Maybe this may be you staring at billions of shitcoins or token lying dormant in your portfolio. The story is always long; I thought it would be a moon!!!. Ok, at least you have learned; some thoughts are very deceptive. The secret to wealth also lies in understanding numbers nevertheless, one has to distinguish between numbers as figures and numbers as assets. What are assets? Beyond just being transactable, they should be consumable.
Of course you can push billions of shitcoins from one wallet to another, the most important question is, can you use them in exchange for any product, goods or services. To make this more precise, can these coins be converted to means of acceptable exchange like the fiat? Speaking of fiat, even at this stage, assurances are still not at 100%. Have you ever tried making withdrawal at the bank and you heard of a Network issue. Hahaha, Your figures become non-transactable in the process.
We know ALL these, banks trying to play with the investment market and your money becomes part of it. You can always drop your cash for deposit in the counter but withdrawals, NO. Let me not spoil someone else's [business](@leoglossary/leoglossary-business.
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The essence of this article is to help us build the needed financial intelligence to differentiate between figures and assets. In a few words; figures don't assure you have assets. There are so much evidence surrounding this. I have talked about the risk of the digital space several times; how one could get flushed off his wealth in a flip of fingers.
That was bytheway, let's look at the two stages of assets; being withdrawable when needed and being appreciable overtime. Just as earlier said, you went and deposited $500,000 dollars in your bank account. What the bank just does is to increase the figures on your account page. Are those actually assets? The banks could hinder you from that important moment withdrawal. At that point you will find yourself scrambling in the midst of inconvenience or opportunity.
Beyond just traditional banks, we have seen this very rampant on the online spaces. Earlier this year, many Nigerian got dubbed by a platform they so much depended on. Their satisfaction were the figures the saw on their dashboard anytime they logged in. We know all this stuff, someone could just create a website with users able to have an account on them. There is nothing difficult about adding numbers that represent financial figures, until withdrawn, we are never certain. The latter proved just so, pending transactions and so on, the summary was billions of Naira in loss to platform users.
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The next consideration is being appreciable overtime. If whatever you are holding onto has no potentials of increase, don't call them assets. It is one of the reasons many financial experts doubt money as an asset. I wrote an article centering this recently, how dollars has dropped in value from $1:$1 in 1950 to $1:$0.07 in 2025. So someone in the US especially who was holding on to dollars in the last 75 years was just keeping figures and not assets. Do many realize this? I don't think so, a lot are still encouraged to save long term on depreciating assets like fiats.
We have seen Naira die down. history shows how Naira had a hedge against dollars on earlier days. Where are we now? $1:N1500 estimation. Very surprising even when the dollar too is facing a big hit. Moving away from fiats, many have invested in projects and industries that stand only as figures rather than assets. For sure, you can't boast of the local telephone company as assets these days. We have seen smartphones revolutionised this industry. It doesn't matter how many of such similar companies you are holding on too, a shift has occurred.
To conclude, let me add, the story surrounding investment is about exposure to financial intelligence. It is a ground of unending risk, from lazy assets to restrictions depending on terms. One needs to look at many things especially when going long term. Will this asset stand the test of time, for how long and adding to that, what is its possible ROI.
reputation becomes key here, first, those you are bidding your money on should not be fraudulent and secondly, they must have a team hungry for results. Never mistaken figures for assets until all these feasibility studies have been well checked. At least keep this two necessary words close; convertible for goods and services and appreciating overtime