I have always been a gambler. My father gambled a bit when I was a kid but that's not why I turned out the way I did. I love to gamble because of the feeling I get before the dealer flips his show card. I love it because when I throw the dice, for that brief moment before they hit the table, the possibilities are seemingly endless. Gambling, to me, is the best and worst drug in the world. I smoke a pack of cigarettes a day, but when I'm at a casino that doesn't allow smoking, I don't notice that it's been 4 hours since I last took a puff.
So why do I start off a post about me being a crypto noob by telling you how much I love gambling? Because 2 years ago, I bought $50 USD worth of BTC to throw on to an online casino. It was for a brief thrill that I squandered what would today be worth between $3000.00 and $4000.00. That was my introduction to the world of Cryptocurrencies, an area of our modern economy that most outsiders would call investment gambling. I recently decided to research all those three letter coins that seemingly grow in numbers exponentially and get behind one that I can believe in. I read the posts online, negative and positive, I looked at the tech behind them, I made a shortlist then visited the Reddit communities of those currencies on the shortlist and I started observing.
The interesting thing about Reddit's communities is that they are full of true believers. Having grown up around true believers my whole life, I find that they all have something in common, they roll with every punch that comes at their system. Catholics should not be punished for what the Catholic church hierarchy allowed to happen for all those years just as much as Muslims should not be punished for the lunatics in the desert claiming a new caliphate and doing deplorable things in the name of Islam. Crypto true believers are just as dedicated as those religious folks that stuck by their beliefs even when the world was telling them to stop. So I wanted to read what the zealots had to say about the investment bankers of the world trying to turn a tech project they truly love into another thing to buy, sell, and option. I wanted to read how they felt about the flooding of their boards with questions from n00bs like me, trying to get in on the action. I wanted to see if they wanted to give the world a big middle finger for laughing at them for the last few years and now trying to join their party.
What surprised me is that they are welcoming of the new folks joining their ranks. They are happy for the new miners that, to them, are strengthening the blockchain. They are happy that their beliefs have been validated to a certain extent by increased market worth, but they, rightfully, still hate the investment bankers. Above all, the thing that surprised me the most is that they don't care about the money. They're in it because they believe in the change that their currency can bring to the world.
I joined a community, invested some money, and although I can't afford a mining rig, I will send hashes out with whatever power I have. I understand, now, why Cryptocurrencies have such a religious following, and although I will never be a zealot, I do want to help affect change through tech. I will not write what currency I decided to get behind because that's not what this post is about. This post is just to give you some of the thoughts of a person joining your ranks. Help me and the others like me out. There are so many "resources" out there for those of us joining the party late that just seek to take advantage of our ignorance. Don't laugh and please be patient. Thanks for reading my random thoughts. See you around.