The Value of Anything
A couple of months ago, my investment in crypto was zero. When I say investments, I mean knowledge and time, not just currency value. It took me at least two weeks of intense studying to even gather an iota of understanding as to how this ecosystem works. By which time, I was kicking myself for not being smart enough and grabbing a piece of the pie when it was fresh!
A few weeks ago - same thing, but this time it was steem. I read and studied so many forums which advised that steemit is nothing more than a scam. These were folks who invest in crypto - day in/ out. I stayed out of it this platform until curiosity got the better of me.
Now, everyday is a lesson in the world of cryptocurrency for me. My browser bookmarks that were static for years, are changing and piling up. I am gaining insights into a world within the world.
Why do I say all this? It is because the world outside the crypto bubble still sleeps peacefully. It is as if, we are in the matrix and try making others outside it realise this. We keep talking to friends and argue that dealing in cryptocurrencies is not just beneficial, but is going to become an essential part of life.
Bitcoin is not an underground currency anymore. It is as mainstream as it could get. Yet when we try to talk to people about the value of the system on which it is built upon, most of us won't be able to make any difference to the way the world adapts. It is not because we have not tried hard enough, it is because there is someone smarter on the other side of this bubble pulling folks away; although their success ratio keeps dwindling everyday!
I am talking about the watchdogs of the world of finance - banks. The best lie that they have managed to pull off is to convince everyone how complicated the world of production & consumption of wealth can get.
It is quite true, that economics controlled by governments and strings pulled by businessmen has obscene complications in them. However, the one controlled by pure mathematics, is something substantially different and is much closer to the dream of an ideal world.
Holding on to something with your life might make it invaluable for you, but it won't generate any value personally to the sea of people who already have something similar or maybe even better.
To most of us, the banks have successfully built around a system which equates this value to numbers and call it money.
Someone might want to spend time in playing football and they spend time and energy developing their game. Out of this crowd one might be interested in reading books and another might like playing video games; so they indulge in an ICO of sorts, by buying and selling books/ games.
It happens in every walk of life, but is closed in that big wrapper called $! Without this wrapper added, any value looks crippled.
While it is nice to have an universally agreed wrapper for all of our everyday commodities, it is sad to think that this universal value has gained prominence over the actual interests themselves.
To me the true value of anything is, fundamentally, nothing more than our vested interest in it. By saying this, I mean that each one of us become an exchange of sorts when we begin trading the amount of time/ knowledge we have on one commodity based on our own personal interests. What games this value to gain more interest is the amount of like minded people we find to take on these activities. The more the number (i.e. volumes) the bigger the share of our interest.
It is painful to look back at what have been doing to keep this imaginary value from going down the drain; the shameful and deceitful wars that gets waged everyday cutting the in-roads of progress we could have made together! Even today when someone talks about crypto currencies, we need proof and evidence that they are trade worthy. That's how ingrained the whole idea of value is in our brains!
I sense that one fine day when everything is done and dusted, there will be a value identified towards the importance of human race on this planet. And I hope that this value will be really worth something!
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I'm glad you're taking the time to learn about crypto currency and Steem in particular.
Thank you for the comments. Yes, this learning curve can be steep for so many!
joined only steemit last friday night , tried to mine bitcoins 3 years ago the i did the calculation and it just wasn't worth it with the equipment i have .
and now , now i need to learn from scratch again since to many things have changed on the market .
Oh! I can understand. If you have doubts about steemit basics, please refer to my older post on basics