Words of a Frustrated Cryptocurrency Enthusiast
So, one fine day, I was having tea with my friend when I noticed a person sitting across from our table who was talking to two other people about Bitcoin. He was encouraging them to invest and telling them that they would be able to “get rich quick” if they did. The funny thing was that the value of Bitcoin that he was using to lure them into investing was that of some days ago. The market had recently gone through a huge crash and the value had dropped significantly.
This made me think how people have the wrong idea about Bitcoin and only care about the value. Just thinking about this made me cringe. Bitcoin was not intended to be a “Get rich quick” scheme. It was intended to be a peer to peer electronic cash system. The dream was to be able to pay for day to day items like coffee or beer with bitcoin. But it has turned into “digital gold” that people invest in for profits. Thank god that Bitcoin Cash is here to save that dream.
When I usually talk to people about Cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin, they automatically assume that I am rich and straight away ask me how much Bitcoin I have. Not everyone was fortunate enough to have money sitting around when they were introduced to Bitcoin. Plus, not all of us were introduced to Bitcoin when it was worth only like a dollar. Some of us were late to the party and still stayed for the vision and tech that Bitcoin has to offer.
It is frustrating to see people running after the value of Cryptocurrencies while disregarding the change it can bring to the world. Cryptocurrencies can enable the world to transfer money in an instant across borders with minimum fees as well as buy day to day items. Think of all the possibilities!! But, the value has been gaining so much attention that people don’t really know about the other possibilities. The censorship and politics that goes on in bitcointalk.org and the bitcoin subreddit (which are the websites that people new to the ecosystem end up visiting) is not making this any easier either.
Hint: try this uncensored subreddit instead.
Actually, scammers have realized the real strength of cryptocurrencies. They know that the payment is settled instantly and with minimum fees so they use crypto to run pyramid and ponzi schemes. To top it off, the “get rich quick” hype that Bitcoin has generated has made people more likely to fall for these scams. Infact, I was kind of introduced to the world of cryptocurrencies because of a ponzi scheme. Ironic huh? More on that below…
When I look back, it seems that most of my frustration comes from people only caring about the price and not realizing the real value of the technology and it’s possibilities. I guess I really cannot blame the people because I also first got into Bitcoin because of it’s value. So, here’s to hoping that the majority of the people who joined for the value will stay for the technology and to a future where we can be our own banks.
How I was introduced to Bitcoin
I was first introduced to Bitcoin back in May of 2016 when Bitcoin was valued at around $450. A couple of my friends had found out about these magical websites called “faucets” (They are pretty much extinct now). How these websites worked is that the visitors would fill out captchas, The things that websites use to verify if you are a human. They sure are annoying huh? Now imagine filling up those captchas all day for like 0.0000001 of a bitcoin. The dream was to collect as much of the little bitcoin we could collect and wait for the future, when the price of bitcoin would skyrocket and we would be rich.
So, yeah, I played around with those faucets for a couple of days and then got bored and ultimately ended up forgetting about bitcoin. I preferred to be lazy over earning money. This is because I knew nothing about the technology behind Bitcoin and only cared about the value. I seriously did not believe the price would skyrocket so much.
Fast forward to the end of 2016 when Bitcoin jumped to about 700$. It was around this time that me and my friends began to gain interest once in cryptocurrencies once again. It was around that time that we found this website called Zarfund. It was basically a Ponzi Scheme but we did not know that it was one. We didn’t even know what a Ponzi Scheme was. So, we invested in it and ended up getting nowhere (obviously) but my interest in Bitcoin did not end.
I joined bitcointalk.org and began gaining more knowledge about cryptocurrencies. Suddenly, I was more in love with the technology and the vision of a peer-to-peer electronic cash system than the value. So, I began collecting more by doing jobs for bitcoin which were posted on bitcointalk and some other websites. Slowly, I found myself getting into other cryptocurrencies and dreaming of the endless possibilities they will bring to the world.
