New beginnings in a new world

Honestly, I never thought I would join the cryptocurrency ecosystem.

Hi, my name's Randall and I'm an alco ...

Ahem, hi. :) I've been a technologist for over 3 decades, and an amateur writer. My goal has always been to become a writer full time, but my regular job... No, that's not it. It's because I'm a procrastinator. OK: lazy. Fear is a mind killer, as they say.

When Bitcoin started, a friend of mine was a complete fan from day one. He would tell me about it, but I couldn't wrap my head around a blockchain being a good thing. I could see the benefits from the ledger point of view, but I always thought that it seemed silly to push around every single transaction for time immemorial to every single user. To me, it seemed like this would quickly become unwieldy.

He proved that to me when he tried to do a demo to a tech user group at a bar venue and hadn't opened his bitcoin client for a couple of weeks. He had to update his blockchain before he could give the demo, and given the speed of the internet access the venue had, it was going to take a couple of hours. I laughed, smug in the knowledge I was right, and never thought about Bitcoin again.

That was, until last week when a couple of other friends were discussing it over lunch. They were talking about mining it and mentioned Ethereum, which up to that point I had never heard of. Yup, I had completely ignored everything about cryptocurrency, and anything to do with it. Other than being vaguely aware that it was used in illicit deals on Silk Road and the like, and very popular among scammers and criminals.

I was totally out of touch. Which for me, someone who works in the tech industry, is a bit of an embarrassment quite frankly. So I listened to my friends, and a few days ago started researching it myself.

Well. What a shock that was. A new world opened up to me.

I have spent the last few days--with the luxury of time off over the holiday--to research non-stop. Reading, watching videos, and soaking in as much as I can about the crypto landscape. I still don't have any currency yet because of the time of year, I'm sure it will take a little longer than normal to get verified on the exchanges. And I won't be investing a lot because I don't have the funds to throw around and may take me a while to save up a few hundred to get my foot in the door.

That's one of the catch-22's. Over the last few years we have been struggling a bit. Yes I'm in a good industry, earning an OK wage, but we're a single income family, and it's been hard over the last couple years. It's gotten worse this year, and a few months ago my partner had to get major dental surgery done, which meant that we had to take out a second mortgage on the house. So it's been pretty rough, both financially and emotionally. Without making it too much of a sob story, I'm on anti-depressants now, and that's really helped and given me the ability to focus on what I need to do to get my family moving forward.

The crypto seems to have come at the perfect time for me. I need to do something to change my career and to support my family better. I am very technically minded but I have no background in economics or trading, so I hope that if I take it easy, don't over-extend myself, and focus on doing things in the right order, that we will prosper.

OK, I'm rambling a bit.

So in my travels I discovered this thing called Steemit. Wow, a forum-type site built off the crypto tech. That's pretty cool. It's been a while since I've spent time on any forums. Reddit years ago, but well, that was a bit hit and miss. Before that were the dial-up BBSs in the 80s and 90s and IRC. :)

I'm fascinated by this technology, and while I still can't fathom the full benefits of the blockchain, I will keep investigating and learning. I am at least open to it now, so that's a step forward.

Anyway, I'll head off now, sure that you're bored, but just wanted to say thanks to you all. I really like this community I'm seeing, both the wider crypto world and more specifically Steemit. There are some very smart people here and I'm looking forward to making some friends.

Please say hi in the comments, ask me any questions, offer me any advice as a crypto n00b, and I'll be glad to make your acquaintance.

I'm also on Twitter.

All the best,
--rjc