You see it written all over the internet, especially when discussing the subjects of investing and cryptocurrencies. Somewhere in there the publisher or advisor will put the DYOR acronym. It is a "Mother Generic" term that really doesn't tell you that much. It is like when your dear sweet mother would tell you to be safe but she does not tell you what to specifically do to be safe. Hence the "to be safe" is generic advice. And Mothers will be Mothers.
DYOR is an acronym for Do Your Own Research. We all knew that or I least hope we did.
(I will try and keep this short and sweet. My target is less than 1 minute read. But I do tend to waffle on when I get on a roll.)
But in a more practical sense what does DYOR really mean to a beginner wanting to get started in crypto. I am making an assumption that is why you are on the PublishOx platform and have read so far.
For me I know what it doesn't mean. Reading every catchy title (AKA Clickbait) on news sites, social media channels and the like. While it has it place and you can glean some useful snippets occasionally. It is time consuming and of very little value. To many shysters out there trying to take your cryptos.
So what do I mean by DYOR?
Time for a Quote (@Bragato18)
If you want to learn to swim, you can only read so many "Learn to Swim" books. At some point you have to get in the water.
So what are some examples of DYOR for a crypto beginner. That does not require risking $$$ and your sanity.
1. Verifying a fact, investment opportunity or news story.
I try to verify from 3 independent sources. It means digging a bit deeper below the surface. Someone is quoted in the article or post. Do a search on that person. That person worked on such and such a project. Keep digger. With scams it usually only takes 10 minutes of Mr Google to find what you are looking for. Someone who has already done all the DYOR work for you.
Case in point. I was on a plane waiting to take off to go to a mine-site and using the Coinbase app. The guy next to me sees the distinctive blue screen and starts up a conversation about crypto. Then he launches into how he is into this thing called USI-Tech. After a few minutes I couldn't help but blurt out "it sounds like a scam mate". But I like to poke and prod things to find out how things work. So I encouraged him to continue but I still managed to blurt out one more time "it sounds like a scam mate".
We arrive in the mining camp and are put in the same group of Dongas . I go to my Donga and do a quick search of USI-Tech Scam on my iPad. 10 minutes later I find a comprehensive article by Ethan Vanderbuilt. I cut and pasted the information into notes. Went next door to share with my new friend what I had found. He seemed grateful for the information at first. Sent the notes to his phone so he could read it properly. But he avoided me for the rest of the week. I had a feeling he didn't really want to believe.
Lesson
Sometimes people just have to learn the hard way
2. Poking and Prodding.
As I have already mentioned I like to poke and prod things to see how they work. It gets me into trouble occasionally but the secret is not to panic but stay calm. Go away and come back and have another go. You will work it out.
3. Give it a go. You don't know where you will end up!
(a) From Faucets to PublishOx
Got into Faucets when I found out you could get free Dash , Zcash , Ethereum and factom . These Faucets had intrusive ads and pop-ups which took up too much of your time. While these had pretty good odds (1 in 1000) of winning the big prize. Found out quickly that earnings per hour spent is a fraction of a cent. Kept going so I could collect the pittance I had earned but eventually my account got frozen before I could withdraw it. Funny that.
Tried a few others
Got to play every 15 minutes, was after the Zcash and Litecoin. Paid the higher values frequently. Got close to the withdrawal limit and they reduced payout x10. But you could deposit (read give back to them most of your earnings) some Litecoin or Zcash and get to play at a higher level with higher rewards. Also had a few pages of ads to go thru with time delays. Once again time consuming. Still get emails from them occasionally inviting me back.
Wanted some ETH to cover gas fees on ERC20 paper wallet. Probably the worst faucet of them all.
Free Cardano Free Nem Free Ripple Free Bitcoin
These guys did actually pay out. They had lots of technical issues. Withdrawals would be pending for days then fail. Kept trying and the transaction would eventually go through. By poking and prodding I did discover some vulnerabilities that I was able to exploit to my advantage. It was a challenge and a bit of fun.
In the process of falling further down the rabbit hole.
I learnt about multi address wallets, referral programs, Earn.com, Coinbase Earn, twitter, airdrops..... Over 9 months from the faucets we directly made roughly $AUD10. But what I learnt in the process was more valuable. As extra bonus we earned well over $AUD1000 of free stuff in the process. Stellar Lumens, Zcash, ADA, Ripple, Nem, ZRX, EOS, Bitcoin, plus numerous Shitcoins which we swapped for something we were collecting.
Which eventually lead us to Brave Browser and Brave Rewards. Saw an ad for Bat Community Forum and checked it out. Followed a few threads. Some one liked what I wrote and tipped me some BAT. It was there I read about PublishOx. (sorry Alexis for not using your link but I don't like using links. Prefer to do search 1st. Don't know whats embedded in those links). And thats brings me to the present.
NOTES
All the blue bits are links to what ever it says. Trust me there are no referral codes or malicious bits embedded or attached. I haven't bothered to add the links again in resources. To be honest I did add the 1st two links but then forgot the rest.
All thats left to do is find some pretty pictures. And check that it is no more than 1 minute read. (oops 4 minutes)
Please do not interpret any of this as a recommendation but it is just food for thought.
I appreciate people taking the time to leave comments and feedback. A sign of a successful post.
