Here's what a block chain might be.
So I was up late a few nights ago and started to talk with a guy that built a mining rig by taking on a hefty amount of credit card debt. Only time will tell if that was a good or bad idea, but not being one to belittle a decision that has no impact on my life. We had a coversation about the future of crypto and how a block chain works. I had no idea what was being mined for, the thought that I had when I learned of mining was all of these mining rigs are being used to play a very intence game of minecraft. I mean what else are you going to think when everyone is talking about mining blocks, but I guess that image is alot more exciting then the truth of it. The miner is more like a bank teller working very hard to check transaction against every othere ledger or "wallet" in the world using that coin/currentcy. This is to make sure no coin is being spent more then once. For all this work the miner (s) get their coin and confirms othere peoples transactions. So if no one is mining that coin and you want to make a transaction with it, you might have to wait a long time for your transaction to be confirned. This translates to if a coin is popular and has been around for a longer amount of time, it need a ton of computing power to work. Thats why you can no longer mine bitcoin from your home pc.
So after some time I found that you can get into crypto in two ways. One build a costly rig and join a pool or community of miners to be effective, which no one has time for that. Or find an exchange you trust and buy a coin for yourself, this is like a money market. Looking at the exchanges out on the internet, I knew I wanted to use a native exchange. So I am now looking in to the services of Coinbase a west coast operation or Gemini trust an east coast exchange. After I pick one of these exchanges, I need to pick a coin to invest in. But that might be a choice for a diffrent late night.
Thank you for your time.