A BEGINNERS GUIDE TO CRYPTO

 

CRYPTO-CURRENCY

CRYPTO: Hidden. CRYPTOCURRENCY: HIDDEN CURRENCY

Crypto-currency is a kind of digital currency that uses digital files for the purchase of services & goods. It works exactly like credit cards, PayPal & other platforms but in digital assets. No INR or USD is involved in transactions of CRYPTO.

 

How does it work?

It works on blockchain technology, which makes it very secure. A Blockchain is data that is shared with computers. The data or information is gathered in groups which are called “blocks” with a specific storage capacity. Once it is filled the block is closed and is linked to the previous block and thus a chain is formed and called a “blockchain”.

Photo by Maxim Hopman on Unsplash

 

How to purchase?

Users have to sign up at a CRYPTO exchange with their KYC credentials using an Aadhar card, PAN card. After successful signing up user can purchase it. Some top exchanges in India are WazirX, CoinDCX, Coinswitch, Kuber, and Unocoin. Users have to use the currency (valid legal tenders) to purchase CRYPTO.

 

What to purchase with Crypto?

As crypto is going mainstream since 2017, many of the companies are accepting BITCOIN as payments. You can buy luxury cars, technology & eCommerce products, etc. The prominent ones which are accepting BITCOIN as payment are TESLA, MICROSOFT, AT&T.

 

Risk involved

Since it is unregulated by any governing agency, a huge risk is involved. There were times when people invested in BITCOIN heavily & gained profits. But due to no regulations & market volatility, it came down crashing heavily. Those who held their early investments till today in BITCOIN are billionaires. Still, the risk looms. CRYPTO market works upon the demand & supply mode. The higher demand more will be the rate.

 

Legal or Illegal?

Illegal would be a wrong term, rather UNREGULATED is more suitable. Currently, there are around 14K+ cryptocurrencies available in the market.   There are many other services which are unregulated private healthcare, share market, e-commerce, cab services. RecentlyGovernment of India is trying to work upon regulations to bringCRYPTOCURRENCIES under the tax net.

 

Pros & Cons

Pros: No chance of data leakage. Extremely secure so no fraud or scam. Secure & instant transfers of ownership. Difficult to trace the money trail.

Cons: The risk of loss is high. Can be used in illegal activities. Due to an unregulated market, it is highly volatile.

 

Conclusion

Crypto investments are subject to market risk. It is not a legal tender & unregulated currency. There are no documents to read before investing in it. My take is if you can sustain the down period of the crypto market then only take a plunge into it.

DESTINY IS WHAT YOU MAKE IT

(The information on the various personalities mentioned in this has been taken from wiki, for inspiration purpose, I never intend to hurt the feelings of any of well learned person by not mentioning their names or saying they less famous)

People many times say that “He/she was destined to achieve it”, but I feel it should be, “He was determined to achieve it”. It’s our determination that determines our destiny.

Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847 – October 18, 1931) we know him as Thomas Edison, an American inventor and businessman was a school dropout. He got hearing problems at an early age & he became completely deaf in the middle of his career due to an accident. Edison is holding 1,093 US patents in his name.

Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani (28 December 1933- 6 July 2002) whom we know as Dhirubhai Ambani, a matriculate due to circumstances. But he always knew what he wanted from life, once he told his father "Why do you keep screaming for money? I will make heaps of money one day". After school on weekends, he began setting up onion/potato fries stall at village fairs to make money which he gave his mother. He also used to sell milk powder to make his income before moving to Aden. After working in Aden, he gained the practical knowledge which was required for a successful business. Then after coming back to India he started slowly & gradually became an icon.

Steven Paul Jobs (24 February, 1955- 5 October, 2011) popular as “Steve Jobs” a dropout by choice from Reed College, Oregon. But to learn calligraphy, he stayed in hostel & slept on floor in friends' rooms, returned Coke bottles for food money.

