# The Crypto Competence Curve

By [shams](https://paragraph.com/@shams) · 2021-11-02

---

We’ve all heard the story before, generally something along the lines of:

> My \[_grandmother/nephew/coworker_\] had no idea what they were doing and accidentally bought a \[_Goobycoin/Silly Penguin NFT_\] because they \[_thought it was cute/listened to a vlogger/got tricked_\] and ended up making \[_$$$_\] on it without even knowing what they were doing while I’m out here constantly missing the mark. Why not me?

It’s simple, really - you’re on the wrong side of what I call the “Crypto Competence Curve.” Or rather, _within it_.

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/d5133aad41ad33f7615b34ea5233208c2671102d9371915d1d09b260a5c52af2.png)

We start with our left tail, the affable nitwit. Let’s call them the _outsiders._ Here you find every news outlets’ favorite clickbait headline: **_“Grandma Thinks Drunk Monkey is Funny, Ends Up with $2.7m Bored Ape”_** or **_“Five-Year-Old Tells Dad She Wants Cute ‘Shiba Doggy’ for Birthday, Wakes Up with $5.7b Wallet.”_** The typical response is some mix of mirth, disdain, and a jolt of galvanization that you, someone who’s been following on Twitter for _wayyyyy_ longer, just need to catch your break.

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/1be964483bf7b2abb5c36daf0b7e3c0f2d3ec8dd34c9edf139d1cdfa90e48134.png)

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but in this case the adage holds: Ignorance truly _is_ bliss. It cannot be faked. The moment you’re capable of questioning why it wasn’t you, you’ve already past the point of no return. My advice to those lucky enough to be on this end of the curve is to avoid learning **anything** and keep doing whatever it is you’re doing (or not doing).

Next we visit the right tail, whom in contrast to those above we’ll dub the _insiders._ These are the folks who have next month’s popular NFTs as their profile photos, trawl the deepest dregs of discord, and will one day subject their disinterested grandchildren to a habitual stream of war stories from their time in the Crypto Winter of ‘17. Some smart, some lucky, a common thread can be described as an unrelenting dedication to the Web3 space.

…or just deep pockets, a disposition to double down, and 💎🙌.

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/2d5c29bc82a5b30e714168864b1f1f3a8ede4f8520a72409170c9a5c8d8c998d.png)

Regardless, the cohort displays a willingness to sit there for hours and days and weeks on end tracking, punting, and riding their wins (or losses) to the bank & back again.

And finally we get to the middle, the bulk of the curve. The worst of both worlds. Here you have smart, capable investors who possess an unfortunate combination of market fundamentals and rationality that has served them well in most other financial endeavors. They’ve read Benjamin Graham, taken an MBA stats course, and swear by [Matt Levine](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/authors/ARbTQlRLRjE/matthew-s-levine). In most other contexts this is an excellent position to find oneself in: Black-Scholes-y enough to know how it _should_ play out but cued into how it _tends to play out_. If this is you, take my advice and back away slowly from your Coinbase Pro account (because you’ve heard it charges less fees for some reason) and heed this counsel: The fact is you’re destined to end up holding the bag. You know too much to ape blindly into a [shitcoin of a memecoin](https://twitter.com/litcapital/status/1453433684783140873?s=21) but too little to get in early enough at the right time and place, stuck forever chasing the illusive triple-digit gains you see daily across your channels.

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/cf0176a86ba9be91005b381fc3be7642434fff4d9b5d0cc636a849d03e3169f8.png)

Given you can’t exactly dumb yourself down (trust me, I’ve tried) you have two real options \[_disclaimer: this is not investment advice\]_:

1.  **Get yourself onto the right side of the curve.** Spend some time diving into the less-sexy blockchain [fundamentals](https://decrypt.co/learn), swallow [Messari’s research section](https://messari.io/research/grid-view), subscribe to a [newsletter](https://lex.substack.com/), join some discord channels, and be more than just an outside speculator in what might be a paradigm-shifting socioeconomic experiment.
    
2.  Do some research and pick one of the various index fund protocols ([Index Coop](https://www.indexcoop.com/), [Velvet.Capital](https://velvet.capital/), [PieDAO](https://www.piedao.org/#/), amongst others), DCA your way in, and **enjoy the ride from the passenger seat**.
    

In or out, take your pick. Just don’t get caught in the middle.

---

*Originally published on [shams](https://paragraph.com/@shams/the-crypto-competence-curve)*