A few weeks ago, I had been reading about cryptocurrency and I thought, "Why isn't my nonprofit accepting this as donations?" I dug deeper reading up on philanthropy related to cryptocurrency and came to the conclusion that I needed to learn this. After a post on my Facebook page inquiring about it, I suddenly found several in my circle who were into cryptocurrency. [I wonder if I should have used the phrase "investing into cryptocurrency" here. I'm not quite there, yet.]
One of my high school friends who I've stayed in touch with over the years walked me through it. I did more research and it looked like Coinbase was reputable and I opened an account. I won't tell you what I spent but I promise you, and my wife, that it even if crypto values go way up, we aren't going to be millionaires. I just needed to get in the game to learn the game.
Now Coinbase allows you to earn some free crypot by watching videos. That was kind of cool and I must admit, it helped me learn more about what exactly this is. Then I got hit with the term NFT or Non-Fungible Token. My brother-in-law's brother was going to have an NFT on Sotheby's and he was telling me about it. That NFT sold for over $214,200, but that is probably another blog post for another day and I don't think that is the norm but this guy is an artist by trade and seems to be doing everything he needs to be doing to make a living. Kudos to him!
After I got established in Coinbase, I learned about staking. My friend told me he was also set up with Kraken and that you could stake there.
Damn. That seemed like a good idea.
So a few bucks later (and I mean a few) I'm now there and staking. Staking means that I'm agreeing not to trade a self-designated about of cryptocurrency. In exchange, I earn a percentage of that staked cryptocurrency over time. Some of these stake weekly or even twice a week.
Here I am. I now have cryptocurrency. A lot of the free stuff I earned by watching the videos was when the market was up so the value of these are now down, but maybe they'll go back up and it all depends on what (and who) you read. But really, who knows for sure? Here is what I've learned in the first four weeks:
1) Someone with a gambling problem should stay out of this. Entry is way to easy and you could really go down a multitude of rabbit holes and lose your money.
2) Never forget the code for your wallet. I'm reading that forgotten codes can be an issue because you can't access your money. Write it down. Keep a copy at work in case your house burns down. Maybe put it out on your personal cloud.
3) When you post you are into cryptocurrency on Facebook, Twitter or elsewhere, the friend requests come rolling in. On top of the gambling warning, if you don't make friends easy and are desperate to have friends, don't post that you are into cryptocurrency. I have not friended any of these people (they may be following me on Twitter) but I somehow don't think they want to be my friend. I'm guessing they have an "opportunity" that I "can't pass up."
4) An investment or just a game? It's definitely a game, just like the stock market is a game. The only difference is that cryptocurrency is volatile and doesn't take a rest on the weekends like the stock market does. Feasibly, you could go to sleep at 10pm and at 2am be up 30% and by the time you wake up be down 30% and you would have slept right through it.
5) Just like the stock market can be manipulated, so too can cryptocurrency. I probably just pissed a lot of people off with that comment, but hear me out. Former President Trump could tweet and the stock market would react. Was that intentional? Make a certain stock drop in a big way and he and his friends buy it low knowing in a few days it would go back up and sell it? It was just a few days ago that Elon Musk said he wasn't taking Bitcoin any longer and look what's happened with the price and the market. It makes me wonder if he or people around him are buying more while things are low. I know this is a very simple view of this, but I just can't help but wonder.
Right now, I'm about 3-4 weeks into this and these are my observations. If you have been in this awhile and you can correct me and set me straight, please do. I'm an open book willing to learn. As for my nonprofit? We are waiting to get finalized by Engiven so that we can accept the cryptocurrency as a donation. I'll share that experience and my experience creating my own NFTs soon...
-------
Adam Woodworth is new in the world of cryptocurrency, runs a nonprofit organization, is an actor, and breeds Turquoisine Grass Parakeets. You can reach him at https://twitter.com/woodworth1970.