Later he started working for Atari. Then he started APPLE, and later on he was fired from his own company. Then is owned Pixar Animations & after few years sold it to Disney.  Later he came back again in APPLE & gave the world some marvelous products & rest is the history.

Thomas Jacob Hilfiger (born 24 March, 1951) a.k.a..Tommy Hilfiger, again a dropout by choice. He suffered from learning disability. After attending his high school, he started to work in retail shop at the age of 18. Hilfiger used to go New York City to buy jeans and bell-bottom pants, which he customized and resold to a store in downtown.

Then he started a store called “The people’s place”. In the age of 25 years he became bankrupt & moved to New York City. He was offered design assistant positions with designers Calvin Klein and Perry Ellis. Though he was broke, he turned down both the offers with greater plans in mind. Later he founded the Tommy Hilfiger Corporation, which he sold in year 2010 for worth $3 Billion.

Lance Edward Armstrong (born September 18, 1971) is an American former professional road racing cyclist who won the Tour de France a record seven consecutive times after having survived testicular cancer. In 1996 he was diagnosed as having testicular cancer with a tumor that had metastasized to his brain and lungs. His cancer treatments included brain and testicular surgery and extensive chemotherapy, and his prognosis was originally poor. He went on to win the Tour de France each year from 1999 to 2005, and is the only person to win seven times. His one of the most famous quote is “I figure the faster I pedal, the faster I can retire.”

Steve Jobs in one of his speech in Stanford University in 2005 said “Getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have happened to him; "The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life." And he added, "I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful-tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it”

These are the names of quite famous people, we have several examples around us where people coming from estranged small place & have achieved a stature in various fields say it business, service, artists, designers, architects & so on. This is dedicated to all the successful people who have made it large in their life with the thinking of a visionary. Look around you and you will find a number of people excelling in their field. Though they are not as famous as the above stated names but still they have achieved it.

It doesn't matter who they are - inventors, businessmen, designer, sportsmen, - successful people have more things in common. They have a mindset for getting successful.

• Vision and focus: Have a vision to foresee. You should be able to look beyond. What will be the worth of the thing after 10 years & then focus on it and give your 100%. Coz even 99 doesn’t have the charm of 100 runs.
• Calculated risks: Never check the depth of river with both legs. You must calculate the pros and cons of where you are going to take dive.
• Give credit: “Credit cannot be taken, Credit has to be received.” Give acknowledgement to those who have helped you in reaching the position where you are today. You should be grateful for those people coz they are the ones who trusted you.
• Don't believe in luck: Luck will get you only the things, which is left by the people who actually gave their best to achieve it.
•  Have the persistence & determination to rise: Even after the darkest night, the sun rises. So you must have faith in yourself to change the things to better from what they are today.
• Last But Most Important, Never stop learning: Success is built upon failure and failure truly is not learning from mistakes. Successful people know that mistakes are inevitable in life but they do not take their failure for granted. For them, failing at one thing is a surefire guarantee that they will succeed at it the next time around.

So, here we end with “Destiny is what you make it.”

A Happy Life....

Am not a well acclaimed writer to write on this issue, but I felt that these are the things that has always brought me out whenever I was going through bad phase.

Read somewhere a very good line “A man asked God, give me everything to enjoy life. Then God replied, I have given you life to enjoy everything”.

Do we really enjoy the life we have got? Many of us complain that I don’t have this in life and all that blah blah blah…. One must learn to enjoy life. You can follow the points listed below.

1.        Be happy:  Decide & always try to be cheerful for the whole day. By remaining sad nothing is going to change. Rather you will spoil your day by thinking & being in low mood. Also the people around you will be unhappy to see you like this for few of the time and will care for you & if this becomes your habit one day they will also say “ye iska hamesha ka natak hai, chodo jaane do saaley ko rone do”. So avoid this kind of behavior.  Never display your sorrows to everyone, and learn to be happy and let the people think how this person can remain cheerful all the time. 

