If you've been following my account you know that I've created a Facebook group to help friends and friend of friends learn how to become a crypto trader or just learn more about cryptocurrency in general. I've found it's been a great place of discussion and several leaders have come forward to post more about areas I'm weak in such as how to purchase cryptocurrency with fiat and mining. Overall the group has been a great place for people who love cryptocurrency to come together and discuss, share, and learn more about something they are passionate about.
The First Leach
I made a follow-up post asking if anyone would like to join the group and had a person message me saying they didn't want to join the group, but wanted a little more information. I said sure I would help them out and we began to chat for a few minutes. It soon became clear that they weren't looking to learn, but instead just looking to have information spoon fed to them.
He asked me over and over any coins that I would recommend they invest in. I referred them to a list I had posted in the group and on Steemit over some coins that I was invested in and interested him, but didn't give him one coin that I thought was going to 100x. I politely discussed with him if I had that kind of information I would be retired on my own private island and that I can only make educated guesses about coins that were going to go up in value based on information I've researched and charts that I've studied.
Not Good Enough
About a week later the guy messaged me randomly on facebook again about a coin that was going to make him $100,000 by the end of the year off his $1,000 investment. I asked him if he minded sharing the coin and after a few minutes of talking up the coin he finally shared. I had never heard of the coin before so started to do a little research.
I headed to coin coinmarketcap and couldn't find the coin on the site. That was the first strike, the second strike came when I didn't see a white paper on the website. Granted the coin had just released, but as most of the traders I respect on Twitter point out, all that is required to release a coin is a good website and a good white paper. The last strike is a point I'm going to combine together, which is, the coin is promising high returns and a lack of a list of any developers on the website.
Anger
Granted he didn't ask my opinion on the coin, but he got pretty upset after I shared my thoughts and responded with, well if you would have given me a coin to invest in then I wouldn't have had to purchase this coin. At this point I wanted to tell him to GFY, but restrained myself. I see now why on twitter those that have been trading for a while act like such douchebags.
I'm not a crystal ball of financial advice and spend hours every day researching and checking market sentiment on different coins via Twitter. I don't want the guilt of others loosing money on my conscious and usually talk most people out of buying Bitcoin when they ask me about cryptocurrencies. I don't talk them out of buying because I don't believe, but because they're not aware of the risk or difficulty in owning and using Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
Conclusion - Always DYOR, but Feel Free to Ask about Things you Don't Understand
DYOR - Do Your Own Research. As I said above I'm not a crystal ball and if I say I'm investing in a coin it's because I've done some research and like the coin either from a fundamental analysis or a technical analysis. When I give advice it's not financial advice so please don't copy me, but rather just sharing my thoughts on a coin or the market in general. I love helping people that want to help themselves so if you have any questions as always feel free to leave them in the comments below. Thanks for letting me vent!