I think it would be a safe bet that many of us have been getting approached by friends/relatives/colleagues about cryptocurrency lately. In fact, several of you have written posts about it. While I haven't had acquaintances clamoring to me in droves to learn about this digital money thing, I was able to recently help onboard one of my employees.
He got setup with a Robinhood and a Coinbase account. I also redeemed one of my account creation tickets to get him set up on Hive. Thankfully, the wait time for funds to transfer into Robinhood has kept him from doing much of anything on that platform and most of his holdings are in Coinbase.
This whole process of telling others about crypto really got me thinking about what our duty is as "mentors" to these people who are newly dipping their toes into the crypto waters.
It is probably another safe bet that many of us have our favorite blockchain projects that we hold near and dear to our hearts. For many of us it is probably Hive or one of the second layer communities built on Hive like LEO, STEMGeeks, CTP, etc.
Those projects are easy to shill, we know the ins and outs of each of them and that gives us the ability to adequately inform our protégés about the benefits and potential pitfalls.
On the flip side, there are probably projects that we absolutely hate. I know I have a couple of them. The ETH faithful have at least one I can think of off the top of my head. Most of us who have been on Hive for a while probably have at least one I can think of as well.
I woke up this morning to the news about Elon coming back to Twitter and pumping Dogecoin again. It really got me thinking about what my duty is as an everyday crypto pioneer to properly inform and encourage others who are starting to gain interest.
You may laugh at my use of the term "pioneer", but the truth is we are. Many people smarter than me have pointed to the fact that this sector is still basically in its infancy. While many of us may not be coding or developing, we are embracing and using and that alone puts us ahead of the pack.
So I got thinking about my worker and how he expressed an interest in picking up some Doge the other day. I was actually a bit relieved when he mentioned that he ended up not buying any, but now I wonder if that is really my place. Look at what the price is doing. Who knows what it has the potential to do? Is it really my right to discourage him from buying some just because it isn't my favorite coin?
My brother in law picked some up a couple of weeks ago and he is doing pretty good right now after the recent pumps.
My whole point is, I think think it important that we choose our words and attitudes very carefully as we deal with crypto noobs. Dissuading someone from taking a risk and missing out on a big payday can be just as detrimental as shilling them a coin/token/project that ultimately flops.
I actually have several more thoughts on this, but it feels like I am rambling at this point, so I am going to close here. Feel free to use the comments to discuss what our responsibilities are as crypto pioneers.
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