Slowly, and then all at once.
We used to think that adaptation to the environment was a condition that required millions of years to achieve. We confirmed this "truth" in the fossil record; trust the science! But that's the thing about science: it changes, just like evolution. Now we realize that on a relative scale, evolution happens in bursts; painful, violent, volatile, destructive bursts.
This makes sense because when the environment does not change: evolution is not necessary. A life is fragile, but life itself is robust and shockingly resilient. When the habitat changes, a species must adapt to this change, struggle, or die. And dying is a real option here; a good option in many circumstances. Make room for something else that's up to the task. Of course such a concept is hard to juggle for humans at the top of the food chain causing so many artificial changes to our landscape leaving a wake of destruction in the natural habitat. None of this is easy to come to terms with, but we do know that mass extinction events happen and will continue to happen. The only real question is the ultimate result of these changes.
Pertaining to crypto:
As we slowly trudge forward into the digital future, we embark on a different kind of evolution; one that moves more quickly than we have ever seen. Anyone who's been here long enough knows that a 4-year cycle in crypto is an entire lifetime and technological epoch within the space.
dodo bird memecoin incoming
Memecoins
We love to hate on memecoins. God just look at them; they are so stupid. Why are people buying this stupid shit? This trash needs to die off already, amirite? Many within the space have taken the stance that memecoins should have never existed in the first place, and yet here they are. And the more I think about it, the more obvious it becomes that they were always going to be a thing. In fact we even talked about their birth during the last cycle and the one before that without even knowing it.
Anyone remember... ARK?
ARK is a cryptocurrency and blockchain-based development platform allowing anyone to create their own fully customizable and interoperable blockchain.
ARK was founded in mid-2016.
We all knew
Even as far back as the ICO epoch everyone here understood that one day anyone was going to be able to spin up a token for any reason whatsoever. The memecoin epoch provided this exact functionality, and now everyone is losing their collective minds like we never saw it coming. We saw it coming; we saw it coming for 8 years. This is exactly how it was supposed to go down. Deals wif it.
The hat stays on
The point here being that this evolutionary process was never meant to be pretty or sleek with a centralized streamlined design. The entire crux of this evolution in flat architecture is that we expand outwardly across the entire playing field. Every door must be opened; every idea, no matter how stupid, must be allowed to take breath; even if just for a fleeting moment before being sent back to the abyss.
999,999 out of a million tries are failures by design
This is not the movies. If you get bit by a radioactive spider... you do not turn into Spiderman and gain superpowers. Adding a chromosome to your DNA doesn't make you a superior being: it means you have Downs Syndrome (which was formerly called being a "mongoloid" before the PC police put it to its final resting place, for good reason). Modifications to our biological programming yield very bad outcomes 99.99% of the time; instant death in many such cases.
And clearly crypto is no different.
Many of the best inventions are discovered quite by accident, and I'm beginning to suspect this historical repetition is going to pop up within the crypto industry as well. We are in completely uncharted territory. Think you know better? Well, that's weird... because we are where we are for a reason, and that reason isn't, "Well yeah because people are stupid and greedy." That's a fantastic copout taking zero responsibility for the situation. People are no more stupid or greedy than they've always been. We already made it to the bottom a long time ago; we can't go lower.
Believe in something.
Why are memecoins a thing right now? Because everything else has FAILED. And guess who refuses to take responsibility for that failure? You guessed it: it's us! The people who failed to create actual utility and successful business models. But hey maybe if we keep blaming memecoins and other people then it will all work out, amirite? Why take responsibility when we can just pretend that all of this was completely beyond our control? Eh? Sounds good to me! I see no problems here.
The culmination of the memecoin
Most of these memecoins booting up actually have more utility than all the garbage DEFI tokens that were invented in 2020. Why? Well, for one, they aren't hyperinflationary Ponzies. Anyone can boot one up and they inherit a tech-stack that is more advanced than the previous epoch. They all have a liquidity connection to the main chain through AMM tech. The distribution can be whatever anyone decides, and they aren't even investment contracts: meaning they are completely out of bounds of SEC jurisdiction.
They are the natural evolution of the environment we found ourselves in: which was Operation Chokepoint 2.0 and regulation by enforcement combined with a flood of "utility" tokens that turned out to be nothing but vaporware. Memecoins decided, "You know what? To hell with that we'll just lean into being vaporware and save a ton of money not paying a dev team to create nothing." This is OUR FAULT. And yet no one will take responsibility. Everyone is convinced it's someone else's fault.
SEC crypto-mom taskforce: Memes are beyond our jurisdiction
And even if a government agency does try to shut them down... guess what? They can't. All this stuff is permissionless and completely beyond any government's control. This is why I get so irritated when people are like tHe gOvErNMenT SHoulD dO sOMetHinG! First of all they can't and second of all no they shouldn't. This is not "crime season"; this is the way it's always been in this industry. The SEC never shut down a token before they launched and went viral.
