Bitcoin will probably die and those that have their fortunes in Bitcoin will lose it all. At the same time, in just the last 3 or 4 years, some cryptos (not Bitcoin but similar) have gone up by over 300,000% - yes you read that right - I'll get to them and explain what they are later in this piece.
Just exactly what is your problem? (whimpers)
You probably have no idea how Bitcoin works or the maths and systems behind it.
Does it really matter? Do you need to know how it all works? Do you even know how banks work?
Do you get with the program and maybe invest half your life-savings in Bitcoin or something like that?
What do you know about ICO's? Are people really making a fortune with them? Have you missed the boat?
As for me, I did briefly understand the way bitcoin works, for about 5 minutes after i watched a program: "How Bitcoin Works"
Like, I don't know how Bitcoin works (sob...)
Bitcoin was invented by ninja cryptography expert hacker cypherpunk coder mathematicians who could bring the old system to it's knees. You want to be a part of that?
OK so you can lodge money with your card somewhere - but wait, it's not in a bank? It's in your wallet? It could be hacked? Lucky there are online wallets like blockchain.info and myetherwallet.com where you can make a deposit and then hey presto, there's your balance in wallet. Sounds like a bank? It sure feels like a bank. Instead of your personal pin or code, you have a "private key" - meh... Difference here, you can have your wallet on your own computer or in a special flash drive with your wallet in it - if you're semi-nerdy and can figure out how to do that and still remember to save your codes...)
So you want to exchange your bitcoin for euro or dollar, then you can do that on an exchange and get paid out to your account, but there is a processing fee. Still sounds like a bank. At the same time, you can swap your bitcoins for all kinds of other new currencies, ether and zcash and ardor and kickcoins and god knows how many others, and more to come. It's a bit of a free-for-all as far as i can see. At the time of writing there are 873 listed here: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/views/all/ - like imagine every shop in your main street had it's own form of currency - a bit like that is how it could go.
OK so you don't really know how they make it or why it's valuable. Again, it's a bit like a bank - they just make it. There is some complicated explanation like related to blockchains and cryptography etc... but the long and short is that there will be 21,000,000 bitcoins made altogether in total. Each of those can be divided up into 100 million units in case it gets really valuable. Incidentally, the smallest part (a 100 millionth of a bitcoin) is named after the guy who invented it: Satoshi Nakamoto - reason why you often see hipsters giving their 2 satoshis in forum threads these days.
But maybe it will be valuable?
OK so if you bought $100 of bitcoin in 2009, it could be worth as much as $25,000,000 today (no joke 25 million). So it might be worth getting 100 dollars now just in case. That was my logic recently.
Hold on a minute, I Don't Really Know How Anything Works So It Doesn't Matter (smile in blind glee...)
At the end of the day, if it's rising in price, do you need to know how it works? Couldn't you just get some and hope it's worth more in future? Plain answer is yes. There's very little reason not to get some, especially with all the hype. If you bought 1000 dollars worth and it went up in value by the same amount in the next 8 years, you could have $250,000,000 worth of money. It's extremely unlikely to go up that much, but according to mathematical forecasts about the supply and use of money etc... its going to be about 10% of the money supply and will be worth about 100 to 200 times as much as it is now.
Lets face it: seems like a good investment, even if you don't know how it works. And think about it: do you even understand how money and banking works? Probably not that well if at all. Yet you still have money and pay for things with money and if you have wealth, you probably have some of it stored as money. Bitcoin and other cryptos are maybe not that different.
Can i buy $1 of bitcoin? (worries)
So ok, you could go and buy some bitcoin: how can you do that? Just go to coinbase.com or blockchain.info or some other respectable online wallet and follow the steps. It's not that much more difficult than setting up a facebook account.
How much do you invest though? I was stuck with this for a while - like what if it all goes belly-up: sounds like just my luck, i could put all my savings into bitcoin and next thing it's made illegal. There i am stuck with loads of monopoly money that nobody accepts or wants (highly unlikely, but still).
