Hey Jessavers
The bull run and price action in crypto has started to hit the eyes and ears of normies. I naturally never kept my trap shut and advertised myself as a proponent of Bitcoin for years, especially during those bear times when I was happily picking up pennies. Now that Bitcoin has hit an x5 return in the space of a year, every Joe six-pack and Jane star bucks are starting to hit me up on WhatsApp to ask how this all works.
I will always be honest with people; even though I am a big fan of Bitcoin, some people aren't ready. The vast majority of people I speak to don't give a shit about privacy, financial sovereignty or hedging their bets.
All they want is to get rich from a small amount of capital in a short space of time. It is NOT impossible in a bull market, but pretty rare, especially as every cycle, the return percentages decrease as the market cap increases.
Bitcoin is for everyone, just not right now
I do believe Bitcoin is for everyone; everyone should own a piece of the asset and network. They should own it in a size and manner they feel comfortable with using.
My allocation to Bitcoin isn't right for someone else, and my way of storing Bitcoin isn't for everyone else. I am a long term holder; I buy it, stuff it into my cold storage and some into an interesting account.
- Others may want to only focus on interest,
- Some may want to do a quick in and out and remain on an exchange
- Others may want to secure favourable loan terms against their Bitcoin
People want Bitcoin for different reasons, and there is no one allocation value or one use case that fits all. The first thing I ask people is what do they want out of Bitcoin; then I'm happy to give them the options that fit what they want and the truth about the risk their taking.
Every option in Bitcoin carries risk; there is no risk-free rate with Bitcoin.
Remain hands-on with your money
Having to consider all of this can be mind-numbing for most people; they want Bitcoin to treat them like banks. To tell them where to put their money, what rate they will get and have them manage the process.
In Bitcoin, it's different; you need to take ownership of your money, find the service that suits your needs, place the Bitcoin there and check it regularly to ensure its working.
Bitcoin is active money management, and if you're not up for it, I suggest you stay away for now.
Being your own bank sucks
Taking ownership of your money has traditionally always sucked; holding gold or physical cash opens you up to risk or robbery. You would need to take out insurance on your assets as well as storage.
These costs add a negative carry on your money. Additionally, you won't be collecting any interest when you take ownership of your assets, so you're losing out on potential returns.
As inflation increases, denominations increase too, and back in the day when you could hold $10 000, and it was basically a lifetime supply of cash, it has now become impractical. You don't want to hold massive denominations of cash.
In addition, banks have made accessing your cash easier; they provide you with an interest rate (in some countries), allowing you to access it with an app or card. They also have deposit insurance and can help you block payments and assume liability if things go wrong to an extent.
Getting into Bitcoin, you have to manage your wallet, keys, and seed phrase, run a node if possible and distribute your Bitcoin across different software and services.
- The UX is clunky,
- the instructions are technical,
- the mistakes are costly
Taking personal responsibility for your money was not going to be easy, especially at this early stage of the game.
Convenience turns to atrophy
The convenience of the banking system has lulled us into a nanny state, where we are happy for the banks to
- Sell us products we don't need.
- Give us rates that are pathetic,
- to give us customer service that is useless
- Block our transactions at a whim
- Hold our money random
- Limit how much of our funds we an access
Each year, they take more of your money through fees for providing a service that has not got any better, but we stay. They know they are the only game in town, and those who are taking responsibility for their money are few and far between.
There's a new sucker lining up for a bank account every day as they hold the keys to our payment rails. Getting out of the banking system or having an "out" is possible with cryptocurrency; however, many are so deep into the convenience that they've lost the ability to think critically or take action.
Being your own bank is not easy, but for me, the returns in purchasing power, privacy and independence are worth the effort.
Have your say
What do you good people of HIVE think?
So have at it, my Jessies! If you don't have something to comment, "I am a Jessie."
Let's connect
If you liked this post, sprinkle it with an upvote or esteem, and if you don't already, consider following me @chekohler and subscribe to my fanbase
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I so agree with what you say @chekohler. You must have an idea of how difficult it is to educate people in Venezuela, that's why I always recommend them to start using a social network so they can understand the ecosystem a little bit and have real experiences.
