My cryptocurrencies

Summary

Right now I am invested in:

And for each of these I had a reason. And I think it is very important to have a reason in what cryptocurrency you invest. As I believe many cryptocurrencies will disappear after the hype is over. And yes, even Bitcoin may disappear, as it is not suitable for doing daily transactions, but it seems it has established itself as a store of value, to the risk of Bitcoin disappearing is very, very low I think.

So to me for cryptocurrency the same rule applies as in ‘normal’ investing: better to know the asset you are investing it. If you don’t understand what it is, stay out of it.

I also own some USDT and USDC, but I consider that more US dollar equivalents. Central Bank Digital Currency already exists. Central banks, please wake up: it already exists, no need for something issued by you.

History

I didn’t start cryptocurrencies really from wanting to make money, but more from a technical point of view. And right now, while writing, I don’t even remember if I started with Electroneum or with Bitcoin (itself). Ah, yes, the Electroneum was intended to make money. I had several computers involved in mining Electroneum. Unfortunately that stopped, but then I already was also involved in mining other cryptocurrencies, at first the ones that used the same mining protocol as Electroneum.

But then Bitcoin came along. And I started with installing Bitcoin Core, the original Bitcoin app (actually I am still tempted to say ‘program’, not ‘app’). So I started installing Bitcoin Core and running it. Only to find out that it took an awful long time to update (download) the whole blockchain. Yes, I think it took me months, or at least weeks to have my Bitcoin Core catch up with the blockchain. And as far as I remember I even lost it one day, so I had to do it again.

After installing Bitcoin Core I encountered a very strange problem, as I wanted to have some Bitcoin, but I didn’t know where to get it. Even internet search didn’t give easy answer, but finally I found the thing called ‘exchanges’ and I signed up for Kraken, which appeared to be the best cryptocurrency exchange at the time, and maybe still is.

Then Bitcoin Cash came along, and Bitcoin Gold. Very nice ideas, as their forking the original Bitcoin blockchain would give ‘free money’. Unfortunately I found, after installing Bitcoin Gold, that I didn’t have any Bitcoin at the time of the fork. So no money from that.

Bitcoin

I forgot if I was first introduced to Bitcoin or to Electroneum, but it’s not that important. I guess I will check that one day though.

Anyhow, my interest in Bitcoin came from wanting to know the technology, how it works. And I found out I could just install the basic Bitcoin software on my computer: Bitcoin Core. So I did, even though I guess that took me some effort, only to find out that it would take me weeks or months to initialize it (download the whole blockchain). Yes, Bitcoin Core downloads the whole blockchain on your computer, meaning it basically downloads every transaction ever made through the Bitcoin network. Or at least it downloads the main block information from each block ever mined for Bitcoin. Meaning that data on my computer is 398 Gb right now (October 22, 2021).

So I found Bitcoin Core is basically two things:

  • a part that holds and manages the blockchain;
  • a Bitcoin wallet.

But then, after installing Bitcoin Core on my computer and downloading the blockchain, I wanted to own some Bitcoin, which was kind of a problem. As I had no clue where to buy that, get that. So I searched on sites like E-Bay, which I think offered some Bitcoin at the time, but that didn’t seem the right place. I finally found there was something like ‘exchanges‘, where you can buy Bitcoin, so after some research what was the best, or a suitable exchange, I signed up for Kraken. Kind of scary, as I had to sign up and transfer money to Kraken, a company name that sounded scary and I had actually no clue what I was doing. Fortunately it all worked out and I was able to buy some Bitcoin and transfer it to my Bitcoin Core wallet.

 

I won’t say anything more here about Electroneum as I already have pages about it: Electroneum.

Polkadot

I got interested in Polkadot because it had a very high interest(?!) (staking percentage) on Kraken. I think I already noticed before Kraken offers something like interest (staking) on certain currencies, including Euro and US dollar, which is higher than what banks currently offers. So even though staking on Kraken is not the same as depositing money in a bank in a savings account or something, I trust Kraken enough to put some of my (fiat) money in their staking facility, just to get some fixed return on my capital where banks don’t really offer anything or even have negative interest rates.

I presumed related to Polkadot the staking is a completely different issue, especially as it is a non-stable cryptocurrency, so I did a quick check on what Polkadot actually was/is. And I liked what I found, so I decided to slowly put some money in Polkadot to make a fixed income on my capital of 12%, which I consider a lot in 2021.

Then I found the value went up pretty quickly (and went down later on again), so I was actually very happy with my investment in Polkadot.

And right now I am even more happy with my investment in Polkadot, as I found out it is something like the next Ethereum, but then better. Of course if the Polkadot team can pull it off, as I guess the programming of what they are trying to achieve looks like a very complicated task. And I also started to presume that there is value in ‘staking’, even though the 12% (or more if you are actually staking Polkadot on the blockchain) implies quite some risk to me.

So yes, I am considering even running a validator node or at least put Polkadot as a nominator, but for now it is not my priority and I am very happy Kraken doing all the work for me and giving me a fixed 12% where my funds are not even being tied up as in the real Polkadot staking stuff.

To be continued…

And yes, as usual to be continued, although often I don’t continue. But this page I will certainly update and extend soon.