Cryptocurrencies and all their associated products, like non-fungible tokens (NFTs), make little sense to me. But they seem unavoidable as a topic of conversation, as everyone around me is jumping on the bandwagon.
Take one of my friend's, for example, who recently admitted to his wife that he had spent $150,000 on two NFTs.
For the uninitiated, NFTs are digital tokens that can represent ownership of unique items — like art, real estate, music and even a tweet. And if you’ve missed reading up on what this really means, fear not, but trust me when I say it has taken the crypto world by storm in recent months.
In my friend’s case, each NFT is basically a digital squiggly line. The chap insisted he would be able to flip the NFTs to another buyer for more money soon, but his wife is convinced otherwise and is now fretting over how to pay for their children's education.
Another friend of mine has become an enthusiast for all things crypto, insisting that crypto payments aren't just the future. They're a convenient method of payment now, he insists.
His theory was put to the test when he lost, handsomely, to me in poker recently. When it came time to cash out at the end of the night, he asked if he could pay me in crypto.
I rolled my eyes, but agreed.
Then the "convenience" of the lad's crypto wallet became fully apparent. First, he had to whip out a calculator and currency table to figure out exactly how much he owed me, after converting from Hong Kong dollars to the currency of his choice.
Once he had that figured out, he attempted to transfer me the funds. Of course, I don't have a crypto wallet or account, so he insisted that I set one up. By this point I lost patience and insisted he pay me the traditional way, using the famed faster-payment system on our banking apps in Hong Kong.
He reluctantly agreed, and 30 seconds later I had my FPS payment, but the chap was still figuring out how to force his crypto on me.
So let me make this clear. Until the Captain's Bar starts requiring payment in Bitcoin, don't expect me to convert any time soon.