How I started with Crypto

in #steemit8 years ago

What's your story though?

When I first heard of cryptocurrency it was in early 2014. Of course it was the one and only #Bitcoin. I started doing some research and got very open-minded when I saw that a virtual currency existed. I read that it was nearly impossible at the time to mine #Bitcoin with a home desktop unless I wanted to wait a whole year (Now it's DEFINITELY much closer to impossible). I tried it anyway. I left my computer on for 2 days straight with absolutely no progress.

I gave up because I didn't have any money at the time and I looked at the price of a bitcoin as if it was a alien. I then got discouraged and left it alone.

Many months later I remembered about "the bitcoin thing" again. I started doing some research again, I then saw how the number of crypto multiplied exponentially in less than a year, it was ridiculous. I saw things with the weirdest name. I then came across Reddcoin. I read what it was about, I saw that I did not have to mine it because of this new thing at the time called "Proof-Of-Stake" where your money grows by keeping your wallet open. You have no idea how happy I was that I did not have to leave my computer on without using it for 2 days.

I started doing some research on #Reddcoin (#RDD) and I saw something different. They labeled it the "Social Currency", I thought that it was a great idea. While I was in my bitcoin phase I was letting my imagination go wild and created many platform in my head where it may be useful, specifically in social interactions. I didn't even own the crypto yet and I'm already making plans lol. Anyway, I saw something special in RDD. It was "Proof-Of-Stake-Velocity", it was new and it was cheeeaaaap. I thought it was revolutionary. I was in an internship at the time with the Library so I had some money to spend. Every 1000 RDD cost me $0.04. I bought around 2million of them over a period of a month. I spent about $100.

I was excited. I had a crypto wallet with a balance higher than zero for once.

I was always into the stock market and investing so I spent a lot of my time studying how the market works. Now I have thins new market in my hand, how can I profit off of it? I did spend $100 on a currency that I cannot spend. I started speculating the crypto. That thing never moved. It stayed still. I ended up forgetting about it for a bit because I did believe in their cause so I believed in the long-term. I left it in cold storage for about a year.

One day I remember that I have crypto because a friend of mine asked me how was my investment going. I told them that I didn't know because I forgot. When I check to see if the value went up it was $0.02 for 1000. I was shocked. I thought the coin was going to blow up. I wasn't pissed but I was disappointed. Since I decided to put that money to the side to play anyway I stayed in. I wait some more time, but this time I looked at the price from every other week.

Finally! It goes back to $0.04 for 1000. Unfortunately for my the weeks that I didn't stay on top of it they went up to $0.05 for 1000. I wasn't angry, I got my money back. I then read that some Chinese exchanges started supporting RDD. I then knew that the coin can no longer go down in value for a while. I decided to stay in again to see if I can still make the profit I was looking for. Ever since then prices have been pretty stable.

How I missed a big opportunity...

While I decided to keep my money on the RDD I started looking for what's new in the market. I ended up finding #Ethereum while it was still in it's development stage. The wallet was a JavaScript command-line client. Thank goodness I knew JavaScript. I started playing around with the command line rather than actually making something useful. I liked what Ethereum was doing with, running app on a blockchain to prevent censorship. At the time #ETH was valued at $5. I stopped playing with Ethereum and started getting busy with life. One day I decided that I want to check the value of my RDD. I couldn't believe my eyes. ETH was ranked #2 right under Bitcoin valued at $14. My blood was boiling, I had missed yet another opportunity to profit. That's what happens in volatile markets things shift rapidly. Prices change after every blink. I then decided that I will no longer miss another big opportunity again.

STEEM is the new dream

I started speculating crypto that were ranked in the top 10. I saw names I have never seen before but I ignored them because there are like a million crypto's a day that pop up (figuratively). I then thought about putting my RDD elsewhere because I cannot use them to buy anything and they are not increasing in value. I looked at the top 5 crypto and came across #STEEMIT with an open mind. When I saw what it was about I knew instantly that it is going to be the next best thing and that this is the TRUE social currency. The cryptocurrency is already being used in a social manner. A whole lot more than Reddcoin was. I now believe that STEEM is going to be a very good stable currency because the STEEM Power prevents people from removing all of their funds from the platform all at once to cause a Pump-n-Dump. 2 years may seem like a long time but you are generating more STEEM for having it as STEEM Power. You also have more influence in the community. I'm pretty sure the majority of you already know how it works so I do not need to go into detail. But yeah, that's my story :)

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Excellent write!

Hi! This post has a Flesch-Kincaid grade level of 5.0 and reading ease of 83%. This puts the writing level on par with Ernest Hemingway and Donald Trump.