Greed of Missing Out

There have been quite a few posts going and comments made about the bitconnect scam and the cost to crypto community in reputation. I don't know much about the case to be honest but, I do have some observations.

Firstly, I am hoping that not many Steemians were burned by the scam as even though there were some shameless promoters in influential positions here, there was hopefully enough real information provided to mitigate the FOMO generated. What continually surprises me is that some if these people have run multiple scam campaigns on the platform and always rope customers.

Of course, many would have joined the ride anyway knowing the scam hoping to get out before the collapse. Perhaps it is those people that give crypto a bad reputation, but again, I am unqualified in this area but think those who knowingly invest into a Ponzi scheme must shoulder a significant share of the blame.

What I noticed in Steemit.chat though was for at least those in my common haunts, no one was burned as the warnings and information were enough of a warning to be wary. This is a big strength of being part of a community which for the most part, works in the best interest of others. There are 2.4 billion worth of investors wishing they had access to the information or, had listened.

When it comes to hurting the image of cryptocurrencies and setting them back as some have suggested, I am very skeptical. The reason is because of the potential to make money. Greed makes for very short memories and with the earning potentials of crypto, there is a lot of coin to be made. Like gamblers, the memories of the past will be very selective.

Plus, as big as this news is in the crypto communities and even though it has made it into mainstream media, for the average person, it will barely register past a few days at best. 

People have also been sharing the news about some guy who took a 500K loan and lost it on bitconnect. Some have even shown sympathy to his plight. My view is that it is actually these people that give crypto a bad name. It was his greed that took such a massive loan and his greed that did not do the due diligence on his investment. Blind greed. Some say, think of his family. I say, he should have thought of his family before investing. Don't play unless you are willing and able to lose.

But, it is people like this that will used for political manoeuvring to regulate and tighten controls on the industry. Regulation is coming of course, but what form it takes will depend on fools such as this and the sympathies they can generate amongst the uneducated.

For those that are somewhat in the know, this is a warning, a reminder that there are plenty of scams running and that how we act, impacts on others too. I am hoping that the people who are going to create SMTs will understand this also so Steem doesn't become a gateway of scam tokens.

At the end of the day though, the responsibility is our own when it comes to how we invest ourselves and our values. People talk if FOMO as if it is something new but, it is simple greed that blinds the critical thinking with the promise of gain.

Don't become a statistic, be wary of GOMO.

I am writing this on my phone and it is terrible to edit so excuse the flow and mistakes. I just wanted to see how others look at some of the ideas and repurcussions of such events. In my view, it is already back to business as usual for the most part. You?

Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]