Moving on.

Did you know that I bought $100 worth of Bitcoin way back in 2011? That investment is worth $300k now, give or take. 

Before you turn red with envy, let clarify that I sold it off for a small profit back in 2011 itself.

Put yourself in my shoes. What would you have done? 

I was just happy someone actually bought it off me. And to make a profit on the whole experiment? Super!

For every thousand-odd stories like mine, there is 1 story where the protagonist didn’t sell and is now in the news for being rich because she “invested” in Bitcoin at the “right time”. 

These stories give a lot of people hope that they too can get rich by investing in cryptocurrencies. But can they?

Mostly digital assets that can transact on a particular Blockchain network.

Think of it as petrol for your car. 

For eg, to use the Stellar blockchain network, you need Lumens (XLM).

Just like petrol, these currencies are designed to have a limited supply to ensure that when the demand increases, the value of the currency increases as well.

What’s interesting though, is that for every different brand of car, you need to use that particular brand of petrol. 

Those Lumens cannot directly be used in the Ripple Blockchain network.

As a result, a number of ‘brands’ are attempting to capture different markets - MUVs, SUVs, Sedans, Hatchbacks etc.

You get the point. There is a cryptocurrency for every possible Blockchain use case!

That’s the tricky part.

While it is fairly easy to find a cryptocurrency exchange and start trading in a jiffy, there are close to 1000 cryptocurrencies out there now.

Woah, woah! Relax there.

Due to such widespread demand for this information, numerous blogs, Telegram channels, WhatsApp groups and forums on Reddit and Facebook have cropped up all across the world. 

It’s also resulted in the rise of influencers or ‘Gurus’ who’s advice people religiously follow.

My two cents is that nobody truly knows what’s driving the prices up or down at the moment. In time to come, we can better predict that by correlating the particular currency’s adoption in real world scenarios.

But if you’re interested in crypto trading, I’ve listed down a few links at the end.

Before investing in any cryptocurrency, I would suggest doing a few sanitary checks to ensure you’re not going to lose your money.