This new environment is ANARCHY
And I can tell a lot of you guys, even the diehard crypto users who have been around for a long time, are really struggling with this fact. You can not go back to daddy government with your tail tucked between your legs and ask them to regulate tech that you've decided you don't like. That is not how this works. There are no rules. Deal with it. PERMISSIONLESS! NO EXCEPTIONS! THIS IS WHAT YOU SIGNED UP FOR! ALL CAPS!
This is the attention economy: so build something that garners attention instead of blaming memecoins for stealing your thunder. Memecoins are only stealing our thunder because what we built isn't as impressive as we think it is. There might be a lot of POTENTIAL here, but there is very little active kinetic energy. Heads out of the clouds and back down to Earth, please.
This is why attacking the supply is always ineffective:
- We should just ban prostitution!
- We should just ban drugs!
- We should just ban alcohol!
- We should just ban memecoins!
In every single case "banning" something means attacking the supply and the suppliers. Guess what happens to the supply when you attack it? Price goes up. That's what artificially low supply does when an asset remains in demand: increases the price of the assets remaining on the market. This is economics 101 and most people far failing as far as I can tell. The only way to deal with these issues is to attack the DEMAND... but that's a much harder strategy so we tend to just blame the suppliers as if these things can be regulated away. Again, not how it works.
Evolution is quite literally retarded (aka slow).
Many people reference Bitcoin as the first crypto. That's only somewhat true: Bitcoin was the first crypto that actually worked. This is a problem we have been working on for over forty years. This is an issue that existed before I was even born. The Byzantine General's network problem was posed at the very birth of the Internet. The nerds knew this thing was a problem right from day one. Only just recently did we actually solve it... and now look at the flood that followed in the wake of that solve. Slowly, then all at once.
Conclusion
We are in a very awkward phase of the cycle. It's time for reflection. It's time to admit that what we've built up to this point was less interesting to the consumer than dogshit memecoins. That is a fact. There is no denying it. Take responsibility.
But just like all other fads, especially crypto fads, most of the shitcoin casino is going up in a blaze of absolutely glorious destruction. Only the survivors remain. Will we adapt to the new environment? Will we struggle? Will we die? I have little doubt that both Bitcoin and Hive will survive the coming onslaughts of the future, but their ability to thrive during that time is somewhat debatable. Nobody ever claimed this was going to be easy.
http://myspace.com (still alive w/ millions of users)
Posted Using INLEO
No Pain No Gain
Look at me, I'm evolving! The $Trump may be under a $1.00 when the token unlocks hit at the 3-month mark. It may not be apparent but I cut my teeth meme-ing back in the heyday of "FARK". Discontinuing the penny may be a premature move.
Back in my day we had to painstakingly tease those pixels out with MSPAINT :)
Evolution!
Okay. Let's leave the drug prices alone.. unless you're talking prescription drugs..
Ah so you agree that we should keep funding the drug cartels and giving them a ton of power?
Interesting!
I would say we should not be worried about increasing the supply of things.
Increasing the supply does not increase the demand.
We have plenty of experience with such things here in cryptoland
Inevitable, like the early days of the Internet where everyone had a crappy eyesore of a Geocities webpage whether they needed on or not!
ha geocities is a great example I always forget to reference it
Remarkably lucid, cogent, and concise commentary on crypto. You are absolutely correct about the evolutionary burst of innovation ongoing presently. There is an inherent weakness to all crypto presently, however, and that is none of it can be permissionless because it can only function on other people's personal assets. Every crypto depends utterly on the internet, which is not some natural resource like the ocean, but infrastructure that is built, financed, wholly owned by private parties and various entities that can impose whatever restrictions they want on it's use.
When crypto breaks free of that dependence, it will truly become permissionless. Until then it's a gift of them that permit it to exist.
Thanks!
I refuse to transcend, haha it's a lie. What you mention is very true, I don't see that the effort is appreciated nowadays and those who put little effort will want great rewards. I mean, if I comment that you generate profits with these articles in hive, they look at me like a fool.
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It's a law of supply and demand. But in may case, when there's a pain, there's no gain, just pain and I learned to smile in the pain. Look, back in the days, I still hold all of those Shitcoin and meme coin that never get traction. And sell all those promising coin at very low price. I might be financially free now if I just all knowing.
This kind of cycle would just repeat and same stuff might still happen
People would always be people...
Blaming other people for something they deem bad because they aren't earning from it or don't understand it...
Sooner or later they'll give up and find something else to hate on...
They change, move on and evolve😂✨
The bitter truth
Very soon we will see shitcoins have zero existence and the valuable coins will take over
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