Crypto has received a lot of attention lately, largely due to Bitcoin’s price appreciation. Well, crypto is not just about bitcoin, it’s not pure speculation (although there is a lot of it). There’s a thriving financial ecosystem beneath the surface that many are not aware of.
If you want to enter crypto, whether you’re “in it for the tech” or just want to get rich, some things you should know beforehand:
1. 90% of the tokens out there are shit.
Do NOT google “Best crypto coin to buy”. You’ll just end up with coins that have the largest market cap. More than half of them are shit. Why are they still in the top 10, you may ask. That’s because normies are buying exactly that. Don’t be a normie.
This is all expected to change with DeFi…
2. Main sources of alpha / information you can get (for free) are from Telegram / Discord / Twitter
Crypto projects have perfected guerrilla marketing. Teams are extremely active on social media platforms. It’s an extremely competitive space where all projects are vying for user attention and adoption. Crypto Twitter (CT) is a hodgepodge of crypto teams, hedge funds, degens, influencers, analysts; quite a fair number of them are frogs. People tend to ‘shill their bags’ by posting surprisingly well thought out analyses of tokens they hold.
3. Scams are everywhere, stay vigilant
Scams are especially common on Telegram and Discord. Scammers can easily replicate team members’ DPs and usernames to pretend to help them, almost always ending up with retrieving the unsuspecting user’s private keys and running away with their funds.
If someone DMs you on Telegram claiming they are customer support, 99.999% that’s a scammer.
If someone DMs you claiming that you won a lucky prize, 99.999% that’s a scam.
4. Minimal user support. This is the wild west.
“Not your keys, not your coins”. User sovereignty over the funds they have is a key tenet in crypto. While no one else is able to access your funds, it also means that if you lose your private keys, there’s no customer support to help you recover it. See example here.
5. Maintain proper opsec. Don’t get doxxed.
Always use a VPN. Hide your IP address. It always pays to be careful. When your crypto holdings become a sizable amount one day, maintaining proper opsec is what will allow you to Sleep Well at Night.
Conclusion
Crypto is still a relatively immature asset class. Regulators are still playing catch-up, and I don’t think this space will ever be fully regulated. So, be careful out there!
