Thank you very much for this post. The end of the year always has this interesting effect that people stop to hassle for a minute in order to reflect on what has been achieved.
I have myself started considering my portfolio and examining my conscience in as to what brought me to cryptocurrencies in the first place and also the thought behind each currency in my portfolio.
The first reason is I believe the same for everybody. But that's ok because the subject is quite complicated and without an incentive of potential financial gain, the whole blockchain technology and its application would remain something for a rather small group of highly specialized people. Hence, there would be only application solving problems know to the blockchain specialists and only they could decide which direction the whole technology should go.
So financial gain is not necessarily a bad thing, but it should remain what gets people interested in the technology, what makes them read white papers day after day. Because once you start digging into the tech you will naturally feel closer to some project than to others. Backing up a project you like is not only easy thanks to the numerous exchanges, but it also feels right, and one is happy about it.
I agree with you that the rise of Ripple is a bit of a hit for a believer in decentralized currencies but you also have to look at all the people defending "their" coin against everything the market is throwing at them. They just have faith in the project as it is something they regard as needed and worth to wait for. And that is very encouraging to me for the future.
I also got an optimistic push from a great interview from Charles Hoskinson (Cardano) on Youtube (
They way Charles speaks about the Cardano project and how they work is amazing and I am confident that as long as there are people like him in this industry as well as people who care enough, blockchain will necessarily change the world for the better.Well, this was my message of optimism for the new year.
I wish you all the best.
I agree with you and I never said financial gains are bad, the beauty of blockchain is monetizing on social problems so obviously the financial incentive is incredibly important. I just wanted to make the point that as investors we need to be careful about being manipulated into buying ripple or whatever else large sums of capital moves towards, because inevitably we are hurting coins that deserve attention
Yes, we are definitely on the same side about this one. In my strategy, I actually don't mind putting money on coins I don't like or support, I trade these and put the profits on my long-term investments. It's a clear separation of trade and investment.
I actually just wrote a short post about this if you're interested.
https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@fabes/investing-differently
I could not agree with you more. Who am I to predict which ones are going to go up or down? I'm invested in about 200 of the most popular coins (I have accounts on 7 or 8 marketplaces), including ripple with the classic HODL strategy. However, I have a problem with people throwing everything into XRP and pumping it and moving that money away from those other ones. It's not the best point to make I guess, but I just think people should be wary. EVERYONE should invest exactly how you are describing, but I see a lot of pumping and dumping instead, which I think can be harmful in some cases, especially if people are blindly throwing themselves into Ripple specifically