The Good

Technical

As a Software Engineer I have spent hundreds of hours learning the vast amount of knowledge that is required to understand how a fully decentralized and encrypted network works and I am only getting started. I think many in the crypto space tend to overlook just how revolutionary the technical side of the blockchain is because they are to busy trying to make money.

The blockchain and other decentralized networks will, just like the internet did, have far reaching effects world wide. What the internet did for information blockchain will do for trust. For the first time in history humans can exchange without having to trust or pay a third party. And this is not limited to money as we have learned just about any transaction where trust is required blockchain can be used as an alternative.

In the end of the day the technology is all that matters, coins will come and go but the technology being strong is the reason that long term investment in the crypto space makes sense and should be the primary factor in research.

Philosophical

Who should control your money? This is the simple question that bitcoin and many other projects are starting to ask the world.

Should you trust your government with your money? Maybe if you live in a first world country this does not seem like such a big deal, but in third world countries like South Africa where I am from the government openly plunders the treasury and makes decision that will so obviously decrease the value of the local currency that the trust levels are at an all time low.

Should we trust the banks to control our money? Banks, for the most part, do a decent job at controlling our money. But if you have been in the position where you account is randomly frozen for some unknown reason or that the government has forced the bank to use money from your personal account for taxes that might be a mistake on their side then you might think twice.

The Philosophical argument is that each and every person should be in complete control of their finances and assets without having to fear foul play by a corrupt third party. Furthermore we should be able to freely trade and interact with each other without a third party looking over our shoulder.

The Bad

With more and more crypo currencies embracing privacy it will become increasingly easy to partake in illegal activities with little to no trace left behind. Crimes like human trafficking and the likes might increase and the technology will assist criminals in staying hidden and leaveing no paper trail.

The Ugly

Governmental interference

Because of the "The Bad" section above the governments reaction to the rise of cryptocurrency is very unpredictable and its medium term future is largely dependent on how they will handle the first big crisis that appears and it will most likely be some terrorist attack as that seems to be the thing governments fear and use as justification the most. The industry has already survived the likes of Silkroad but that was just the start of this rocky road.

The so called Bubble

The word bubble is thrown around so often these days that it feels like that is all anybody has to say about cryto yet it still seems that people are throwing millions of dollars at nothing more than ideas. People are quick to bring up the dot com bubble but technology bubbles are actually pretty common. When new technology arrives people get excited and throw their money at it. Then as we learn that it is harder to build than we originally thought people start to lose faith and eventually perhaps 30 years later we learn how to build the tech and suddenly the market emerges. The exact same thing is happening in Virtual Reality and Artificial intelligence.

What makes this iteration worse in my opinion is youtube. We have these "technical analysis specialist" telling us each day how much coin x will increase in value and in the 1 in 5 times they are right they are sure to remind you of it every chance they get, and you start to believe that they can predict the market. The problem is that the market is all going up all at once, a blind money with a dart can pick a winning coin right now. Because a vast majority of investors in this space have no prior investment experience they fall pray to these kind of videos without understanding what they are investing in and spend way to much money when they cant afford it to try and make the quick buck. This is why we see these insane ICO's worth hundreds of millions with no real current value. Just because bitcoin rose from nothing to over $2000 dollars does not mean most of these other coins will.

This falls under the ugly because many people will lose more money at some point than they can afford because they did little to no real research other than youtube videos.

In the end I think cryptocurrency is an excellent long term buy and hold strategy investment. Speculators and trades might have a rude awaking in the new couple of years as money does not tend to linger if value does not appear, and when valuations are millions and possibly billions weeks into a project real value is years if not decades away.

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