It was no more than 4 years ago that I learned about Bitcoin, also tried to learn about what mining was. At the time investing on either option was basically prohibitive for me. Things have changed and I'm a lot more interested, but Bitcoin went well ahead and became a sort of distant horizon that sets a goal, but still feels somewhat unattainable. My words come from living and earning in a country where the US Dollar is a lot stronger than our local currency. Little by little, but at a steady pace, I've managed to build a machine, learn about software and hardware that may allow me develop some of my passions. I had put cryptocurrencies aside, and didn't even know nor cared to learn more about them for a long time.
Imagine my humble, naive, surprised, jaw dropped, stupefied, astonished face along with thousands of similar reactions when I learned that BTC might be the strongest of mere 863 currencies, but obviously, not the only one, nor the only one growing. Funny story, I wasn't trying to learn about cyrptocurrencies, the last time I had checked BTC was the price of half a year worth of my monthly income, so I had all but stopped caring about it. It was looking at news on gaming rigs I stumbled upon a piece saying how there was a supply crisis in the video cards market. This was due to how many people were mining, and I thought it meant exclusively BTC, but it was well more than that. Ethereum was out there, other people were talking about failed cryptocurrencies and how they had lost small amounts to complete fortunes. Ah, the market.
Well I can say I know little about this relatively new option that is a cryptocurrency, and can only see how it keeps growing, gaining all forms of praise as well as enemies. Which is understandable since my guess is that governments and police officials wouldn't like a decentralized system. Or would they? Hell if I understand it all, but I think a lot of the same officials might have put together one or two mining rigs of their own.
To be honest I would love to say that I have found some gems (not the failed currency kind) of sound and reliable information, but so far I only have questions, which keep rising and piling up at the speed of 256-bit arithmetic operation per clock cycle.
For the time being, my dedication will remain here, with this community. Will I be in the lookout for the next big thing? I honestly think, in my overwhelmed and humble opinion, that any effort in being part of this "new" market will be worthwhile in the not so long run.