Being your own bank and the one responsible for your keys and movements is something difficult for most, and understanding the philosophy behind blockchain and cryptocurrencies is even more difficult. Most people don't question the why of things and how to do things better.
Thanks for this post, I really enjoyed it.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
Honestly reading about what's going in Venezuela I don't feel I can ever know enough of what's going on, I have spoken to a few people on HIVE and even then I can't imagine it. I have a lot of friends from Zimbabwe who went through the same thing and even then I don't think words can do justice, so I don't want to pretend I know whats going on or how it feels.
I think it sucks that you had to learn the lessons of banking in such a harsh way but I think it also plays a role in you all adopting crypto and learning pretty fast which will hopefully set up Venezuelans for the new world economy
Glad you enjoyed it, I enjoy your content too poses a lot of interesting questions, keep it up
Here's what I told a friend of mine that just started to get interested into Bitcoin, without utility it is a "store of value" and no better than gold.
In that way, I don't think it is useful, and will not be the currency of the internet until there is some utility to it. We don't need a "new" store of value, what we need is a way to use "cash" on the internet. Something that is secure, anonymous, and is resistant to influence from state actors.
I sold my BTC in December to buy a camera, and I'm still happy with that decision.
One of the reasons I like HIVE is that there is growing utility to the token. You use it to reward content creators, participate on the chain, and influence the direction that you want to see the chain develop through witness and DHF voting.
If/when the majority of transactions on the BTC chain shift from buy/sell on exchanges to b/w real people doing commerce, I will start buying again.
The way I see it is we desperately need a easily fungible, verifiable, and divisible store of value. In South Africa inflation is killing us, most people can’t articulate it they just know money is worth less
If it wasn’t for BTC I would have seen most of my savings obliterated and I’m thankful for BTC!
I get your reasoning I think most developed nations citizens don’t need store of value because their banks struggle so hard to get inflation
For me BTC does what it promices and I can earn a yield on it without the fisher effect chowing any possible gains I make like it does with my fiat
I think BTC is slow to innovate and that’s fine by me! Let the Alts roll out the other functions! BTC a offers the platform all to exist and pass value through
I think as BTC matures Satoshis will also come into play more and that’s where I think the medium of exchange will kick off!
I don’t know if it’s going to happen but I See BTC as a collateralized Bond and Satoshis as the underlying currency
That's a very good point, the world is getting smaller, but is still very big.
The circumstances for me in Canada are very different from South Africa for example. Inflation is extremely low and I have zero concerns of placing my cash into an insured bank.
The utility of BTC is still concerning for me. even bonds are bought and sold to institutional and retail investors. BTC seems to be mostly shuffled around between investors on exchanges, never gaining circulation as a currency.
I have spoken to Canadians on HIVE and learning about what goes on there from what I can tell inflation isn’t an issue but you do have loads of taxes and that ads to cost to living and retained earnings.
Also not sure how crypto is handled there but if it’s similar to the UK and US it’s a bloody nightmare and might not be worth it for many
For us it’s still a bit up in the air they are obviously going to come after it eventually but while it’s still convert to fiat pay tax I can legally still stock pile this stuff without much of a tax burden
I get your concern and I agree with it, a lot of Bitcoin is just musical chairs and no real value is being created from the trade in terms of goods and services. Totally on board there and it’s something I hope happens eventually be it on satoshi or alt coin level
I just think that having value that’s internationally recognised is important.
Let’s say I move to Canada I know for sure my degree will be dismissed, my previous work experience won’t count for much, my money won’t get me far when changing it for CAD but my Bitcoin can still be sold for the same price I can sell it for in ZA I can get in Canada
I don't know your circumstances, but I doubt your degree would be dismissed and if you are in the marketing space I know that these skills transfer into Canadian markets relatively easily. If you are actually interested in moving I know of a few people within marketing companies that are looking for skilled people, and encourage remote work.
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I couldn't agree more. And it takes way more time than I'd like it to.
