BITCOIN CONFUSION?? - I went to a Bitcoin meetup tonight, and I was disgusted, and happy at the same time.

Let me explain to you what I learned about listening to people during the Bitcoin craze.

If you are new to Bitcoin and cryptocurrency (say less than 6 months old) you will not understand what I am about to write.

If you've been in this for many years, you'll quickly understand the situation, which is a REAL situation. :)

I went to a bitcoin meetup in my area...

• Q: What area? Tell us?
• A: You don't need to know. Bitcoin is everywhere. Bitcoin concepts are cross-country and cross-continent... and the area is not pertinent to the story.

OK... and?

As usual, some people were selling... and other people were buying...

What I witnessed became kind of comical.

There was no rhyme or reason to the type of people who were buying or selling.

• WHAT DOES THAT MEAN @intelliguy

I'll explain..

The interest in Bitcoin was high. By the look on people's faces, and their genuine concern, you could not tell whether they were a buyer or a seller. Their attitude was the same. They were sincere. They were concerned.

...so I started talking to people.

That's when it became comical.

You had friends, leading friends to the meet. "My friend brought me here" the one guy said. I see. So I turned to the "experienced friend" and asked "how long have you been into Bitcoin?"

"Oh, for a while now. I learned about it at least 6 months ago", he replied.

The majority of traders buying and selling... at least the new ones, have absolutely no experience when it comes to trading. They may know how to make transactions. They may understand public addresses and keys...

...then it happened

One guy goes up to someone, interrupted the conversation and freaked out, and then and says "listen!! I know I just bought $15 dollars worth of Bitcoin, and it is not much. BUT LISTEN it already has 1 confirm. Surely that should be enough?"

..and another person said...

I paid $3 in transaction fees, but my transaction is stuck in mempool and not confirmed, what gives?

...and another person said...

I think Bitcoin is crashing. I might be worth $0 tomorrow. I want to sell now!

...and another person said...

I'm buying Bitcoin cuz I expect it will go back to $19,000 over the next couple of months.

What we have here, is 100% price volatility, lack of understanding of how the current state of the network works, and how crypto works in general.

We've reached that point now, where interest is HIGH. People simply are too excited to do their research and make informed decisions.

If someone is transacting $2500 of Bitcoin, vs someone who just bought $15 of Bitcoin, why do they have the same strange look on their face while they wait for transactions to appear on blockchain.info ?

Simple

• Lack of education
• Lack of experience
• Lack of research

So everyone new to Bitcoin is either IN or OUT today. But the majority are still learning how this works.

Now I sold a little Bitcoin today, not because I wanted to, but because I had to... I fully expect mid-January to early February we'll see the price rise past $19,000 in my own personal option - not trading advice

But because I had to...

I also did my transaction with 0.003+ BTC which was worth +$51 USD at the time for transaction fees so I didn't have to sit in that room for 2-3 hours waiting for my first confirm.

...but the reason why I did that, is I understand how the mempool is overloaded and I was trading a bit more than $51 USD and I needed that transaction to be confirmed quickly.

....but the moral of the story is:

• Lack of education - (I taught myself)
• Lack of experience - (I've been in this a long time)
• Lack of research - (I constantly do research every single day)

...so when Bitcoin or cryptocurrency gets more widespread and common place, we won't see comical situations that I saw tonight at that bitcoin meetup.

To be part of the Bitcoin ecosystem you need to learn a little more about the health of the network, past performance, future direction, and not just how to buy and sell pieces of bitcoin before you tell your friends to get involved.

Right now the new general public is completely uninformed about Bitcoin or anything listed on coinmarketcap.com

This is akin to a 4 year old boy who pulls out a fistful of coins and says... Look at all these monies I have in my piggybank without realizing what denomination each coin has, nor its spending power.

It's cute when a 4 year old child pulls out two handfuls of coins and says "look at all my monies".

• Monies to a 4 year old, means having lots of pretty coins (pennies, dimes and nickles, pounds or pence, or yen ), thinking he's getting rich even if they only add up together to become $1.82 USD

It's comical when an adult, who has the full internet at their fingertips who worries about a $15 bitcoin transaction (the cost of a pizza) and freaks out if his transaction is taking too long to confirm.

• Comical really?
• Actually no. SAD really. We need to perfect things a little better.

AND WHILE WE ARE TALKING ABOUT PIZZA

• lazlo happily paid 10,000 bitcoin in 2010 for a pizza.
• If I asked you to send me 10,000 Bitcoin today. What type of pizza would you like? Maybe the 4 year old with "monies" would decide pepperoni or ham and pineapple.

I hope in a year from now, I won't experience this type of Bitcoin meetup again.

HOLD ON FOR A SECOND. You said you were disgusted and HAPPY at the same time!

• Why were you happy?
• That's easy. No one knows what the top of bitcoin is going, and it keeps exceeding expectations. The latest mainstream news or mainstream analysts yap about Bitcoin, the latest Government regulations doesn't stop it from being organic and alive. It lives. It has problems, yes. But it continues.... none of us can stop it, limit it, or kill it with rhetoric or opinions. It's the first virtual internet "thing" that beats all odds. Pretty impressive.