Adventures in crypto-land

So I chose this week to have a first wee dabble into crypto currency. When I say a wee dabble, I literally mean that a box of matches is probably of more value than my investment.

Naturally, I was cautious. I am listening to a really good BBC podcast at the moment called the “The Missing Crypto Queen” and it has had the totally reverse effect on me; instead of putting me off it has whetted my appetite to educate myself and make my own mind up as to giving it a try. Small thrills!

So I have a few slightly more “out there” chums who I defer to on subjects like this. One is a risk taker plain and simple but can see that and advises others against going in on her basis; the other is a former goth, war gamer and conspiracy theorist who point blank refused to discuss it with me over the phone or by any other messaging service than Telegram. Turns out that’s where most of my new crypto buddies have candid chats. It’s a bit like WhatsApp I suppose just more secure for geeks in the know. School day 1.

So after doing a bit of reading online I decided on three fairly well known coins to focus on by way of getting to grips with it all so I put a tenner on each and got a virtual grain of sand in a virtual wallet. Oooh exciting! Which is apparently totally hackable too and I need a usb pen. Great!

The above paragraph sounds fairly straight forward, but in reality took me all day and involved me setting up a new online bank account with one of the newer banks for this purpose alone. My three other traditional banks blocked the various transactions and ways of doing them through intermediaries immediately. It was to the point that I almost felt like giving up. I won’t say which banks blocked me but, interestingly, they all denied it was because of cryptocoin/a strange transaction being flagged up on the system. I honestly can’t see why else they would block a £10 transaction and so already I’m starting to understand why the die hards allege that the banks want them shut down as a disruptive influence and are trying to do so using anti-competitive practices. I mean nothing to do with crypto’s rep for facilitating organised crime, Silk Road drugs transactions, anonymous unlimited transfers worldwide, or the ability for your investment to be wiped out every time Elon Musk scratches his ear on prime time telly. Oh and the environmental impact is terrible. It is hard to know what to think to be honest.

I must say, I have been hooked on watching the volatility of the graph since I invested on Saturday and I was aiming to buy in a dip so to an extent my plan may still work as my total net investment value is sitting at 30%, which is annoying in that I obviously wasn’t patient enough to let it bottom out but exciting enough to wonder if an when the curve will turn or if I’m in a money pit.

My experience is that it’s actually not as daunting to get into as it seems at first; provided you are playing with peanuts and you know the score on high probability gambling obliteration!

Anyone else like a dabble? It’s a whole new sub-culture, a new toy for me for now!