I’m not a big investor, I’m not a cryptographer, I’m also not the most tech savvy guy around.

I probably know my way around computers better than most people, but I know enough to realise I am at best an amateur compared to the real specialists out there, and then one in the lower leagues.

That said, I have some other qualities that helped me choose Nxt as the cryptocurrency I want to invest in and commit my time to.

I have a checkered background: I’ve had my own small theatre company for 15 years, done loads of odd jobs on the side (janitor, call centers, trademark office, immigration office) and now I am working as the branch manager of a European charity company, specialising as a sales and marketing rep. Doesn’t pay a lot, but I’m not working to get rich, but to help.

Beginning

Like many people, I came to cryptocurrency last year. Sure, I had héard about Bitcoin, but it never really registered on my radar as something I wanted to put the time and effort in to find out more. Again, like many of you, my wake-up call came when Bitcoin started to rise sharply in the beginning of 2013 and then again in December, when it reached the $ 1000 mark.

I decided to do some research, learned about mining and also learned that both mining ánd investing would not be for me. The initial investment was too steep to be interesting to me.

My research led me to the wide variety of altcoins, and I thought I saw some possibilities there. Maybe I could jump in those and get a decent bank roll to smartly trade my way up. However, being who I am, two things happened:

The first one was that I got bored quickly. Most altcoins just rehashed what Bitcoin had already done and were trying to repeat the success it had. Most people involved were also dreaming of what I like to call “earn $$$ sitting on your butt!!”.

The second was that I basically couldn’t contribute. I like to be in the thick of things and have my finger in the proverbial pie. That way I get to influence the thing I am involved in. There wasn’t all that much to do in most altcoins, at least not for me as I saw it.

Nxt

I had already heard of Nxt by this time. This was around the beginning of December 2013. Nxt had already been launched and was getting both positive and negative attention on the Bitcointalk forums. At first I didn’t pay attention, but after a while I started reading the thread that I now summarise on a daily basis.

I was intrigued. Not by the technology, because I still don’t have enough knowledge to be able to judge it. I was intrigued and gradually drawn to this group of people who went around working on this new thing that they believed in. And not even believed in, they were actually making it happen! On a daily basis I saw progress and plans and more progress. They mostly ignored the cries that Nxt was a scamcoin and just went their own merry way and did what they thought was necessary to make Nxt a success.

Sweat Equity

I already said that I cannot accurately judge technology. What I am good at, however, is judging a product’s potential based on the people that are working on it. In Nxt, I found a community that fitted my own way of working perfectly.

What did I invest in Nxt? In terms of real money, I decided to do the smart thing, and only invest what I could miss. I invested about € 50,-. In crypto-investing this is pennies, for those who don’t know. Knowing that this was the limit of my capital investment at that moment, I decided to actually earn the rest.

The Nxt community offers a lot of opportunities to people who actually are willing to put in the work. I decided to translate the wiki, and I decided to do this site. I have no way to contribute to the development of the technological side, but there is value in marketing and PR, too and the devs either don’t have time, or they don’t have the skills to do it. So that’s where my gain is. It hasn’t been a bad earner either. I frequently look bemused at people who cry “unfair” at the distribution of Nxt and then don’t do something about it. It’s not that hard: find something that no one else is doing, and start doing it. The Nxt community rewards those that add value.

Short term vs. Long term

I don’t do short-term. If Nxt succeeds, that’s great, but I have set my goal post at three years from now. That way, I don’t have to worry about short term falls and rises in value. I don’t have the temperament to be a day trader. I fail to get excited by a short term rise or fall in value.

I know from all the information that I gather on the forums that so many well thought out things like the Asset Exchange, colored coins and decentralised services are coming, not to mention all the 3rd party applications that people are working on. I also know that all these people aren’t shouting their progress off the roofs because they are busy working.

That knowledge leads me to believe that Nxt will keep rising in value in the coming years. Not because of a hype (although that helps, of course), but because it actually adds something to the crypto mix that hás value. People will actually benefit by having access to a system that has more transactions per second than Bitcoin can ever have. They will benefit by being able to share data securely and to be able to trade over the Nxt network.

And the best part of it is that I can participate and work with dedicated people who know what they are doing. I’m in for the ride. It’s early days. Maybe you’d like to Nxt join, too.