Bitcoin keeps growing, the name gets more recognition, and the price movements light up the greed in people who seek riches. But money is only a proxy for freedom. The focus on just a number will mean you will never be sated, you probably won't even understand the meaning of the number, and you will forever stay chasing more. If I was to suggest one approach to the bitcoin novice it would be this.
Pick a number [i.e. €500] and invest it under the assumption you will lose it. But while losing it you will use the process to learn.
- You will learn what trading is really all about.
- You will learn about bitcoin properly
- You will learn about other crypto-currencies
- You will learn about researching stocks on a bitcoin stock exchange
- You will learn how to avoid frauds, scams and ponzi schemes
- You will learn about pump and dumps
- You will learn how to hedge and speculate and take your profits at the right time
- You will learn how little you really need a bank to be financially secure
- You will learn how there is no such thing as security outside of being responsible for yourself in all matters
- You will learn how you don't need a financial advisor or a ratings agency to carry out this research for yourself and that it is not a complicated field. It is simply buying, selling and speculating in ideas!
- You will only learn these things by making every poor, ill thought out, novice, dreamer, get rich quick hope, idiot mistake with up that €500.
In the end perhaps you will learn that you would rather someone else take on the stress of doing that job for you, but you will at least know enough so that that person cannot blind you with bullshit in the future.
You would pay a whole pile more to do some night school college course into all of those things, and yet none of them will ever teach you like you will learn when you are losing your own money. None of them ever give you the chance to make more in return either!
Nothing sharpens the mind like having skin in the game, and for a 500€ experiment you will gain a lot of education, fun, ups, downs, exposure to a whole new field, and a rollercoaster of emotions along the way.
Some days you will feel wise yet surrounded by fools, other days you'll be the biggest idiot alive who hasn't a clue about what is going on and wonder how you made such a stupid mistake!
Simply sitting in a classroom listening to half assed theories from people who never tried any of them can never teach you like doing it yourself.
By Christmas if the €500 is gone, so be it, you'll be a lot wiser. If it is worth €5,000 then enjoy it, buy a nice suit and good shoes, and start on a whole new learning curve next year. That curve will be built on all the lessons of this year. It will surely take you higher and you will be a few more degrees freer, but maybe not richer!