Recent posts entice steemians to go and have a look at Bitshares. This is wonderful, but not the whole story ... and you should keep a few things in mind.
Introduction
It is a well known fact that one of the main reasons steemit has seen the success it has is because it had all the necessary elements to attract and retain non-technical users, the vast majority of which were not even aware of cryptocurrency before.
Heck, I am going to bet most of steemit users know very little of personal finance or investing as well.
You see, this is another giant difference steemit brings - the profits are delivered in a currency that the user is already familiar with, the US Dollar (partially, of course, the rest being credited as STEEM POWER, but that can too slowly be redeemed back to USD, and at any rate, the user does see the other half appearing as a USD-equivalent immediately upon being rewarded)
This is very different than other crypto-currencies; for better or for worse (long discussion and not a point I want to argue here) most of us still do profit calculations by referring back to USD or EUR or CNY or what have you in our heads.
It makes sense, after all - goods in the real world are not priced in Bitcoin, they are priced in fiat currency.
Financial (il)literacy
As alluded to in the last section, it is a safe bet that most of steemits' userbase will not know a great deal about investing.
But even more importantly, they will know little about investing in crypto-currency.
An analogy
it does not end well
If you know nothing about crypto-currency investment, then rushing to buy Bitshares is about the same as not knowing how to swim and rushing to swim with great white sharks.
You will be had for lunch. Only the bones will come out.
If you are lucky.
Perspective
You have to understand that all the people telling you about the wonders of Bitshares (me included) are loaded to the teeth with Bitshares.
We want it to succeed.
We have been around for years, we believe in the project, we have done our due dilligence (will elaborate on this in a second), and we are patient.
But you must realize that there is a clear conflict of interests here.
Bitshares - come as you are
You see, if you are using the Bitshares software for the purpose of holding BTS ("bitshares", each one is a share in the bitshares decentralized company), then you become more than an investor in bitshares.
You become a shareholder. This comes with responsibilities.
(It is not relevant if you do not understand this - if anything, it proves the point! I will write about it in another post)
If the shareholders are not functional, then Bitshares as the decentralized company cannot survive. This sets it apart from many other crypto-currency projects.
One of the golden rules of investment is...
Do not invest in something that you do not understand.
I know the feeling you get, especially as a novice investor, when you read someone who appears to be knowledgeable raving on about all the things that set XYZ apart and how it cannot go anywhere but up.
Back in the day, I was the novice investor. I bought in at 3000 satoshi (BTS/BTC price), and I did not dollar-cost average - this seemed like such a good opportunity that wasting months to acquire as much as I wanted seemed like a giant waste of time.
It could not go lower, people said.
Then it did, down to 2000 .. and I sunk another few thousand into it, the profit was sure!.
It went down to 1500. And then 1000 (at this point, 1/3 of my investment remained!)
It's been around 700-800 sats since.
Some will say - "great time to buy! it cannot go any lower!" .... sounds familiar?
(I have since recovered that investment and more with other investments, but the lessons stuck)
Bitshares is an extremely complex crypto-financial product.
If you want to use it for anything else than holding smartcoins [bitUSD, bitEUR, bitCNY, etc] (and even then there is much to learn - and it is all worth it), you have to do some serious due-dilligence and understand what you are getting yourself into!
Bonus golden rule of investment
Never invest more than what you can afford to lose.
Clarifications
I am a giant raging bull when it comes to Bitshares (it means I strongly believe it will succeed and explode in price).
To the best of my knowledge, it is the best technology around (lacking a few critical features, I will write about this another day).
And yes, I do believe buying BTS now is a good investment. But I have done my due diligence, and I have an investment plan, and I have worked out the numbers and know how much I can risk throwing at this investment without getting into trouble financially.
But if you know nothing about it ? And/or if it is money that you should be using elsewhere ?
Then I cannot recommend it.
A relevant podcast that I listened to the other day is Episode 181 of the WEALTHSTEADING PODCAST.
It will be easy to find with your podcast app. Unfortunately it is not on youtube, and so I could not link it here.
Conclusions
Before you invest in Bitshares - or anything that you are unfamiliar with, you must understand what is it that you are investing in. And before that, you should have some savings set aside already.
Remember - do not invest any more than you can afford to lose!.
Others have been dancing this dance for a long, long time - and they will have your money for lunch if you are careless.
By all means, go ahead and purchase yourself some shiny BTS - heck, I am in the process of writing articles telling you why this is a good idea and how to navigate the software!
But first, understand what it is about.
I get it, you fear missing out.
Having been around in the wild wild west of crypto-currency for several years now, let me tell you...
There will be other opportunities.
If you blindly invest, once in a blue moon, you will get lucky. Perhaps your money will x100 or even x1000.
This is perfectly possible in the world of crypto-currency - remember that STEEM itself was worth a few dollar-cents not so long ago .. not a bad investment!.
But - if you go in hoping to get lucky, carelessly and without planning, then this is no longer investing - it is gambling.
And the house has the advantage.
Good luck, stay reasonably prudent, and until a next time.
And remember: Fortune Favors the Bold (but not the careless)