I'm not claiming to be the pinnacle of truth, but I've developed expertise in the areas of business, internet technologies, crypto, and family. My passion for the path less traveled has produced a unique combination of knowledge, skill, and experience.
I hope that my insights will help you invest your time in the best things for your future.
No politics #PoliticsRuinsEverything
Societies are groups of people who agree to operate on a set of values that result in systems. People are attracted to systems with rules that lead to prosperity, but how do you unsubscribe from a system when it stops being prosperous? Decentralized apps will enable a marketplace of systems and bottom-up governance that has never been possible before.
A man wandering in the wilderness looking for truth encounters a dragon who says “Give me your treasure or I will take your life”. But the man only had his life to give so he pulled out his birthright and slayed the dragon. Another day the man found a walled city with many people. He asked a man of the city “Where is your birthright? How do you protect yourself?”. The city man assured him “These walls are strong and the city is safe. We can leave our birthrights at home and live freely without fear.” So the wandering man made a home and prospered in the safety of the city.
Then one day a messenger came to the door saying “Our scouts have seen a monstrous beast coming towards the city, everyone must give a small piece of their birthright to keep the city safe”. The man replied, “This city has been good to me so I can spare some of my birthright”. The next day the messenger reported that the beast had been conquered thanks to all the people's sacrifice. Some time ...
Something I often forget to explain when telling people about crypto is what this breakthrough in technology (cryptography) makes possible that was never possible before.
Cryptography allows you to
- literally hold assets in your pocket
- trade the assets from your pocket
- and eventually, spend it from your pocket
Let's review the evolution of trading...
Trading assets for other assets is nothing new and it was done quite differently before the invention of banking. Banking began with the simple idea of trading papers that represent assets rather than having to carry those assets around. As long as the bank holding your assets had a good reputation, people would accept those papers trusting that the bank would honor the represented values. This became the standard way to trade as it was much simpler and more efficient. However, this meant that the banks control your actual assets and you just have a piece of paper.
Time revealed the true implications of this model; possession ...
One of the first questions people ask about crypto is where is it stored? or, what is a crypto wallet? Here's my attempt to explain it in laymen's terms...
What makes crypto-currencies different than regular fiat-currencies is that the database holding all the account balances is decentralized. This means that there is no single authority deciding when balances change. The network of participating computers (sometimes called "miners" ) work together to determine what transactions have occurred. So where do transactions come from?
A wallet is a tool that can announce a desired transaction to the network. In order for the transaction to be valid, the wallet must have a cryptographic key that matches the sending account. This key is used to "sign" the announcement so that the network can verify you are the owner of the sending account. Also, there is typically a transaction fee that the announcement must specify to incentivize the network to process your transaction.
