Cryptocreep Durban. The blind leading the blind in crypto, since 2017.

Hey, welcome to my first post on Steemit!!!

I’m starting a blog aimed at the good folks of my hometown, Durban, South Africa. I may not know a lot about crypto, but I may know more than others around me and hope to use this blog as “starter pack” to point people in the right direction.

Cryptocreep Durban

I recently dove head first into Crypto and I do not intend on ever looking back. It’s been five weeks of ignoring everything else, trying to find all the information that I could to better educate myself.
What a ride it’s been. I have certainly entered the arena at an incredibly exciting time, and I can't wait to see what's around the corner.

There isn’t a big crypto community here in Durban, especially for non-tech folk like me. While I’m sure most of the programmers at Derivco own crypto and constantly talk about it. For an average Joe like myself I came up short finding a local go to place.

I’ve bored my family and friends to death. Work colleagues and employees have started to avoid me and I see tumble weed in my minds eye every time I start to talk about it.

You can only take the horse to water so to speak. So I’m going to talk about my adventures and share my experiences on this blog. My aim is to creep crypto currency awareness into this vibrant and ever-growing city of ours. If I help anyone along the way, result. If I manage to convert anyone, superresult. I’m not trying to preach though, just talk loudly to anyone who may be listening.
I’m bound to make many mistakes and I’ll endeavor to share them all here, I am after all, just starting out.

Firstly, I don’t have many regrets in my life. Yet, but there are two really big things that I constantly kick myself about. Really, really hard . . .

1:
I was born in 1981 and despite the emergence of constantly new technology, I never fully jumped in on the tech bandwagon. I never put any attention or focus into learning how it works, nor got too interested in its application or potential. I idly used new tech as it emerged, in line with the rest of the world and was very happy not to understand how it works.
Just happy that it did. With each new breakthrough and emergent technology I’d get that compounded feeling of being left so left behind that its probably better to watch it go past and eventually get sucked in the slip stream. In retrospect, if I could go back, that would be one change I would definitely make.

2:
Way back in 2011/2012 was the first time I heard about Bitcoin. It was the mining part that initially caught my interest and I did a bit of half-hearted research. Initial information told me that the ease of mining had drastically decreased, and that big investments where needed in order to be profitable. I left it at that, the few conversations I had with mates possibly had a pessimistic spin to the whole idea of crypto. Besides silk road, ransom ware attacks and blackmail phishing attempts, which all just added to the negative mystique surrounding my understanding of it, I pretty much put Bitcoin into a far away corner of my mind. I ostriched it mate

I said I’m going to share my mistakes here with you guys and the biggest mistake that I have made ever, in crypto and possibly in life so far was dismissing and not fully researching Bitcoin when I first heard about it, way back when, circa 2011/2012. I’m sticking to the $60 Bitcoin value of 2012 as my initial aware of price. I can’t deal with the thought of it being any less at the actual time.
As I type this (18/07/2017) BTC is currently around $2300, down from it’s highest ever of Just over $3000 not very long ago. There have been times of plenty over the last few years that I would have for sure invested in Bitcoin if it were still on my radar. If I knew as much about it then as I did now. If I didn’t listen to the majority and ignored my inner voice, things today would be very different for me.

However, all is not lost. If I’ve taken anything on board over the last few weeks it this. It’s not too late to get into Crypto!! The full potential of crypto currency is worldwide acceptance and usage. With this in mind we are very much still in the “early adaptors’ phase. Also bear in mind that on June 15th the market cap on crypto currency as a whole was valued at $115 billion USD! ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN BILLION U.S. DOLLARS!!! It seems to me that there are more than a few people willing to put their money where their mouth is and it’s very hard to argue against such a large, tangible amount of money currently in this technology.

I have pledged to myself that I will not let this technology run away from me. That I will learn it, study it, understand it and invest in it. I will not let naysayers affect my decisions on it and I will not be left behind again. I believe in the blockchain, and I’m more than willing to go along for the rest of the ride. Lets just get properly buckled in first though . . .

So I’m here to share my experiences with anyone who is interested in getting involved, especially if you’re from my hometown. Lets shift opinion from what you think you know about crypto, and see it for what it really is. I’ll share my journey so far, the pitfalls, the time wastes, the interesting YouTube videos (seriously don’t even bother with this blog just YouTube it) the sites I have come to trust and exactly how to get your filthy paws on some digital bling.

I own a tiny portfolio of crypto currency. It’s nothing mega but a start. The biggest mantra I hear over and over again is to only invest what you can afford to loose and I’m definitely sticking to that advice. And strongly suggest you do too.
Right I’m off, anyone with me . . .?