1. The Death of Money.

“The Death of Money” Is one of three books that sits atop my dresser drawer in my room. One of the other books is called “The Road to Ruin.” Yes, I am one of those believers who think physical money isn’t going to be around much longer. Call, me crazy, but that's just my intuition getting the best of me I guess....

You see, I have little faith in 401K’s and I am losing trust in social security as it is structured today. The way I live now can’t be supported by social security anyway. I am not saying that I need much, but I need something at the very least to survive on and I don’t see it coming through social security. So as you can see I had begun to lose trust in physical money. By physical money, I mean the US dollar or $FIAT.

I was stuck in a delima. I didn't know what to do..... So i devised a plan!

What I began to do was focus my attention on how I could generate wealth quickly so that I could hedge against what I thought was the DYING US dollar. The one idea that came to mind was the stock market.

1. Penny Stocks and Day Trading.

Penny stocks and day trading is what I focused on. To me the stock market was the easiest way to generate wealth quickly.

Boy was I wrong! After losing a substantial amount of money to it, I had to rethink my strategy.

I began binge watching YouTube videos on “how day trading works” and on “how to invest in penny stocks.”

Then I came across this website, InPennyStock.com, ran by Mubarrack Shaw. The strategy he taught on his website made trading penny stocks seem so simple and almost risk-free. He was so easy to understand. So I followed his program and started watching his videos. One day, out of the blue, he did a video interview with a guest host about ICO’s.

1. ICO’s.

ICO stands for “initial coin offering.”Now mind you, this is the first time I have ever heard of the term ICO. Little did I know, that video I mentioned earlier, would change my perspective on investing, money and my future forever.

I learned that ICO’s were similar to or just an offshoot of IPO’s, an initial public offering.

IPO’s are when companies or businesses go public on the stock market after acquiring initial investments from venture capitalist for money to invest in a new publicly traded company. ICO’s are the acquiring of capital from early crypto investors into a cryptocurrency, a.k.a altcoins, in hopes that the value of said coin increases due to the further development in it’s technology.

DEFINITION of ‘Initial Coin Offering (ICO)’ An unregulated means by which funds are raised for a new cryptocurrency venture. … In an ICO campaign, a percentage of the cryptocurrency is sold to early backers of the project in exchange for legal tender or other cryptocurrencies, but usually for Bitcoin.

1. Cryptocurrency a.k.a altcoins.

Cryptocurrency a.k.a altcoins simply put is, any digital currency (coin or token) other than Bitcoin. Look, the first time I heard about Bitcoin, which is the inspiration for all other cryptocurrency, was from my barber about three years ago. Then every so often my brother would make mention of it here and there. I really thought it was just another trade-able stock or company. However, much to my surprise, I was wrong, again! Come to find out, Bitcoin was it’s own legitimate, Yes! legitimate currency backed by it’s community (i.e. the people). See, Bitcoin is a digital currency that gains value through the process of mining and other details that I won’t get into.

For the sake of this article, I won’t get into mining either and just focus on the title at hand.

I just didn’t want to hear about Bitcoin, period. I heard about all the success it was having. I couldn’t stand it because I viewed myself as somewhat of an investor and thought the concept of Bitcoin wouldn’t sustain itself. I continued to ignore it and focused on learning more about penny stocks and day trading. Even though, those things were heavily backed by what I thought was the failing US dollar, I continued to pursue them.

One day my brother came over to my place and started talking about a cryptocurreny named Ripple.

See at that time, I was only aware of Bitcoin. So in my mind, I was thinking what the heck is Ripple. At the time I really didn’t want to hear about cryptocurrency because I was days away from starting my own day trading home business. He continued to tell me about it though and I continued to tune him out, like I often do. I love my brother but sometimes he can become a bit redundant. Now, I then came to the realization that there was more than one digital currency out there. After seeing the ICO interview on InPennyStock.com and hearing about Ripple from my brother, I was slowly becoming even the more interested in cryptocurrency. Then one day a trip to the barbershop solidified that interest.

1. My Trip to the Barber.

My trip to the barbershop was a life changing experience. Now I’m not going to lie, this experience was born out of arrogance. You see, I knew my barber, Lamont, was an investor in Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. I wanted to seem knowledgeable on that stuff that day so I asked him about Ripple.

You should have seen the gleam in his eyes! He said, “I got that. That’s a good one.” I felt good then actually!

We got to talking more about the technology and the culture behind digital currency and how it could change the world.
See I believe that our current money, the US dollar is way to centralized. When anything that massive is centralized, it is easy for corruption and bias to influence it’s value. I started to understand that digital currency, because of it’s decentralization, can become a more secure and trustworthy currency. I mean, what is the dollar backed by? Most people would say gold. I would say to those people, where is the gold? Have you seen it? I haven’t! That is the argument about digital currency; what is it backed by? The answer is, digital currency is backed by the same thing the dollar is backed by, people!

I learned that digital currency can become a more secure and a more trustworthy currency without the middle man like a loan officer or a bank or realtor or a car salesperson. Cryptocurrency is geared to be a peer-2-peer type of transaction without a middle-man. It is as simple as me giving you a dollar, and you give me an apple in return. All verified through a signature process. I started to believe that cryptocurrency would over take physical money in the future. I had finally found it. A legitimate replacement for physical money. This is what I was looking for! The death of the dollar and the beginning of the cryptocurrency age.

That was it, I was finally a Cryptocurrency Believer!