Hello good people!

So this past weekend, I got together with some friends to watch the Superbowl. Was I watching the game? Eh, kind of. Do I know the basics of football? Yes. I definitely know enough to be able to follow along and understand what’s happening. Shoutout to my dad for that one lol. But what I was most excited about was seeing how the Superbowl would feature anything crypto/blockchain related because there was a lot of buzz around this being the first major event to bring this new technology to the mainstream public. One of the most talked about commercials was Coinbase’s 60 second stint of a floating barcode. If you missed it, check it out here:

Aside from me having to walk up to the TV and try for a solid 10 seconds to get my phone to scan it, I think this commercial was pretty brilliantly done. It was simple, eye-catching, and it started a conversation. If you’re anything like me and some of my friends, you may have invested a small amount in cryptocurrency by using an exchange, such as Coinbase, over the past few years because it seemed like the thing to do.  A couple months ago, if someone had asked me why I invested, I’d probably say it had something to do with FOMO. However, now that I’ve actually learned more about WHY and HOW this is a strong investment, I wanted to share my learnings and thoughts. I also acknowledge that the word “blockchain” just sounds very intense, but you know what we do over here - we 👏🏽break 👏🏽 it 👏🏽 down!

If you read this post, you’ll have a better understanding of:

• Blockchain technology

• Bitcoin

• Ethereum

• Learn to earn programs

Blockchain Technology

We’ve already touched briefly on this in a previous post, but to break it down even further, think of a blockchain as a database with information that’s distributed across computer networks. It’s called a blockchain because of how the data within this database is structured. A blockchain collects information and stores it in groups, also known as blocks, that hold a specific set of information. Once that block is filled and hits its storage capacity, it closes and links to the previously filled block, which creates a chain of data. These blocks are strung together in an irreversible timeline of data and each block is given a specific timestamp for when it was added. Not sure if you’re a Snowfall fan, but when I first learned this I immediately thought of the “brick by brick” scene lol. The blockchain is being built brick by brick with every new set of information added. 

Sorry to those of you who haven’t seen Snowfall—this probably felt super random LOL.

Anywho, because of the decentralized nature of the blockchain, there is no central authority or person that can change this data once it’s added to the blockchain. The blockchain provides secure transactions, speeds up data transfer processing, helps contract management and enables you to audit the origin of a product. Both cryptocurrency and NFTs, for example, are both stored on the blockchain. No fake money or artwork allowed!

What is Bitcoin?

Now that we have a general understanding of blockchain, let’s talk about bitcoin. At a high level, bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency that you can buy, sell and exchange directly, without a middle man (AKA the bank). All transactions are public and recorded on the blockchain. There will only ever be 21 million bitcoins produced, so people often consider it to be digital gold. While the price of 1 Bitcoin is a little over 40,000 right now, some analysts are predicting the price of Bitcoin could exceed $100,000 this year. We’ve even seen some celebrities begin to request their salaries in bitcoin instead of USD. Take this Odell Beckham Jr example:

This tweet is interesting for a couple of reasons. It speaks to the volatility of cryptocurrency and how it is definitely considered to be a risky asset, but in my opinion this tweet fails to consider the long term value of the contract he signed. Since cryptocurrency is not impacted by inflation, the value of his contract will continue to rise as the value of bitcoin rises, despite the current dip.

So that leads to the question - “should I invest in bitcoin?” Well, let me first start off by saying this is not financial advice and you should only invest what you are willing to lose because these markets are so volatile. Bitcoin was the first mover in the crypto space and that always comes with an advantage. While people consider it to be the alleged “future of money”, there isn’t much utility outside of it beyond providing digital currency, but it will likely be a widely adopted form of currency over the next few decades. This leads to our next topic…

What is Ethereum?

Let me start by saying, I’m a huge fan of the technology behind Ethereum and believe in it as a long term play because of how much utility it provides. While people often think of Ethereum and Bitcoin as being in direct competition that’s not really the case. Similar to Bitcoin, Ethereum is a decentralized blockchain network and it’s powered by the Ether token which is the actual cryptocurrency. This allows users to make transactions, earn interest on their holdings through staking (we can touch on this later!), use and store non-fungible tokens (NFTs), trade cryptocurrencies, play games, use social media and so much more.

I completely agree with this guy right here ^! A lot of blockchain-enthusiasts consider Ethereum to be what powers the next iteration of the internet. (helloooo, Web3?!) According to CoinTelegraph, “If centralized platforms like Apple’s App Store represent Web 2.0, a decentralized, user-powered network like Ethereum is Web 3.0. This “next-generation web” supports decentralized applications (DApps), decentralized finance (DeFi) and decentralized exchanges (DEXs), for instance.”

Again, this is not investment advice, but personally I’m very optimistic about the future of Ethereum for the reasons stated above. It’s also different from Bitcoin because Ethereum allows other tokens, such as Solana ($SOL) and Chainlink ($LINK), to be built upon it. Of course this all sounds great, but with anything there is one important flaw of the current version of Ethereum that I want to highlight: the gas fees 🥵. These are the processing fees that it takes to operate and they can be VERY HIGH. However, the developers of the technology are working on Ethereum 2.0 which should be released later this year and will hopefully solve for this (as well as some of the environmental concerns :/).

If I had to sum up my thoughts on Ethereum though, despite the high gas fees, I’d use one word… Bullish. 🚀

This week’s recommended action: Learn to earn programs!

The world of crypto can be pretty overwhelming, but there are several programs out there that let you earn about crypto while learning. The exchanges that offer these programs can create partnerships with different cryptocurrencies with dedicated modules where you’ll learn about a specific new coin or token and earn a small amount of that token as a reward. This raises awareness about the coin, decentralizes ownership from the creators and increases initial trading volume. We love a win-win situation! These three offer solid programs that you should look into:

• Coinbase: All you need to do to take part is sign up for a Coinbase account, then you can start learning by watching videos and answering quiz questions. You'll earn crypto in your Coinbase account for every quiz you complete.

• Binance: This is the largest crypto exchange in the world, and allows you to earn crypto while learning, but there are a couple of conditions. It’s only available to new Binance users who sign up and verify their account within 3 days. They regularly update their offers with new and popular coins.

• CoinMarketCap: They’re the leading crypto price tracking website. It’s visited by millions of users every day looking for a variety of popular and less common coins and tokens to see how they're performing in the market. You can earn crypto through CoinMarketCap earn. They partner with a variety of new cryptocurrencies and protocols trying to get their name out there.

That’s all for this week, friends! Hope this was helpful. :) As always, let me know if there are certain topics you’d like me to go deeper on and I’ll be sure to include them in the next post.

See ya!

Kendall