Throughout life, one hears sayings, quotes, words of knowledge, and/or pearls of wisdom, to help them along their journey through life. For me, it was my father forcing me to learn to play chess at six-ish close to seven. I can remember him beating me for 3 straight years no wins all losses (talk about crushing feelings, self-esteem, and pride, all the things our kids today wouldn't be able to handle lol,  but that is a story for a different day). He had this saying that I thought was irrelevant at the time, and personally annoying. I know now what he meant, and it has guided me in different areas of my life. To this day I still hear his voice. He would say almost every game "Son chess is for the elite and checkers is for everyone else." At the time I thought he was only talking about chess, but later I realized it was a metaphor for people's approach to learning. Some will take the time to learn, study, analyze, and adapt, while others rather not take the time and just jump around cluelessly.

The evolution of money is going through the same shift. Crypto is chess—analyzing, studying, learning, and adapting. Most of us using crypto are doing at least one, if not all, of these things. Trying to explain how to move money from one platform to another to a non-user? It’s like teaching a fish to climb a tree—frustrating, unnatural, and bound to leave both parties exhausted. And if they finally grasp the concept and want to invest, get ready for the inevitable: "What should I buy?"

At that point, you have to break down the different types of crypto users:

• Investor – In it for the money.

• Hodler – Stacking and holding, unfazed by price swings, knowing long-term value will surpass anything we’ve seen.

• Artist – Seeking freedom of expression, appreciation, and compensation within the community.

• Gamer – Playing to earn tokens (try explaining this to a console gamers—lol).

• Domain Developer – Reshaping the internet, pushing Web3’s limitless potential—especially if centralized servers ever get censored.

There are plenty more, but let’s be real—you probably lost them at "investor."

Crypto is complex. Navigating platforms, DeFi, farming, horse racing, metaverse spaces—it’s a lot, even for seasoned users. The good news? Many projects, like Pi Coin, Zilliqa, and Crypto.com Ecosystems, are working to simplify the experience and make it more user-friendly.

In the near future, blockchain and IPFS will weave into our lives just like the internet did—something we once barely understood but now can’t live without. So, let them keep playing checkers. No need to explain, convince, or argue. We chess players are just getting into position, patiently waiting for our "Checkmate. I told you so." moment.

Then, after all that, they circle back to the original question: "What do you think I should buy?" At this point, you take a deep breath, resist the urge to facepalm, and hit them with the only right answer: "It depends on what you want to do."

Because, let’s be real—are they trying to invest, hold, create, play, or just FOMO in because their cousin’s barber made a 10x return on some meme coin?

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