I've been into crypto since Bitcoin in 2010 (I had another BTT account before this one that I lost because I quit coming here for a long time). I've dedicated a large portion of my life the past 4 years researching cryptocurrencies and examining trends in this market. I have experience trading financial assets. I don't claim to be an expert, but I can almost guarantee I know more about the cryptocurrency landscape than 90% of the users on this forum simply because I've been in this space longer and I've spent so much time studying and researching it. As you can see, I'm a senior member of this forum with many posts under my belt and I have chosen NEM as my one and only crypto. I have zero interest in Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency at this point in time.
Bitcoin, in my opinion, will not be the cryptocurrency that ushers us into the next era of global finance. Many other very influential and powerful people agree with me (Mark Cuban comes to mind). There is a reason why I've chosen to back NEM and that's because right now, in the current state of the crypto landscape, it stands out above and beyond the competition as the coin with the most potential to succeed. Will this change in the weeks and months and years to come? Perhaps. Nobody can predict the future. But as it stands right now, NEM is miles ahead of any other cryptocurrency offering and it's only in alpha.
The dev team has proven to be competent as we can all see from the open alpha, the community has proven to be capable of handling large-scale decision-making (with some hiccups here and there of course, which are to be expected), and if the development pipeline is adhered to there is just no competition for NEM right now. Of course I say this as a stakeholder, but I have absolutely zero intention to sell my stake EVER. NEM is the cryptocurrency I plan to use as my primary form of currency when the cryptocurrency revolution comes into full swing, which it will in the very near future.
Trolls are going to troll, but it's obvious that the only reason a troll would exist in the first place is because there is an incentive to cause harm. The reason there are trolls is because of fear and regret. Fear at the thought of not being able to get in on something that very well may change the world and go down in history forever and regret that they were hesitant to get involved and did not act sooner. The funny thing about trolls in cryptocurrency is that anyone "in the know" is aware that the more trolls there are, the better because that means people feel that there is an incentive to bring down the value which in turn means that they secretly think that the coin will be a major success. There literally is no other reason for a troll to bother wasting their time if they did not think that was the case.
I've seen it before and I know we will see it again, but any time you see trolls start to come out in crypto land that is, to me, an extremely bullish signal. So keep on trolling guys, you're only doing us a favor.
You seem to share the same sentiment I have with regards to Bitcoin. To me Bitcoin is an experiment that went well, but its shortcomings far outweigh its proper use for the long term, e.g., Pure PoW, bulky blockchain data and the possibility of 51% consensus being monopolized by one or two entities. In fact, if the 51% tipping point does in fact come true, that will mark the beginning of the end of Bitcoin. It will not be secure anymore.
Like you, I have also done a lot of research in the last 3 years, although I was never an active contributor in the BTT until lately.
Again, like you, NEM caught my eye, but alas, I only came into the scene in early June. But I believe I more or less made up for the lost time by spending most of my time since in helping to make this a success in whatever way I can. I got to know the dev team and I truly believe they are world class. Most of all, they are receptive to new ideas. Just take a look at their recently released NCC and you can understand better why they are. Their tests have been so thorough.That itself is positive enough to make me believe that NEM is going to be totally different and will stand out from the rest of Crypto 2.0. Yes, I have also lost interest in everything else except NEM!
I have written a couple of long commentaries here. You may also like to add your opinions there as well:
http://forum.nemcoin.com/index.php?topic=2352.0Most importantly we are embarking on some epic projects that will "spin us into a different orbit", in a league of our own:
http://forum.nemcoin.com/index.php?topic=2337.0Finally, please do support us in the coming crowdsale to realize these epic projects. More information can be found here:
http://www.ournem.com/crowdsale and here :
http://goo.gl/AHGzFQThere will be benefits associated with being a participant in the crowdsale. Suffice to say that we are obligated to return something back to our supporters of this initiative as a mark of our appreciation.
As for trolls, I have made it a point to totally ignore them. They exist and like pests, you either kill them or leave them alone. Unlike pests, they don't really change or physically displace our lives. So, I guess the approach is just leave them alone. And if all of us leave them alone, they will just fade off naturally.
) 
