Who buys Cryptocurrencies?
Since going down the Cryptocurrency rabbit hole, I have often wondered who else is in this very small world. Yes, crypto is till very much a fringe interest. There were recent reports that most countries have less than 10% of the population with investments in crypto.
As well as reading articles online, reading what people write via the steem blockchain and the ever salty Crypto Twitter. I had a general idea, but I have added to that my anecdotals from conversions with people I have met over the festive period and even before that.
What I have found is that crypto currency attracts three main groups of people. Let me introduce you to each type. This isn't any type of rigid rule as such, these are just my unscientific observations.
Gamblers
You can call them speculators or investors. But fundamentally, no normal person is using crypto currency as their main investment vehicle.
The people I have come across have a very shallow understanding of what this technology represents and what it has managed to achieve. Digital money has been something that programmers have been tinkering with for decades. Bitcoin was not the first digital coin, there were others that met a quick end due to centralisation, a known founder or just hack-able protocols.
For the gambler, this was a highly volatile asset that tended to go up more often than go down and if they played with it long enough, they tended to make money. It's not uprising then that they went off and showed their new wealth to others and the market grew.
I have come across this type over the last year and they often buy Ripple. Yes, that bankers coin that no cypherphunk would even dream of owning. The irony of holding Ripple doesn't seem to be evident to this group. They are just in it for the money and they have heard some news about banks using it. That is enough for them to throw in a few hundred dollars, double their money and get out.
There were even those that put in a few thousand, doubled it and took their money out.
In the end, when the market goes up, it raises all boats, but if they will manage to make any serious gains in the long run is yet to be seen.
Geeks
These are far more interesting characters. They are often from a tech background and maybe someone paid them in bitcoin, maybe they wanted to buy something off the dark web and actually had the tech skills to navigate their to get it. Or maybe they were just curious and mined a few coins when it was possible to mine.
Even now, there are new geeks learning about this tech and once they are in, very few leave.
We can see this here on steem with the number of people who got in early due to their tech knowledge and hold a substantial amount of the coins
Outcasts
And then we have our final category. Now, this shouldn't be taken the wrong way. By outcasts, I mean people who are on the fringes of the mainstream. This maybe due to their political beliefs, maybe they are curious about alternative lifestyles or just felt that the current system just doesn't make sense.
I have met crypto holders in the real world who fall into this category and they are the least reluctant to talk about it. Which I like, they are not in it to shill it.
So which category do you fall in? Are there groups I have missed?
I clearly used to call myself as #2 type.
But with time going on, more and more I start seeing of #3 type features (in myself)
It takes a lot to go against the grain of popular opinion.
I've often wondered about that.
In the entire world of 7bn, there's approximately 5K active daily users. That makes us 0.00007% of the world population. We are less than one in a million.
Heh heh heh ... #outcast4life
As Malcolm Gladwell calls it, "Outliers", it's a good place to be.
Put me in the Geek catagory, though not smart enough to mine them myself. It took a down on his luck geek friend who moved in with me while mining Bitcoin on graphics cards to pull me kicking and screaming into crypto by insisting to pay his share on pizza, beer and, sometimes, rent in BTC. He moved out a millionaire after buying his own place with cash and left me a converted crypto fanatic. 😎
How long ago was that? It would be interesting to know what he's up to these days. If he was an early miner, he could probably do some cool work on blockchain if he has kept learning.
I think "geeks" are generally people willing to spend time to learn something in detail and are enthused by knowledge. Even if bitcoin never went on its bullrun, I am sure the majority in this category would carry on working on the project.
Without referring to rent recepts (rented 4 rooms at the time) my guess is around 2012 or slightly before; as he had me involved in DevCoins by May 9, 2013; which was the date of my registration on bitcointalk.org.
My friend went on to be the head dev for the Devcoin Project, which was an early alt coin which is produced during BTC's merged mining. He is the best programmer known to me personally. He acted as a mentor many times during my career.
He now collects houses like some people collect automobiles. He thinks of it as his diversification. 😎
Bullruns. 😎 This is my fourth bear market if memory serves.
