RANDOM | How it all started - a sharing
Do you ever feel like you should not do something, but you do it anyway?
This pandemic has given me a different opportunity to discover many things in life that I never cared about. Ignorance is bliss, some say, but my heart breaks a little whenever I look back ten years ago just to be reminded that I have missed many golden opportunities in life.
Fast forward to 2021 - lockdowns, unemployments, working from home, quarantine, deaths, and financial insecurity are common topics around the globe. Who would ever imagine working from home is way taxing than going to the office - as if the entire office now relocated to my bedroom. I found myself suffocated with nothing but work and constantly worrying about my parents, who live far away from me.
I decided to learn new things that I have zero basic of - just so I have different or bigger things to be frustrated about. It worked wonderfully that I found myself cursing at 3 am, staring angrily at my laptop.
"Damn, why on Earth do I want to learn HTML, CSS and Python concurrently?!" (I chose to focus on HTML and CSS after realising I have no energy nor time to do all)
Despite my hectic days, I managed to complete my HTML and CSS online course in less than two months. Slow, I know. I was proud that I could duplicate Etsy and Netflix from scratch with Visual Studio Code. I am now contemplating whether I should continue with Python or probably JavaScript or something else.
See, my problem is I want everything.
I came across a Reddit post a few months ago - a Redditor shared his story of spending all the money he initially accumulated to buy a PS5 into buying ETH instead. He is just a boy.
That had me thinking how lucky the youngsters are - when I was that young back then, my days were filled with boarding school activities, lab reports, exams, studying and yes, studying. University life was almost the same, just extra hectic and more responsibilities.
I heard about blockchain and cryptocurrencies a few years back, but it was never a subject of interest simply because no one in my circle talked about it.
Somewhere in 2019, I had a very long conversation with one of my precious humans. We talked about many things, including his latest publication related to blockchain and Islamic banking and finance. It was intriguing.
Somewhere early this year, I had a serious conversation with one of my girls. She told me that she is into trading after she quit her job.
She told me that she wishes to expand her portfolio by buying some stocks in Nasdaq and encouraged me to buy local stocks as a starter.
"Interesting," I said. I was delighted that she found a new love. Little that she knows how I hate anything related to centralised bodies or KYC related business.
She was very enthusiastic. She tried to teach me about graphs, candlesticks and how to use the stocks platform over dinner. How blessed I am to have such a friend!
A throwback to 2020 - a friend of mine needed a huge amount of money urgently. I agreed to take a personal loan to help her as I understand why she needs it, and I believe she will pay me back after a few months (she has paid it all).
The loan amount was less than 70,000, but the interest that I had to pay was high. I wanted to make an early settlement, but I can't as I would have to pay the early exit penalty.
This was not my first time dealing with any bank, but this was the turning point of everything - I can't stop thinking that banks are the real loan sharks.
Legal loan sharks and the government let them thrive.
I started to think about all the troubled people out there wanting to borrow a small amount of money but ended up poorer.
She also shared that she has invested some money in cryptocurrencies (BTC, ETH, LTC and XRP).
"Oh, very adventurous of you. You must've studied them all, didn't you?"
"No, I'm too lazy to do that. I just dumped some money to have a feel of it, but I did make some money, though," she chuckled while I was trying to finish up my soup.
I asked her to explain what exactly cryptocurrency is and the use case of BTC, ETH, LTC and XRP.
She can't.
I was amazed that lucky people do exist.
But I just can't let it go.
See, I want to understand everything.
That very night I hit the search button, trying to learn everything before my bedtime, which of course, was impossible. And I found ADA.
I fell in love with Cardano.
The following 24 hours was very frustrating as I have no idea how to buy ADA.
I only have LUNO (thanks to her), though I am not really a fan because of the limited cryptocurrencies it offers (KYC is compulsory). However, it is easy to use, and it can speak the same lingua franca (read currency) as the rest of the approximately 32 million inhabitants of this country.
I have no idea how to deposit money in Kraken because my currency is not even listed.
"Where can I buy ADA?"
The intense sensation of FOMO was killing me.
I'll be sharing how did I manage to push my way through next time.
I may also be sharing some weird projects that I found while researching for something else.
Anyway, just in case you come across this long-winded post, and by chance having teenagers back home not knowing what to do with their free time - you may encourage them to look at coding/ programming.
Who knows, they may want to learn about blockchain and cryptography next ahahah!
PS:
- I found this book is interesting to read for a beginner.
<Recent edit: I have removed links that were no longer available>
