Why am I in crypto? What’s in it that affects me so much?
Do you remember your first contact with cryptocurrencies?
How old were you? When was it? What was your first impression of it?
Well,I remember mine...
It was 2014, early spring, cold, rainy, and gloomy outside. I was surfing the internet looking for some tips for using the TOR browser, and, by accident, I found a story about an already shut-down black drug market called Silk Road.
I bet that most of you have heard the story about the illicit web site situated in the Dark Web, where almost all illegal stuff, like drugs or weapons, could be bought.
What was innovative for this kind of site was that the payment system was based on a mysterious-sounding coin called Bitcoin.
As I could read, it was a special tender, designed especially for performing payments. For a more detailed description, I found it on the WIKI website (https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin
“Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer electronic currency system. A person or group of people known as Satoshi Nakamoto created the bitcoin cryptocurrency in 2009. Bitcoin is also the name of the open-source software used by nodes (Bitcoin Core) to form a peer-to-peer computer network (Bitcoin Blockchain Network).
Unlike most other currencies (so-called fiat currencies), it is not reliant on confidence in a central issuer. Bitcoin stores transactions in a decentralized database distributed among peer-to-peer network nodes and employs encryption to offer basic security functions such as assuring that bitcoins can only be spent once by the person holding them at the moment.”
Well, to be honest, that definition didn’t tell me much—what exactly is it, how can I use it, where can I find it, and how much is it worth?
I tried to find some more information.
And unfortunately, the more I found, the less I was able to understand
I’ve read something about POW consensus and Bitcoin mining:
“Mining is a distributed consensus technique that incorporates pending transactions into the blockchain to confirm them. This procedure ensures the chronological order of events in the chain, maintains network neutrality, and allows multiple computers to agree on the system's state. Transactions must be structured in a block that complies with extremely rigorous cryptographic criteria that will be validated by the network to be confirmed.
These rules prohibit modifying previously written blocks since doing so would render all subsequent blocks invalid. Mining also establishes the equivalent of a competitive lottery, preventing any single person from just adding new blocks to the blockchain sequentially. This guarantees that no single individual has control over what is recorded on the blockchain or may modify portions of the blockchain in order to reverse their own spending.”
What's more, to obtain Bitcoin by mining, special, highly advanced computer devices are needed.
Wow, all of this sounds really complicated.
That was too much for me. As someone who is a noob regarding highly developed computing technologies, I decided to put this subject off.
But... I couldn’t
All these things I’ve read about blockchain and cryptocurrencies—the stories about accidental millionaires, big loads of money that can be earned through crypto, financial freedom, and, of course, decentralization and brand new, amazing technology—infected my mind like a quick-spreading virus.
So, I started to invest any change I had left from daily shopping (hopefully there were Bitomats situated in the nearby shopping mall) and became a prominent crypto-investor, at least in my opinion.
Since then, I have come across many situations connected with crypto—the funny, the exciting, and the frightening ones.
During the years, I learned that education about crypto and blockchain is the most important thing, and only this and being reasonable can save me from losing my faith in crypto.
And the phrase I like the most—it is better when education hurts than ignorance, which will rip you off—is what I consider the most truthful.
Anyway, it was only my thought, after a few drinks, to prepare for an invitation to the New Year.
Dear readers, what’s your story with cryptos?
I wish you a happy year and good investment decisions.
Greetings!
