Bear Market? More like Chicken

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We're all a bit anxious about the big dips and red percentages these days. Our HODL instincts are kicking in despite all the FUD FUD FUD going around everywhere. We tell ourselves that everything is going to be ok and we try to block out the occasional imbecilic sound bytes that leak through every so often from CNBC and absurd commercials.

• I've never been so disappointed in fast food (explanation to come in another post). Source

And in this anxiety, we try to make sense of it all. We try to rationalize the “market” as if its the monolithic decision of one stubborn old man. So many moving parts and I've seen millions of articles justify the plunge in so many different ways.

But I can finally take my tinfoil hat off as one recent article on Coin Telegraph confirmed my best hypothesis. Chinese New Year.

Or 'Lunar New Year' to be exact. This holiday of the East (that honestly makes a great deal more sense than an approximation of 365 pinned days), in my humble opinion, is one of the major driving factors of the dip and why I predict things will pick up starting later this month and early March.

• Source: Altcoin Buzz

It seems weak to pin the tidings of an almost trillion-dollar emerging market on a single day... but especially for those that have never participated in Lunar New Year ceremonies, you have to imagine the scale in which all eyes are on cash during this period. Dozens of nations throughout East and Southeast Asia and their descendants around the world hold this day as the pinnacle of the year - a hybrid of Christmas and New Year's in the West. These billions of people exchange and average of tens to hundreds of dollars per person, all in cash. This is by far the most intensive exchange of actual fiat currency throughout the year and main reason, I'm guessing, that so much loose cash is lying around in preparation for the big once-a-year swap.

• Source

Full-on Fiat

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If this hypothesis/gut feeling is true, it's a perfect example how the entrenched nature of fiat must be dismantled before cryptocurrency can be fully adopted as a viable replacement. We crypto-lovers live and die by our battle-cries of "decentralized, fast, secure" but as we come up against more and more road blocks and people to shake their heads at our zealot behavior, we realize that cash is still king for a reason. Cash still embodies much more than an increment of money. It pairs instinctively at this point with age-old ceremonies that are indivisible with global cultures.

In the case of Lunar New Year, the cash itself is much more than some exchange of value. "Decentralized, fast, secure" mean nothing in this context where fiat is the embodiment of generations of acculturation. Cash here represents the giving of an older generation to a new one, an investment in a person's future. It's tough to say this in a place like Steemit but we really have to understand that why, even in Asia with all the crypto advancement, there is a deep and seemingly irreplaceable link between value and physical cash/value today.

Well, maybe someone can make LUNR, the crypto exclusively for this day. But until then, there's going to be a great deal of uphill trial and error in these situations before people open their digital wallets before their physical ones.

As we wait for this (inevitable) future, I'll be hoping this year that ended with newbies chickening out will turn into a new 12 months that turn out to be man's best friend. (Please please notice the puns...)

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Until then, Steem on!