The beginner’s point of view

I was raised in a family where money was not the center of our conversations. My parents barely talked about money, and when they did, it was only to mention how expensive everything was. I grew up with this notion of sparing money because “one never knows…!” and I developed what I can now identify as a fear (but it took me decades to realize it, no less to accept it!) of lacking. When my dad passed away, he left my 3 sisters and I a quite comfortable heritage. But given the position he got during his career, some of my relatives mentioned they were surprised not to see more on the table. I was shocked to hear such a thing at the beginning. But as time passed and I dug into my father’s life, I began to think those people were right! Recently, my mother passed away (may she Rest In Peace!) and I had a conversation with her best friend (whom I consider my godmother) about money. She confirmed something I already instinctively knew: my mother understood nothing about money and had no financial education. And she wasn’t interested in getting educated about money. Can you believe it? So here is the point of this article: since I decided, five years ago, to break this family pattern, I had no financial education, AT ALL! But… since I intend to reach financial freedom, I must train myself to acquire the knowledge I need to reach this goal!

This is the reason why I began to read books of internationally renowned coaches about financial education and mastering money. I also jumped into seminars to meet other people following the same goal and listen to skillful coaches. With that said, let’s move on to the ideas I want to share with you today: cryptocurrencies! As the title mentions, I am a complete beginner in this field. My partner however, is not! And he is my mentor and guide on this adventure. But to help you understand why I decided to jump into the cryptocurrencies’ world, let me give you some marks about my financial education history.

It all began in 2013, when I wanted to embrace a new career after my divorce and I decided to give a try to Network Marketing. Since then, I have never lost sight of the goal I put on paper when I began: financial freedom. Some of you may think 8 years is a long time to reach a goal (even more, considering that my goal hasn’t been reached yet!) Maybe, Maybe not, time will tell! We all have our own timing, after all! (I love this metaphor of the corns grains you put in your microwave oven to produce pop corn… not all of them pop at the same time!)

Experiencing a lot of different options, seizing opportunities and jumping into new projects and businesses, I developed valuable skills during all those years. In 2017, when I met my partner, he was already involved in cryptocurrencies for a while and was even trading it to accelerate the growth of his capital. In December 2017, when the Bitcoin began to crash from 20000$ to approximately 6000$ (in February 2018), unlike a lot of people, he kept his portfolio, fold his pride in his pocket and decided to look at other opportunities, being sure that the bitcoin would rebound and skyrocket… one day! This day arrived in December 2020. If Cédric had sold his positions on bitcoin (and some other coins) in 2017 he would have highly regretted it! Instead, he decided to be patient and found other ways to make money meanwhile. If you consider the bitcoin fell down to approximately 3000$ in November 2018 before bouncing back, in March 2020 (its value was at 4000$ approximately at that time) I let you imagine how mentally strong you need to be! December 2020 is the moment I followed his advice to jump into cryptocurrencies and opened a portfolio.

As a complete newbie, I had the chance not to experience the fears that people with advanced knowledge do. Since I am not following the quotations of the cryptocurrencies for a long time, I had the chance to invest on some coins that saw their price double in a couple weeks. Will this run continue? I don’t know, but what I know for sure is that such a return on investment has never been seen in the banking world, isn’t it?

One important point to mention is that I consider the money I invested as definitely lost! Why? because it helps me remove some stress around my expectations and step back to have a better long term view. But my story wouldn’t be complete without telling you about our experience on the forex market (my partner and I decided to jump together in this adventure…)

This story could make you laugh out loud or frighten you the same way! On our way to finding how to reach financial freedom, we decided to give a try to trading on the forex market. A lot of advanced investors and even experts are flourishing on the web to provide you the information and the training you need to begin. A lot of solutions exist if you decide to invest on the forex market and indexes. BUT… one important thing to take into account is that the forex market is highly volatile (less than crypto however!) and based on the value of a currency compared to another one. With the current sanitarian situation all over the world, the forex market went completely crazy and behaved a completely unexpected (and somewhat unrealistic!) way. I must confess we sweat a lot while investing and trading on this market and we experienced big losses finally…

Let me share with you some significant advantages of being a complete newbie, especially in the field of cryptocurrencies:

• you don’t experience fear since you know next to nothing about the subject: at first, you just trust the person who guide you (please, do not jump in this adventure unless you can trust someone around to help!) and invest in the same currencies as he or she does
• you can think “out of the box” because you don’t experience any bias the persons with advanced knowledge do (as a curious person, you ask yourself some questions an advanced person may not and you notice details that are made invisible to advanced who constantly look at the quotations of the currencies they invest on!)
• as soon as you have basic knowledge in finance and follow what’s going on in the economy worldwide, you can picture some scenarios in your mind and evaluate their relevance
• with a previous experience as an investor on the forex market, you can avoid some basic mistakes and try new strategies
• as soon as you are curious and coachable, you will learn a lot if you know where to look at to get the information you need. And if you are a self learner, you will find, without a shadow of a doubt, a lot of information you will have to sort out to implement your own strategy

Why did I choose to invest in cryptocurrencies?

• I experienced the forex market, learned a lot, especially the basics I was able to use on the crypto market, but I see the forex market as much wider, in terms of knowledge to master, and much risky because of the leverage and margin call you use to trade. Plus, if you invest on long term positions on the forex market, your broker will apply a daily fee to keep your position opened. This is not the case in crypto!
• I want to invest on a long term basis and crypto is perfect for that (more and more people trust the crypto market to become the money of their future) since you make a bet on a technology or protocol and guess what? Every entrepreneur expects his company to grow and make significant profits! Keep in mind however that it is a bet! So don’t bet all the money you have at the beginning. Test and make your own opinion, prepare your own strategies!
• I refuse to stay the slave of banks! Some of the big projects on the crypto market are leaded by companies that publicly recognize they want to replace the current banking system (see Celsius!). I don’t know how you feel about that but as far as I am concerned, I don’t want to collaborate anymore with banks that generously give me 0.5% on my savings yearly but withdraw more than 100€ of fees for the basic running of my bank account, while some crypto currencies cost me close to nothing in fees and give me back more than 15% return yearly for stacking my crypto (some apps even give me 2% of cash back when I pay with their debit card, and I didn’t talked about the return you can get just on investing in cryptos!)

2021 is there and here is my vision about crypto currencies: a lot of people are afraid of its volatility and they are listening to the voices that want to kill crypto without taking the time to gather valuable information that could help them make a wise decision. This is why a vast majority of the worldwide population remains shy concerning crypto investment. But the current sanitarian situation (which is just an excuse to an economical disaster!) forces us to wake up and find alternative solutions to save our money safely, earn more money to maintain our living standards and spend our money in valuable projects. I don’t have any crystal ball but I really think the crypto market will explode in the next ten years. Crypto currency is democratizing and those who where reluctant to discover it ten years ago now realize that there is a big game playing there and they want to be part of!

I don’t have much to invest I can afford to lose, but the little I have will land on a crypto portfolio that I will secure for the years to come. And if my intuitions are right, let us meet again in ten years to see how far the market has risen! Champagne and big party expected! And if I am wrong and everything collapses, then it will be time for me to find another valuable project to invest my money and find other ways to reach my goal of being financially free. After all, what counts is to keep moving forward after a failure, and not cry over a spilled milk! ;)