Many of us have been interested in blockchain tech for a few years, while others hopped on the train when things got hot (and interesting) this fall. There's nothing wrong with bull market induced excitement; seeing assets bid up into the stratosphere is awesome when you're long ETH or BTC (or, as it was, any cryptocurrency).
But irrational bull markets tend to burn out, and here we are five months into a bear market that has newcomers spooked. This was not how it was meant to be.
Here's the thing about bear markets: it filters out the garbage, and gives you a great opportunity to pay attention to what is actually going on...instead of what is being pumped by con men and hucksters.
Some Projects to Consider
If you're long on time and short on money, get on Reddit and check out some of the various projects going on in Ethereum. There is a lot going on, with over 600 projects by various startups, including the fascinating Loom Network's Kickstarter campaign for Zombie Battleground: a collectible card game on the Ethereum network. The animations in the campaign are already pretty awesome, and Loom's ability to ship code on time is impressive. Loom is hoping to have other games that run on Ethereum sidechains as well; if you're in the gaming world and want to build a blockchain game, you should check them out.
Another cool project is . Decentraland is a sort of Second Life on the Ethereum blockchain, which had a land auction earlier this year and is now open for development. I have a few parcels of land that I bought, which are probably worth a few hundred dollars each right now (land can be bought and sold here), but I'm holding onto them for a bit as Decentraland is being built up by entrepreneurs, gamers, speculators, and hobbyists. I hope to walk through my land someday using a VR headset, and even have some ideas on what to do with the spaces I've bought. They are worth following on Steemit as well.
More Blockchains
Beyond Ethereum, the EOS blockchain, while plagued with some early issues, could be a great canvas to develop blockchain games and products on. Block.one is funding projects built on EOS, so if you're considering a project but don't want to do an ICO (and I really don't blame you), you could look for them for funding. I think EOS could have some interesting interactions between gaming platforms that use them...we'll see.
Beyond Speculation
There are very few times that come along when capital is this available for startups. The dot com bubble was one. This blockchain bubble is another. There's no need to try and find the best tokens that will "moon"; you're not going to catch the next Bitcoin at $1 and earn 20,000X returns. It's ok-it's enough right now to learn to code, put together a project, and get some funding to try to make your dream project.
What have you go to lose?
-Jeff
P.S. I own MANA (the Decentraland token), ETH and EOS. I am considering buying Loom tokens. This article is not advice saying you should buy tokens; rather you should consider building a business that runs on these tokens.
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://steemmaker.com/focus-on-blockchain-development/