I have come to admire greatly the opportunities that crypto and blockchain tech has brought to the world. To be able to create viable ecosystems that deny the traditional systems their hunger for control, is something i find the most thrilling about blockchain. It is rather unfortunate that the tech is trailed with too much conspiracies, scams and failed projects. It makes it difficult to push the idea into the consciousness of the public.
In Nigeria, at least, among the people that i have come across, to be financially independent, takes a lot of work. The banks not only save your money but now, they also deduct crazy amounts of money from your account with little or no interest given back for the utility of your funds. This has made the bank a difficult institution to use. Many people, in order to properly save their funds, have turned to locally organised co-ops that not only save your money for you, but for some, they even give you a percentage of interest on your savings every month.
This plan is good and fine and a lot of persons have benefitted from it over the years. In recent times though, the influx of supposed crypto and forex experts willing to use your money to make more money through trading, has brought about a proliferation of scams that are destroying family lives all over the place.
The way the scams work are similar to the MMM system, the ponzi scheme that caused many finances to close some years back. A company appears from nowhere, with a platform on which you can invest your money. They tell you that they are either trading forex or crypto. Because people do not want to learn about crypto, they fall for these scams. instead of investing time and resources on finding out what the blockchain is about, at least to give a sense of what is possible or not, they just hand over their hard earned money to strangers and after two or three payments, these guys disappear with people's money.
These sort of happenings are what has tarnished the image of crypto in Nigeria to the point where having an app for trading on your phone can get you police attention. bitcoin is often seen as the currency of fraud and when anybody says he or she is into bitcoin trading, it is seen as code for internet fraud. How then can we bring the financial possibilities of crypto to the world given such situations?
Too many people enjoy the dream of passive income, investing in thriving businesses and reaping the benefits, like the man that gave his gold to a shepherd to help him buy bronze, they give their money to people who have little or no knowledge of the business that they profess to be doing. It is the same reason why many persons no longer write on post here on hive.
The decentralised nature of blockchain tech makes it easy for bad actors to manipulate people out of their money. To defend against such things, it is very important for people who seek to invest their money in the sector to gather as much information as possible. The internet is filled with information, waiting for people to utilise them.
Financial scams are usually built on the premise of greed and naiviety. A solid financial sense can help one avoid being the victim of a scam. Most people do not bother with financial literacy. They spend years working and at their dotage, they realise that they have nothing left beyond over educated children who rarely call them except on holy days and birthdays. With financial literacy, any one can be perfectly poised to not only make money but to also detect fraud.
One of my favourite books on personal finance is richest man in babylon. That book can serve any naive person with enough knowledge to protect them from making wrong financial decisions. I have enjoyed my time on the blockchain social media experiment here and it has opened my eyes to so many opportunities and ways of doing but the back bone of every action that i have taken with regards to finances has been this book. And when i refuse to follow the path of wisdom, it is the book that shows me how i have erred.
It is my hope that one day, the blockchain industry will occupy a strong posiiton in not just businesses and financial institutions but also in government processes. If this is made possible, the taint of fraud which it is commonly linked with, will be vastly reduced and the world will come to realise the opportunity, the tech has given to us, to change the world and the pillars that hold it together. We can still disrupt the corrupt status quo. It is rotted through and through and we know the remedy.
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