Thoughts on Bitcoin based on my own experience and exposure to the trade and should you be buying the cryptocurrency now. 

 

User sending bitcoins to another using a mobile phone.

A friend of mine messaged me today — and another yesterday — asking if they should buy bitcoins given the everlasting buzz in town. Questions like — isn’t it too late to buy, isn’t it too expensive now, isn’t it just a bubble and so on. And believe me, the fear to not buy is real. But the urge to buy Bitcoin is real too. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯Now, I am neither an expert nor do I give any financial advice and I keep my personal financial thoughts personal. But I couldn’t stop myself from writing this today, I had to spit it out.To give you a bit of context, I have always been interested in the betterment of all aspects of humanity — like all of us do — and try to live by the tiny little rule book that’s in my head. And the improvement in the way we use and transact money is one of the things that I look forward to every day and deeply care about.See I don’t trust banks and the financial system much so I try to avoid their products as much as possible. But the rules are such that you must go to a bank, paying them processing fees and all the other whatchamacallits on the way. If you think about it, they aren’t as evil as we’d like to think they are, but instead, the founders of the so-called modern financial systems were. Modern banks are bound to charge you those fees either willingly or unwillingly, because that is what the cost of maintaining money is, really. It is an expensive way to run an economy.Enter BitcoinIn short, Bitcoin is (or will be) doing to money what money did to gold, but in a significantly better way.It is a peer-to-peer system, with no transaction costs and no risks of charge-backs involved. It is secure, cannot be stolen and its record can’t be tampered with. I will stop here as you may have already heard about it and this probably is the thousandth time if not the hundredth. If you are curious and one of the hungry-to-know-more kind then here is the link to its wiki. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin

 My main motive towards writing this post was to express my thoughts about Bitcoin to other potential buyers of the coin who are young (in their early 20s), don’t have high disposable incomes, but want to make some quick bucks or want to support the vision, like me.Now, the banking community and others in their league have been playing the “bitcoin-is-a-bubble” card for a long time. You can’t blame them, they are just doing the right thing for their industry. But the bubble is nowhere near.The thing that you — as a willing buyer — should realize is that Bitcoin’s intrinsic value is much higher than gold which was once the standard. It has far more advantages than the existing currencies in circulation and gold. Bitcoin has its disadvantages too — like being used for illegal activities, untraceable, less in circulation, etc — but those can be fixed with new, improved protocols and rules set by the community as it continues its growth. Plus you can’t ignore its many positives.Even if you aren’t interested in its long term vision and are only here to make some quick money, just know that it’s worth the game. Bitcoin may sound really expensive because of what a single bitcoin cost, but knowing that there are only a limited amount (21 million to be precise) of bitcoins that will ever be mined helps a lot. Mass circulation has only started so demands are still to go high and so its price. Plus you don’t have to buy “a bitcoin”, buy 1/4th of a bitcoin or as less as you are willing to risk. Play it safe.I’ll wrap up with this for now. I don’t know what the future holds for Bitcoin, but I’m positive about decentralized systems as a whole. Lastly, please comment down below about your thoughts so that I can get out of my echo chamber and get some fresh air and perspectives, either positive or negative.Note: These are my personal thoughts and I in no way am advising anyone to buy or sell the currency solely based on my views, nor am I endorsing the product. Do it at your own risk.Do hit the recommend button if you think it was helpful. Thanks :) 

@ekteb-waraya