I first came across cryptocurrency 6 years ago. I was talking to a friend at work, who was trying to explain how Bitcoin worked and how to mine it, and why it was so exciting.
And I will be completely honest, I didn't get it. Imaginary Digital 'Money' which is created out of thin air and is apparently worth something? Just another daft internet fad I decided, and promptly dismissed the idea.
Three months ago I was encouraged by another friend to join Hive, again the explanation involved 'Digital Money' but this time it was linked to posting interesting content and getting rewarded for it. At that point I still didn't understand where the 'money' came from, but it was free to join, I had plenty of content to share, and I was severely disillusioned by the current Social Media options.
After a few weeks I noticed the plethora of Cryptocurrency posts, my feed was swamped with the stuff. There was articles discussing Bitcoin, and blog posts discussing the future of Hive. I started to keep an eye of the price of the HIVE token, and I began to realise that I had ended up owning Cryptocurrency.
Yesterday I reached a final point: I purchased actual Bitcoin, and transferred it to an Interest Earning Account. I am now officially investing in Bitcoin.
If you had told me 5 years ago, or last year, or even last month that I would be owning Bitcoin, I would have laughed at you.
Its amazing how quick times change, and how quickly circumstances can change. And while I see a lot of posts on here talking about the Economy failing, and Banks and Governments falling apart, and the world ending, I don't think things are going to be quite that bad. I do however think there are big changes on the horizon (which Covid is accelerating), and I think its prudent to be prepared for uncertain times.
On that note, I have started to put a portfolio together.
Forgive the awful graph, it was the best I could manage with Excel, and it is appallingly bad. It should at least illustrate how unbalanced my 'portfolio' is. Obviously that is because I started Hive 3 months ago, and all the other options I set up in the last week.
Lets look a bit closer at the 'Tokens' I have chosen to invest in.
Hive
My Hive account is growing nicely, I am earning well on many posts, and I am also delegating via the @dlease site, which helps me get at least a 14% return which is awesome. The numbers here are totalled from both of my accounts. I have chosen to buy Hive to increase my investment and also the potential rewards.
Bitcoin
I had already bought bitcoin a couple of months ago, as it was the route I took to buy Hive and power-up my account. After reading many articles on here and watching lots on youtube, I decided it was worth investing in in its own right. I was especially interested to put it to work. I don't want to just Hodl and wait (hope) for the value to rise... There are a couple of options, but in the end I went for BlockFi, purely because I can use it on a laptop. The other 2 options are mobile phone apps. I didnt want that.
The BlockFi interest averages out at 6% per year, which is a million miles better than my crappy Bank saving account...
Hive-engine
I have an assortment of tokens here, most of which have very little value at present. I may leave them there and see what happens or I may sell for more Hive, I don't know.
BAT - Basic Attention Token
Now this is an interesting one. It is rewarded when you use the Brave internet browser. I am getting a bit fed up with Google sticking its oar into everything, so I was looking to change Chrome anyway. Brave has a decent add-blocker, and runs nice and smoothly. On top of that you get rewarded in BAT, I have had it for 3 days and have earned 4.5 BAT (approx 1 US Dollar). Not bad just for clicking around the website as usual.
I'm not sure what to do with it yet though. Do I Hodl it? Should I try to invest it like the Bitcoin? Should I just sell it for more HIVE?
Leo
Last, but certainly not least, is the LEO token. I did briefly delegate to the Leo curation account, but I decided to stop and exchange it for Hive. 2 weeks after I sold it, the Wrapped Leo thing exploded, and the price shot up.
Oh well, you win some and lose some. I mentioned earlier about being prepared, and having different options available, so on that note I will start delegating to @leo.voter again.
Next Steps
I want to delegate a larger amount to Leo, so will be adding to that as I receive Hive rewards.
I will once again be joining in with the next Hive PUD on the 1st November
And finally I will purchase more Bitcoin to invest, if there is any spare cash lying around.
If anyone has suggestions on what I should do with the BAT then please let me know!
In the meantime, I will carry on researching, and I'll be back with a progress report in a few weeks
Hopefully this shouldn't need saying as I am obviously VERY new to this 'investing in crypto' stuff. This is not financial advice, and I strongly encourage you to do your own research to decide what is best for you etc etc.
If you have any thoughts or opinions on this article then I'd love to see your comments.
And if you really like the content then maybe you would like to upvote or re-hive it.
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