Trust is not a question! Or is it??
There are a lot of things we have learned in the past. As the old crypto heads, some of us with almost 10 years of experience, about 2 years ago, we have come up with an idea to create an open, transparent crypto charity aiming to help abandoned animals worldwide. Our goal was also to raise money through the NFT collection, however, the timing was not ideal for that, despite the good product and concept we had created. We have missed the NFT boom just by a little. As the NFT market reached its peak, its real potential and lifespan quickly diminished. Not that one would not expect it somewhere deep down inside, but the speed of it was surprising. Markets do not act irrationally for a long time. But that is not the point of this article. In any case — throughout the years in the crypto, we have expanded our charitable activities, while continuing to pursue our parental´s company goals, i.e. medical research and development and others.
See no crypto, hear no crypto
Despite our good intentions, during our charitable part of the work, it was not uncommon, that we have had experienced literally a concrete wall in the communications with particular shelters or other subjects being highly suspicious of us, as they have learned, that we are coming from the crypto world and would like them to join. Public trust is a very fragile thing, and crypto does not have such a privilege to earn it just because it exists, or someone says it is a good thing. There is a reason for such an attitude among the general public. Even the official banking system has its flaws and frauds, where the people who lost their savings were the customers and clients, not the bank management. All of this happens quite often in the shadow realms of the financial industry, which is fully regulated and oversight by the authorities. One would say — so what is the difference to crypto, yet it is no surprise big part of society lacks trust towards digital currencies in general, as they are out of their sight totally. Plus one more question remains — also a fundamental one. Where the absence of trust comes from? The answer, although not definitive seems obvious.
Who is to blame for what?
Crypto is seen by the public as a blurry world, which is hard to define, being a kind of decentralized, “no authority”, and unregulated branch of the “shadow” digital economy, serving most of the time as the money laundry. This subjective view of the general public over crypto will hopefully change throughout time, despite the fact, that there are certain reasons, the general public is aware of. Factual, publicly known, deliberate and obvious frauds of massive proportions, Ponzi schemes and other kinds of scams do happen in the world of crypto, and not sporadically. Just a recent example — FTX — one of the biggest players on the crypto market was recently found to be the black hole sucking up the money of those, who trusted the company and was suddenly forced to file bankruptcy. Its founder, a well-known and respected persona had to know, what he is doing. A theft. Although it may not look like it a first glance, the truth is this man-made lost people a fortune willingly, for his own greed, the omnipresent trait of humankind.
Chance for a change or change of a chance?
Given the fact, that this is not the first nor the last case, the question remaining is — is there any chance for a change? Are there any instruments useful either to clean up the whole situation or to prevent it in the future? Now if there is any solution to this — and if it is based on market regulation, should it include only altcoins or BitCoin, countering the very fundament the cryptocurrencies are depending on — i.e. non-regulated, completely independent, non-traceable financial framework? And what will be the end result? Despite the fact, there are arguments speaking “pro” crypto and its transparency, such as blockchain technology, providing evidence of every single transaction, there are still a lot of ways how to strip investors and traders of their funds, so there is a reason for distrust between the society and subjects engaged within the world of crypto. The same goes for the potential state regulators versus the crypto world´s subjects such as cryptocurrency markets etc. Blockchain won´t make cryptocurrencies safer, but it definitely provides the infrastructure on which one can rely. The one thing for certain is that the state and financial authorities will have to dive in sooner or later, as the crypto will not magically disappear, but will stay. That is a good thing, but also a pretext for many other potential limits and restrictions having a vast impact on the very fundamentals of the world of crypto unseen today.
The Book Of Crypto!
Being on “the market” for years, i.e. emerging from countless experiences of this particular sort, the discussion in the company ended up with a decision. What is missing here, in the central European country we operate, is nothing short of education, helping people to understand basics, and to bring a kind of objective description of the true state of the world of crypto. The in-company discussion about this idea had brought partial denial mixed with enthusiasm. Enthusiasm won, so we have made up a decision to write a book about crypto basics, covering the fundamentals of crypto, which is a tool to help those potentially interested to understand the potential risks or outright robberies!
We made up our decision!
