As we move into 2018 I have been talking to a bunch of people about crypto (not actual talking with my mouth, don't be crazy!) and it seems a lot of people have a different definition of "long term" and what to hold means.
For some it seems if they hold on to a currency for a couple of weeks that is a long time, and then there are others I spoke to who are looking 5 years down the line.
How long are you planning for? Do you day trade or are you hodling for years?
For me I can see my chosen currencies as growing in 2018 at least.
Of course, technology moves fast. People could wholesale dump a coin and send it to zero.
But I still think we are just at the beginning.
Early adoption
I did an informal survey of my friends and got a fascinating response.
My network is full of people who got in early to stuff. There are people in my friends list who worked on the early DARPA tech, Apple ][ software, etc. I was on bulletin boards in the late 1980s and rode the dotcom boom and bust. There is a lot familiar here ... and yet a lot of this network have not jumped onto crypto, but are watching it.
People think they already missed the boat, but the crypto world is like the world of the web in 1994!
- It's complex
- It's got barriers to entry
- The upside is enormous
- Culturally it's going to be hugely disruptive
- We have no idea what the final killer applications will be
That sideline interest will turn to adoption, and the network effects will increase.
Steemit was my entry to the crypto world. I didn't feel like buying cryptocurrency with money that I made at my regular job so I began writing on Steemit and selling all of my SBDs on poloniex and buying Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, etc. Of course I would have done just as well if I had held the SBDs and waited for the recent price rise
Much like you, my entry into cryptocurrency in an active sense has been on Steemit, in part because I just don't enjoy a ridiculous amount of risk – and that's what the entire architecture of cryptocurrency is made out of right now. It's all risk. The fact that some of it has done extremely well just means that the cards fell just so – and if we're honest, far more have failed than have succeeded, and continue to.
So by and large, myself, I'm sitting on my steem because of two major reasons: firstly, it's almost impossible to find a decent way to spend it on something I can use, and secondly – I don't really need to spend it. I can afford to sit on it. At some point, if it becomes particularly valuable beyond my dreams of avarice, and my dreams of avarice are pretty big, I can cash out the whole thing and go do something else.
Daytrading is just too much work, and I wanted to do that much work I'd go get a straight job. Stressing out over every little dip and climb in the crypto market is also too much work, and frankly that I've got other things I'd rather do with my time.
I'm not sure that cryptocurrency is going to be a huge, world shattering change, but I'm willing to sit back and watch it while it does so, if it does so.
upvote back yes my friend
Well , that was a pretty short read. Happy New Year to you too.