The Adventure Into Decentralization

I was not looking to join the blockchain community, I just liked how easy it was to start trading compared to other types of currency and stocks. Next thing I knew, I was sitting at a desk staring at a computer reading article after article, obsessed with the new breakthroughs that is being made.

I began to focus all my free time on researching cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. While I was spending eight hours laboring for a carpentry company, I was spending my time busing to and from work studying, and reading everything I needed so that one day I could enjoy my days trading instead of hauling concrete. Everything I was reading pointed me to believe that the new market was going to set me free from using my time working for another person and instead it would allow me to help people with the world’s largest infinite social experiment. Freedom through blockchain technology, I never would have imagined that before my research.

I had first bought Bitcoin with my friend Miguel without fully understanding the technology. Miguel was working in mining and I was working in carpentry. I had experimented with distributed ledger technology back in 2014 with a friend. Young, naive and hopeful, we where each equipped with nothing more than a gaming PC and angry mothers with huge hydro bills. After our first poorly researched attempt I put my experimenting to the side and thought nothing about it for three years. By then Bitcoin had gained enough momentum to convince me to convert every penny I had into a diversified portfolio composed of only cryptocurrency, after of course doing a bit more research than the first time.

Why?

I was already researching different investing methods and started using software to practice and track my progress.I noticed that it was incredibly expensive compared to Bitcoin and it didn't offer nearly the same amount of freedom. With my generation desperate for freedom, and the ability to enter into a renaissance the decision was a no brainer.

This was happening late November 2017, when the market started to turn into a bullish trend with everyone and their grandmother (including mine) talking about Bitcoin. We had started getting more serious about crypto, Miguel was injured at work and my job started slowing down so we put our effort into investing.

My favorite investing book I had to read at the time was A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton Malkiel it had taught me that you could never predict the markets, even crypto, as they have the same chances as a coin toss in the short run, and you can never predict a new technology coming out that would make your company irrelevant. The best advice it gave me was to constantly equip yourself with the portfolio that encouraged innovation and evolution of markets.

The month of January was the biggest eye opener for the public into the potential of cryptocurrency and blockchain with the private sector already in the middle of implementing distributed ledger technology.

My portfolio tripled and then deflated, the conversations that followed from my carpentry coworkers where filled with mocking intent. With a newfound determination to prove them wrong I travelled to montreal for a meetup hosted by Jazmin Million at VLabs (a blockchain company), that day I had the pleasure of meeting some of the developers of their Next-Gen Dapps.

The common vision of a cryptonaire driving a lamborghini was not present here, the people and the crytonaires where two in the same, one working to help the other flourish. With some of the guests being the very ones who assisted with introducing the technology to Canada, developing the first physical space to trade cryptocurrency, and people currently developing the technology.

In contrast to so many of the conversations I had about cryptocurrency (mostly people wondering if it was an easy way to make a quick buck), I noticed not a single one of them was talking about how much money they could make or had made. Talking to these people gave me confidence again showing me that us as a community are building a beautiful sharing economy where everyone's opinions are valid because we all have access and we all have the same opportunity for success.

Allowing everyone to contribute allows for the system to reduce waist and provide equal opportunity, this allows local networks to improve, and in turn they provide data to a larger decentralized framework so we can have a better understanding of what needs to be accomplished as a community and where the bad actors are coming from, unlike a centralized system where the community is limited by the overseers ability to share data due to security flaws.

Although there are so many topics in the field of decentralization to explore, it is important to understand that these theories are nothing new. Decentralization has been a focus of many for the whole existence of humanity, to be in the generation that sees it come to be is incredibly powerful. But that’s a conversation for another day.

I started to explore more when Jazz from VLabs chose me to head the gorilla marketing division with him at VLabs, starting with your average poster campaign to assisting the office staff get the tools they required to develop. In the one month being apart of the VLabs community I have learned all but one thing, how to make money. Instead I learned how to make a life for a community and that is the most important investment I have ever made.

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