:: The Suit, the Nerd, and Doc Brown ::

Trading cryptocurrencies is high paced, fast moving and volatile. You see it all the time, massive gains at breakfast, followed by massive loss at lunch, and if you're not careful you could find yourself drunk, broke and crying alone in the bathroom wondering what happened to your life before you've even had dinner (no, I do not speak from experience….yet).

A lot of traders in this realm like to acknowledge their ability to identify that this is a forward-thinking area. One where there is massive potential for growth in the future, and want to get in on this action. Blockchain and related tech is revolutionizing how technology will function not just in the financial sphere, but in all sorts of areas. So, a lot of people come from the trading world, while a great deal come from the tech world as well. This synergy of ideas and interests make and maintain a future in crypto markets. The more tech minded people look to the traders to see how the market works and moves, while the traders look to the techies to see what new ICO, or technology has the greatest and most profitable potential. Those versed enough to be a master of both areas are few and far between and usually stand out as phenoms throughout the cryptocurrency sphere (likely charging an exorbitant fee for their advice on some platform).

All this to say that a lot of people dealing with cryptocurrency, are at the very least novice futurists investing in what seems to be a sure thing. Whether you've been in it since $BTC was *insert boastful price here, or if you're a newbie that came in last week because you see that this has potential. You love tech, you love money, or more likely you love both.

:: The widening banks of the Great River of Bullshit in the Canyon of Ignorance ::

Echo chambers. Whether you are screaming into one, screaming from within one, or hearing people scream from one, there are a ton of them. There is no shortage of confirmation bias in crypto. Social media has allowed us to fine tune our feed, algorithms on these platforms make SURE that we hear what we want to, and our human nature tricks us into thinking that we are being more open minded than we are. But given an opportunity to look at our preference with intellectual honesty, we shutter. "BTC is crashing", "LTC will moon", etc… We hear what we want so long as it fits our agenda. Now this isn't everyone of course, but you see it a lot.

What I find dangerous is the lack of understanding when people jump into one of these chambers. It's not just the closed ears and loud mouths that are dangerous, it's that a lot of people with loud voices don't even know what they are parroting means.

The process is as follows: Get into crypto, follow everyone ever on twitter, re-tweet, re-tweet, re-tweet, gain followers, parrot information from seemingly informative source, pique interest of someone not in crypto, and the cycle continues. Suddenly there is an online social network of considerable size of which only a small percentage is well versed and capable.

Crypto has successfully integrated social media's ability to distribute information to thousands of people without the need to be informed, with the prospective of making MEEELIONS on a new potentially profitable market. Its potential for failure is high, and the "responsibility of ensuring success" rests with few. It is becoming increasingly obvious to me that crypto is not developing into a massively supportive community, but a community of wolves, much like the financial realms of which the community tends to loath. With but a few shepherds working altruistically to keep these wolves at bay by providing much needed advice to tsunami of newbies, those sheep that wander into the land of crypto with but a dream, a laptop and a overactive twitter feed will get eaten alive if not guided by patience, understanding, a willingness to learn, and skepticism.

"But what hat a beautiful opportunity for market manipulation" the wolves say. "How great is it that a single, massively followed individual can string together 140 characters or less, toss in a screenshot of a chart with a few trend lines scribbled in, and effectively push up or down the price of a cryptocurrency" they cackle to one another.

Doesn't happen? Look again. What's worse is that those taken advantage of will hear nothing of their use as a patsy, but will instead resort to vomiting memes, #HODL, praise their shills and reinvest with hopes of catching the wolves howling at the next loaded "moon". Shhhh, just hop back onto google, take its advice (already ready for you based on your history), and dive back into the echo chamber and start screaming.

:: Of Whales and Wolves ::

You've finally done it. It's taken a while, but you are just about to liquidate for that lambo, and then….. fucking science.

Quantum Computing. Skynet. A.I. GAWD. Whatever this may end up being, it's coming, and it WILL affect cryptocurrency. Whether for better or for worse has yet to be seen. But one thing is certain, the encryption that currently makes crypto safe will be but a light snack for quantum computers. Now I know that quantum computing is a long way away, and I'm no expert in the area, but we're all forward thinking people here, remember? This needs to be addressed.

Physicist Alex Beath had a very ominous, yet breathtaking point of view concerning quantum computing. Stating in an online article for Fortune magazine:

"The second someone creates a viable quantum computer, the NP-complete math problems >at the heart of Bitcoin mining tech become instantly solvable," Beath notes. "In other words, >one answer to the question 'what's the first thing you'd do with a quantum computer?' is >'mine all of the remaining Bitcoin instantly.' Until that happens, nobody has a quantum >computer."

I mean even the co-founder of $ETH Vitalik Buterin addressed it back in 2013. But so what, I mean we still good, modest estimates don't put quantum computers into the hands of consumers until like the 2040's right? Ok, BUT companies like Google, IBM and Microsoft could have these technologies as early as 2020. Oh, and BTW…. Its 2018.
This my friend is where the blubber hits the road. The first people that will have this technology will be the whales of the world. This decentralized cryptocurrency revolution is for naught if quantum computing is realized and controlled by them. The wolves, the newbies and the altruistic shepherds, all just pimp slapped and stripped of their crypto if deemed useful by the all-powerful holders of the quantum computers.

"So what Aladdin, it sounds like your just drinking, ranting and posting about fuck all".
Well you know what, maybe I am! Maybe my skeptical, cynical and sarcastic outlook on life keeps me borderline sane. But, there is a point to this. I leave thee with this…

Be ready. Change comes fast, as is blatantly obvious by the recent rise of crypto in the past few years. Don't just expect change, foresee it.

Help your fellow investors. Once upon a time ago you didn't know shit either. We need to make sure that there is a steady stream of integrity in this space.

And above all, practice Due Diligence (DD) and Do Your Own Research (DYOR). Don't perpetuate ignorance. If you haven't even taken the time to google something before sharing, or investing in it, you're part of a bigger problem. Too all of those that spend their time tirelessly informing, creating safe havens for shared though, innovating and educating.

Thank you.

Aladdin Jackson III