There are numerous investment options for traditional investment classes, such as real estate, precious metals, equity investments, fixed-income securities and cash. However, over the past few years, investors worldwide have witnessed a rapidly evolving alternative finance landscape. Cryptocurrencies or altcoins receive close attention from investors who are captivated by tremendous growth opportunities and fast and easy options to invest in them.

There are hundreds of different crypto exchanges around the world, each offering opportunities to buy cryptocurrencies. The majority of the exchanges have user-friendly mobile interfaces making it very easy to invest, but not all exchanges are trustworthy. When choosing a crypto exchange, it is important to compare many features such as costs, limits on withdrawing coins, lists of alternative currencies, transaction speed, trading volumes, and check if you as a user can control your digital wallet keys where your digital tokens/coins are stored. Crypto exchanges can be classified into centralised and decentralised. All centralised crypto exchanges follow the “Know Your Customer” registration process, which requires formal identification for all clients. These exchanges run their transactions on their private server and typically provide some level of insurance to protect their users if their system fails. Thus, it is essential to ask about your insurance coverage and, most notably, the amount of insurance. Decentralised exchanges do not have a central authority, and each computer inside the network is part of the server. Due to their decentralised status, they are not under specific monitoring of any regulatory body.

The security and safety of digital cryptocurrency tokens remain as significant concerns. Purchased cryptocurrency tokens need to be stored in a secure location. Numerous retail and institutional custodians provide services for storing your cryptocurrencies in a secure online wallet. You can also keep your digital cryptocurrencies on external devices and print keys on paper and store them physically in a safe box. However, some cryptocurrencies exchanges do not allow users to control their digital wallets.  It is necessary to understand the risk and return relationship in cryptocurrencies trading. The markets are speculative and highly volatile, so it is essential to do your research and remember you can rapidly lose your investments. It is crucial to check your tax implications for capital gains and losses when trading cryptocurrencies.

As one of the most popular cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin is classified as a store of value coin, also known as “Digital Gold” among cryptocurrencies. The widespread Blockchain adoption was linked to Satoshi Nakamoto back in 2008. Bitcoin is differentiated from other cryptocurrencies by having a fixed supply of 21 million tokens which can be mined.

Recently, concerns were raised in relation to the Bitcoin network’s energy consumption as miners are continuously running computers to solve complex algorithms/puzzles to discover a new block. Once a new block is mined, the miners are rewarded with bitcoins. The University of Cambridge’s Centre for Alternative Finance has introduced the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index, which shows that the yearly electricity consumption is 150.04-terawatt hours, which is expected to grow further. Interestingly, the amount of electricity consumed by the Bitcoin coin in one single year is sufficient to provide power to all kettles used to boil water for Europe and the UK for 5 years and meet the University of Cambridge’s energy needs for 853 years.

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Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.

Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.

– Marie Curie

Problem: Depression—lack of early detection leads to lost potential for individuals and society.

New Tech Implications:

• Developments in sound recognition is promising for early diagnosis.
• Telemedicine provides a convenient way for many patients to receive care that they would not otherwise engage with.

Change Hypotheses:

• New technology available to help people self-diagnose mental illnesses virtually
• Help doctors diagnose during visits
• Increased publicity on how to treat early
• New medications

Dream:

• Everyone will have depression and anxiety diagnosed at its earliest stage
• Increased healthy lifestyles
• Decreased substance use
• Increased productivity for the world

Marie Curie’s quote shown above points to so many truths. Today, I would like us to think about how the stigma attached to depression keeps us from knowing more about it. This lack of insight into an individual’s pain not only creates a bigger problem for that person, but also a big problem for the world.

Depression affects over 300 million people suffering from depression worldwide. Almost 800,000 people die by suicide a year*, AND IF treated early 80% and 90% of people with depression respond quickly to treatment and gain some relief from their symptoms within 4-6 weeks on a medication and/or therapy regimen**

Challenge Questions- What can we do?

Start at home:

• Early detection
• Ask these questions of yourselves and share them with you family/friends.
  • How are you feeling? When was the last time you went outside? Had fun?
  • Are you eating and sleeping regularly?
  • How do you feel about yourself? do you ever feel like hurting yourself?
  • How are things going with your friends?  Do you ever think they would be better off without you?

If these questions prompt a yes, please do not ignore them. Rather, look for information from trusted sources on the internet, talk to your doctor, a counselor, or call a helpline, and be sure you are safe.

Reflect more on safety with these questions:

• What medications do you have in your house? Who can get to them?
• Is there anything else in your home that could be used for self-harm?

Think local:

• How are you, your family, and friends doing?
• Is there someone who you have not heard from recently
• If you have a business, where are our employee pain points?
• Is there a way you can add- healthy habits into the workday?
• Is there a way of serving customers that improves their social interaction/lifestyle?
• Are there ways it can be modified to fit more or different needs?
• Is it possible that the person that drives you nuts is driving you nuts due to a mental health concern? If so, how can you modify your interactions with them, to improve things?
• Is there an appropriate place to post a hotline number for people to see?

