I can't program outside of 'print hello world' and writing up a few lines of SQL. I barely understand how a blockchain is actually more secure than just hiding things in my gmail account, and forget about a tangle.

However, as far as non-technical people go, I'm an early adopter of the concept of cryptocurrency. I'm the only non-programmer I know who has heard of, much less owns, any digital asset beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum. This includes investment bankers, management consultants, and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs (this isn't to brag about my social circles but to point out how different even the highly connected mainstream is from the digital currency world).

I was introduced to bitcoin in early 2010 through the poker world. I remember someone on twoplustwo (at the time THE poker forum on the internet) talking about playing poker using bitcoin through a site called "Seals with Clubs". I quickly saw some ridiculous bitcoin gainz (from fractions of a cent to a little under 10 cents) and had my first feeling of

I decided to use $5k to buy a bunch of bitcoins. If it got to a dollar, I'd be rich. If it went away that would suck but I was young and had plenty of time to earn more money.

I figured out how to get money onto exchanges, purchase bitcoin, and then transfer said bitcoin to a wallet. I signed up for an exchange and wallet - the exchange was Mt. Gox (this story isn't going to go down the route you think - I did NOT lose all my bitcoin in the Mt. Gox hack. I wasn't even aware of that hack until years later).

However, the crazy long wallet addresses, the seemingly overly complex password recommendations, understanding cold storage vs online storage vs hardware storage, the multiple step (and confusing) purchase process, the transfer to my wallet, and my complete lack of understanding of how any of this worked at the technical level stopped me from actually purchasing. For emphasis, my takeaway from this was:

I decided that this overly complex process would prevent anyone else who wasn't either a computer-nerd or transacting on the Silk Road from ever buying. Since no-one else would use it, there would never be any appreciation and thus it was a waste of money.

Fast-forward to a month ago (mid June 2017). The crypto-currency market had just experienced an incredible bull run, and one of my friends (an early adopter of Ethereum) had just purchased a house in downtown Chicago, and I was like

So I started to look into cryptocurrencies as an asset.

I managed to wait a month before actually purchasing (partly because it's still a pain in the ass to get fiat into crypto), but I've since carved out a section of my investment portfolio specifically for cryptocurrencies.

As I dig further and further into this world, two things stand out to me (aside from the number of ICO scams):

1. The lack of business fundamentals underlying current movements in the crypto space (both with crazy ICOs and the insane ICO valuations), and
2. The lack of analysis in the crypto-community on the business side

I tend to have very strong opinions that are loosely held (or at least try to have them loosely held). My goal in this blog is to share those opinions, spark dialogue, perhaps change those opinions, and ultimately help to facilitate the adoption of cryptocurrency into the mainstream.