What? No July 4th Meltdown?
So I woke up last Sunday morning with WTF written on my face. The price of Steem had skyrocketed. I predicted Steem would 'moon' one day. However it had done in 6 days what I'd predicted it would take 6 months to do. For some reason I got it into my head that, short term the price of Steem would go down after the July 4th payout. It was the trader in me...
Let me take you back to Monday July 4th,
He said,
*People would see Steem Dollars in their account and lose their freeking minds. It will be cash out city... and whilst they're busying cashing out their STEEM dollars and STEEM into Bitcoin. We'll be busy hooving and powering some cheap STEEM, with our freshly earned STEEM dollars. It's a thing of beauty baby! Playing the market. I reckon we can pick up 40,000 STEEM at 10 cents. $4k well spent. *
I was going to say, but they're cheap now. But I was seduced by getting 40,000 STEEM at 10 cents. It had a ring of truth. Destiny even. I was in!
Suffice to say you know the story. The July 4th meltdown never happened. The opposite. The price started creeping up.
No worries baby... there an opportunity knocking around the corner to pick up cheap STEEM
No post halvening collapse?
It was Friday July 8th, he said,
"It's the Bitcoin halvening coming up tomorrow. Mark my words Bitcoin will soar in price. Everyone would panic dump their other coins (including STEEM) to ride the upwave. THEN we can buy those cheap STEEM we're looking for. Trust me baby, we got this."
The halvening came and went. It was a bigger damp squib than UFC200. It seemed the halvening was already priced into BTC.
Worse still, the world and his wife has found STEEM. The price of STEEM pumped like a blow-up doll in the hands of a randy teenager. HIS plans for cheap Steem going up in smoke.
Blasted STEEM Dollars
He came back to again,
Look, we traders me and you. When things don't our way, we reset. We're here now. What are we going to do? Cry like pussies? We got plenty to be happy about baby... Look at our account! You see how healthy she is. We have Steem Power. Okay it's on the 0.1% of current supply we were after, that cool. 0.03% works. If STEEM hits $3billion we millionaires. On top of that we have Steem Dollars as a hedge. We can liquidate that shit and buy Champagne without having to wait 7 days to Celebrate. This is how it was supposed to be baby.
I stared at my wallet to console myself.
$4,000 and change...
Maybe he was right. I can do ALOT with $4000. It was a good hedge.... But my minds flicked to 16,000. I could have bought and powered up 16,000 STEEM a week ago. The price of STEEM is now rocketing to $1 per STEEM. That's $12,000 dollars worth of STEEM laying on the table, with a measly $4000 in my hand. All because HE was playing mystic meg and predicting the price to go down. Down to where...idiot! STEEM was already at a $20m marketcap. Chump change for a site with such potential. Even my 5 year old knows "You can blog on Steemit and make money." With such a simple sell and real payouts happening only a fool would think the price of STEEM would go down. He had turned me into that fool!
So I stared at the $4k... trying to forget the lost $12k.
He said,
"It's a pump baby. It will correct in a couple of days. What goes up that quick must surely come down. Don't act like you're new to this... this is what WE do...
I cut my eyes at him. He retorted,
Look at you. You... ungrateful motherfucker! You're in the top 10% of STEEM holders. And you're whining like someone owes you a living. Whatever you have in life, is always twinged with the sadness of wanting more... You curtain twitching... grass-is-greener... glass-half-empty... penny pinching son-of-a-bitch! Read this post... look read it!.. @rok-sivante is his name. He's seems happy with his STEEM Dollars. YOU should be more like us... Me and @rok-sivante. We humble. We grateful. We appreciative. We spiritual."
Besides, we can liquidate our STEEM Dollars, at anytime. We can only get our STEEM out of STEEM Power in weekly instalments over two years? What do we look like? A bank giving out a mortgage? The only thing I'm willing to wait 2 years for is a heart attack. We can liquid my STEEM Dollars overnight...
What he said was good. I was happy again.
So I waited a couple more days... the price of STEEM keep rising... $2... $3... I stopped times it by 16,000. All I know is it was now a lot more than $12,000 left on the table. Left on the table for what? So I could liquidate a measly 4 grand.
Why would I want to liquidate anyway? I know that a few thousand bucks is not to be sniffed at... However I have a wife and kids here. They will eat up that $4k in a heart beat. I will see nothing.
I'm not complaining... well I am but not that much.... however,if I'm the bread-winner, they are most certainly the breadeaters.
My share of the spoils of my labour have been the same since I was a teenager. After bills, when all is said and done, I've been living hand-to-mouth for the longest time. If I have £50 per week to spend as I please I'd be lucky.
The only thing that changes for me over time are the size of the bills and the trappings.
Oh we have a futon?... looks like a mattress to me.
Oh we eating wagyu?... tastes like a burger to me.
Crypto, STEEM... that was for me The only way I could win was to accumulate a tsunami of STEEM Power. STEEM Power is geeky enough to qualify as that "funny internet." My wife and kids don't understand it. Yes dear... its all play money... toy money... you can't spend it anywhere. Next thing you know BOOM!! STEEM would explode in price and I would be sitting pretty. In MY 'toy' mansion. Driving MY 'toy' Maserati. I could quit the rat race. Lay on the beach for a few years and die... FAT... LAZY... and HAPPY.
Connecting The Dots
The problem with STEEM Dollars is everyone know it's not toy money. I spend too much time staring at Steemit and it's littered with dollar signs. Even my kids know that dollars are "American pounds." It's real money. They're connecting the dots. Daddy is making real money messing around on this website.
