- BankSith
Do we already see Bitcoin Adoption in Springfield?
Updated: Jan 2, 2021
Springfield's Jimbo Jones is feared in elementary school for taking kids' lunch money. Now he is accepting Bitcoin. Somehow he found out that the mass adoption of cell phones didn't stop with email and photo. The internet of money? Children do all kinds of crazy things!
But what is Bitcoin? Bitcoin is a new kind of payment technology that tries to revolutionize the way people transfer value around the globe. It is a decentralized Peer-to-Peer (P2P) overlay-network that operates borderless and without the control of a government. Should this scare you as a parent? Yes and No. Let`s face it. Investing in crypto assets such as Bitcoin is risky and you might lose parts of your investments. Bitcoin is highly volatile and the technology is hard to understand for grown-ups.
Herschel Shmoikel Pinchas Yerucham Krustofsky, better known as Krusty the Clown went broke in 2015 by trading crypto currencies without any education in either day trading or basic computer science skills that are necessary for understanding how a blockchain and crypto assets work. At the time of writing, it is still unclear if Krusty the Clown lost his money due to overleveraged trades or due to unsophisticated and insecure storage of his crypto funds.
Do not end up like Krusty the clown who lost a significant amount of money in 2015 in the crash after the first Bitcoin bonanza with all-time- highs of around 1200 Dollars.
Even Lisa Simpson was surprised when she figured out that Krusty had to sell his house and all his luxury items after he lost all his money partly due to trading crypto currencies. (Youtube)
So keep in mind that Bitcoin Price fluctuations are wild. When you think that your stock portfolio that consists of growth and tech stocks is volatile then you should better not touch the Bitcoin markets. A daily 10% price downward move is considered as a regular non-event trading session by Bitcoiners whereas a 10% drop in the stock markets would feel like the pain of 1987's Black Monday and the 2007 Lehman Brothers collapse.
Do not end up in the poor house by trading crypto assets without proper education.
In respect to the handling of the underlying technology, it is essential to pay attention to operational risk factors such as fund transfer and security of crypto storage.
Do phrases such as "Not-your-keys-not-your-coins", Proof-of-Work, Block Time, Private Key, Public Key, Merkle Tree, Seed, Mnemonic Phrase, Multisig, Segwit, Cold Storage, 2nd layer solutions such as Lightning ring a bell?
If you have been working in a bank for the last 25 years and you have never heard of any of these words then you should not trade cryptocurrencies. However, you should not give up. If you have kids, you could ask your 10 year old today to give you a quick crash course on Bitcoin. Remember the stage of the internet in the early mid 1990s? Back then, hardly anyone could handle an email terminal, let alone explain what TCP / IP is.
In this Simpsons episode, Jim Parson gives you a little introduction of how the bitcoin network operates. (Youtube)
Education is key! If you want to go down the rabbit whole a little deeper I can highly recommend you 2 books, one of which gives you a nice and easy introduction and the other examines the technical details of the ecosystem in more detail. Lisa Simpson certainly red those books in 2 days, but keep in mind that even Jimbo Jones can handle a Bitcoin application on his phone and so can you.
Ignore at Your Own Risk
The New Decentralized World of Bitcoin and Blockchain (English Edition), Pascal Hügli, Yonghan Lee, Richard Dettling
This book is a perfect introduction for the elderly, traditional financiers and cryptosceptics who want to try to understand crypto assets better. Comic-like illustrations make it extremely easy for people who don't know how to use a computer.
Mastering Bitcoin
Unlocking Digital Cryptocurrencies, Andreas Antonopoulos
Kill 2 birds with one stone! Understand cryptocurrencies and at the same time learn basics on the Python programming language. Just so that you can have a say with 20 year old interns on a trading floor if you work in a big bank.
If and only if you understand the basics of Bitcoin, you should think about opening an account and investing a small amount of money on a crypto exchange to get a first glimpse of the technology.
The author could organize an affiliate link to one of the largest global crypto service providers Binance. 10% of all comissions ever created through your trading activity will be transfered as lunch money to Jimbo Jones, just so that Jimbo lets the author`s son focus on his education.
Open an account at Binance at your own risk!
So, do we already see Bitcoin Adoption in Springfield? This is hard to say as the Bitcoin network is still too experimental at the moment to reach mass adoption. However keep in mind the predictive power of the Simpsons who in the year 2000 forsaw the Donald Trump presidency. The New York Times wrote in 1936 that a rocket will never be able to leave the Earth's atmosphere. Robert Metcalfe said in 1995, that the Internet “..will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse.” Everybody wants to be on the right side of history. What is your choice?
About the Author:
Rene first heard about crypto assets in 2012 and has been actively investing in a diversified crypto portfolio since 2015.
Disclaimer : The author owns cryptocurrency. This is not financial advice to buy or trade crypto assets. Think long and hard before investing your money. And do not end up like Krusty the Clown! Always watch the down side, do not bet the farm and always do your own research!
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