Why I won’t get into Crypto

Well I don’t think there is anybody out there who enjoys being broke, we’ll all like to ride in the lambos and live in the high rise apartments with views of the ocean and not a crappy room in the deepest ghettos. It seems like there is this new technology out there called cryptocurrency and whatever other crazy thing spirals out of that which has really gotten the world in a frenzy. It seems like everybody is rushing into it trying to make a profit. If I based my analysis from all the influencers I see on my feeds, it seems to work very well for all of them. Maybe it does, and maybe it doesn’t, but I have a hard time believing that I’d be making millions in cryptocurrency and my first instinct would be to put everybody on the game🤔 . That right there sounds kinda fishy, don’t you think?

Well I’ll confess that I know very little about cryptocurrencies, but that doesn’t stop me from sharing my point of view. In the same way you feel entitled to share financial advice (which is not financial advice), I as well, I’m allowed to totally disagree with your opinion. Here are just a few reasons why I won’t get into crypto specifically, and you can also throw in NFTs while you are at it.

The Sad stories

I hardly imagine a person losing $100k and making a whole video about it. The most likely instinct would be to cry and probably get off internet for a very long time. Which means that we don’t get to see the sad stories out there of people losing their money and talking trash about crypto, its generally only the good news we see about crypto. How mr x made 100x gains and how mr y made 2000x gains by buying this coin or that coin except that there is no way to prove all of that, any basic computer geek would be able to manipulate numbers on every website. I think if I made $4k from $2 then my first reflex wouldn’t be to jump on tiktok to invite everybody into it which will have a direct impact on the profits I can have, unless I’m trying to drive the price one way or another.

Its unregulated

I know we all hate the government for one reason or the other, but one thing we can always count on is the system of checks and balances. We know where to protest when need be, we know to whom to complain when there is an issue with our paycheck but right now, the crypto world is just a bunch of anonymous persons working in the shadows trying to lure innocent persons feeling desperate due to the pandemic into investing all their money into “get rich quick” money schemes. Where are these companies located? and where is the support team in case things go wrong.

Too much fuzz

There is just too much fuzz in the whole crypto space, everybody trying to tell you what you should do or not do, what you should buy or not buy and its really easy to get lost in the whole mix of things. You don’t even know what is the truth no more and with coins being so easy to create that it takes only a couple of clicks, there is no telling what is legit and what is not anymore. How can you possibly know what is right when everybody is yelling at you to buy this or that all at the same time, I have no doubt that its a revolutionary technology but all the influencers out there are just making it all the more confusing.

Its a Gamble

Bitcoin does seem to be the safest bet but that as well is a gamble, it could take just a tweet from Elon Musk to send the entire bitcoin market crashing. The entire cryptocurrency market is too much volatile and there doesn’t seem to be a controllable factor driving the prices either up or down, it seems like the more people influencers can drive to a specific coin, the better it would do. You have some coins skyrocketing to 10x their initial price while others crash down to zero, but the question is what drives the price up and who controls that? The price of a currency like the dollar is controlled by how well the economy is doing, and it can be influenced by figures like the Federal Reserve or the president (just so slightly) but who controls the price of a cryptocurrency? It seems like it's just everybody who dabbles into it in a big way. You try to make predictions but all of that is based on information constantly changing in unpredictable ways.

This is still a gamble in more ways than one, just like sports betting, horse races etc Here you are not buying stocks hoping that the company does better down the line, here you are just betting that the coin will skyrocket for one reason or the other and you will be able to multiply your money somehow, except that in this case you are not betting on a specific result but rather waiting for an outcome that may or may not come eventually. Personally, I think it would be easier to play sports betting than to wait for so long for something that may or may not happen and spend all your days checking charts to see if you should be sad or happy.

Tied to Crime

If being tied to influencers wasn’t enough, cryptocurrencies are directly linked to an increasing number of crimes in recent years. Not only do the firms running the industry get hacked, but also criminals now request to be paid in cryptocurrency. Who knows how many crimes are getting committed right now on a coin you are betting your life savings on, it would just take a news article to send the whole coin crashing and everybody dumping what they have in a panic. The anonymous nature of things make it difficult to track these criminals which means the easiest way is to shut the whole thing down in one way or the other.

Conclusion

I’m not against cryptocurrencies, I think they are definitely a great innovation which will revolutionize the financial industry. I can’t wait for them to become a lot more mainstream and somewhat regulated, not just this whirlpool of coins which feels a lot like a casino.

Thanks for reading!

Check out my blog for more articles, realjema.com