Last weekend, a group of young entrepreneurs held a business summit in Lagos tagged BankTheFuture. The summit was aimed at educating Nigerians on how to live above the poverty line by achieving financial freedom through investing in Cryptocurrency.
The summit, which brought experts from local and international space, also allayed the investment doubts in the minds of participants as they were taken round the basics and opportunities in cryptocurrency.
Speaking on the purpose of the summit, Francis Adeshina, director of BankTheFuture summit, which was organised by Cryptofirm, said that the team decided to invest in educating many Nigerians on how to gain financial freedom, especially at this time of economic hardship in Nigeria.
“Our passion was to move Nigerians from poverty to prosperity because we believe in the need to secure a sure platform for wealth creation. The Cryptocurrency investment is a space that leads to abundance because it offers investors seamless means of generating wealth,” he said.
As a beginner, Adeshina said, there is no fixed amount with which one can start his or her investment in block-chain. “You can start by buying a fraction of the coin with as little as N300. And this N300 can grow to N1.5 million in few months or years. For instance, someone invested just $50 in 2017 which was about N20,000 and today it has appreciated to N47 million.
The growth of cryptocurrency, according to him, depends on demand, which is certain because it is the future, and about 3 percent of the world population earns from Cryptocurrency while the remaining 97 percent are sleeping but in the future would regret not investing.
“The future of Cryptocurrency is huge and nobody can stop it because just like the internet, which many did not understand when it came, but nobody was able to stop it. It is a disruptive economy and those that are not ready will regret in the future,” he added.
Funke Ajayi, co-sponsor of the event, who came from Canada, said that as a mother, investing in Cryptocurrency was an opportunity that is not only good but also enables financial freedom.
This, she said, was because many mothers, who want to make a leaving, were being constrained with child care but, cryptocurrency investment opportunity enables mothers to add value to their families, support their husbands and still take care of themselves just by working from home.
Narrating her experience, Ajayi said that in 2015, she stumbled on work from home opportunity on Google, which turned out to be investment in Cryptocurrency.
“I started by investing just $50 because I wanted to invest what I knew that if I lose, it would not hurt me but that $50 has grown by over 3,000 percent. At that time, one Bitcoin was only $600 but today, it is over $11, 000,” she explained.
Ajayi, who expressed satisfaction with the level of acceptability of investment in Cryptocurrency in Nigeria, stated that though the price of Bitcoin dropped earlier in the year, the price would go up to all time high in a couple of weeks or months.
Yinka Squint, another co-sponsor, who linked the emergency of cryptocurrency to evolution of money, said that the world embraced cryptocurrency, which is block money because it was the first time the world saw decentralised money that cannot be controlled by any central ruling authority.
“The good thing about digital money is that they are digital asset. Cryptocurrency is very interesting judging by the rate at which it has evolved and its global acceptance. A good way to look at this is the current market capitalisation, which has gone close to $800 billion. This means that it has toppled giants like Google, Apple and so on,” he said.
He therefore advised people to invest in Cryptocurrency because it has come to stay.
On cryptocurrency trading and mining, Silas Olatayo, another sponsor, said that Bitcoin comes from miners, who use special software to solve mathematical problems, issue new Bitcoin and confirm transactions.
“Bitcoin mining is a process by which transaction is verified. The process involves compiling recent transactions into block-chain to solve computational problem. As more miners come together, it makes it more difficult to solve Mathematical problems. But, pools of miners find solution faster than an individual, meaning that there would be more Bitcoins generated,” Olatayo explained.
According to him, without miners, there would be no cryptocurrency and that is where the big money is. “The big investors are the ones in charge of mining,” he said.
The best way to invest
The organisers advise: “Invest the amount that if you lose, it would not hurt you. Do not be greedy. Be patient and try to diversify your portfolios to minimise risk. To diversify, you have to look for good companies with good investment opportunities and invest in different coins. For instance, you can invest in 10 different coins and expect that six out of 10 will do very well.
“As a beginner, get a consultant, who can advise you on what to do and how to diversify your portfolio. Secondly, it is also good to research because there is information on Google to help you know when to buy or sell.”
Security tips
The group also advised prospective investors to avoid giving room for SMS authenticator because the data from network providers can be manipulated or bridged such that someone can get hold of your account. Avoid public wifi that enables hackers to have access to your account especially if you use windows.
Avoid trading on malicious website or investing through adverts on Google. Also try to belong to Cryptocurrency community because it would aid your growth.
Avoid emails demanding for password and account details. Also, try to crosscheck the name of the website for your exchange and wallet to avoid phishing sites because there are malicious websites that look like the exchange but are not.
AMAKA ANAGOR-EWUZIE
