Okay I know it seems lately like I'm shilling for this coin... But I would say I'm advocating for SmartCash, not shilling. And if you know me (you probably don't but take my word for it now and I'll prove it), you know that I don't advocate for anything I don't fully believe in.
When I was just starting to learn how to mine crypto, I was using a LAMP and saw it was mining the keccak algorithm. I search the web to find out what coin it was mining, and that's when I found SmartCash... I checked the web site and my first thought was "best mutual fund in the universe". SmartRewards are an interest earning system whereby if you put at least 1,000 SMART in one wallet address and don't withdraw from it during the month, you get a percentage added to your total the next month (it turns over on the 25th of the month but you get the idea). The interest rate is currently at about 7% per month, and will slowly diminish over time. So in a year with compound interest, if you don't contribute anything else at all other than the first 1,000, you will have about about 2,000 in your wallet. Unlike a lot of other coins that have a similar attribute, you don't have to leave the wallet open on your computer to get the rewards. If I contributed just half of my mining proceeds to this "crypto mutual fund", I was going to have to add a zero to the end of my total and do some math to figure out the first few numbers. I was all in at that point. SMART was trading at $0.06 at the time...
I got an old friend of mine who happens to mine crypto interested in SmartCash as well. Between the two of us we mined several thousand SMART in December of 2017, and had both made purchases on exchanges and had accumulated a sizable stash. When he asked me if I wanted to chip in for a SmartNode, I really didn't have to do too much thinking about it. If SmartRewards are good, SmartNodes are a level so far above good I don't really think just using a different superlative would illustrate it. It costs 10,000 SMART to fund a SmartNode. And yes, there is a diminishing reward over time just like SmartRewards and mining and all that... but it takes a tiny fraction of the computer power to generate income with a SmartNode as it does from mining. And you also accumulate SmartRewards in the SmartNode's wallet, so now we're talking about 6% a month on 10,000 SMART. Plus almost over 100 SMART per day in node rewards which will accumulate and be counted in the SmartRewards total.
I didn't really get into saving for retirement until I was in my early 30s. But now, even in my early 40s, retirement is something I'd like to do. I work a (very cool actually) IT day-job (for a great company), but some day sooner rather than later, I'd love to dedicate myself to my second job which is playing and recording music. I would also love not to have to worry about paying the mortgage and bills with every minute of every day as I would not be able to earn anywhere near what I make in IT playing bass, recording, and mixing. Just a fact of life.
So I don't have all my eggs in the basket, but SmartCash is potentially a life-changing thing for me. There is always some risk that the value of the coin will drop to 0. And there is also some risk that it will at some point become illegal in the US to trade crypto for fiat. I would do the "smart" and prudent thing if those things do come to pass, and I haven't invested more in this than I could comfortably afford to lose. But my intuition tells me those things will not happen. If everything comes up roses, after 5 years instead of 20 more at the daily grind, I might be free of the rat race. As a musician, that's been my goal since I first picked up an instrument...
I'm not making any plans for early retirement yet... But a big part of me believes that SmartCash is going to help get me there sooner than without it, and much sooner than my IRA will with much less money invested. No I'm not going to stop contributing to my IRA. But after buying and building a GPU mining rig and spending a small amount of other LTC to buy SMART on an exchange one time, my "SmartFund" will grow faster than my IRA with zero contribution.
