Getting started
I have been roaming around in crypto world since early 2017. Read a lot about Bitcoin and at that time the rising star Ethereum. Many times since I found out about Bitcoin in 2010, I looked at it, considered it and rejected the idea that it would ever be useful for anything. I looked at it again in 2013 and again in 2015. At those times it was still possible to mine Bitcoin at home, but it all seemed pointless. We all know how it went.
My brother contacted me about Bitcoin in 2017, and for the first time it was like the topic became acceptable. This time it was not just me talking about something nobody knew what it was, but someone else brought it up. This made me take the daring steps to finally get myself a wallet and start doing some transfers, loosing some money as I went along making typos and mixing and matching addresses between different coins. All the obvious mistakes I guess, for which there is no help to be found, as you are on your own in crypto world.
A new year, new options
This summer I decided to put an extra effort in my portfolio. It had grown stale since I first bought som coins in 2017, as I hadn't spent much time on it during the winter months. I had obviously noticed that my portfolio was worth quite a bit in December, while it all evaporated during the early months of 2018. So I went reading Whitepapers and background articles on loads of cryptocurrencies, or altcoins as they are called when they are not Bitcoin basically.
While I had been mining with a small rig during the winter for keeping my shed above freezing temperatures, a new trend had emerged this year, which looked very promising. There are lots of currencies that had introduced masternodes, which are a feature inherited from Dash. The masternodes basically provide services to the blockchain in question, and if you decide to run a masternode, you will be rewarded with the currency the masternode is providing services to. You always need to put in some deposit, called collateral, to be allowed to run a masternode and collect rewards. This deposit it very high for some cryptocurrencies like Dash, but not for others. A number of websites attempt to show you statistics with regards to earnings, compared to the amount of collateral required. Most people tend to use the ROI (Return on Investment) as the primary figure to determine if it is an interesting project, and so did I initially.
Masternode cryptocurrencies
Well... and I went through the list of the many masternodes. Most of them are clones from other blockchains and wallets. This in itself, is not a problem, when you consider the blockchain to simply be a vehicle to reach a goal that matters. Most cryptocurrency projects create a Whitepaper, describing what they stand for, what they want to achieve and how it is all going to work. I noticed, that in most cases the Whitepaper merely describes how the blockchain works, but not exactly what they want to achieve and what the exact purpose is of the currency and how it is different from Bitcoin or Ethereum. While the Whitepaper sometimes describes in detail how the reward scheme changes and at which blocknumber, it usually contains very little about what the currency is going to do to improve the world. Some other coins simply refer to the Whitepaper of the coin they were cloned from, raising the question for what purpose the new coin was created other than to start a new bunch of coins. I have found, that it is a big problem that blockchains are not used for anything useful, other than to create coins that you can invest in. Most projects do not deliver anything yet, and trading and investments are based on their dreams and intentions.
Carebit
Then I stumbled upon Carebit, which is a projects that wants to achieve transparency with regards to donations for charity and aid projects all around the world. The funny thing is that after reading about so many masternode coins, I would say that the Carebit project had a lot characteristics that were raising red flags in the back of my head. It had a low volume on the exchanges it was present on, it wasn't present on any of the large exchanges, it wasn't present on the CoinMarketCap list, which actually contains a lot of coins that are dead or otherwise no longer interesting (but not Carebit), it had an amazingly high ROI and the amount of collateral was amazingly low. When I started reading on their website, I found that the Whitepaper had not been released yet, and once I got on their Discord and Telegram channels I found that the Carebit project that had existed since March 2018 had been through quite a bit already. Early on they were hit by an exploit in their wallet, which caused a lot of masternode rewards to be paid out to one or two masternodes only leaving all the other people that had invested in a masternode with nothing. This was eventually fixed, by changing over to an entirely new blockchain based on PIVX, after which all the old coins had to be swapped for new coins on the new blockchain. This must have been a lot of work, causing a lot of grief and conflict for everybody involved. The coin has also experienced a big drop in value since their introduction in April, which must have caused a lot of stress with both the Carebit team and the people that have invested in the project and see their investment be reduced to dust. But the idea, to use the blockchain to raise funds for charity and transport the funds for everybody to be seen to those parts of the world that need it without delay or massive transaction costs sounded very appealing. I'm surely not the only person that wondered how much of my donations to established charity organisations actually reach people in need? Even though there is no Whitepaper yet, the goal of this project hit home for me. And the fact, that the team is still here, not running away and actually adding new people to the team that appear to be active and skilled definately caught my interest.
Investing
So I did invest in a masternode, and I did get involved on the Discord channels. I genuinly think that the team behind Carebit wants to make a difference. And surely they would not have stuck around, with all the problems and the abuse they have endured, which at least makes this a project that is probably not just here to generate an income, but to try and achieve their goals. Today I'm running more than one masternode, and am quite happy to contribute to the project. I see progress being made on many fronts, and I see community members that want to help out. The tone in the Discord channels I would characterise as friendly. Carebit is being sold quite cheaply at the moment, which makes it a good time to get in if you believe in the project. I do understand, it is hard to commit money to a project where there is no sign of an upward trend, but not many people cannot spare the few dollars required to get yourself a couple of 1000 CARE and let it rest in a wallet. And think about how many people all of a sudden started putting their life savings in Bitcoin back in December to ride the wave? And how much are those life savings worth today... again and again people invest when the value is high, instead of investing when value is low.
Future
With the new additions to the Carebit team, such as a new lead developer and also a new graphics designer, I believe that great things are about to happen to the public image of Carebit and also the development of tools and products that will help achieve their goals to provide transparent and fast aide to those that need it. Recently Carebit was certified as an official Non Profit Organisation (NPO) in the UK and the long awaited Whitepaper is said to be almost ready. This will enable all of us to engage small and large investment partners and show them on paper what the goals are this project has committed itself to and why they should consider supporting such a project. Later this month the masternode implementation will reach its final stage where rewards will be split automatically between the masternode holder and a donation wallet. Many projects allocate a percentage of the rewards for development, governance, stakers and masternode holders, with Carebit a certain percentage will be allocated to donations as well. This way donating to charity will become a part of this projects DNA, and seems very appropriate for a project like this.
I have found a few other projects and coins I have invested in... most of them do not have a noble cause like Carebit, but I believe they could generate value in the future. I'm no saint, I admit. But a project like Carebit, which is not just about earning money but more about helping other people, has caused me to invest in it perhaps against better judgement.
Only the future can tell! Check it out on http://www.carebit.org
