The early days of Mining
It was only a couple of years ago that I first heard about Crypto Currency. At that time BitCoin was still in its infancy, but the craze was just as strong among those who were “In the know”. When I first heard about this digital currency, I barely understood what it was, but saw that you could make money by “Mining” it on your computer using your video card. See, at the time I was in college and was working a job that was paying just over minimum wage, so I didn’t have a lot of money, so I was looking for ways that I could make some quick extra cash. About a year prior when I had a better job I had built myself a new computer. Sadly, I’m cheap, and because I wasn’t doing much PC gaming I skimped on the video card. This didn’t stop me from at least trying to mine some Bitcoin once I learned a bit more about how it all worked. One day, I loaded the mining software, pointed it to use my measly AMD 4550(and maybe even a 4750), and let it do it’s thing.
A day later, I came back and BOOM! My wallet was still empty, and that was the end to my experimentation in Alt currencies. At the time I was still living at home, and I’m sure if I let it run I could have mined a bitcoin or two with the pool I was a member of, but I was impatient, looking for quick cash, and it just wasn’t fast enough. Had I known that a single bitcoin would soon(well 10 years later) increase to almost $20,000, I sure as hell would have continued to try my luck, but that’s not here, nor there.
Is Crypto Currency really worth anything?
Let’s get this post back on track now, because we’re not here to talk about my failed attempt at making a few bucks; We’re here to talk about the current state of Altcoins.
We have any number of Crypto Currencies available to us that have no real tangible value, not to mention new ones that are starting up each and every day. If you ask me, it’s all a bit surreal, yet ridiculous. If I were to create a new Blockchain hashing algorithm, call it MyTechCoin, and then tell people to start mining it, it will now miraculously have a monetary value attached to it based on it’s demand…. While the “Demand” part makes sense in terms of a tangible asset, this is not that. It is merely a bunch of ones and zeros held within a digital realm that now has a value given to it by a bunch of overzealous IT nerds. Now don’t worry, I’m calling myself out here too since I’m a part of this fad, but let’s move along.
As I just stated, i’m a bit of a computer nerd. I am also a business owner, and being a business owner you must understand at least the basics of economics or your business will fail. With my over the top and over analytical mindset, investments and investing in general became just another thought that would keep me up at night. So, while deep in thought, I started to pity those who put their life savings into BitCoin right before the bubble burst. That correction literally cost a lot of people their retirement.
Crypto goes Bust and loses it all..
This is a great segway to my next point; Just a few weeks ago(When I started writing this at least) BitCoin was pushing $20k, and a mere few days later the glass floor shattered and it was back down to sub $10K. While bitcoin is currently the largest AltCoin at the time of writing this, the fact that that happened, to me, negates any possibility of me investing any sort of money into it, or any Alt Coin. It’s one thing for the value of gold or silvers to fluctuate, but it’s never more than a couple dollars per ounce at a time, and that’s because you have a physical item that you can hold. This digital currency has no tangible item or asset associated with it, and because of this it is volatile and could be gone just as fast as it came to be.
A lot has happened since I started writing.
Let me interject. It’s been about a year since I first started writing this and to say a lot has changed would be an understatement. First off, that crypto bubble that burst, of which I was referring to in the previous paragraph, has continued to fall and crumble. Businesses based around being a Crypto exchange have had their owners, the sole holder of the Crypto Wallet password, pass away, taking with them millions of dollars of people’s money with no way to get it back. I think what I was stating previously has only been proven to be true, time and time again. At this point, I honestly don’t want to waste any more time, holding onto this post, waiting for the next big thing to happen because frankly, I see things continuing in the direction they’re currently going; a downward spiral with no way out.
The end to Cryt-no Currency
Ya see what I did there? What are your thoughts on Crypto currency? Do you think it still has a future? Maybe blockchain tech will continue developing while Alt coins continue on their path out, never the less, What are your thoughts?
