What was your biggest fear with starting in crypto?

[Zilon]

Fear of the unknown was my challenge. Back then when Bitcoin became rampant in 2010 ponzi and many scam projects were also hovering the internet so the fear of going for the wrong investment became my biggest challenge, I still ended up falling for many scam projects and ponzi but that also opened my eye to understand that research is the key base for making any investment and not until i read Bitcoin white paper to understand what the coin is all about i was still in doubt of Bitcoin. But the paper made my doubt vanish.

[LogitechMouse]

Genuinely want to know what prevents your friends/gf/ colleagues from investing?

Fear of losing their hard-earned money.
I'm not speaking in behalf of my friends or colleagues here because at first place, I didn't tell to them to invest into Bitcoin, or into any cryptocurrency, but they'll be the one who will decide for that. I'm saying it just because for me, it's the main reason why people aren't investing into cryptocurrency.

They are afraid that they might lose their money for different reasons. It's either the market is very volatile, or they might get scammed. This is the problem when people aren't guided with regards to investing in crypto. They are afraid of losing their money especially if that money is the one where they worked for it for a month or two. They're afraid to take the risk, and to ask help with people around them who has been into cryptocurrency for quite some time already.

Did you have any barriers when you first started?

Yes.

Like most of the newbies here, I'm also afraid of losing money back when I was starting in cryptocurrency. What did I do? I invested my free time watching videos, reading articles that's related to crypto. I've spent the last months learning, and learning until I know the basics of crypto. Of course I will not with the complex ones because I don't have time for it, but the bottom-line is I learned first before I invested.

Nowadays, most of the newbies aren't doing it anymore. They just throw their money into something that they think will make money for them without learning it, and the ending? Most of the time they're losing their money. I just hope that people will learn first before investing, so that they can lower their chances of losing money.

[Viscore]

Genuinely want to know what prevents your friends/gf/ colleagues from investing? Did you have any barriers when you first started?

It’s the high volatility of the market that makes investing more risky to take. And the fact that investing does not guarantee profitability because of its price fluctuations, I guess they started to fear to invest than to be more motivated. However, for me its the fear of losing my money that I really think a thousand times if crypto investing will be profitable for me or I just end up losing all my hard-earned money. Until I decide to take the risk by myself and only by then, I realized that crypto investing is never easy but it’s a lot profitable if you have the knowledge and high patience to make it work.

[Distinctin]

Genuinely want to know what prevents your friends/gf/ colleagues from investing? Did you have any barriers when you first started?

The fear of losing their money seeing crypto investing could end up into a big scam. And maybe it’s also the reason why I never invest at an early time because I still doubt crypto if it’s really legit and profitable when I first know it. But upon reading a lot of positive reviews that crypto investing can create life changing profits, that’s when I start taking the risk and prove it to myself that crypto investing has a lot of potentials to bring wealth into your account.

[Natalim]

Genuinely want to know what prevents your friends/gf/ colleagues from investing? Did you have any barriers when you first started?

The fear of losing their money seeing crypto investing could end up into a big scam. And maybe it’s also the reason why I never invest at an early time because I still doubt crypto if it’s really legit and profitable when I first know it. But upon reading a lot of positive reviews that crypto investing can create life changing profits, that’s when I start taking the risk and prove it to myself that crypto investing has a lot of potentials to bring wealth into your account.

Only Satoshi believes that his creation will become big and reliable in the future while the rest are in doubt. That is why we call this a risky investment but some did try and test it, and that is the beginning of a huge change in crypto space. Well, of course, that fear (fear of losing our money) is very common to all especially newcomers, with a lack of knowledge and market experience, you can really feel like that. But conquering this feeling is the only way to success and so we must have to do it.

[Agbe]

Genuinely want to know what prevents your friends/gf/ colleagues from investing? Did you have any barriers when you first started?

Yes there were obstructions both physical and thoughts. Physical in the sense that people were discouraging me to invest because they don't trust the asset the from my personal thoughts which I was also thinking thinking that investing in bitcoin is a waste because I have invested in different platforms that I have been scammed so I was not having the interest again for anything as investment online. But a friend of mine convinced me very strongly to invest. Most those who are not interested in bitcoin will discourage you to invest. Another group of people who prevent someone nto invest in Bitcoin is Pastors or Christian. They believed that bitcoin is to scam people so they against it. These are some of the things and people which I know that prevented me to invest at the early stage of my bitcoin journey. Though everyone has their own part of the story.

[ultrloa]

Genuinely want to know what prevents your friends/gf/ colleagues from investing? Did you have any barriers when you first started?

