out. The nocoiner takes out his or her bitterness on Bitcoin Hodlers, by constantly claiming that Bitcoin will crash, is a scam, is a bubble, or other types of easily refuted FUD. Nocoiners have little to no computer skills or imagination; even when they see the price of Bitcoin go up and its adoption spread they consider all Bitcoin users to be in a collective delusion, with only themselves as the ones who can see what is happening. This attitude comes from being steeped in the elitist priest cultures found at Harvard, Yale and Columbia, where anyone who is not part of their clique is treated with suspicion by default. The worst nocoiners are tenured academics and goldbugs. Nocoiners believe that the world owes them everything they want because they are part of an elite; they are hysterical liars, brats, prostitutes and losers.
As in:
I'm pretty sure Emin is a Nocoiner. Yesterday he made a Tweet about how Bitcoin going up was just a fad, and that a crash was inevitable. He's always talking Bitcoin down; if he had Bitcoin, he would never trash his own stash.
Over the last 20 years people have made amazing amounts of money following one simple trend: the network effect. In the 70s an engineer named Robert Metcalfe invented the Ethernet. In order to capitalize on this invention, he began selling network cards. But people didn't understand why they needed them. He assured them that this would solve their problems. Robert would say: The network’s value is proportional to the square of the number of users in this network.
Of course this makes sense. As we all know now, the ethernet is what led to the modern day internet.
CAN ANY OF YOU EVER NOW THINK OF THE WORLD WITHOUT THIS AMAZING INVENTION? Try to go without it for a week, see how you feel.
So on to the data.
Bitcoin Growth first:
2010 – 10 thousand users
2012 – 100 thousand users
2014 – 1 million users
2016 – 10 million users
Not convincing enough. Check this out.
(Via BlockChain Wallet)
Which way is that line going? Study it for a few minutes if you have to - I'll wait. In fact, you should probably go sign up and get a wallet if you don't have one already.
So...
Question: How long it will grow and when the growth will slow down?
Answer: Blockchain technology refers to a class of technologies “No Way Back." This is when Homo sapiens starts to use something and could not imagine how they lived without it. Here’s a graph in the case of TV, electricity and other technologies:
There are 3.5 Billion people on the internet. According to some industry experts, this number will be up to 5 Billion in the next ten years. I have always used this as a selling point of people doing more things on the internet - obviously.
So why will people the World over adopt cryptocurrencies?
- No taxes
- Free opening of accounts. They are simply calculated from your private key :-)
- Low transaction fees
- Predictable and transparent clearing. You always know what is the status of any transaction
- The transaction cannot be rolled back
- Nobody asks the personal identification information
- Nobody can write off your money
- Nobody can block the account
- No stupid limits
- Suitable for all forms of property, not just currency.
- A complete history of all transactions
- Possibility of privacy and anonymity
The list goes on. And to be clear, we are still paving the road as we drive on it. There are a lot of things still to figure out, but I am happy to be at the forefront of figuring out what will be the way we evolve as a society. In fact, if I were to really understand myself and my purpose in this World - it has always been to challenge constructs, social, economic and otherwise and wonder is there a better way? If history has taught you anything - we constantly evolve.
We are the gun slinging speculators. "While the sheep of the tribe think that’s a bad thing, it’s the early risk takers who grow markets when nobody else is willing to touch them. Speculators make the market boom, so that it reaches an equilibrium and serves the masses later. That’s how it works and that’s how it’s always worked."
For every ten thousand people who turn back when they see the warning sign at the mouth of the dark forest, there’s an Indiana Jones who straps on his whip and his leather jacket and strikes out into the unknown. He’s hunting buried treasure!
(Via Amazon)
A dear friend of mine told me this today: "You have this rare and extraordinary quality of being a business savvy shark and a compassionate humanitarian. Most people are one of the other. This is what differentiates you and makes you special and valuable to the World. Remember to continually tap into both to forge your unique path."
Truth be told, I never cared much for making money. I always would make it and give it away faster than I made it. My ability to generate it has never been a question. And for many reasons I did this for many years, but that is for another post at another time. I am buckled in now and purpose drives me.
Invest not to be Cheated
In the current economic circumstances the deception is carried out in these ways:
Disguised theft.
The part of inflation caused by the “printing press.” Watch movie “The Big Short.”Trivial racket.
It is not enough for Government to steal you money secretly. They openly steals from people by adding value to taxes. According to my estimates, at least half!
HALFNo warranties.
Banks may go bankrupt. They simply tell you “sorry, there is no your money.” The point is that any of your assets at any time may not be yours. The state does not guarantee the safety of your money. The Government requires you to keep your money in the banks, and your right of property in the public registers. People naively believing that there is no any alternative.
We believe, in the future, blockchain technology will become an immutable mathematical guarantor of the preservation of property and economic freedoms.Foreseeing the collapse.
There are so many predictions of the collapse of the American financial system. Even billionaires already say this openly. Let’s say that it will not happen. But if it happens, we will not go back to the existing world order. Such events in retrospect are called Black Swans. Nobody thought that the Second World War will happen, that the Internet will appear, that Trump will become a President. But in retrospect, all these events are obvious, and have a rational explanation. The collapse of the Fiat system would be the same. If the American economy collapses, the world will literally be in chaos. Our history in this regard is even more interesting because if the US economy collapses, other economies collapse even more. The mortgage crisis of 2008 proved this clearly. But it didn’t teach anything.
Look to the future
Robots and Artificial Intelligence.
"The computing power of the device which cost $1000 approximately equal the computational abilities of the mouse. In accordance with Moore’s law in 2025 (and perhaps earlier, e.g., in 2022) the cost of computing by humans biological brain will be compared with the cost of computing by computers."
With anything, there will be people who change their lives (I already know a lot of them) in ways they never imagined. While there are others who simply don't take the time to understand what is right in front of their eyes. Things like adding to your technical competence, defining a strategy, finding the entry point and learning learning and more learning.
I believe we are going to Mars.
I believe we will be an interplanetary species in my lifetime.
I believe there will be a lot more chaos in the interim. I also believe in the idea that we humans all are alike and want the same things despite the powers that be that try to divide and tell you otherwise. Resist that BS. Resist.
Until next time...
A special thanks to these amazing writers: Alexandr Nellson and Daniel Jeffries
For Further Reading:
How to invest in Bitcoin properly. Blockchain and other cryptocurrencies
How to Crush the Crypto Market, Quit Your Job, Move to Paradise and Do Whatever You Want the Rest of Your Life