Go Global:

• How do you interact with the wider world?
• Could you post a message of encouragement during National Anxiety and Depression Awareness Week (May 18-23)?
• Where are your financial investments?  Does your portfolio reflect your beliefs in how to promote a healthy lifestyle?

My response to the challenge:

Over the years, I cannot count the number of children I’ve know whose lives have been affected by a family member’s depression, anxiety, or their evil triplet substance use. It is a problem that is almost always more convenient not to deal with in the short term. Like many things, however, ignoring it makes it worse. In fact, this is true more for depression than most of the medical illnesses I’ve helped treat.

As we enter the spring of our year with COVID, take stock of yourselves and those you know.  Seek help if you are currently worried about someone in your circle. I do not have an answer for coping with the devastation in any of your personal lives that depression and substance use have produced other than to again encourage you to find the energy and courage needed to seek professional help as needed.

My dream for how to impact depression and anxiety is both smaller and larger. It is smaller because I dream of minimizing its effects through early detection. It is larger because before people will accept a diagnosis or seek treatment any stigma associated with it must be eradicated. Larger, because attitudes are hard to change. As with most things the answers lay within each of us. I encourage you to become informed and challenge any assumptions you hold that do not fit the facts, or the kind of person you want to be.

The world has big problems, and everyone is needed to re-imagine solutions that meet the needs these problems create. We can’t move forward if we do not understand what forward looks like. Please help by sharing this post and engaging below.

I look forward to our conversation,

Ruth Dwyer, MD, FAAP

PS:

– Did you know April is stress awareness month?  Or that Depression Awareness Week is May 18-23? (As a student, this seems especially well placed for me, if only I had time to acknowledge it:)

– Did you know that in the US on the last Saturday in April The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has been hosting the National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day each year since 2010? (if you missed it this month- don’t stress over it they will do it again next October.)*. This is a great way to decrease people’s access to something that could be deadly. –It is especially important to think about if you have a teenager, they share.

( https://www.inspiremalibu.com/blog/news/national-prescription-drug-take-back-day/)

* Torres, Felix. “What Is Depression?” American Psychiatric Association, 2020, www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/depression/what-is-depression.

**Bach, Natasha. “World Mental Health Day 2017: Illness in the Workplace Is More Common Than You Might Think.” Fortune, World Health Organization, 10 Oct. 2017, fortune.com/2017/10/10/world-mental-health-day-2017-workplace-depression-anxiety.

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The reality is that every business venture can, at some point, be exposed to financial instability.  In the case of MSMEs, lack of sufficient and timely access to finance is typically a leading reason for business failures. The consequences of becoming illiquid can have a detrimental effect on business operations, forcing them to declare insolvency. MSMEs are more susceptible to broader economic conditions, thus, smaller enterprises’ survival rates are low compared to larger entities as MSMEs generally do not have the long-term capacity to withstand economic downturns. The increasing numbers of MSMEs exits and failures exacerbated by the COVID-19 worldwide pandemic emphasise the importance of understanding the reasons that could lead to this extreme outcome.

Recognising how to manage and deal with unforeseen financial events is essential for every owner-manager. The crucial elements of the financial decision-making process include (1) financial decisions – choice between equity or debt funds and associated costs; (2) investment decisions – choice of purchasing long term assets and (3) operating decisions to either reinvest profits back into a business and/or distribute profits back to the owners. In general, there are five fundamental principles to starting a new business: (1) evaluate your current financial conditions; (2) state your financial goals; (3) develop an action plan to achieve your goals; (4) implement your financial goals for your business, and (5) monitor and control the progress and introduce changes where necessary.

It is vital to plan for your business’s financial success and, when making decisions, always assess costs versus benefits and implied risks. Financial information has a significant impact on many business decisions. Financial statements report on the past, which is not necessarily going to indicate future prospects with 100% accuracy, but it can be very important in examining and evaluating your past financial decisions. In order to perform the financial statement analysis, every owner-manager needs to investigate past and current financial information of the business, industry benchmarks and competitors’ key financial indicators. The key financial ratios allow you to analyse the solvency of the business, liquidity of the business, the profitability of the business, ability to service short- and long-term debts, among others.

Your business’s success depends on many factors, and the economic environment in which your business operates creates the path for the future direction. At times of economic growth, there is an increase in business activity which is supported by strong consumer spending. During recessions, economy contracts and consumers tend to stay on the safe side and become very cautious with their spending plans. Economic indicators such as unemployment rate, inflation rate, gross domestic product (GDP), stock market index performance, exchange rates, government regulations and support suggest its future direction. Understanding and then applying in practice elementary economic indicators will help you think like an economist/financier when making financial decisions. The budgeting process allows the owner-manager to plan for the future and create strategic business plans in order to sustain business stability. This is the time for owner-managers to make sound business decisions related to revenue sources, spending, saving, investing, and, if necessary, pivoting towards new business ideas.

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