Author: This article was written by Mike Rogers, VP of Crypto Education & Research at Tradebits
“Everyone starts as a noob. Not everyone ends like a pro.” — tgchan
Choices. We are faced with choices each and every day. Wake up and eat breakfast or wait to eat until lunch? Put your makeup on in the house or put it on in the car on the way to work? Ask the pretty girl out on a date or forever wonder what if? Join crypto nation or choose to live within the government-controlled “fiat currency” borders? The choice my friend is yours.
If you are reading this article, then you likely already own cryptocurrency, are actively betting against cryptocurrency, one day hope to own cryptocurrency, or my personal favorite, you are just curious. Intellectual curiosity is one of the best gifts that mankind was given. My intellectual curiosity is what led me to embark on this wonderful journey.
For those who have recently taken the leap into the cryptocurrency arena, I say “Welcome, noob!”
Genesis of the Noob
In my former article “Understanding the Language of Cryptocurrency,” I briefly describe how noob is a word used by crypto enthusiasts to describe new investors. Like most languages, crypto speak is a descendant of other community tongues, one of which being the online gaming circle. This should come as no surprise, as members of the online gaming tribe were amongst the first to both own and mine cryptocurrency. Gamers are credited for popularizing the term “noob” on a global scale with the help of the internet.
The etymology of the term noob is uncertain, but we can do our best to trace back its societal roots. Noob is believed to be a derivative of the word “newie,” which was a term used in the 1830’s in the U.S. and Australia as a word for “something or someone new.” Alternatively, the term noob may derive from the slang “new boy” in the British public school system. The origin of the word noob has an air of mystery about it, not unlike that surrounding bitcoin’s origin and its unknown creator Satoshi Nakamoto.
The Noob’s “Hard Fork”
The uncertainty around noob’s origin is not the only parallel that can be drawn to bitcoin. Both bitcoin and noob have followed a similar path in terms of evolution within their respective communities. The original intent of the word noob in the gaming community was to classify newcomers who are inexperienced or uninformed. It was a universally agreed upon term meant to quarantine newcomers from the elite and even normal members.
As time went on, the gamers began to debate the meaning of the word noob. Some believed that it should only be used as a universal term to classify all newcomers, regardless of their intentions. Others argued for a separate novice classification for those who joined the community with the intention to learn, grow, and contribute. The gaming tribe concluded that the best solution was to implement a “hard fork” that split the term noob.
The “hard fork” created the words “newb” and “noob,” which are essentially two different forms of the original word with varying definitions and intentions of use. Urban Dictionary user Slyke The Phoxenix perfectly explains the result the noob hard fork. “Newbs are those who are new to some task, possibly a little overconfident about it, but they are willing to learn and fix their errors to move out of that stage … Noobs, on the other hand, know little and have no will to learn anymore. They expect people to do the work for them and then expect to get praised about it, making up a unique species of their own.”
Those in the cryptocurrency community are likely having flashbacks to last year’s infamous bitcoin hard fork. On August 1st of 2017, bitcoin’s blockchain split two paths; one path followed the new, upgraded blockchain (bitcoin cash), and the other path continued along the old path (bitcoin). The feud leading up to this event was both legendary and vehement. The crypto faithful essentially treat this event like the split between the Protestant and Roman Catholic Church.
Give a Noob a Fish vs. Teach a Newb to Fish
“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” -Anne Ritchie
We have all heard this proverb before, which is often incorrectly linked to ancient China. Instead, it was first used by the mid-19th century British author Anne Isabella Ritchie, who suggested that the ability to work is of greater benefit than a one-off handout. New entrants of any community will face a personal choice as to which category they will fall into.
A crypto noob enters the community expecting to get rich quickly. They have no ambition to learn for themselves, instead blindly following the opinion of others. Fear and greed consume the crypto noob, leading them to continuously engage in the same self-destructive behavior. Crypto noobs will commit to a course of actions such as ignoring market trends, chasing pump and dumps, complaining about whale manipulation, buying high-selling low, obsessing over the price, and investing money that they simply cannot afford to lose. The noob will ultimately suffer grave consequences for committing these actions.
The process of watching one’s hard-earned money slip away before their very eyes is devastating. The once euphoric crypto noob’s hope diminishes as rapidly as their account balance. A bitterness will take over, causing the noob to spread vitriol and inject venom into the cryptocurrency community. The noob’s behavior is like a heartbroken lover who wants nothing more than to denounce the concept of love and all those that embody it.
A crypto newb personifies an honest, humble, and polite character. They strive to better themselves by seeking the advice of others and learning from the wisdom of the veteran members. They are intellectually curious individuals who strive to contribute their knowledge to the whole cryptocurrency community. The crypto newb will likely commit many of the same mistakes as the noob when they first join the community. However, they will learn from those mistakes, and look for ways to spread their knowledge and experiences to others within the community. The crypto newb’s approach will allow us to build the most vibrant global community that the world has ever seen.
I will let you all in on a little secret that not many are aware of. We are still at the beginning of the cryptocurrency and blockchain revolution. Every member from those that are just entering today, all the way back to bitcoin’s creator Satoshi Nakamoto is a newb. We are at the frontier of a new world my friends, where we can now distribute capital more fairly on a global scale, and that is only just the beginning!
The newbs here at Tradebits hope to help spread our knowledge and experiences to all new cryptocurrency community members. Our character matches our call, and we believe that trust is at the center of this incredible movement.
“Welcome newcomer, the choice is yours, will you be a Noob or a Newb?”- Millennial Mike
Mike Rogers a.k.a. Millennial Mike
Please follow us on Twitter at @MillennialMike7 and @TradebitsX
About Tradebits
Headquartered in The Hague, The Netherlands, Tradebits is building the digital currency trading platform for the next 100 million users. It is the most high-performance, flexible and reliable digital currency exchange platform, capable of scaling and handling an unparalleled number of users and transactions per second and adaptable to the skill level of any trader.
Tradebits uses the same principles that power and secure the world’s most demanding stock exchanges. One of Tradebits’ hallmark features its configurability to match the sophistication level of every cryptocurrency trader. Users of the exchange will have access to 24x7 live customer service as well as a myriad of 3rd party trading apps and resources through the Tradebits Marketplace. Tradebits gives back to its community by using 40% of all trading fees for the continuous purchase of XBITS tokens across various exchanges to generate upward price pressure.
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Author: This article was written by Mike Rogers, VP of Crypto Education & Research at Tradebits #noob #newb #millennial #crypto