Up 124% - A positive view on Cryptocurrencies and their future!

Blockchain-technology is changing our world, there is no doubt about it!

Introduction

Well where do we stand with Cryptos today? There is lots of talk about them right now, and a lot is about it being a huge bubble. Bitcoin as the flagship draws quite some attention too. Even governments (the USA) are selling way to early their Bitcoins. On the other side there is more to the whole area, then just one coin or even that huge hype around the topic. In some ways I think it might be great for many of us to be suddenly drawn into that subject some more. Why? Because it is still just only starting.

Summary

The focus of these lines will be the question of what's behind all this sudden interest for this topic and therefore it will focus more on its underlaying potential then its "good luck" and "huge risk" warnings.

My thought is more positive than that. Being a Web Developer myself, I am wondering more about facts like new jobs being created in that field and the values all those different coins could actually bring to our world and society.

Overview

For the soul
I have added a cool project at the beginning just because we should not care for money but people, animals and this planet really and not just money and some weird new coins.

The broarder picture and Ripple (XRP) as an example
A Coin in action or what a Coin is being used for already...

The purpose of a Coin
There are many more Coins than just Bitcoin. Some of them got quite some specific use cases to know of and to at least get inspired by.

Stellar Lumens and other Coins
Possible gains and what not...

Smartphones and Coins to come
Where does the future take us?

Some more Coins like POWR, ETH, Tron, NEM or Verge
Some more examples of Coins I invested in.

To graps the concept...
Can we acually use the Coins in daily life?

We don't need banks anymore!
There might be a huge shift ahead! IOTA and Ethereum's ERC-20 Tokens, as some only very short mentioned examples.

As it turns out
Some final words.

For the soul

Just before reading through the next passage, I feel like mentioning my first and only Twitter-post about Cryptocurrenies and Blockchains so far, and that is the project called alice, its website: alice.si and the self-called "Blockchain for good" I don't know much about them, but it is an interesting idea worth supporting or to at least get inspired by. In short it's supposed to make sure that money you give to a help - by socially funding a project, is actually being used for that purpose in the end. That's pretty cool isn't it? Especially when thinking about the fact, that in most cases, it seems, at least some of the money is gone along the way. (to put it mildly)

The broarder picture and Ripple (XRP) as an example

While the media is mostly focusing on Bitcoin and its risk, they aren't really looking much at the broader picture it seems. To give you one specific Coin and example of a number I have heard but haven't verfied, it might be true, that the Coin Ripple (XRP) is to some smaller degree already being a part on 70 percent of every transaction in Japan. That is a crazy high number and is mostly based on the banks actively, using Ripple to their advantage. That is more or less the focus of Ripple anyways. It's meant to be used mostly by banks. Well I don't really know much more about Ripple myself. I haven't even invested in it. I have been watching it for a little while already when it was not too long ago touching here and there 0.25 cent (USD), while most of the time being closer to 20 cent I would say. Right now it's at 2.46 USD (09.01.2018) and I think it has corrected it price to the value it got already some more. Is this the correct amount now? I got no clue. Since there are many more Coins available than there are Bitcoin available, we could calculate, if the Ripple value is reasonable compared to that. Okay here comes the possible bubble again now and maybe the actual price of a Bitcoin is much higher than it's actually worth at this time. Who knows?

The purpose of a Coin

Fact is, Ripple got a purpose and saves a lot of time and money already I guess. That's worth a lot and interesting for many banks for eg. it is a technology not being used by most banks so far. As I said I don't know much about Ripple or about the banking system for that matter, but there are for sure many good arguments why some Coin like Ripple could be an advantage for banks when moving huge amounts of money.

Stellar Lumens and other Coins

I wouldn't know if I would still invest in Ripple, at its current value, but it might still go up more for some good reasons in future. I would be happy to have invested in it, when it was around .20 USD. Instead I put a little bit of my money in Stellar Lumens, a kind of copy of Ripple with some values more interesting to me, like it being handeld by a nonprofit organisation. And if I wasn't planing to hold it for at least a year, I would be able to exchange it back to EUR with a winning of 556.43 % at this very moment in time. Well then I would have to pay taxes of ~30% on those winnings. Believe me, since this price is probably also this high because of Ripple I am thinking of just taking those winnings. Well if it was an amount which would make it possible to by a small flat from it, I probably would. It's still a nice number already I would say, but I am trying to accomplish more freedom with it.