I am not a gambler. I am not a geek. So, I guess I am an outcast. :-)
I hope that cryptocurrency will be a reality five, ten years down the road and Steem will be one of those accepted. It is the only cryptocurrency I have. :-)
I'm an outcast :-) Mostly because I don't feel the mainstream economy is working well for me and my talents. If I do what I want to do and feel great about I get no pay. If I do what charges my mental energy too much to the level of daily headaches or back pains (I've had it all in different jobs) I get paid A LOT.
That just sucks.
I'm not willing to exchange my health and happiness for money. So I need to find another way :-) I'm hoping and workings towards that 'answer' is STEEM.
Cheers @kabir88 - great question :-)
I can totally relate to that. I am halfway out, but hoping I can have more freedom to pursue more of my passions in the future.
Steem is such a great project with so many great people. It's a shame it's been so poorly managed for so long.
Hopefully our Dolphin Council can bring some much needed guidance and long term vision to the blockchain.
Thanks for reading and taking time to comment :)
I definitely can see these three main groups, however I would add another. "The financially strained". Possibly a subsection of your other groups. I don't see my involvement in crypto as Gambling, I like the technology so maybe a geek, maybe financial outcast counts, but the main reason I am (and I think many other people are in crypto) is to build a way out of our real world fiat financial difficulties.
I think the financial strained are outcasts of our current financial system. Those who are not benefiting from the way things work now. From the unbanked in Africa and Asia to the inflation ridden economies in South America (and possible the UK if brexit happens!)
One thing I have come to see is how early we all are. Even now, after 10 years since Satoshi unleashed Bitcoin, the vast majority have no real interest in what it is or why it's so ground breaking.
In a way, the bubbles and busts provide it with some great marketing!
I hope we are right and holding the right currencies ;)
Thanks for reading and commenting, it's really appreciated.
Absolutely, even in the rich countries, we can feel like financial outcasts. I have a middle class income, nice rented house and so-on, but have lived from pay to pay (partly due to my own mistakes) for 10 years. Crypto is (hopefully) my way out of the debt spiral. Thats what I love about STEEM - I can't buy in with fiat, but I can earn a stake through effort and networking. Thanks for the thought provoking post.
I hope we are right, it would be nice to be able to leave the fiat world and pursue my passion for crypto full time. I have a few projects that I am working on, but the bear market has meant putting them in first gear and waiting it out.
You are not alone in living pay check to pay check. I speak to people all the time who are in the top 25% of earners who have very little in savings. The cost of living has gone up much higher than wages for far too long and the inflation figures are out of touch with reality.
Most people don't realise how much they are getting squeezed by the banks. I could right a whole post and more about that!
share your valuable post @kabir88 brother.
I'm in the awesome category. :-)
lol damn, I missed that one.
Hope you're doing well @mikefromtheuk, haven't seen you around much recently
Doing much better, just been through a lot of shit lately.
I'll pick and choose from all three. I even have 100 Ripple! Man, Ripple is the worst.
I'm going to assume conspiracy theorist is a subset of Outcast.
haha - I have a little XRP too, going to dump it as soon as it goes up. Atleast here on steem, the XRP fanboys can't get all abusive. They are terrible on twitter. You should have seen their reaction when @crypt0 called them out on it on his twitter and youtube.
The categories were just my minds way of organising information. But when I spoke about it, I was told to write it in my next blog!
I don't use Twitter, but I have seen them in the comments in CCN and other crypto news sites. They are a parody of themselves. So amazingly delusional and aggro.
@kabir88, I am just an Full Time Steemian, who hold only Steem and who believes in Steem Community. Stay blessed. 🙂
apart from steem, do you hold any other crypto?
No.
Me too, I only have a teensy bit of steem.. I am a student of tech and crypto, an 80s baby that watched all this from the sidelines with skepticism from my there's nothing new under the sun core values.. I'm the cautiously optimistic here for the cake guy, I heard there would be 🎂 will there be cake?
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Let's see, in my opinion over the time may be we will see cake and on the top of that cherries too. Have a blessed time ahead. 🙂