If you haven’t heard about Bitcoin or Cryptocurrencies thus far, you probably have been living under a rock. It’s the new get rich quick scheme. The perfect money storm for the young or the veteran investor. Hard to look away from a 1000% ROI.
Everyone wants in on it. From college students with what’s left of their student loans or their parents’ money to the mortgage paying patriarch who doesn’t tell his wife he just put their life savings into an incomprehensible venture.
You might know the big names: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Dash, Monero, Ripple. If you take a look at https://coinmarketcap.com/ you can see there is an 800+ list of coins with a total market cap of over $150B. It’s a drop in the bucket compared to most other markets but it’s fast growing.
The possibility of mainstream adoption is just years ahead. Looking at charts, it’s hard not to get excited at all those exponentially rising curves. Sexy indeed. Why not jump on the bandwagon and make some easy money. Sounds simple right?
Not quite. A good friend of mine always says: “Best laid plans go to waste”.
The crypto world is actually still in its infancy and the perception of easy and fantastic gains are blinding many from the risk. The long term applicability of this technology could potentially turn the world on its head. Faster and cheaper financial transactions are just one aspect. In the world of blockchain it seems there is a coin for every idea. From real estate investments to a new dental insurance program and even decentralized solar power redistribution.
The question is: Are we ready for change?
Satoshi Nakamoto created Bitcoin as a solution to our fractional reserve banking system, a way to keep central authorities out of the peoples’ ability to exchange value. Money has always been just an exchange of value. It’s what we do with technology that’s important.
