After reading so many interesting and educational articles on PublishOx, I wanted to contribute to building helpful onramps for other people who find themselves relentlessly drawn to Bitcoin and the sprawling world of cryptocurrency. The learning curve is crazy steep in this world and so many of the rules that people learn about investing or money management don't seem to apply. It is a weird world, and as someone with true beginner's eyes, I wanted to share my journey before I forgot what it was like to really be surprised and confounded pretty much every day.
I am a mid-life, Gen X American guy. I have a decent job, am accomplished in my field, and have been socking money away in the kinds of retirement investment vehicles that people in my generation were warned would be our only alternative to eating dry cat food under a bridge. We weren't supposed to believe that the government social security apparatus would still be around when it came time for us to start living off the proceeds of what we'd contributed. We'd be on our own.
So, when I had a few spare dollars, I'd write a physical paper check and mail it off with a physical, licked, paper stamp to some big mutual fund company and slowly grow my IRA. At every job, I upped my contribution to 401k retirement funds until I hit the company match ceiling. I'd read that someone my age would need $1,000,000 at retirement age to survive. Then 10 years later I'd read the number had grown to $2 Million. Then $3 Million, and now my discount broker webpage scolds me that I will need $4,000,000. Next year, I am sure it will be 5 Mill and by the time I actually am of retirement age, I'll need $500 Million.
This is the world I know. We pore over mutual fund disclosures and Morningstar ratings, throw in some international funds, allocate to some aggressive strategy that you promise you'll shift toward bonds and cash when you get older, and hope that the market doesn't crash when you're finally retiring, or that inflation doesn't come back and send you to Cat Food Under a Bridge Island. Every once in awhile I'd have some fun choosing individual stocks to invest in, and started following a rule that I would never invest in any company I could understand from a business perspective and from a use case perspective.
And then November 2020 happened and I stepped into a weird new world where I felt powerless to avoid putting my money into an invisible coin that was really some kind of computer program that required planet-smothering levels of energy consumption to verify.
I get it. I am a stranger in this land. The awesome bloggers on PublishOx who share their strategies, profits, excitement over new coins and platforms, and beliefs in the impact of decentralized finance are well at home in this upside-down world. But I think I represent the next wave of retail investors...the wave that you want to sell to and trade with over the coming decades as we look at non-traditional assets. We're not the ones who pumped up $WallStreetBets, but the ones who have been investing in the stock market or rental properties or uncirculated gold coins or whatever for a while and now want to understand the incredible opportunities in cryptocurrency. To be honest, we are extremely inspired by the digital generation whether they be nomad or crypto investors. We want our 2nd passports, our banks on a flash drive, and a view of Hong Kong Harbor, Marina Bay, or Old Town Tallinn over our laptop screens, too.
Earlier pioneers to this transformation blazed the trail, and I am hoping that by sharing my experiences I can dial down some of the apprehension and worry that I see in so many people who have been trying to build their financial independence the traditional way - and who are now freaking out about fiat debt, civil unrest, the generational costs of the COVID pandemic, and the hungry monster of inflation lurking in the bushes.
And, if I am being completely transparent, I am so freaking fascinated by my new hobby and no one wants to talk to me about it! Hence, this blog, a travelogue of sorts through The Fascination.
Please comment, like, tip, follow if you think you'd like to hear more about this journey! Thanks!
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Exchanges and Wallets I Use and Enjoy
BlockFi -- https://blockfi.com/?ref=12bc0247
Celsius -- https://celsiusnetwork.app.link/160685ab0a
eToro -- https://etoro.tw/2KjXsOn
Gemini -- https://gemini.com/share/zqegnlh9
Faucets and Sites I Personally have Earned Crypto
Cointiply -- http://cointiply.com/r/p9Gyy
BetFury -- https://betfury.io/?r=601502337521da79ce95370b
Earn Tokens with Real Value for Free...Not Much, But Free!
Presearch -- https://presearch.org/signup?rid=2078735
Fun, Free, and..."Maybe They'll Pay Off Someday" Sites
FreeBitCo.in -- https://freebitco.in/?r=41144131
FreeEthereum.com -- https://freeethereum.com/?ref=120579
Pi Network -- https://minepi.com/PopPop6
