I came to know about bitcoin in 2011. All I heard about bitcoin that time was I can do some mining and get a reward in digital currencies. The people who first introduced me were some ex-work colleagues who did not own any bitcoins and were not also in the mining business. Thinking back now, neither do they very well understood what is meant by digital currency, blockchain and the power behind such decentralized system.
I have to admit that I was lazy in doing my own research and my perception about the new wave was far-fetched (and some times even wrong) for the next couple of years. At first, I though if I ever wanted to have a bitcoin I needed to mine it. For mining, I thought, I needed to own a dedicated computer, the skills and the time to do it. So, I simply avoided it. I wish if I could go back in time and learn that I could just buy bitcoins from the exchanges and simply forget them. It took me couple of years more to learn that I could not only mine, but buy bitcoins.
By the time I learned that bitcoins can be bought from exchanges, the price of one bitcoin was almost one thousand US dollars. I said to myself this is too expensive and I cannot afford to invest one thousand dollars into some hippie coin market. Plus, I did not have the knowledge about finance and trading on those exchange places. They've always scared me. They all look like some gambling platforms. I grew up being told money is earned by hard work. I wish somebody at that point in time could stop and told me that I can buy a fraction of bitcoin, and do not have to know anything about finance and trading. For the second time, I just ignored it.
Although bitcoin has been covered in main stream medias I was not giving it much attention. I did not belong to any social media and there was no one I closely know bringing that into my attention. I had fake twitter account which I created in 2013 to follow the news that time. Recently, I started to use that twitter account for the same reason and began to follow some experts in my area too. One of them tweets the "all time high bitcoin" prices consistently; and bitcoin reached to the point where I can no longer avoid it. "It hits 4000...it hits 5000.....it hits 7000". That time I started to regret and blame myself why I did not buy one bitcoin one thousand dollars in 2013 in stead of keeping all my savings into the banks with almost zero interest.
I went through all the relevant posts about "bitcoin and where to buy it" in hacker news. I came to know coinbase exchange and I signed up. Without any more hesitation, I just bough couple of hundred dollars worth of bitcoin. Even then, the high transaction cost was kind of a big excuse to change my mind. But I just clicked the "buy" button. Since then, my mind set has changed. I've given up watching all the stupid youtube videos which I though were funny and began to teach myself about bitcoin, other crypto-currencies, and most importantly about blockchain. It feels a waste of time to subscribe to netflix and watch "House of Cards" series movie. I would rather watch Andreas Antonopoulos speech or read cryptovestor's post @steemit.
Since I joined the crypto currency space, I have influenced most people around me to buy BTC, ETH and LTC. I am quite surprised how quickly people take action when they hear opportunities from the people they trust. Whereas It took me six years to buy my first fraction of bitcoin, my friends bought instantly when I just explained about it. Everyone seems to believe in the opportunity and embrace the risk associated with it. I hope the crypto currency and blockchain revolution will bring a fair distribution of wealth in to our society. It is never too late to invest in this space guys!
i don't think so there is a lot of crypto to invest in !!
I agree with you. I was initially focusing on those coins which have feasible roadmap and a killer blockchain app. Apparently, the hype affects so much than the reality.
There will be even more crypto to invest soon - I believe there will be more than 10,000. As of now:
Cryptocurrencies: 1373 / Markets: 7343 Market Cap: $584,248,442,677 / 24h Vol: $27,341,582,229 / BTC Dominance: 44.1%