Hi. My name is Mel, and I am a newcomer to the steemit community. So first let take this opportunuty to say hello to all Steemit users.
I have started my own company in late 2015, after 16 years of corporate slavery. In doing so, watching the markets and finding new investment opportunities became a must; you simply can not make it just by working hard anymore. There are so many variables you can not control, which can oblitarate your savings overnight; or in the case of cryptocurrencies multiply it hundredfold.
That being said, the highly volatile cryptocurrency market became a very fruitful - but albeit risky - game to play for individual investors and small to mid bussiness owners alike. Tracking world markets and currency exchange trends slowly became checking for interesting ICO's and buy-sell orders on coin exchanges. The risk factor is shrinking daily, with daily political turmoil around the globe; and a looming crash on the horizon.
But of course don't take my word for it. Tom Forrester, Jim Rogers, Marc Fabers, Jim Gross - all seasoned investors - predict a massive market crash in western countries towards the end of the year and in early 2018.
In a recent interview for Bottom Line (Bussiness Insider) Rogers says;
"Well, it’s interesting because these things always start where we’re not looking. In 2007, Iceland went broke. People said, ‘Iceland? Is that a country? They have a market?’ And then Ireland went broke. And then Bear Stearns went broke. And Lehman Brothers went broke. They spiral like that. Always happens where we’re not looking.
I don’t know. It could be an American pension plan that goes broke, and many of them are broke, as you know. It could be some country we’re not watching. It could be all sorts of things. It could be war — unlikely to be war, but it’s going to be something. When you’re watching Business Insider and you see, "That’s so interesting. I didn’t know that company could go broke." It goes broke. Send me an email, and then I’ll start watching."
He also points out a major financial event happening every four to seven years in the US, and we are one year overdue. With increasing foreign debts of nearly every major country, leading to conflicts (i.e. Syria, and most recenty Qatar) is seem by most analysts and predictors of a downward trend in major markets in the west.
Of course a crisis of this magitude will have a negative impact on all. Should it happen, it will be the first real test of cryptocurrencies as well. How they will hold up against a major financial event, in my opinion, will be the first real indicator of how crytptocurrencies and their investors will behave in a real world setting.
So what do you think? Let me know your insights in the comments.