I had a discussion with a friend the other day about finances. He heads up a finance division for a large multinational pharmaceutical company. He was talking about a bubble in the bluechip Finnish stocks and how he had sold out of nearly all of his holdings.
This inevitably led to some cryptocurrency talk where he had almost zero information. His words 'I have heard of Bitcoin'.
Ok, I am just getting into this myself, but find this interesting. Here is a guy that has been investing his money since he was a teenager, prides himself on being up to date with the latest investment data and is a finance professional.
Why is crypto so difficult?
Perhaps it is because it is new, perhaps because it is not based on traditional banking systems, perhaps it is because non-financial experts are creating it.
For me, the problems I have with understanding cryptocurrency comes from the security issue, I can't trust any information. I got good information to trade at Poloniex, and then good information to stop and move to Bittrex. There, SBD looks to be trading 20% lower than at Poloniex. That is a concern. Does this mean I sell at Bittrex to someone that takes it over and resells at poloniex at a 20% markup instantly?
Even if I can trade successfully, where do I keep it. A wallet? I have a nice leather one in my back pocket now. My wife got it for me for my birthday. So, I go to look for a wallet, again, there is lots of information, much of it conflicting or unwieldy to handle. There are a hundred different versions, none of them seem to be secure by the looks.
I still haven't found a suitable way to get any money out in cash, I feel like an absolute idiot. My wife thinks that I am an idiot for many reasons already, this just puts another arrow in her quiver. We all have our skills.
I do a lot of work with manufacturing engineers. In general, they are not the best communicators in the world but I attempt to help them improve. I also work with lots of IT specialists from the likes of Nokia, Supercell and Rovio. They are about 3 times worse as communicators but their info is new and complicated, making it about 6 times worse. What is simple to a nerd can be very difficult for a 'normal' person and I am far ahead of many other non-tech speakers.
Okay, so there is a learning curve, I can understand that. The problem is, I have my own business, a young daughter, I have to post to make money to trade which for me, takes time as I do not post cat pictures (often) and a million other things. When am I meant to learn stuff that the 'experts' seem to have trouble understanding and presenting themselves?
There are so, so many options here, so, so many ways to store it and the explanations on what are the best (or even adequate) ways are limited and lacking vital detail. Yes, I am a simpleton, but, I am not the only one I reckon.
The reason my financially minded friend does not put any of his vast sums of money into crypto is because he has no way to ever get enough understanding to do so. I wonder how many other rich investors are in the same boat.
It would be nice that instead of a hundred posts repeating how to use basic functionality of Steemit, there could be a group of smart, trustworthy people that get together and write an updateable guide with how to best manage cryptocurrency.
There are some very intelligent people here by the looks of things and when they speak, other smart people nod or shake their proverbial heads in understanding. There are also a lot of laypeople here that struggle to grasp some of these ideas and do not know where to turn for trustworthy information.
I think, that like anything, once I get my hands into it, I get my head around it and can start to develop my own paths, own procedures and even become quite proficient at this. The issue for me is that the first hurdles to get over are too high for my little legs.
Many people want decentralised cryptocurrencies to come truly to the mainstream. That is a long way away if people like myself have trouble. Again, I may not be the most technologically-minded person in the world but damn, I am not that bad.
The repetitive phrase at Steemit from the high reps is post quality that is useful. Well, how about it? The people that are first in here are the ones that are likely holding the best information on how to handle crypto from Steemit from start to finish, where are the quality, useful posts? Not a bit of information dug up from this corner, or a mention of a website that may or not be reputable.
Edit: this should be implemented into the FAQ.
Start to Finish.
Am I really the only one that struggles with this?
Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]
By the way, I am going to start posting some communication improvement tips from time to time. Please share them to the many intelligent people that have lots of good information but can't seem to present it for non-smart people. As said, we all have our skills.