The fear of losing their money seeing crypto investing could end up into a big scam. And maybe it’s also the reason why I never invest at an early time because I still doubt crypto if it’s really legit and profitable when I first know it.

Losing money is main concern by many since we don't know if the project we look for is legit and can able to give us profits since mostly the one we encounter especially upon dealing up with those project are scams.

Only few of those project give us a profit that's the reason why many got afraid to invest on crypto since scamming is rampant and there's no chance for investors to get back their money if this was been stolen by those criminals.

Also main problem is its volatility since this also give fear to people if the value of their holdings drop if they are away and they can't do anything especially if there's no internet connection where they are.

[TelolettOm]

The most difficult thing is to start buying, and decide on the storage method. When I decided that I would store bitcoin on a hardware wallet, it was a difficult time to start buying, but in the end I decided for myself the level to which I would buy and try to do it every week, or every few weeks.

You should have a clear plan for how you will act in different situations. Think it through ahead and just follow it.

Why it is difficult to decide about storage? It is easy to store in Segwit wallets or any other private wallets. Just avoid storing Bitcoin on CEX wallets since it is not your own wallet. And you will get a problem once the exchange turns out to be a scam exchange.

Of course, before buying Bitcoin or altcoins, we must have a clear plan about them. Decide wisely about the target for selling and know well about their potential in the future. It is nonsense if we invest in a crypto coin but we don't know how we plan for the coin in the future. It is the same as throwing money into random coins.

[Peanutswar]

Genuinely want to know what prevents your friends/gf/ colleagues from investing? Did you have any barriers when you first started?

People always hesitate to invest in things they don't know and understand. Its like you are giving your money to unknown people without an assurance they will come back again; try to tell them about bitcoin itself if it catches their attention more in bitcoin there's a potential on it but if they don't want to push them too much because you cannot change others people perspective not until they regret to be part of it. Prove it that it is more worth it.

[Razmirraz]

Genuinely want to know what prevents your friends/gf/ colleagues from investing? Did you have any barriers when you first started?

My biggest obstacle is fear, when I first got to know Bitcoin I was still confused about this one technology. Question after question arose in my mind that made me want to find out more about Bitcoin, my curiosity started from how to get it, then where to store it after buying it.
After understanding how to buy and have a personal wallet, I started to find out how to do further transactions. Then another question started popping up, what if the Bitcoin doesn't go to my wallet after I buy it. This is the reason why I spent more time in my first year when I was first getting to know Bitcoin.

[GreatArkansas]

Genuinely want to know what prevents your friends/gf/ colleagues from investing? Did you have any barriers when you first started?

After volatility is the biggest fear of why people are afraid to invest in Bitcoin, we can also add the regulatory risks and scams/frauds.
Because some government rules may have a big impact on the price and legitimacy of some cryptocurrencies while scams/frauds are very prone in cryptocurrency because in cryptocurrency some could hide their identity, which for some scammers are advantage.

[Mpamaegbu]

Genuinely want to know what prevents your friends/gf/ colleagues from investing? Did you have any barriers when you first started?

Mine was technical barrier when I started but I think my curiosity and urgency to learn helped me navigate some of that. I admit it hasn't been easy even till now. For my friends and those I try introducing to this game, theirs is more of fear than technical hurdles. Fear that Bitcoin is a scam and that they could easily be swindled. It used to astound me why they didn't want to give it a try first without sounding unnecessarily scared from bad press. Scam is everywhere in every sector of human endeavours. That's what I always tell them.

[Finestream]

Genuinely want to know what prevents your friends/gf/ colleagues from investing?

Honestly, they are afraid of the risks.
They were briefly interested in entering when they asked me to tell them how to get some of the items I bought from crypto earnings. Until they slowly loosened up after getting the general advice in this space, I said that there was no guarantee that they would get the same thing as I did. Even if they will, it will not be instantaneous because it has taken me several years and experienced various risks to reach this point.

Right. The high risk of losing their money instantly. Especially when I also get to pinpoint that crypto investing will not make you profitable easily and does not guarantee profitability all the time. That’s where they start hesitating if they still go into crypto or not. But I always say if they want to invest, start with a small amount so that they won’t be badly affected once their investments fail. However, as for me, I was never that early to enter into crypto because of its high risk too, and that time it’s still hard for me to invest since I’ve no enough money for its capital. And scams are also rampant those days so I doubted crypto investment at first if it’s legit or just sort of scam that will make my funds vanish instantly.