You could lose everything you have saved for your whole life in one day with BitCoin.
Again, this is unlikely, but it's new technology and it hasn't been tested by many years of usage like traditional Fiat Currencies. So my advice: don't bet the house on it. Still though, think about it: you rely on technology every day that you don't understand. Have you ever physically put a car engine together? Aside from those of you working in car manufacturing, the answer is mostly no, yet you still put your faith in the engine every day. You have faith it won't explode etc... So many other examples exist. If you are willing to take a risk with other technological advances, why not this? Maybe the solution is to just eke out a little of your pay every so often and buy some bitcoin - a bit like a savings account. If you save $100 per week and you're not rich within 5 years, at least you'll probably have about $25,000 worth of bitcoin, if not a lot more.
It's not very exciting though, is it? Save $100 per week instead of spending it on yourself or your family? That holiday you wanted to go on or those new shoes you wanted? Listen in here because there is a way to make it a bit more exciting - but then it's a bit more risky too. At the same time, it's a bit more fun.
And ICO's now are what, exactly (frowns)
Some new cryptocurrenices have increased in value by over 300,000% in the last few short years. Just take a look at this page and sort by change (%). https://icostats.com/roi-since-ico/
What the bleedin' heck are ICO's anyway? OK so whenever someone invents a new currency, let's just say Bob's taxis bring out their own coins (bobcoins), they have to introduce them to the public and they need to start trading on the cryptocurrency exchanges. Before they do that, they have an ICO (and usually a pre-ico) which is an Initial Coin Offering. You can view the details of these ICO's and even swap your Bitcoins for them (basically by sending them money to their bitcoin address). There are a few other technicalities but more or less that is how it happens.
So how can you get into this kind of thing? Well, quite simple - you can check out sites like these: http://icoindex.com/ , http://icorating.com/ and https://www.coinschedule.com/ to see what is coming up. Do some analysis, see if you like any of them - then buy into one.
Can you lose anything by investing in these ICO's? The answer is probably you can lose a lot. If the company doesn't work out or don't live up to their promises or potential, the whole thing, currency included could go belly up. So it is completely down to you to complete your due diligence. Could be worth it though. If you had put down $100 in NXT in 2013, at the time of writing, that is now worth $346,100. So you probably only need a few good ones to work out for you.
Maybe these opportunities will never happen again? Look, i suppose if you're not in, you can't win. By investing a little every week in your favourite ICO, you could potentially hit the right one at the right time. So like a video i saw earlier, this could be a "one day or day one" situation for you. Which will it be for you?
Steve's Solution (punches the air and laughs out loud)
There is one surefire way to guarantee you won't lose with Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies: don't invest & don't buy in. You won't lose any money at all. You could potentially miss out on a golden opportunity though.
The knowledge is out there if you really do want to learn the technicalities of cryptocurrency, the programming, the cryptography, the blockchain, all that stuff. Maybe if you earn enough through crypto investment, you can retire and spend all your time learning the science and technology behind it. On the other hand, maybe you never want to learn about it- maybe you will prefer to understand how traditional banking works or maybe you want to spend more time fishing. At the end of the day, I recommend becoming slightly involved in the cryptocurrency scene - obviously without putting your life savings at risk. If you're looking for an exciting and fun way to get with the program, like our facebook page: https://facebook.com/cryptohackers/ to follow our journey buying into one ICO every week (in a small way).
Am hoping some of you will join, shout out your recommends every Friday (when we pull the trigger on our ICO investment)
and share your weekly buys. After a couple years, you'll be in one of three places:
(a) looking back thinking you could never have seen it coming (the whole cryptomarket disappeared)
(b) looking back thinking you haven't made that much but at least you've saved a good few thousand dollars
(c) looking back thinking you were so lucky to stumble on Slick Steve's post and join the cryptohackers
ETH donations welcome: 0xC608800339C2E5aaac911063cf2FbF9751Afa60c