Don't get me wrong, crypto can be a wonderful investment, but only under the right circumstances! Don't just go buying any crypto willy-nilly just because the price trends may seem good. Then there's application-native cryptocurrencies. These can be especially good investments, potentially turning a few hundred dollars into millions! However, not just any application with crypto will do.
Before I get into the last point, I will give an overview of what makes a good cryptocurrency. Like any other currency, it must have good backing, whether it be direct, such as the U.S. dollar with silver before the Great Depression, or indirect, such as a merchant's token based on that ancient standard. Admittedly, cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin are somewhat less vulnerable to certain pitfalls of other fiat currencies, such as a malevolent authority creating massive amounts of that currency and causing hyperinflation. However, though it is the original cryptocurrency, Bitcoin does not lend itself to creating tokens that can help provide good backing. Thus, all Bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies are based on is the faith its holders have in its value. Translated: Many cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin included, are simply decentralized digital fiat money. Ether, the cryptocurrency of the Ethereum platform, is a somewhat different case. Although Ether itself is similar to Bitcoin in direct backing, Ether lends itself far more easily to indirect backing via Ethereum's gas fees used in transporting thousands of varieties of Ethereum-based tokens, in addition to Ether itself. Some of those tokens, such as the Basic Attention Token, have strong direct backing and are effectively stock in the company that issues them without all the corporate nonsense. (By the way, the Basic Attention Token, or BAT for short, is backed by the Brave Browser and its advertising network. To see why it is a good investment, check out my discussion of Brave here.)
Now that I've mentioned it, not just any company will work for a strong crypto backing. The company itself has to have strong ideals, including high innovation, and a good team in order to get off the ground, and along with it, its native cryptocurrency. Brave is a good example of such a company. It values privacy, among other good things, pays you for browsing the internet with BAT, and has the co-founder of Firefox as its current CEO. Contrast this with Presearch. Although it too values privacy and pays you for using its search engine, quite a few disgruntled users have discovered that its team is rather ineffective at its job. Hence why the Presearch token is worth almost nothing per unit, compared to BAT's current 20-25 cents per unit as of this writing. Likewise, if a company does not offer a cryptocurrency, that does not automatically make it a bad company. Take Qwant, for example. It is a French-based search engine that, although non-crypto itself, not only offers a private searching experience, but also has a version of its search engine dedicated exclusively to kids! Some of its native pages remain untranslated, but it has yet to become very big in the English-speaking world, as most of its userbase is French and German. As for the search engine itself, it generally works without problems, even in English, and offers a few extra features Google search doesn't. By the way, Qwant is partnered with Brave, which does use crypto, as one of its default search engines.
Like any other currency, cryptocurrency must have valid backing in order to truly last. Bitcoin, for instance, is essentially decentralized digital fiat money. Ether, on the other hand, has thousands of associated tokens, some of which have strong backing. However, in order for that backing to be strong, the company over that token must also be strong. Brave, for instance, excels in many areas; Presearch, on the other hand, lacks a strong team; this shows in the token prices. Also, don't use cryptocurrency as the sole standard for whether a given product is good or bad; one can miss out on wonderful concepts such as Qwant by doing this.
THIS! IS! CRYPTOSPARTA!
My Reddit: CryptoLeonidas
