Unexpected Ways That Crypto Changes Your Life
Cryptocurrency is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that will cause the largest transfer of wealth that the world has ever seen. At least that is what many of us have convinced ourselves will happen. Just by looking at the market adoption of crypto how the world has completely changed during the last few years. That scenario seems to be much more likely than it was during the previous cycle. Whether or not crypto reaches that final destination is not the point of this article. Sometimes the journey to that destination is the most important part of the whole process. Today we will be focusing on that journey. The interesting thing about investing in Bitcoin or crypto is that it changes you in ways that many of us would have never imagined. Most of those changes were for the good.
Let's talk about the unexpected ways that Bitcoin will change your life. I know it completely changed mine.
In the not-so-distant past, my life was completely different. I had recently graduated from university and decided to live in various countries around the world. I was having the adventures of a lifetime, but I never gave any thought to money. A few years went by and I hadn't even begun investing, and student loans were beginning to rack up as well. Because I was irresponsible with money, I was buying things I didn't need and couldn't afford with credit cards. Falling even further into debt. All of a sudden I had done some real damage to my financial situation that would require a lot of effort to fix. I was slowly coming to the conclusion that retirement would never be an option for me.
Then one day, everything would change.
I was needing to send money quickly to someone back home. I went to my bank to send a wire back home and was in shock at how much the bank would charge. After that, I went to Western Union and was once again shocked by how much they were charging for the service. Needless to say, I left both places without using the service. It was at that time that I remembered conversations I had with my brother about Bitcoin a few years ago. He was urging me to invest and begin mining. The regrets that I have about ignoring those recommendations are enormous. However, this time I remember those conversations and decided to buy and send Bitcoin instead of cash. Not only would make the transactions much faster, but I would be eliminating most of the fees as well.
After sending that first Bitcoin transaction, I was very excited and wanted to learn much more about it. That is when I began going down the Bitcoin rabbit hole all of those years ago. There has been no turning back, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
It would be an understatement to say that Bitcoin and crypto have taken over my life since then and changed everything. Usually for the better. Even if my crypto investments would go to zero tomorrow, the skills that I have confidence that I would still be successful with the skills that I have learned along the way.
1) Learning to Invest
This may sound incredibly simple, but crypto has taught me how to invest. As I mentioned above, before getting into Bitcoin, I really didn't have any investable assets. I wouldn't have even known where to begin with investing. Perhaps I have a bit of an OCD characteristic, but I now become very excited about building up my portfolio and seeing it grow each month. Finally reaching my next goal. I feel more satisfaction by using my money to invest than to buy other vanity purchases such as the latest gadget, brand-name clothes, or even cars. In fact, I would probably confess that I have an obsession. I have been at the lowest of lows, and I will not go back to that point again. I will do whatever it takes to succeed. The key principles of being able to study markets and target the key assets. Buying on deep red days and continuing to dollar-cost-average. Most importantly, learning that time is your biggest tool. The earlier you begin investing, the better. From that point on you can let compounding interest work its wonders for you.
2) Budgeting
The importance of learning how to budget cannot be emphasized enough. Even those people who make great salaries will have nothing to show for it if they do not know how to budget correctly. In order to grow someone's wealth by investing, the first tip that many people will usually give is that they need to make more money. However, I usually initially value budgeting in the beginning. Even those who have the tightest of budgets will often be amazed at how much cash they can free up by creating a budget and sticking to you. This will mean cutting back on impulse purchases, and really differentiating between the items that you need and the items that you want. For example, there is no need to be subscribed to more than one video streaming service each month. This means that we will need to cut back and sacrifice some things out of our lives. Once you are able to put this money towards debt or into investments, you will begin to see how quickly your situation can improve. Giving you the motivation to keep up your endeavors.
3) Entrepreneur
Learning how to invest and budget are obvious ways how crypto would change you, as they are directly related to investing. However, I was surprised that after investing in crypto, I became much more of an entrepreneur. In the past, the only way that I would make money was by going to work. The struggle was real if I would run out of money during the month and had no other ways to make any more. However, something changed in my mind once I got into crypto. Perhaps, it was my desire to accumulate as much as possible. OR maybe seeing how nice it could be to earn passive income from just lending out crypto. Either way, I became addicted to creating as many income streams as possible. This included lending out crypto, mining crypto, beginning to blog, becoming a freelance writer for some of the biggest companies in the market, creating side jobs outside of crypto, and even selling or flipping things online. The key point is that my mindset had completely changed. I no longer dreaded spending all of my money. Instead, if I had used all of my money for the month, it was time to earn more. If I wanted to accumulate more crypto, it was time to put some work in.
4) Obtaining Financial Literacy
Perhaps this is just me, but I have become much more knowledgeable amount money, macro, and how the world actually operates. For example, I was a university student during the financial crisis of 2008. At that time I knew the economy was hurting, but I must admit that I was completely oblivious to what was happening. I had no idea about what money was, how inflation was robbing us, and the secrets to growing wealth. Fast-forward to today, and the world is in a similar terrible situation. This time, however, I am fully aware of everything that is happening. I am doing my best to not only prepare for the worst-case scenario but also taking advantage of great buying opportunities.
Knowledge truly is power. If you have learned how to invest, how the world works, and how to work hard. Then crypto could go to zero and, likely, you would still be successful in the future. These are just a few of the ways of how crypto has changed me and my mindset since I have begun investing in it. I'm excited to see how it will continue to change me in the future as well.
How about you? How has investing in Bitcoin and crypto changed you?
As always, thank you for reading!
