Most People in Crypto Don't Really Care About a Financial Revolution
This will earn me hate and ridicule, but I'm gonna do this anyway. Rant time.
Way back when I first got into bitcoin, it was around $10 a piece, and bought a bunch. It never crossed my mind that we could one day see bitcoin at $7000 - let alone $20,000 - a piece. Sure, I knew that everything was possible, but it was still never a thought that I gave attention to.
I originally got myself a bunch of bitcoins to use for - ahem - alternative purchases.
The point of bitcoin, a digital currency, was to be used as a currency. Quite the concept. The allure of BTC was that it wasn't controlled by the government, or a central bank. It was obviously something a libertarian myself could appreciate.
The idea of bitcoin was sold to me as the currency of the future.
Notice how I say "currency"?
Then the price started to spike, hard. And quickly enough, bitcoin was worth $100, then $200, $500, $800 dollars a piece. It made a lot of people into millionaires. All those people who had bought their bitcoins very early, even when it was below my personal $10 entry point.
Even people outside of the crypto sphere heard about these "bitcoin millionaires" who had sold their bitcoins and bought beach houses, cars, cocaine and expensive whores.
Bitcoin became a hot topic, and despite a few slumps, it's been rising in value to this very day, recently reaching all-time highs.
So, does this mean that we're closer to a financial revolution brought forth by cryptocurrency?
Hell no.
You see, as it began to rise in value, bitcoin moved from its original purpose - that being a digital currency - to an investment. People started to buy bitcoin because its value is rising, and could rise exponentially in the future.
Not that making investments is a bad thing; I've made my money mostly on crypto investments, after all.
However, the question no one seems to be asking themselves is this: what's the endgame of all these crypto investments?
To be used as crypto? To be used to buy a house, a car, groceries? No, the endgame is to ultimately dumping them into fiat profits.
Because that's what people really care about: how much fiat currency can I make off of these crypto investments.
It bugs me because, in the midst of all this, the original, and awesome, point of cryptocurrencies seems to be lost. Crypto was supposed to offer us an alternative to the state-controlled fiat currency that will ultimately fail us, and make us poorer. It was supposed to be an alternative to the spying and control that we're subjected to when using government money.
I've been following people in crypto for a long time, and I'm afraid a lot of people would take quick fiat currency profits over a global financial revolution any day.
It can be seen in the popularity of bitcoin, for instance.
What's bitcoin good for? It's expensive and slow; confirmations take an average of 300 years, and transaction fees keep climbing so high there's no real point in even using it. So, it's already worse than fiat currencies. Store of value? Well, maybe, kinda, the volatility does make it a failure as a store of value, as well. Gold is still a much better store of value if you're looking for one.
So, again: what's bitcoin good for? It can't be used as a currency, it sucks as a store of value, so what's it good for? An investment. Certainly not as a currency.
Ethereum is predicted to be the next bitcoin now. And already the blockchain is failing; confirmations are getting slower, and we're seeing the same things happen that are happening with bitcoin.
So, why are people buying ethereum? Because the value is going up.
And hey, don't get me wrong. Of course, it makes sense to make good investments, and we all need fiat currency to live right now, and who doesn't like profits. I certainly do, and I've made profits in crypto that I'm happy about.
I'm just annoyed by this stupid hype over coins like bitcoin and ethereum because all they do is stand in the way of an actual crypto revolution that could be brought to us by a better blockchain.
Well, I guess there's no hype for any coin right now, but you get the point.
You know, like one with three second, free transactions, and great scalability.
Despite what people may feel about Steemit, the site, or even Dan - and there certainly are a lot of mixed feelings out there - the STEEM blockchain is the best blockchain currently out there, and the best bet right now to bring us a digital currency that can actually compete with the government currencies in usability as an actual currency.
It's possible, maybe even likely, that a better blockchain gets developed in the future, but right now it's safe to say that it's the best one.
And the more BTC's value rises, the more annoyed I get. Same with ETH, to be honest.
What I want to do is buy everyday things with cryptocurrencies. Not just hold them and hope for a price surge, I want a revolution now. I want not needing to cash out crypto anymore to do stuff with it.
I want people to abandon shitcoins like BTC and ETH, because they are in the way of something much greater than some quick bucks on your bank account.
Full blocks, skyrocketing transaction fees.. bitcoin user not affected, huh, right guys?
No wait...
