Online Trading Academy, the industry leader in investment and trading education companies, has just announced their Cyrptocurrency and Digital Assets program which covers a comprehensive foundation in cryptocurrency.
Online Trading Academy was founded in 1997, at the height of the dot com boom. OTA began as one of the largest trading exchanges on the West Coast. As new traders began to enter the market with little or no experience, founder and CEO Eyal Shahar felt that there was a gap in education. He shifted his company’s focus on teaching new investors and traders how professional and institutional investors approached the markets.
Mr. Shahar sees a pattern repeating with cryptocurrency and digital asset management: it’s one of excitement and making investing more accessible to a larger pool of people, but decentralized finance also presents the risk. The digital asset ecosystem is filled with both legitimate and non-legitimate projects. New investors need to learn how to navigate these new waters.
“This feels a lot like the mid-90s,” he remarked in a press release. “I founded this company nearly 25 years ago because technology was enabling everyday investors direct access to the financial markets. But they were unprepared. They didn’t have the skills and tools to trade responsibly. It’s no different today.”
Why Online Trading Academy is Moving Into Cryptocurrency
As the economy and technology continue to evolve, digital currency and decentralization are only expanding and becoming hotter topics.
The IRS and other regulatory bodies are now starting to pay attention to cryptocurrency and issue regulations regarding crypto trading activity and accepting it as payment. Digital wallets are now being accepted at a plethora of retailers ranging from large online stores to neighborhood coffee shops. Cryptocurrency is becoming more accessible and appealing to larger amounts of people.
“Digital Assets is so much more than Bitcoin,” remarks Merlin Rothfeld, Senior Director at Online Trading Academy who oversees cryptocurrency education at the company. “Decentralized finance feels like the beginning of the Internet.”
There are definitely parallels between the Internet and the cryptocurrency movement. People were skeptical of the new digital world that was forming, and now there are billions of lives and systems that depend on the Internet. Decentralized finance like cryptocurrency is a fairly novel concept, but one that is going from skeptics and early adopters to a larger user base. As decentralization begins to take hold in currency, it could also be used to transform other fields like healthcare and insurance.
With such a novel concept that many view as an exciting opportunity and others see as a frightening risk, Online Trading Academy saw that they could use their position as a leader to educate those who want to know about cryptocurrency and decentralization whether they are novice investors or are experienced day traders.
Online Trading Academy’s credo of responsible risk management has granted them public trust and world leader status in the investor education vertical. The Digital Assets program with a comprehensive set of on-demand lessons that can be viewed at the student’s own pace.
Many people thought that cryptocurrency was just a fad while others rue not getting in on Bitcoin before its value exponentially increased. On this, Rothfeld stated, “My greatest fear is that people are so excited, they have so much FOMO that they’ll simply fly blind. A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. Whether I’m teaching options or crypto to someone who’s been investing for years or someone just getting started, my mission is always the same, give people the tools to make smarter decisions.”
As more people are now feeling less hesitant about cryptocurrency, it was the right time to launch a course dedicated to how digital assets work.
Digital Assets as a Foundation for Cryptocurrency Education
The Digital Assets course contains about 5 hours of online self-study lessons that can be completed at your own pace. The course thoroughly covers a plethora of topics related to cryptocurrency investing and how blockchain works.
Like many of the company’s other offerings, a large emphasis is placed on risk management principles and carefully analyzing markets, market structures, and the assets themselves before deciding to invest.
Topics include the following:
- The mechanics of cryptocurrencies and digital assets
- What investors should consider when trading, storing, and transferring digital assets
- How decentralization works and how to analyze projects related to it
- Using online crypto trading tools
- Basics of blockchain and cryptocurrency mining
- Smart contracts
- How to use public ledgers
Tuition for the course is $299. However, Online Trading Academy offers a free introduction, Crypto Foundations. It has six video lessons for novice investors who are seeking a better understanding of digital assets, cryptocurrency, and how they work.
Digital Assets also serves as the stepping stone to Online Trading Academy’s Crypto Investor Live program which has both on-demand self-study in addition to weekly live instruction.
Online Trading Academy’s Core Strategy Method
Online Trading Academy became a world leader in investment and financial market education with their proprietary Core Strategy methodology.
Core Strategy teaches prospective investors the basics of risk management and how to make smarter decisions that align well with their short-term and long-term financial goals. Core Strategy teaches students key terms for understanding the world of investments, as they are numerous and can be intimidating. Before diving into more complex types of investments, students learn how to execute basic order types and how to properly assess trading opportunities to discern whether they are worth the risk or not.
With the help and knowledge of instructors, Online Trading Academy teaches a variety of investors ranging from people who have never traded in the stock market before to experienced investors. The company offers live instruction in over 30 education centers worldwide in addition to online courses.
As cryptocurrency becomes more mainstream, with celebrities like Elon Musk now partaking in it, more people will begin to adopt it. However, many people don’t know where to begin with buying cryptocurrency or knowing when they should hold it. Cryptocurrency also has different applications, such as being used to pay for goods and services or remit to people overseas without having to pay onerous wire fees at a bank. Online Trading Academy’s Digital Assets program breaks down how to use cryptocurrency for these purposes in addition to analyzing it like any other investment.
Core Strategy places a major emphasis on risk management. It is based on minimizing risk set by the student based on their own risk tolerance. The Strategy emphasizes Supply and Demand at its foundation. Rather than try to compete with big banks and institutions, OTA’s Core Strategy focuses on using chart analysis to identify where those banks and institutions are buying or selling, which ultimately causes prices to rise or fall.
The Online Trading Academy team is excited to apply this methodology and principles to the Digital Assets program in their mission to have an investing public that is well-educated in cryptocurrency and capable of making informed decisions with respect to cryptocurrencies and decentralized systems. As OTA saw Web 1.0 become Web 2.0 and then adopted by a vast majority of the global population, a more decentralized future running on digital currency could be on the horizon and OTA will remain one step ahead.