[Issa56]

Genuinely want to know what prevents your friends/gf/ colleagues from investing? Did you have any barriers when you first started?

My challenge was not having proper understanding about bitcoin. When I heard about bitcoin, I just know that people are making money from it but I didn't have proper understanding about what bitcoin was really about, people  were making money from bitcoin and I also wanted to make money. I started doing more research and I started understanding what bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general was all about, then I have to start trading, I was losing money in trading since i didn't have anybody to guild me, I later gave up after wasting lots of money, but i don't really know what motivated me to continue trading but I was more careful this time around and I stopped future trading.

[Vaculin]

Genuinely want to know what prevents your friends/gf/ colleagues from investing? Did you have any barriers when you first started?

Honestly, they’re afraid to be scammed on their funds and crypto investing is not an exception. So they really have a hard time believing that crypto investing is legit and will never scam their money. And as much as possible, I don’t want to dwell on their own investment as I don’t want to take the blame in the future. But somehow I also make clear to them that crypto is never a source of scams, that’s for them if they won’t still believe and would still doubt crypto.

[Ndabagi01]

Genuinely want to know what prevents your friends/gf/ colleagues from investing? Did you have any barriers when you first started?

I can only speak for myself and not for them; their reasons may differ from mine, therefore everyone is free to form their own opinions about bitcoin investment. The reason, or rather, the barrier that prevented me from joining earlier, was that I detested anything to do with possessing or gaining access to its information online, especially when it involved money. I've been duped before due to my lack of knowledge about online investments and ventures.

I am afraid of such things, therefore I avoid them even though I could have invested earlier and reaped the rewards by now. Nonetheless, I suppose I am not too far into the adventure after gaining a thorough knowledge of bitcoin and how it operates and its potentiality in the coming future.

[Poker Player]

To be honest, very early on, 5 or 6 years ago, when I first became interested, I was wondering if this was a ponzi scheme or something like that. The first thing I saw was that it was linked to the purchase of drugs and forbidden things through the deep web, then the mt gox scandal appeared, so the first information I had was not flattering.

But in the end, I decided to investigate a little more, I read Satoshi's Paper, some videos of Andreas, and more sources of information of this style, informative, and I dedicated myself to get involved.

[Outhue]

It took me a month to get attached with Bitcoin and crypto, yes it was that fast, at the time I have nothing I was really doing and I was looking for a way to get busy doing something with my life, Bitcoin just fit perfectly for my needs so I started doing some practice on Bitcoin and Blockchain, I learned how to configure a pool and also how Bitcoin wallet works.

I was a teacher of myself as I never had anyone who thought me a thing about crypto, the only supporter I had was my father, who to my surprise didn't pressurized me, because in some families, if you get to a certain age your parents will be expecting you to have gotten to a stage where you start providing and have something doing with your life, my father wasn't like this, and it makes my life more easier.

[Rockstarguy]

Did you have any barriers when you first started?

I had so much interest for bitcoin then, but finance was a big challenge for me. Then my biggest fear was to start an investment with all I had. What I do earn as allowance was not just enough for me to invest and if I had eventually invested then I'm not sure I would have been able to make it because all my concentration and focus will be in the investment and I will have this serious fear of losing money when I know it is all of my money I invested.

But the fear was never a weakness for me, it was just only there for me too do right thing by not investing the money for my daily use. I considered making investment the right way over greed to make money from bitcoin.

[isaac_clarke22]

Genuinely, I hesitated to invest in bitcoin when I know about it first and it took years almost 2 to 3 years precisely to understand I missed the early train now let's get into the investment and make some money then only I introduced into bitcointalk and understand the concept of decentralisation and why it is important in this world especially the depreciating fiat money keep all the people in the trap.

And the biggest fear is what if the value of the bitcoin goes to zero after I invested, obviously I don't have any doubt now but at first I thought in the way and realised reward is great compared to risk.

Quite similar to your story there to be fair. I was quite hesitant since I thought that Bitcoin were only for criminals of the darknet and that misconception costed me quite a lot since Bitcoin kinda went up during those teenager years and I could have bought it at cheaper price during those years.

I did not regret it anyway since I was still able to get it regardless. I could have regretted it more if I hadn't stepped forward to clear out the misconception in my head.

My biggest fear I investing in bitcoin as at (2016) was the risk of being scammed I felt it was another possible ponzi, little did i know that investing then would had been a life changing experience and was a risk worth taking. Ignorance they say is a disease.

My colleagues thought also that Bitcoin was a scam, and now they're regretting that they had not cleared out their misconception like me.