By Hallam Hope
I was just watching Jerry Banfield on Youtube talking about how he finaly started making good money from Crypto Currency. Not by trading but by posting on Steemit. And by starting a University that helps people by providing them with training. By building a comm
unity.
The fact is Crypto Currency is more than hype and speculation. It’s more than a new way of risky investing, It’s a new way of living. Where you become a bank. Where you lend and make interest rather than being the consumer of a costly service.
It’s an opportunity for the poor and rich like, for professionals and non professionals.
Quietly, groups of young technology-driven Barbadians are mining coins, using their computers and smart phones. And why not do so using renewable energy rather than driving up your electricity bill? But can you really make money from mining? Many Barbadians are well-educated and the young are definitely computer savy.
So why not combine both on Steemit. Improve your writing, get indo videos and post material that is beneficial to other people and earn Steem dollars.
The world of Crypto currency has arrived years after Wall Street woke up to it. And the question to everyone from the garbage collector to the Central Bank of Barbados is do we allow only the smart folk among us to be early adopters.
Do we go beyond the mind set that sees Crypto currency as, yes, as one Facebook contact put it : “A way to thief people’s money”. Or do we educate ourselves beyond those who are under-educated and are looking for the next calamity around the corner to protect us from. To look for opportunities sch as Steemit.
A couple weeks ago BITT Barbados launched a merchant service where Barbadians can convert their Bajan dollars into digital Bajan dollars and spend them or buy services or become merchants at a growing number of business outlets. I attended the launch, having signed up prior, and to hear from Rawdon Adams, the late Tom Adams’ son, about the many development plans in the works.
But a few Barbadians are already converted about this new bend in world development. They have started doing their own investing for themselves and their friends.
This is timely because Bitcoin, Ethereum, the Blockchain, the Initial Coin Offerings etc are all part of a new business opportunity for this country to earn net foreign exchange. For individuals to earn net foreign exchange for Barbados.
The opportunity to become your own bank is here. So a business colleague asked me during a quick workshop I started on the spot for he and two friends : Why would we need banks? The smarter and more educated people become and more importantly the quicker they embrace this new eco system or way of doing business the sooner this question will be answered. This month, January, my bank is paying me 0.01 cents interest to put money on their books which they then lend out and make thousands of dollars. And then they charge me 1.25 US$on my transactions with a teller. Another bank charges 2.50 dollars US.
So you can see why many of us will remain poor and the banks report annually what huge profits they are making for their shareholders.
But smart Barbadians are not going to wait for politicians or even their friends to awaken from the slumber, figure out the opportunities and move. The smart Barbadians, including the younger generation, are already working on “What’s in this for me and how fast can I position myself to earn a new income”.
We should always caution that we are not investment advisers. Crypto currency is a risk and like setting up a business you could lose it all. But if the Wright brothers followed that maxim we would never be flying from one destination to another. Put another way, someone else might have made the first aeroplane.
Already some institutions are looking at how the Blockchain and crypto currency model can work for the Central Bank and thinkers who see an opportunity to fund start-up businesses, earn foreign exchange for this country and get us all out of this economic mess which is driving the middle class towards poverty.
Don’t wait for economists, accountants and lawyers to lead the way in thinking on this new dynamic way of life because they too are behind the goal post.
Start thinking and learning with an open mind yourself.
So thanks Jerry Banfield. Keep posting on Steemit and help us see how we all can make money that is sustainable and not be a pawn for others to do so on our backs.