Well, there's one great thing in crypto right now. The fact that DOGE revolution will be forever. One day, we will be buying Hot Doges with 1 DOGE, and my 1,000,000 DOGE will feed me for a long time.
To the moon.
I think cryptocurrency is primarily an investment right now but it has to ultimately fulfill the promises (or assumptions) that go along with it (including those libertarian things) or it will ultimately become a poor investment too. In the long run, why would it be a good investment if it isn't good as a currency or anything else?
The big problem right now is that cryptocurrency is much harder to use than cash or credit cards and much riskier in the sense that a small mistake could wipe out all that you have. These are problems that have to be solved if cryptocurrency is going to become what was expected.
I'm fairly confident in the long term success of cryptocurrency in general but I'm far less sure that it will be with bitcoin in particular.
If there ever were a financial revolution based on cryptocurrencies, it would immediately be hijacked. More centralised blockchains with arbitrage are well-suited for being hijacked; maybe they will do well because of that.
While I'd like to mock you about facebook - this I agree 100% with you on - bitcoin is a total dog and I pick it to never reach the highs it did last December - ever.
As a business that accepts cryptos, we primarily want Steem, Dash, or Etherium. Not Bitcoin!
From speculators, gamblers, and other get-rich schemers, but from anyone with their eyes open everything you wrote is spot on. Good post!
Thank you! Appreciated. That’s a nice thing to say.
When I first bought into crypto I couldn't quite understand how on earth it could possibly work, but hey it sounded innovative and exciting. It promised to be a decentralised "currency". It would cut out all the robbing middlemen.
I added a few different "coins" to my portfolio and am still holding onto most of it and yes hoping it will grow.
Some friends say that it should be largely decentralised but also centralised to a point. But then surely either it is or it isn't?
It certainly needs to be more easily accessible for transactions. I live in hope, the blockchain is still in development stage. It will happen... I just hope I'm still alive to enjoy my fortune when it does lol 😂
The first ledger currency masters came about via control of mining gold and silver. No conspiracy there, however, this nascent Cabal saw an opportunity within the natural religious order of the day and conspired to co-opt the religious hierarchy. These currency masters used religion as a means to consolidate their control over society.
My site's basic premise is that mon eye is a religion...I call it the God KA$H.
There was never going to be a co-opting of anything. Ledger keeping and mining go way back. But when the only game in town is the casino one is forced to play or live on the streets or wilderness. I'm too old for either.
This happens in any market. People will come in with big dreams. A decentralized system won't be perfect. It won't be manipulated as much as other systems but for now when we are still in the early stage it will happen and its a part of it.
Isn't the crypto market all but completely manipulated?
Isn't the crypto
Market all but completely
Manipulated?
- schattenjaeger
I'm a bot. I detect haiku.
Thats basically what I said. Its manipulated amd this will continue because of all the traders trying to get rich. Adoption can help stop this but it'll be a slow process.
STEEM is a good mix of centralization and decentralization that works and is also not controlled by any real single entity, that combined with the speed and lack of fees makes it pretty much flawless. The fact that it's not even a top 10 crypto is absurd to me
Kinda proves my point, and it makes me sad. STEEM's solved a lot of the cryptocurrency problems that other coins are riddled with.
But again: it's not really about that.
You can look at Steemit, too. The free market rarely, if ever, rewards "the best" of anything. It rewards things based on entirely arbitrary whims. Coupled with nepotism and other shady maneuverings.
Steemit has its problems, sure, but the fact STEEM itself doesn't have some sort of payment processor front-end that just ignores the social network aspect entirely is pretty weird
I agree. But I think ned once talked about something like that.
Yeah, I'm sure something like that will be done at some point.
Which also seems to turn DPOS-based systems into less-than-decentralised entities, not necessarily run by a colluding group you would choose yourself.
You’re right, currently the market is speculative, and not really based on the actual real life application of the different Cryptos. The ICO phase created a crypto mania, but it also hurt crypto, because most of the ICOs are dead by now.
Only a handful of the Cryptos are actually being used for more than just speculation. Steem is one exception and that is why I hold on to it. I don’t care what is written in some of the new Cryptos white paper until they actually start materializing their objectives.
As for Bitcoin, it will never become the real world currency, how could it with such a low supply, and such high transaction fees? It’s not convenient. It is more a store of value, than anything else, and attractive because it is scarce and of course because of the brand.
I too miss the revolutionary ideas and attitudes of early crypto. Yet everythings comes back around.