"I'm only happy when it rains..."

I cut my finger while peeling vegetables pretty badly today and since I was home with my daughter, there wasn't really much to do other than suck it up, put a band aid on it and get back to the task at hand. The problem is that it is the tip of my index finger on my left hand and I am one of those two-finger typists so it is pretty painful to write. Meh, suck it up buttercup.

I wonder how many have dropped off the pack as the prices have fallen? I watched as Steem got driven down to 21 cents today and was thinking at what price a whale or two will sell. Everyone has their price and panic point. I'd say that most are waiting for a large enough panic to drop prices down into a decent buy point, at least those who have some to spare. What do you think the low will be? 10 cents? 5? The lower the better for me as it means that the little I can spare will stake more for the future.

Loss, it is a funny concept in many ways when applied to money isn't it? Just think, what is lost is something that only has any value at all because a group of people have decided it can be used to represent value. Not only that, it is highly manipulated by and out of the control of most people in this world except for a razor edge sliver of the population.

Talking of manipulation, I think it is interesting what is happening to Steem at the moment. Ever thought it could be part of a larger manipulation? For example, there is 55 million Steem on the exchanges and the lower the price, the less the entire amount could get cleaned up for. The current value of that lot is about 10 million dollars only but of course, not everyone is going to sell at this price. However, most of it would likely sell if there was a spike that went to 50 cents, 25 million Steem for 12.5 million, is that a good deal?

Just imagine if someone with a bit of power has been manipulating the Steem market because they have been eyeing the future of the network and wanted a decent amount of Stake. What would they do once they had 25 million Steem Power? I wonder if they would be benevolent? 12.5 million is a tiny little drop for most large companies these days so what if they figure that instead of going through the effort of building their own network from scratch, they will just buy in and control this one?

Would you care if a year from now what you held was worth 20 dollars a coin if it had essentially become centralized?

A lot of the problems Steem faces wouldn't be issues at all in a centralized business environment but, it would come at the cost of many of the benefits of a decentralized system. People are complaining about the way Steemit Inc has used their stake and money, how about the other thousands of people selling. They complain about Steemit Inc cashing something out, that 55 million isn't all theirs. A great deal of that steem has been earned from the inflation pool, not bought with fiat.

I actually wonder if it is possible to know how much value has been put into Steem from fiat or other cryptos as it might tell something about the system and the way people treat steem pulled from the inflation pool. I am guess that just like money earned or given, there is a difference in the way it is handled. A kid getting a weekly allowance has a different appreciation than one who has to work hard for every dollar and most likely, what it gets spent on differs too.

Still, people are feeling the 'pain' of the market lows, as whether it is a reality or an illusion, the sense of loss is present. For me personally I would love to have a super high Steem price due to my holdings but, the low price for my building. This is a building phase so the low price allows me to gain ground, not lose, as long as I can get my ducks into a row and get some off-crypto value into the system. I am guessing I am not the only one here, and I am definitely not the only one in the cryptosphere thinking about buying in.

Just imagine how much the banks and investment firms are spending on development of exchanges, Just think how much the governments are spending on working out how to handle the legislation issues and, how many businesses are spending on finding ways to include it into their business model in some ways. All that for an industry that is currently worth a total of 100B.

For some perspective, Accenture, which is a corporate management firm is worth the same. Just think about that, imagine governments, banks and the largest investment firms around the world putting in that much resource for the value of one company. Yeah, crypto is dead. okay.

At the moment, people are unlikely to lose anything if they have the will to hold long enough but for most, what is being worked out is how much they are going to make. The sense of loss is not actually loss, it is not maximizing potential gain. Of course, for those who are selling out now might lose, if they actually bought in but for most of those on Steem, the loss of value is actually a loss of time.

What that means is there has been a bit of a switcheroo on what is valuable and they have translated their time spent on Steem into a currency, they have changed the denominator. On other time spending activities people rarely do this. Someone can spend 20 hours a week watching shows from Netflix and never apply a currency value to it, but it has one. There is an opportunity cost in it too. For example a kid gaming 50 hours a week could instead game 40 and work 10 at MacDonald's, and make a decent amount of pocket money.

Time is money if you look at it in this way and because time spent playing on Steem attracts value, people get that sense of loss, that sense of fear of not maximizing their earnings. There is a lot of weird psychology that surrounds being on Steem and for the most part, not many of us handle it well, especially in the lows as that is the loss times. And loss weighs more than gain.

People get weird when they feel they are losing, they get bitter, aggressive, depressed, lethargic, uncaring.... well, maybe that is just the way they actually are but they can hide behind a mask when times are good. Have you thought about that from your own perspective? Are you different as a person when there is happy times or bad times and then, which one is your true-self?

"I'm only happy when it rains..."

Or are you only happy when the sun shines?

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]