I don’t typically write this kind of blog post, but with the new year coming, I think we could all take a minute to reflect on Crypto Currencies and blockchain technology and what’s important here and what is currently happening.
My favorite thing about blockchain technology is that it enables us to move towards a world where the problems that matter are not the ones where the money lies, but the ones that truly matter to the society at large, like curing diseases.
Blockchain could very well bring a new wave of practicality, use and endless applications that actually reward brilliant people instead of rich ones and transition us into an “impact” economy.
But then you look at what people seem to care about and that is, almost without fail, their financial profits and “how to become a millionaire”, instead of being happy with that being a byproduct of the impact economy that we will hopefully one day have.
I will be the first to admit that, having bought 10btc and 10eth in April 2015 (screenshot of my first purchase below), my interest was completely born out of financial gains. But we have an incredible opportunity to enable people who actually deserve it in all corners of the world, instead of those who have had a completely privileged and unfair start of incomprehensible proportions to life, like myself and almost every one of my friends and family.
So where are people putting their crypto money into? Anything and everything that makes them a quick buck, not what will one day hopefully change the world. For that reason, I am completely disappointed with the fact that, although crypto has been struggling through the holidays, the one coin that is designed with big corporations and governments in mind and not the brilliant smaller guys who deserve it, has gone from about $0.24 for one XRP to around $2.45 in one month (chart below). I am not a conspiracy theorist (publicly at least), but let’s not allow this shift of wealth to go straight back to the rich by being naive or not understanding what is truly important here, especially when you can make a ton of money WHILE helping people who deserve it.
So with the new year coming, it seems like the perfect time to ask ourselves a couple of questions:
Is this the direction we want to move towards? Are we the blockchain killers? Is this going to become just another way for the privileged to keep pulling away in a completely unfair race?
Very insightful and well-thought observations on the nature of crypto. I too believe that crypto has the false preconception that it is for a "quick buck" and not the actual reason it exists in the first place - to make a more efficient, impactful and fair economy. Truly great post, I will ponder on this over some coffee and a cigarette.
Thank you for such a nice comment!
If you play smart and give to good cause and support to people in need.The karma blockchain will give you back in return ;)
Absolutely!
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