However, I consider this a learning phase and
dream ofwork towards the day when I have everything consolidated and systems in place to be able to make better, faster decisions as new things arrive, in relation to my, yet to be defined, overall strategy! 😁Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
I also see it that way it's my education I am investing in here, I think these skills are going to come in handy, some trades I will lose some things ill win but I know after these last 5 years I am far better off than I was in 2016 and I am sure it will continue.
My strategy is learn more, stack sats! Know more than I did last year, own more sats than I did last year
That's what I've been doing but without intention. I'd like to have more of a concrete strategy, especially in terms of numbers.
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Yeah, it is scary to be your own bank and unless you have such a large sum, it isn't worth the aggravation to worry about all the things that could go wrong.
Might as well just park the crypto in an exchange and accept the risk.
I do believe in not your keys not your coins but I totally agree with you, if you got a few bits you don't really care about leave it on the exchange and sell it when you're ready. I don't see a right or wrong way to crypto, just the way that makes most sense for you. Thats why I don't like to give out crypto advice, mine will be awfully bad for others because I am so invested and deep into it, Im 5 years ahead of someone coming in now so my advice may not be what people need right now
Yeah I've had the same experience with friends I've spoken to and a lot of the time, the understanding about what the point of BTC other than "number go up" is non existent. When folks start thinking how much something is in sats not how much BTC is in fiat, then we're making progress!
Yeah I think thats step 1 sadly lots of even crypto holders don't even get that concept its all about moving things around to get more fiat for some reason. But I guess its a quick test to see where your mind sits in the crypto sphere so I don't mind it
But the learning curve besides the concept of value measurement is steep AF, setting up a wallet, sending your tokens, where to check your mempool transactions all this is NOT second nature. You really have to dig deep, I hope one day it will be easier, and I'm fine with taking the knock and learning because its going to benefit me in the long run
But as we say in UX, every additional click, is an additional person lost
Yeah and there's plenty of clicks when you get started with BTC (or any crypto) so there's so many places where folks will say "that's enough, sod this". Those that make it past the hurdle of setting things up still just think of the price of BTC in fiat but if we can just encourage people to buy a ledger, send their BTC there and not touch it for 10 years then at least that's one more person with exposure to it!
Hey, do you know if I can post on the Leo Finance community via the Hive Blog app or do I have to only post from the Leo Finance app?
You can use the leofinance tag on any HIVE front end and it will pull through on LEO, but you will pay a tax on your rewards for not posting via the main front end
A tax? Really? I don't understand how that is even possible. That seems to be breaking rules on how the Hive Blog blockchain should work. By the way, I ask many people questions. That is a normal thing in life. You asked me why I asked everybody the same question, but in this case, I only asked one other person today. This is my first time ever asking this question to anybody ever. But it doesn't matter. In real life, people do this all the time. And that is what smart people do, they ask around.
khal can do whatever he wants with his project, if you don't agree, don't participate in his project, its simple.
I did not say if I agree or not agree. I am talking about the code. Do you understand the code? Do I need to teach to teaching you code? My comments on Leo Finance is in regards to how the Hive Blog blockchain works in general or at least in what I've allegedly heard regarding how it works.
Leo Finance taxes people for posting but not for commenting? From my understanding, according to the code, there is no distinction between posts and comments in the sense that they are both posts in a general sense as they enter into the blockchain into the recorded blocks of transactions.
Thanks for sharing the obvious, please go annoy someone else, thanks
If it was obvious, then that means my comment here is being taxed according to what you said. Because this post was on Leo Finance and my comment is simply a nested post inside a post thread inside Leo Finance. Therefore, I should be getting taxed from this comment of mine which is actually a post.
Lol go cry to your mommy, ain't no grown ass man on the internet want to hear your emotional ass rants!
Facts are not emotional as Stefan Molyneux likes to say in his videos, that is not an argument. I just got done posting about the five types of cryptos. I just thought you would be interested in knowing how Leo Finance works. The ability to tax a post can come when post via Leo Finance.
However, I don't think it is possible to tax users who are posting not via their app. To prove otherwise scientifically, you would need to show me the code. Because I am posting this from Hive Blog.