Crypto

[poliphilo]

 A younger friend of ours is getting into crypto. The way he explains it is you buy low and sell high. Very like the stock market but more streamlined. The streamlining is something to do with blockchain technology- a thing I keep hearing about but just can't get the hang of. Apparently it's the future. 

Incomprehension is one reason why I won't do crypto. The other is that I can see how it could become an addiction. On the couple of occasions I've inherited stocks and shares I've cashed them in. 

Quakers don't gamble. Ostensibly for moral reasons, but also because it's sound business practice.  Refusing to take any penny that hasn't been honestly worked for was the foundation of a good many fortunes back in the day. A lot of 18th and 19th century Quakers got very, very rich.....

Comments

[mtbc]

The blockchain's basically just a (typically) trustworthy public ledger of transactions. Anyone can create a coin/currency/token that others can buy and sell. Some of them are somehow tied to something of real-world value, many aren't. Of the latter, many don't hold their value long-term. It's all rather unregulated, even to the extent of complex investment instruments: anyone can buy one coin, use it as collateral to borrow another, which they then stake in a liquidity pool for rewards, etc.

The modern stock market's pretty streamlined, even regular stocks on the major exchanges are easy to buy and sell with low fees and (at least on the major US exchanges) settlement is now faster. Crypto's just mostly just more volatile and risky. If you've avoiding regular stocks then, yeah, I'd just keep clear.

I hope the younger friend's "getting into" lessons don't prove expensive! It's interesting and there's potential but there are plenty of people doing this professionally and plenty of people losing money. I hope they try trading on paper for a while first, just to see what would have happened.

It's hard to overstate the value of "real" work, as it is I suspect the world of crypto does humanity more harm than good.

[poliphilo]

He's starting small and plans to play it safe but good intentions are easily set aside when you hit what seems to be a winning streak....