2.       Forgive quickly: Never forget the mistake or hurt done by any one, but at the same time learn to forgive. Nothing is going to change if you hold on to something that has done the damage. Rather it will keep you in bad mood if you keep on thinking about it. It’s in your interest to forgive & move on cheerfully in life.  

3.       Optimism: As it is said “pessimism never won any battle”, be optimistic. Whenever you find yourself going through the rough phase in your life always keep in mind, “Waqt chahe accha ho ya bura wo badalta jaroor hai”. One day your time will change and you will start rocking again. So keep doing your duties with full heart & be optimistic for a positive change.  

4.      Follow your gut: In my previous post “Deciding Career” I emphasized on pursuing your hobby as career and you won’t have to work for a single day. Have courage to follow your gut, this will keep you happy & satisfied that you doing what you always wanted. 

5.       Manage your needs: Not everyone in this world is a millionaire & moves in a B.M.W. Learn to manage your needs according to your income. Don’t compare yourself with others that they are having car & am having a two wheeler. Always know the ground reality that, who you are & learn to manage with what you have in hand. 

6.      Communicate with family and friends: Family & good friends has always been the support pillar in everyone’s life. Never forget them. Try to take out time for them & share with them what’s happening in your & their life. They are the people, you have grown up with & they are the one who knows real “you”. They are people who were with you in your thick & thin. Be truthful & caring for them. 

7.       Learn to be dissatisfied: I had read many times that one must be satisfied with what they get, also in my “5” point I had mentioned the same.  But remain unsatisfied with the result you produce. Coz there is always a room for improvement. Seat goals & steadily work towards it. Once you achieve it go for higher.  If we have got satiated with invention of telephone by Graham Bell then today we wouldn’t have got wonderful invention of mobile phones. Or if you are having a two wheeler, then keep working towards acquiring a car without getting jealous of others.

Hoping the above points could make any sense in the life of the people reading this.

"DECIDING A CAREER"

I am writing my first post on my blog.

After a lot of thought process (4 years) i want something to share. The post is based on my personal experience and intend to guide or say help out youngsters to choose the right path for their future. (Unfortunately which i wasn't able to do) I want the fellow readers not to repeat the mistakes that i did. Well here it goes...

Choosing the right career can be a very daunting task especially in a world which offers an array of paths, all of which seem to be leading to a golden goal.  Careers can actually make or break one’s life, so it is important to make the right choice. And the choice which one takes is based on many parameters (friends, family, media etc.) which contribute a lot. First of all, you can’t possibly be expected to know what you want to do with the rest of your life when you’re a teenager. There are plenty of 30-year old out there who can’t answer that question, as well as fifty year old too! There are also no hard and fast rules for how many times in your life you can change careers. So how do you go about choosing the right career for you?

Deciding what you want to do at a young age can help you to focus your attention. Experts say the best place to start is by thinking about and even making a list of the things you like to do. If you like to take things apart to see how things work, you may want to be an engineer. If you like to write you can be a journalist or a sports reporter or a documentation specialist. If you enjoy working with people you might consider teaching or nursing. If you want to be outside, you might look at landscape architecture or working as a forester or park ranger. Today the curriculum of schools has also been modified so much that you can judge you interest at very early stage. A plethora of curricular & extra curricular activities which we do at school, has any one given a serious thought to it???? Some students find it interesting to go for competitive exam, but they avoid performing on stage on annual day function and vice versa.

Think about what you like to do, make a list, and be honest with yourself. Once you have determined what it is you enjoy doing, it’s time to do some research into career opportunities that require those skills. With advancement of time & evolution of technology this process of research for career opportunities has evolved a lot. Today’s youth can get every details of avenues they want choose, they have got the most powerful tool to “google” up a question and see the prospects they have in a respective field & the required skills for the same.

Pursue your hobby as career, and you will definitely excel in it coz your hobby is the thing which you love to do willingly without the peer or parents pressure. 

I will end with the dialogue of Rancho (3 idiots), “kamiyab nahi kabil bano, phir kamiyabi khud ba khud tumhare peeche aayegi” is something one can follow religiously.