Explaining Cryptocurrency to Your Significant Other
A Little History
In 2012 I discovered Bitcoin and thought it was neat that I could use some of my gaming PC's processing power to earn this imaginary internet money. In 2013 I bought my first Bitcoin using Coinbase at around $64USD/BTC. I sold everything right around Halloween of 2013. I don't need to further illustrate how stupid I feel for trading and not saving.
I have a wife now. She thought this cryptocurrency stuff was risky, complicated, and foreign. I can't say she's wrong. I think that's a rule when you're married. She didn't want us keeping any hard earned USD in the crypto world.
Tonight a lot of that changed.
Her Misconceptions
You can own a fraction of a token
At one point through the rise of Bitcoin, Bitcoin became too expensive for her. It didn't click until tonight that she didn't realize that you can own a fraction of a token. She still doesn't think owning a fraction of a coin was as good as owning a full coin. My friend @mavericklb felt the same way when I told him about obtaining Ether. Once my wife saw that it wasn't like owning stock shares, she appreciated the added flexibility of storing value on the blockchain.
If there's not a significant enough return, it's not worth it
My wife feels that a savings account earning 0.15% is no different than a checking account earing nothing. She has a certain percentage in her mind that if it's not a get-rich-quick scheme that it's not worth it. I'm on the side of the fence that earning something is better than nothing at all, no matter how little the growth is. She watched as BTC rose from $21 to over $2000. In her mind, if you weren't there for that ride, it's too late to invest or "waste time" storing savings and assets on the blockchain.
Crypto is hard to obtain or trade
Living in the US, Coinbase has been my go-to place to exchange dollars for tokens. I explained how it can be purchased using a direct deposit or even a credit card. As soon as she saw the possibility of earning points through crypto purchases, she started to get on board.
Conclusions
Going forward, she's liking the idea of storing a small amount of our monthly savings deposit somewhere on the blockchain. Cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies are still in their infancy. I'm excited to watch what's to come.
Tell me, what have the conversations been like with your spouses or significant others. Are they on board? Have you been trying to convince them of the value? Is it a secret? Let me know in the comments below.
A tricky conversation to navigate. You also bring up some good points about entering this big boy pool carefully. Better to learn the ropes with a small amount than a significant sum of money. If you lose your keys there is no help desk to call and bring your account back.
My own wife will keep dismissing decentralized money until I am able to buy a house or something like that. She is ultra-conservative and risk adverse financially. I, on the other hand, am working towards getting as much of my earnings via non-$$$ means as possible.
I'm hoping coinbase steps their game up here in the near future. I've been mostly happy with their service until recently.
I was expecting to not be alone here so thank you for replying to the post. Finance is always a tricky area and such a massive cause of relationships to fail. Great point with the lack of a help desk in crypto. I did have to explain to her that we're the bank and are ultimately responsible.
What happened with you and Coinbase recently?
re: Coinbase, they haven't been able to keep up with traffic and their exchange has been closed or non-responsive during the recent weeks volatility. I try to stay away from them during the volatility so it's not impacted me directly, but it's noticeable via the news sources I frequent.
Ah, I mainly just like using them for exchanging USD for BTC then I move it to a wallet where I control the private keys. I did notice Monday that ether took hours to send when I was participating in the EOS ICO.
Congratulations @chadwickthecrab! You have completed some achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
Click on any badge to view your own Board of Honnor on SteemitBoard.
For more information about SteemitBoard, click here
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPBy upvoting this notification, you can help all Steemit users. Learn how here!