Snake oil, anyone? Getting rich quickly / easily off crypto currency
Whenever any type of asset or currency goes on a monster rally, there will always be dumb money chasing smart money with dreams of easy money and promises of get rich quick scenarios by the proverbial snake oil salesmen that promote strategies that are questionable at best and are often times downright lies / scams. Whether a rally is the real deal or just another pump and dump doesn't really matter. Some try to get rich chasing the rally while others resort to other tactics which I consider worthy of the old term "snake oil salesman."
The Wolf of Wall Street is one of my favorite movies as it shows how a snake oil salesman can make it big as long as he promotes his interests well and lures people in. It's interesting that the movie indadvertently managed to contribute to the marijuana penny stock rally of 2014. I must admit I got lured into trading in this manner back in the winter of 2014 (I think it was?) when a few states had just legalized marijuana in the US and MJ penny stocks became all the rage. We saw a meteoric rise where small stocks valued at anywhere from $5 down to $0.0001 to 1,000%, 10,000% and in rare cases 100,000% increases in mere weeks. I made a few thousand $ in a few weeks and of course stupidly held the stocks hoping for more as many noobs do and ended up losing my profits and another almost $1k of my own money before I wised up.
The combination of the passage of the new laws, penny stock promoters catching on to this perfect storm, and the release of "the wolf of wall street"fueled the fast and furious pace at which people threw money into the penny stock market after hearing the stories of huge gains and get rich quick schemes.
The truth is, the smart money, the pumpers, and a few lucky people who already knew the penny stock market saw this as an opportunity to frontload early on while the dumb money that came in later ended up buying near the top and inevitably holding the bag.
Enter 2017...This morning I see this in my facebook feed (yeah I still waste time on FB...IDK why).
I clicked on the link to discover this from the entity "true alpha" (a seeking alpha wanna be no doubt)...you don't have to know anything or do any work to get rich! It's that easy! LMFAO. Come on guys...I'm not outright accusing them of being crooks but this is misleading to put it nicely.
I have a lot of faith in bitcoin and some of the other emerging altcoins, however, there are scams and scammers out there promising wild scenarios as shown in the ad above about how to "turn $20 into a fortune." Interestingly enough, after clicking on the ad I also saw a reference to penny stocks (big fking surprise there right?) as a way to get rich along with buying cryptos.
But each ad / promoter is pushing a only a few select currency types and they've no doubt front-loaded them if they're not behind their creation altogether. and Surprise! This promoter's ad was no different. They're pushing penny cryptos which aren't necessarily a horrible thing to buy but at least do your own research and don't blindly follow.
Similar to 2014 when the number of MJ stock tickers went from a dozen or so to over 800 (sound familiar?), there are over 800 altcoins on the market today promising to be the next big thing. And there are just as many snake oil salesmen out there pumping this shit like it's a sure thing.
And how's a newbie to know any better? It's called due diligence and you should DO IT before throwing money blindly into anything. Don't invest or trade just because someone tells you to. If you see some ad on facebook and someone is promising to let you in on a little known secret to get rich quick...they're selling snake oil and you'll most likely end up holding a worthless bag in a few months' time. And if it was the real thing you certainly wouldn't find it on facebook being pushed by some two-bit advisor.
I haven't seen any ads promoting steemit as a get rich overnight scheme...yet. But No doubt they're coming as will the masses / dumb money expecting to get rich for doing nothing.
I must admit I'm new to steemit (a friend told me about it, not some snake oil salesman) and altcoins but I'm not blindly throwing all my money into penny cryptos or expecting to get rich here. I do this for a hobby and if I make a lot of money (which is unlikely), great, but if I do modestly well, then that's great too!
Be safe out there people. And whatever you do, don't feed the snake oil salesmen. lol
A very nice and apt comparison, i am kinda new to the whole crypto ecology myself and have indeed put a little money in it (that i can stand to lose if need be) but i got into it because it really is a whole new world that is opening up
And usually if you get in ahead of the big crowd there is some profit in there, if not i hope i turned out a bit wiser and more up to date on the whole issue...
Steem on
Yes the money I'm putting into currencies other than bitcoin is money that I can stand to lose and nothing more. Sounds like you have a good understanding of what you're getting into.
Best of luck to you!
Hi @cryptokeepr, I just stopped back to let you know your post was one of my favourite reads and I included it in my Steemit Ramble. You can read what I wrote about your post here.
Hey thanks for including my post In your ramble! I'm glad you found it to be of value. I'll be sure to check out your content from time to time since you summarize some of the more useful information found here (which can be hard to come by unless you really look for it).
Congratulations @cryptokeepr! You have completed some achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
Click on any badge to view your own Board of Honor on SteemitBoard.
For more information about SteemitBoard, click here
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPInitial Coin Offerings - ICO's - are the new OTC Penny Stocks.
Often launched with a glitzy parallax-shifting Web 2.0 site, some general blather about "disrupting" something, and a few short bios about the developer and management team.
That's all it takes apparently to raise hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars in funds.
Just like penny stocks, only a very small fraction ever persist to become something. Most pump to a all-time high and then fade away, crushing dreams and incinerating savings.
Your post is a good introduction to the "hard sell" and why anything structured to be "stupidly simple" is probably a con in the making.
You got that right. A lot of the otc penny stocks I've come across turn out to be nothing more than pump and dumps perpetrated by the so called "CEO" of said companies. I've read that nearly 100% of the pink sheet pennies are scams and I'll believe it.
Penny ICO's are probably an easy way to get rich quick if you're the one promoting / selling the coins but for those buying you have to trade them and not marry them or you'll lose everything or close to it.