It reminds me of one of my favorite stand-up comedy actors of Iranian origin — Omid Djalili, and his sketch about Great Britain “making a decision” on Brexit, while knowing the decision and its outcome may become disputable or even counter-effective. The point and the irony of his sketch lies in “decisiveness” and its perpetual “momentum” keeping the inertia of the idea going, no matter what, because it has been “decided”! The whole sketch ends up with his allegorical monologue: “Now how absurd this is! Imagine Great Britain being a pilot in a plane having difficulties in a flight — the plane suddenly plunges down to the Earth — with all on board screaming, praying, and finally accepting death. After a while the plane suddenly starts to react, ending the plunge, with pilots being able to gain control over it, yet one of the pilots behind the yoke (accepting death as the captain) suddenly pushes the yoke to put a plane in another dive towards Earth, with words — “We have made our decision”. What´s interesting is, that this kind of attitude can be assigned to global public opinion, when thinking about crypto. Not sure, if one could call it a “dogma”, the only thing certain is, that many people have made up their decision on crypto, many times without having any knowledge about it, at least in the country we reside in. That is why we have made our decision. To change theirs.
Back to the basics
So here it is. A book Of Crypto. Crypto easily. The new gospel of digital currencies? Nope, certainly not, but it brings useful information for those interested, completely unfamiliar with the world of crypto, or those seeking any kind of education on this subject. No need to mention, that there are plenty of information sources around us, more or less relevant, with a bit of a piece there, and a bit of a piece here. Even though there is no lack of information, we still thought it is a good idea to compose a basic informative pack with fundamentals we do consider useful for one to start with crypto. We tried to be accurate, effective in descriptions, as well as simple to be understood, and a little bit funny — sometimes. The book begins with some historical facts and basic info about cryptocurrencies, followed by the dictionary providing explanations of 333 terms the reader will come in contact with when entering the world of cryptocurrencies. The book continues with a chapter on the “greatest” scams in the crypto, where we tried to explicitly name a few types of scams and Ponzi schemes etc. to show the potential risks to the reader, and what to look for when trying to differentiate between a solid project and a scam. Hopefully. The chapter about blockchain and its technological implementation across various industries provides the reader a clue about the future potential of this great invention. The following chapter brings generally useful pieces of advice to the newbies entering the markets, compiled into a couple of good old rules, which should be traders´ “Ten commandments” so to say. After the advice section, the book leads the reader to the very basics of trading, describing the fundamental principles of the markets, their implications as well as mechanisms behind the price development. This chapter also describes the fundamental instruments of trading — charts, candles, and other indicators, as well as it tries to help the reader to understand, how to create the trendlines, helping him to better predict the prices in the future as the trader. The next chapter was named “The very very last warning for the potential traders”, given the fact, that we, as those who operate in the world of crypto, have no illusions about it, and do not want to promote any delusional ideas or promises to anyone, as the risks are high, while rewards not so much necessarily. This is somehow the funniest part of the book in our opinion. The chapter “How to cook the first trade” touches the very basic understanding of how to make a profit, starting with an explanation of where and how to obtain cryptocurrencies via online cryptocurrency exchanges, and what are the short/long-term options for the trader, and also how to use the gains from the crypto in the classic financial world, exchanging it for fiat currency. Added a small chapter with a couple of very tricky jokes coming out from the crypto community, which no one really understands. This part is followed by the “about us” section, originally meant to be the last part of the book. Right at the time the graphic designer was given the texts and had started to work on the book page by page, the world of crypto started to tremble under the new scandal, one of the greatest if not the greatest in its history — the fall of the FTX market. For one — it is a precedent, which will have a thorough impact on the crypto scene in the very near future, and for two — we were one of those, who had lost some funds there as well. Those facts led us to add one more chapter briefly describing what was going on at the time.
The book is born!
Finally, we have got the book from the print house. It made us very happy, and despite some small inaccuracies and a couple of mistakes, we love the book. It also surprised us how compact it was looking. Last but not least, we have found that some stuff written in the book is actually not only educational but also funny, one could actually read something from it! The book is out, and we have made deal with one of the major book distributors in our country, so the “Crypto easily” will be in bookstores all across the land within a couple of weeks. All of the proceeds from the book sales will be used for our charitable activities, most probably split between financial help of long-term ill children patients, as well as financial support for particularly selected animal shelters we cooperate with.
What is next?
Now, a month before the year ends, we are making a plans for 2023. Our educational efforts, which aim at the general public, as well as our potential partners — animal shelters and also various charitable organizations, are part of the future. We even think about potentially expanding our publishing efforts, to make another part of the book series — this time going deeper, describing more detailed trading techniques, specifics of long and short-term trading, as well as other useful information for those interested. Although we obviously can not guarantee the newbie reader his own success in this world, we dare to say the book as an informational tool may help him to make a difference. If the steps taken will lead the reader towards better decisions, the book fulfilled its purpose. The same goes for the general public, where we believe the book can change some of the dogmas and assumptions, helping society to understand the real aspects of the crypto world, which is not about to cease, but rather expand, whether anyone likes it or not. The future waits for no one, but it welcomes those fully aware of it.
