This post is hard to write. It's difficult because I am no crypto expert and there are so many that know so much you can feel intimidated even dipping a toe in the waters of crypto as a topic offering your 2 satoshi's. No doubt the "cryptosphere" is loud and crowded with smart people (@TheEngine3r-"maths") passionate people (@CryptoCrow-"crowyourcoins") hot people (@MissNatoshi-"BTFD") and countless more in between. Traders, Hodlers, programmers, developers, marketers, founders, swindlers, scammers, purist, opportunist, noobs, veterans, world changers, world class narcissist, shit-everyone is here.
Except for the doubters. The doubters are always a little too busy to even check shit out. I mean really check it out. They usually check it out by regurgitating what someone told them. That's it. Research complete. Opinion formed. Done. Check it off the list and get back to our regularly scheduled programming. I get it to a degree. I have just realized how fly baseball is in probably the last three years of my life-and I'm 47 years old. I get it. And, for what it's worth, I think a lot of it has to do with what people have struggled with forever-newness.
It's hard to grasp the new. I like how Gary V painted the picture during a keynote of the people who just doubled down on a fleet of horse and buggies-right before the invention of the automobile. In his parlance, "they fuckin lost." I'm an old hip hop head. Some of the new hip hop is, let's say, out of my realm. I can't really hear it, but I try. I don't shut it down completely just in case there is some lyrical dopeness that I might need.
But baseball and hip hop however much loved are passive entertainment for us non participants. Technology and the application of it in our lives is active. Crypto is active technology. And before you decide this is a heal the world post and either hate that path or love it-rest assured it is not. This post is about opportunity. It's a tad bit selfish. It's subtext is money. That may interest you, or it may be a topic so low-brow that it causes you to exit, but that is what I am addressing. In addition to all of the outstanding achievements that the new blockchain technology will bring forward, one of which being the very platform that I write to you from, is the opportunity to amass some scill.
Risky, legal and early. That is where we are. My journey has been infinitesimal in comparison to others. But, when I am interested in something, I like to see for myself the challenges, traps and ultimately the possible rewards of what I am studying. I heard/read about crypto, I heard/read Coinbase is where you buy BTC or ETH or LTC to trade with, I heard/read you send to GDAX first and then onwards, I heard/read Binance is a great exchange to buy altcoins, I heard/read Justin Sun was the next coming of the Lord and since I have ordered from Aliexpress for selling things on Amazon before it was familiar so...I heard/read buy TRX because it was cheap and would "moon" whatever the hell that meant.
I did everything above. I learned how to open accounts. I learned how to move shit around. I learned 2 Factor Authentication, I purchased $300.00 worth of TRX at .03 cents. I sold at .22 or .24 cents (just in case if it was all a scam the proverbial rent still got paid.) I pulled out the original investment and some profit and moved the rest to Kucoin to buy a coin that I hope does something but if it doesn't, it really doesn't matter. This was to learn and I'm playing with house money anyway. (And a tiny little bit of it at that!) I sent BTC (super new I probably would send LTC these days) back to Coinbase. I sold that and put it in my USD wallet. I sent USD to my bank. I pulled money out of my bank and paid a bill. Why?
The first reason was to simply know how to do it. The second reason was I wanted to know if taking your money out is as easy as putting your money in. Public keys/Private keys, tales of money lost forever in space if you fuck up the address, stories of exchanges locking up your coins when you try to withdraw etc...there was so much second hand information that I needed to go through it to feel it-first hand. Like most anything new, its kinda scary until you do it. It was easier actually to take the money out than the biblical amount of time it took for my original money to move in from my bank to Coinbase. Helluvalot faster.
The last reason I did it was because of Phil Ivey. I read an interview years ago with Phil Ivey. I think it was either a Rolling Stone interview or Card Player, I can't remember which, but in this interview a reporter was actually following him around and they went to Vegas or started there or whatever and inside of one of the casino's-I believe at the crap tables-Phil invited the reporter to try his hand at the game. The reporter responded that he never gambles because he might lose. Phil very seriously asked him a simple question, "But what if you win?"
But what if you win? What a great fucking question. Offense vs defense. It's the Eagles on 4th and 2 in the biggest game of their lives going for the touchdown instead of a field goal. Because they were playing to win instead of playing not to lose. It's so basic. It's so clear. And maybe the best part is-it isn't guaranteed. Not at all. Of course you can lose, (Bitconnect/Ponzi) but you can get hit by a bus crossing the street tomorrow are you avoiding going outside for maximum safety? Listen, I sent $300 not $30,000. I'm not talking about hurting yourself and putting your family in the street. I did my little experiment while going to work everyday. Same as I did the day before I ever heard of cryptocurrency. You don't have to be crazy but you should probably be curious.
*****Full Disclosure: with the increase of reading and learning about this field that I've done if I had $30,000 that shit would be riding Elliot Waves as we speak! But I've got a bit of a gamblers spirit, YMMV/DYOR*****
Before I close I'll mention one more little nugget that caught my attention and stays with me. During the Senate Hearings on Cryptocurrency a couple of weeks ago, Chris Giancarlo the chair of the CFTC warmly used the term HODL and the crypto-twitter world went nuts. It indeed was a nice moment but for the purpose of this post I gravitated more to what Senator Mark Warner, Dem from VA had to say,
"I REMEMBER BACK I WAS LUCKY ENOUGH TO GET INTO THE CELL PHONE BUSINESS IN THE EARLY 80's AND EVERYBODY THOUGHT IT WAS GONNA BE A SMALL BUSINESS AND THEY WERE WRONG AND I GOT RICH. I THINK WE ARE LOOKING AT THE SAME KIND OF TRANSFORMATION ABOUT TO TAKE PLACE..."
At the very least check out some dtube/youtube video's and learn about it. It might all go away tomorrow and you can at least say you took a stab at the future. Or you might catch a coin that's $1.00 each today that turns into $100.00 each by December. Who knows? For the price of some Jordan's that will be too scuffed to rock next Christmas, you might actually win.
Peace,
Dominic
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