The Wild West of crypto is still fully in affect.
Most people don't seem to realize that we've only just been getting started here. Or they do realize it's still very early but assume we are quickly becoming reigned in by regulators and governments. I'm here to say that we haven't even come close to seeing what crypto is capable of doing. Let's talk again when the ponzi economy of some random country completely collapses and gets totally replaced by blockchain.
Eventually the regulators are going to realize that the thing they are trying to regulate... regulates itself. This is the entire point. The centralized way of doing things is becoming irrelevant but no one is just going to roll over and quit. Everyone fights for what they have and what they want. This is the way of the world.
The Trump Affect
For those who love or hate this clown of a man... it doesn't really matter either way. The new administration is coming in to clean house. Many regulations are about to be rolled back. Under the Biden administration everyone was sure crypto was just about the be reeled in and made to heel. Then the SEC lost every key lawsuit even within that hostile environment.
Now we find ourselves in the backswing of a fishtail in which all of these (often illegal) regulations gets rolled back. I honestly can't even imagine what the next cycle is going to be like within such an environment... in fact we need to get though the last year of the current cycle we are in to even try to make a guess.
But why is being early a bad thing?
Many will greedily proclaim that we're "still early".
We're All Gonna Make It.
This is toxic and greedy thinking. Anyone who thinks like this believes that they are an insider looking to dump on the next user as exit liquidity somewhere down the line. That is not what we are doing here. We are trying to rebuild entire economic systems. We are hacking our way through the jungle with a machete. We are not the lucky ones. For whatever reasons we are the pioneers who chose to be here before anything was actually ready to work properly.
Take the Gold Rush for example.
Name one person who famously got rich from the California Gold Rush. I'll wait. Thousands of people risked their lives to travel across the country, thousands of miles of zero infrastructure, just for the shot at the gold. They were early too, and most of them did not have any measurable success.
During a gold rush: sell shovels
The economic theory of betting against the herd has been true throughout the ages. If everyone is panning for gold, you don't pan for gold. You set up a shop. Sell food, alcohol, or sex workers. The same in true in crypto today. The people making the actual money are the ones building things for the gamblers, not the gamblers themselves. As someone who often finds themselves on crypto twitter I have to wonder how much money these bot accounts targeting incels acquire. Oh look a pretty girl with zero followers is liking my boring crypto post again. Fascinating.
This false concept that there isn't going to be money to made in crypto a decade or two from now is absurd. Or rather the concept that there will be money to be made but all the biggest gains will have already happened. What is this idea based on? It's based on every other centralized boom and bust history has to offer... except this isn't a centralized boom and bust so why is that what we keep comparing it to? The answer to this question is that we've never actually seen a decentralized boom in the economy so we actually haven't the slightest clue as to what will happen or how it will happen until it happens. Until such times it's just extremely shoddy guesswork that's quite guaranteed to be incorrect.
What is crypto even supposed to do?
Crypto is supposed to create a fair economy in which anyone can participate to earn their fair share. This is what people forget: crypto is not PvP even though it is constantly framed that way by both market participants and tribalism alike. If crypto succeeds then everybody wins. Anyone who says "we're still early" intrinsically believes that crypto isn't actually going to succeed and they need exit liquidity to dump their bags back into the old system.
So if we live in a society where there isn't some douchebag at the top siphoning everyone's lifeforce into their own pocket... what is the advantage of being early? The heavy implications here are that being early is actually a huge risk, and while that risk may come with a nice reward... is the reward actually worth the risk? If it was then maybe we should all be Bitcoin-only maximalists because Bitcoin is the asset that has proven time and time again that the risk:reward ratio outperforms everything under the sun.
So we have to admit one of the cold hard facts at this point:
- We are gambling addicts that want to make it big inside the shitcoin casino.
- We don't think crypto is going to succeed and need a Greater Fool to hold the bag.
- We are here for a reason other than to make financial gains.
Personally I would say I entered into crypto and stayed here because of my anarchist politics. There isn't really another option when it comes to the rampant decay of society and Rome-like abuses of power. The end of the empire is coming sooner or later... and I'd like to have an exit strategy rather than trying to wing-it like everyone else certainly will be. We all have our reasons.
Conclusion
Being early in crypto isn't a good thing unless we believe that these networks are actually just Ponzi Schemes that need to be day traded in order to have profitability. This is not how real communities operate; especially not decentralized ones. Until such times that people can work for fair wages in a decentralized ecosystem we really won't know if this little experiment is successful or not. Until then it's just a volatile anything-goes casino. Trade responsibly.