I have mentioned about three Coins by now. I invested in 11 Coins so far. Most of them got a specific purpose and are trying to make a name in a certain area of the Cryptoworld. Some of them are showing far higher percentages than my mentioned Stellar Lumens gains, but sadly in those cases I invested even lesser money. One Coin could have made me able to buy a nice flat in Hamburg in about two weeks I invested in it. While Bitcoin was already going down from its all time high. It's something I am not thinking too much about. At least I haven't so far. I got to be happy that it jumped that high and might get even more over time. If it did the same crazy and even more unrealisitic grows again, I might still be able to buy a house from it. And even though I thought about this fact even less, even that could still be possible over the next couple of years.

Smartphones and Coins to come

Who knows what will happen next? I am just thinking from a developers point of view and am thinking that the whole Blockchain technology isn't being part of our Smartphones yet. So will this happen? Does it have that kind of potential and direction in mind? I would think, that it probably does. Like this platform, Steemit, there are many more ideas thinkable of how this technology could be an important part of every Smartphone out there. May it be money related or not. If I am right with that kind of thinking, the Coin most relevant for Smartphones in future, might not even have been invented yet, or at least still being in development. The potential is that huge, that even if we are in a bubble right now, the technology could easily strengthen the whole thing that much, that all those crazy high prices, are only the beginning and therefore the minimum of the whole cryptomarket over the next couple of years. Just because the technology and its usage gave those prices its right to be that high in the end. Again who knows?

Some more Coins like POWR, ETH, Tron, NEM or Verge

Let us look at some more random Coins or thoughts of mine. Well they weren't really randomly picked, or at least I had some reasons for choosing them, but the ones I will be mentioning here are just randomly picked examples of Coins I invested in. Another Coin I like to mention mostly because its interesting purpose again, is Power Ledger. That coin is supposed to be the Coin for dealing with energy related issues to put it really short. Ethereum and its Smart Contracts are worth whole articles themselfs by allowing to create logic through its own programming languages like Soldity or maybe soon/already Viper... Tron might get huge, NEM might ahve bene included into WeChat already and Verge gives you a lot of privacy. There are many Coins out there! And even in that short of time since I started to invest, at the end of November 2017 till now the 10.01.2018, there is so much to talk about already, it is crazy and quite exciting for sure. Who cares, if I make money with it or not... (well I do hope so though)

To graps the concept...

Let us talk about some basics for a second, Blockcains and Cryptocurrencies are for most of us, for some reason still a difficult concept to grasp. Why I don't really know. It's probably like computers and the internet for older generations. You slowly get used to it maybe, but it will always feel a little alien... Cryptocurrencies are still a little barebone one could say. Their principle is actually quite easy, but there are some new rules to them. Most of us don't use, if you even have one, our crypto-addresses in daily life yet. There are some cafes and bars at least for eg. in Berlin where you can pay with Bitcoins, but I don't even know, if any place offers that in my own town, Hamburg. (I got to find out for sure though!)

We don't need banks anymore!

As the last chapter turned out by now, there is another reason, I could argue, that Cryptos are more than just a hype/bubble again. We don't need banks anymore! I mean seriously! That's a huge deal and will probably change the world in near future! I talked about the fact, that Coins are already starting to be used by the banks themselves, but as long as you got your own private Ether-Address for example, you could instantly accept or transfer "money" based on the Ethereum Network or the ERC-20 Token to be more precise.

I guess it's still unclear which of the Coins out there, or again if that one has even been invented yet, will become a proper standard way for us humans even or maybe just a country to transfer money between each other, without having to think too much about it. Well this might never happen you could think too, but I would actually think that that's highly unlikely! There will soon at least be cities around, focusing on 1-2 Coins, using them on a daily basis. Lets just think of IOTA as an example, highly scalable in the amount and people using it, never costing a dime, that's pretty amazing!

As it turns out

As it turns out, I got quite a lot to say about this new World by now. I am still a beginner without too much clue about the whole thing so far. On the other hand I am starting to feel more comfortable talking about it and dealing with it. I guess I should, since I even invested some monthly salary in it by now. I hope you enjoyed some of my thoughts and you'll find something worth your while. (I think/hope that's the correct English saying?) This is not what I would have thought to post next really; since I am actually aiming to write about deeper topics, like the difficulties of having borders around a country for eg., but as so often I am struggling with finishing the text/article. So this one feels like I could just post it like this. And even though it's quite some long text by now, it should be almost fine by next, just reading through it and maybe correcting some parts a little and then just posting it as it is and maybe just adding one picture to the whole thing only and be done with it :-)