A good friend of mine texted me this morning and asked a few questions related to Bitcoin, blockchain and cryptocurrencies.
I've known him for years now and he's a pretty smart and culturally aware dude.
Getting started in this crypto space though is a rigorous and insanely difficult journey.
It's like trying to drive a lamborghini at 200MPH in a snow storm.... in complete and utter darkness.
It's gotten a lot better since I first came into the space almost 2 years ago, but it has by no means gotten "easy" to really learn and understand crypto.
My friend began with some of the usual questions... How to buy. Where to hold. What to buy, etc.
I have a lot of thoughts on all of this stuff. Like many others in crypto, I believe in this saying:
"Not Your Keys, Not Your Crypto!"
And thus, I had to go into an explanation of what I was referring to by the word "keys"... exchange risk, public vs private. Hard wallets..
You see, for many of us who have been in crypto for quite some time, this stuff is like second nature. It wasn't when we first arrived, but we've been aboard long enough to know how the ship holds itself together at this point.
To a newcomer, it's like a web of craziness. None of this stuff is intuitive and none of it comes very easily.
That's how an emerging technology works though. A technology that breaks the bounds of what we currently think is possible.
The internet was the same. Hell, I still have to help my parents and family members navigate a computer and their iPhones on a very regular basis.
The discussion ended up running into the Steem blockchain and I started to explain some of how this all works, but I found it to be quite hard... There isn't really a 1 stop shop for the Steem blockchain where you can learn how everything works...
I'll have to do some sort of write-up in an email for my buddy. This stuff is.... Complicated.