I use US dollars. That makes sense because I live in the USA. When I walk into a store, a loaf of bread, can of cat food or a bottle of milk costs something in dollars.
I don’t invest in dollars. I might use my dollars to invest in things I hope will earn me a return. Gold, silver, stocks, bonds, whatever. But the actual dollars, themselves, are nothing more than a tool.
That makes dollars a currency, right?
Which leads me to how I originally got involved in crypto. I was fascinated by the whole idea of an alternative monetary system that operated independently of borders and governments.
When I learned about cryptocurrency, it seemed like the best potential solution to the question of a worldwide digital currency I had seen. I was looking forward to — this was in 2015 — eventually base part of my collectibles business (which is definitely global) on cryptocurrency.
Subsequently, I saw Hive (and its predecessor) as a great way for people to get started in crypto. Crypto, as a reward for some kind of action totally made sense! Aside from so-called "faucets," it was such a great way for people to get small amounts of crypto, doing things they were already familiar with: creating social content.
Of course, that isn’t exactly how things have turned out… in a sense, I would have to concede that the original ”idealists” lost out to traditional greed.
Most crypto — save, perhaps, for stablecoins — is really not a ”currency,” at all. The vast majority of the world is far more concerned with instant riches from trading and lucky airdrops than in solving the issue of ”what can I BUILD with crypto, that a lot of people will want to use?”
In a general sort of way, I’m not exactly blaming anyone here… I’m more working my way through some version of mild disappointment, perhaps. The sort of disappointment one might feel when a seeming great idea gets misappropriated and turned into something different.
But it’s what we do, as human beings!
What we also do is pivot and adapt to things as they are.
At this point is time, I very sincerely doubt that I will ever be conducting business in crypto, so I have adapted — albeit reluctantly — to the idea that crypto is purely an investment for me.
Of course, there definitely are people trying to develop the business angle of crypto.
But I look at something like DeFi and can’t help but ponder the seeming fact that people who get excited about DeFi are far more excited about ”providing liquidity” and earning some sky high rate of return than actually using the features of DeFi. Where's the actual customer base? The user base?
If you have way more people investing in DeFi than are using DeFi, haven’t you basically created a ”house of cards” that’s bound to collapse? Aren’t you — in essence — putting the cart before the horse?
As I alluded to in my previous post, I am often taken to task by people who insist that I simply ”don’t understand” how it works. Increasingly, I find myself wanting to respond that I do understand how it actually works, as opposed to those who only understand how they want it to work! But they also want to walk on water...
Without a doubt, crypto holds great promise… but it’s not ”magic money” that allows us to completely bypass fundamentals like demand and supply and business viability.
You can’t create ”something out of nothing,” and expect it to hold up under scrutiny… otherwise you just end up with another ”emperor” who’s wearing no clothes!
Of course I look forward to be proven wrong over time... and I really hope that I am proven wrong!
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Curator Cat, June 2nd, 2024
