Hopefully this piece will find its way to new crypto enthusiasts who are like me — tired of the blind man's game of investing in traditional finance. Today's market seems custom made for monkeys. I'm so tired of seeing that stupid guy from that $15,000 to $2.8 million options trader ad (you know which one). Anyone who knows anything about probability theory knows that this anomaly literally HAS to happen to someone. The guy wasn't super smart or anything. He just happened to be the lucky outlier.
For those who are tired of trying to piggyback the movements of big whales who are rigging the game in tradfi (traditional finance), there is a fairer option. BIG note: I didn't say it was easier — just fairer. Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to the advantages of trading crypto.
Transparency
Tradfi allows for lying dirtbags at the heads of institutional investment firms to completely fabricate their investment histories, requiring only that they finally disclose what they actually did in the company 10-Q four times per year. By the time this information gets to you, the dirtbags have already made their profits. The analysts they pay to put out spin reports will all have new price targets, which will incentivize you to buy in. By then, the whales are already dumping on your head taking the other side of the trade.
With crypto, you can actually track whale wallets. Although you cannot personally identify the individual behind the wallet, you can track the wallet. Every legit blockchain has a tracking site (for instance, etherscan.io for Ethereum and bscscan.com for BINANCE Smart Chain) where you can see exactly how many people hold a coin and the activity coming from each wallet. The activity from exchanges can also be tracked. As an added bonus, top exchanges usually label their wallets so you know exactly who they are.
Governance
If you truly believe in a project, it is quite possible for even a working class individual to own enough of it to participate significantly in governance. Regardless of how rich you are, you'll never own 1% of Apple or Tesla even if you have the money. Institutional investors will bond together and stop you. In crypto, you are free to gobble up as much of the market on a coin as you can handle with much less coordinated institutional interference.
In truly decentralized projects, you can really bite into the responsibility of moving an initiative forward. You have the added advantage that the developers will have already set up the user interface for you to communicate your initiatives and determine their popularity. It is a much different culture than tradfi, where centralization among the biggest fish rule the day.
The Use Case
With crypto projects, you will know quite easily whether you are dealing with a speculative investment or a project with a determined use case. In many cases in tradfi, confusing PR can be used to obfuscate the true state of a company's progress. Because these companies are usually located in physical locations remote from you, you cannot personally verify the veracity of any company claims.
In crypto, you see the use case right in front of you. If a project works, it works. If you want to speculate on a project that is still in beta, you can go in with both eyes open. Do keep in mind, however, that the entire crypto space is in a speculative state. Speculation is where you will make the huge gains to write home to momma about — but you can keep it conservative if you like without the surprise of getting scammed by a purposefully dishonest penny stock.
You can also verify firsthand the veracity of any claims a project makes. Why? Everything is in the code! You can either trust professional auditing services (they sometimes mess up, such as with Andre Cronje's Eminence project), or you can take a Udemy class on Solidity and learn the basics yourself. This is one of the best investments I've ever made in my financial future, by the way, so I can personally vouch for it. Don't trust any of the shills — verify!
Market Hours
You may not think so, but having a market that is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week has a huge technical and psychological effect on how things move. Outsiders view crypto as a volatile market, but the huge time gaps during tradfi market closing hours can be far more volatile than any crypto project. Instead of waiting for the morning open only to find that your favored stock has gapped down and there's nothing you can do about it, you can time your buys and sells in crypto based on your schedule.
There are many more advantages to trading in crypto than the ones above. Personally, I like moving in both markets, as they can provide diversification and protection against each other. This will only improve as bitcoin continues to decouple from the tradfi markets. I'll write more on that later.
Happy trading!
