ADSactly Technology - Things I've Learned About Investing in Technology
When I was younger I didn't know much about business. I didn't know much about anything really. In highschool I remember standing outside on Tuesday mornings on the corner, smoking cigarettes and talking with my buddies about what happened the night before on WWF Raw...
At the time, CD's were still fairly new and CD burning technology was state-of-the-art. Apple was going through hard times, microsoft owned the PC world with windows 3.1 and its massive Windows 95 upgrade and names like Amazon and Ebay still hadn't gained any traction.
I learned about Google in high school and it was steadily gaining traction while competing with names like AOL and Netscape Navigator.
What does a high school kid from an inter-city school know about the future? Not much or right now I'd be a millionaire. These days I'm a history teacher and every time I research a new time period I kick myself and wonder why I wasn't more interested in the past when I was younger, I simply didn't see the value in it.
In college I studied business and I read a book called 'Rich dad, Poor dad.' We often make excuses for our ignorance and I remember saying to myself, well, the reason you haven't made it yet is cause you never had a rich dad.
Its too easy to make excuses, its much harder to take responsibility for your actions and act on your gut instincts. I remember in high school telling my parents to buy Amazon stock.
They shrugged it off thinking, what does a high school kid know about stocks? Later I pushed them to buy some Ebay. If I used it and everybody I knew used it, wouldn't it be worth buying?
If you've made it this far, stay with me a bit longer... I'm talking about missed opportunities here and regrets, I couldn't be alone in having them could I?
After graduating college I remember going to my buddy's house and seeing something amazing... It was called an Ipod touch and I had never seen anything like it!
At the time Apple had been making a comeback first with their G4 line of computers and quickly followed by the Ipod classic.
But this! This Ipod touch was like nothing I had ever seen! It was touchscreen and had games and it simply blew all other handheld devices out of the water as far as I was concerned.
I knew it was the future, I knew it would become a phone like no other phone ever seen before but I couldnt put two and two together and say, hey, I can ride the wave, I'm going to give all my money to Apple and load the boat on Apple stock!
See, knowing the future isn't enough... If you know the river is changing course, you have to figure out where its going and put yourself in the way of it, you have to act and you have to be ready to ride the wave!
Enter Bitcoin... I heard about this thing in about 2010 and even made an effort to get my hands on some. When I figured out that it was extremely difficult to buy and that it couldnt simply be stored on your computer but you actually needed some ungodly long code that gave you access to it, my mind shut down for some reason, I told myself it was too difficult and that it would never work. If I had a better understanding of history and truly understood what it was, I would have bought as much of it as I possibly could have. Another missed opportunity.
Fast forward to 2016... A friend of mine and I were talking about cryptocurrencies and wanted to learn more apparently my friend had another buddy who was approaching millionaire status simply from investing a large sum of fiat in 2013 into Bitcoin when it was about 500$ per coin. After talking with him I and seeing how confident he was and how much money he had made I decided to put my money and brains to the test.
I purchased some Bitcoin and exchanged it for ETH, the hottest cryptocurrency of the time.
I began learning about blockchain technology and the differences between BTC, ETH and other cryptocurrencies like BTS and STEEM.
I realized that BTC was too slow, it was too expensive to buy and it was too expensive to trade because of huge miner fees. ETH was only remotely better..
It seemed to suffer from the same problems as BTC but was simply speedier, easier to transact and was more flexible in the sense that other tokens could be created and piggyback on its blockchain.
When I learned about Steemit and Steem I was amazed. A social network, powered by blockchain which operated at 100,000TPS and offered writers and content creators the ability to get paid for simply posting their work I was shocked.
I was amazed. I didn't believe it and I felt there was some sort of catch.
It took a while for me to understand the system but I realized that what you see is pretty much what you get.
The Steem blockchain serves as a way to transact, a cryptocurrency (Steem) and a way to permanantly store written and pictorial information on a blockchain.
It has so many properties in addition to those of Bitcoin or Ethereum. It has so much raw potential.
Although Steemit has lost its lackluster a bit over the past year, the actually blockchain supporting it has grown by leaps and bounds! For the first time I really see it having a chance to break out of the confines of a simple social networking blog site called Steemit and become so much more!
I'm talking about all the cool use cases that have already been applied. You've got games (SteemMonsters, Drugwars), you've got crowd-funding (Fundition) and a new decentralized version of forums like Reddit (TokenBB). We are growing!
I can see it, I am a part of it and if you are reading this, you are too.
Enough said, welcome to the future, happy you've made it this far! The time is now... Don't sit on the sidelines... Act!
Thanks for reading! Thoughts and comments are appreciated.
What do you guys think about this new Steem revolution?
Please share your thoughts and comments below.
Thanks for reading!
Authored by: Techblogger
Click on the coin to join our Discord Chat
Witness proposal is here:
Go To Steem Witness Page
In the bottom of the page type: adsactly-witness and press vote.
Use small letters and no "@" sign. Or, click here to vote directly!
Thank you!
I loved this publication, @techblogger. The tone, the rhythm, the way you approached this topic in such an enjoyable and close way, seemed entertaining and educational to me. I had never been particularly interested in technology and economic issues. My work had taken me in other directions. But from a certain moment and due to the economic situation of my country, I found myself in the need to look for other ways to earn money and investment. Like a miracle, Steemit appeared in my life! I think this community has been innovative in many ways. Like a tree of good fruits, Steemit has grown to give many benefits to those who shelter under it. May successes and innovations follow.
Great post! I feel the same way about some of the things that you posted. I didn’t have my mind in the right place at the age of the internet bubble but stumbled on bitcoin in 2013. I knew it was going to change the future after doing some research (along with a gut feeling). The problem was that again I wasn’t following my heart and getting distracted with outside noise. Well to say the least, I’ve committed myself back to crypto and blockchain tech as of August of 2018 and I believe in the innovation it has. Projects like the Steem platform is proof enough for me, so I can agree. The future is here and if your gut is speaking to you no matter what the subject is, follow your heart or gut feeling!
Posted using Partiko iOS
I've never heard of business, and I accept that I'm clumsy and closed to them. My trade (teacher) and field (literature) don't bring them very close. That's why I liked how it introduces us, in a simple way, into the most current possibilities of technology's hand to the world of a possible economic prosperity. It characterizes Steemit's discovery very well; it was to a certain extent what I also felt. For example, you talk about the Reddit (TokenBB), who I don't know what they are; I'll try to investigate. Thank you for your kind and gratifying post, @techblogger.
Very interesting, we all have a very similar background. The technology is changing so fast nowadays that its pretty amazing I can't wait what future will bring to us.
Posted using Partiko iOS
I could see steem entering the top 20 by 2020.
This is my personal prediction.
Cryptocurrencies are getting high momentum this year.
I could also see investors coming in in crypto space.
It's amazing to see how technology has evolved over the years and how it will continue to in the future.