I kid you not, my 7 year old daughter asked me yesterday, "Daddy how much is a Bitcoin worth?" Part of me was proud. This girl is a freaking genuis! She's going to be rich beyond compare.
Then he reminded me,
This little cretin is going to rich at OUR expense. It won't be long before pleading poverty by showing her an empty leather wallet will be countered by her logging into OUR Steemit wallet and showing us the STEEM Dollars sitting inside it!
"If you click here... and here Daddy you can turn your Steem into cash. It's easy Daddy... now can I have Ice cream... in Disneyland Florida... washed down with a Fanta... in Disneyland Paris... please Daddy!... Daddy if you loved me we'd fly first class... Please Daddy... Arrgh... Daddy I hate you!"
He was right. Those blasted STEEM Dollars are compounding my middle-class problems! Crypto used to be my one solace. NOW STEEM Dollars has made it too simple for everyone to understand and crypto has been dragged into the drudgery of every day life.
An indecent Proposal
So here is my plea for the next iteration of Steemit. Can you please give an option for people like me to get rewarded 100% in STEEM Power I need protecting from myself, my family and 'him'... that dumb-ass trader inside me.
For me the gamble is holding Steem Dollars. Being seduced into the comforting bosom of fiat, at the expense of life changing rewards. I need to sit down write... and write... and write... and write... until little fingers bleed, I need to accumulate Steem Power.. after... STEEM Power... after STEEM Power, ignore the Dollars until one day he taps me on the shoulder and says
It's enough... Its enough... You ain't gotta write no more it's enough... You can go lay down... look at your wallet... look at your wallet! You're a billionaire now... go feed your kids... take your wife to the movies... you made it... go lay down... sleep rest.... forever... it's over..."
This site should come with a health warning! ;0)
#boss (V)
Random musings aside
Just wanted to take this moment to say that witnessing the growth of Steemit over the past two weeks has been bloody amazing. Seeing so many talented people flocking to the site is fantastic. I feel like a bit of a fraud, because I would not consider myself a writer... I'm just a guy with a lot of ideas, struggling to find the best way to express them. Thankfully Steemit has been a bit of an outlet.
It's just great to be involved in something that's changing the way we do things for the better.
We've had a post reach 1000 upvotes. A few of weeks ago you could count the number of posts with triple digit upvotes on one hand. The growth has been remarkable but there is still a very long way to go.
This is the power of Steemit:
As I write this my daughter is sitting beside me writing a blog post and asking "How can I get on to Steemit? Do you think the government goes onto Steemit?" She knows I write on Steemit. I can tell she's curious to read what her daddy is writing.
Steemit reasonates because artist expression, story telling and journaling are in the fabric of our DNA. It's not an abstract concept divorced from everyday life. Yes lots of people blog in different places... but here people are incentivised to READ them, together in one place. It brings together that feeling of giving value to others and recieving value from others. Nothing is more heartbreaking than putting your soul into something yet not being able to find anyone to touch.
One day my kids (and their kids) will able to come to the STEEM blockchain and see what I was thinking and doing during this period of my life. I can honesty say, what I write here are parts of me that would have been "lost to the ether" if I had not discovered this platform.
I was attracted to Steemit because I knew a platform that could reward creativity without the need for institutions or middlemen would be huge. It is sorely needed in this day and age. Talented people getting properly rewarded for their effort is something I'm passionate about.
What I never banked on was Steemit tapping into a creativity in me that has laid dormant for a very long time. Whether STEEM/ Steemit or the blockchain succeeds... it will be for THAT I will be truly grateful.
This is what attracts me too. Institutions, middlemen (and corporations) seem to stifle creativity and feed us mediocre creations.
Finally the public can choose what they want to read, without having it go through an editor with ulterior motives on what gets printed or broadcasted.
Great post man I know exactly how you feel.. my 5 yr old daughter has always sat next to me (usually playing on Minecraft) when I trade on poloniex :D
Thanks. Kids pick up so much stuff by osmosis... You don't recognise it until they start spouting a whole heap of jargon they learned from your conversations!
Lol exactly man.. Blows your mind and you realize how much of an impact you have.
haha....'that dumb-ass trader in me'.
Awesome read, "a few days in the life of a trader" lol. I really love how you wrote that, nice little third person style going on.
Although you may not think of yourself as a writer, you have done well here and I am looking forward to more from you.
You are correct in the dilemma of being paid in Steem Dollars rather than Steem Power, however we know the discipline is worth it and will be rewarded. The act of transferring to Steem and then Powering up with build our commitment and reaffirm our choices.
Thanks and see you around!
Food for thought man. Great post!
STEEM hasn't even gotten started. It's only on 1 exchange and less than 1,000,000 users on the website. It is still going to climb up and up. And just like you said, anyone can understand it. When Christmas comes there are going to be people getting money and spending it on STEEM, and people hearing their friends talk about STEEM for the next 5 months and then buy them some STEEM. There are still spikes to come.
Haha... I could relate to so much of that, especially the weekly allowance. After my bills I have anywhere from $50 - $100/month to spend. I'm pretty excited about steemit. I'm wondering what people'd think of a game dev blog starting up. I may give that a try. Our game has been greenlit for steam and I am trying to code and get it ready (until I was distracted by steemit) so I may see about blogging about that so having to generate the blog will give me some modicum of self control back to keep pushing forward with the game. The goal was to at least release it on Early Access with multiplayer, and the tutorial portions of single player done in 2 - 3 months. Now can I resist steemit and stay focused on development? I think I can... I may have to try out the blog of game dev of this game. It has some back history so I could do some blogs before I reach where I am at now. Anyway, thank you for your great post. It gave me quite a few laughs, and I was also knowingly nodding my head quite a few times.