While sitting in a bar with colleagues collecting thoughts, a show came up that I had tried watching and found useless, and they said it was because I didn't give it enough of a chance - I had only forced myself through half of the first season and at that point, hadn't found anything that was of interest. Their view was that it would take a dive into the second season to start to get it.
Yeah - there are other shows out there - Thanks.
I joked with them though that perhaps the only reason that they find it interesting now is because they are invested, they have a sunk cost in the show and therefore, a fallacious position that it is better than it is.
When it comes to investing, skin in the game is similar to this position as it is something that can color the opinion about an investment and hide away the reality. However, what it generally does is make the investor more aware and more willing to investigate different aspects of the investment.
For example, when I first came onto the blockchain, my plan was to solely create in the hope to make a little money to ease the financial challenges I faced in my life at the time. However, I didn't really make that much and what I did was so insignificant to the challenges, it wasn't really worth taking out. But, what it did allow me was for the first time in my life. the opportunity to play in a market situation, to take some of the tokens I had earned and see if I could use them to earn more.
While I was playing with pretty small amounts, I was relatively successful (lucky) with my trading and was able to make enough small mistakes early to learn so as to make some gains later. The gains I made eventually went back into the platform where I felt much more like an investor, as I had taken earning and sunk them in, making it a cost. Not time or effort - actual dollars. At this point, I started paying more attention to the platform and reading, learning and most importantly, connecting with people who I could learn more from. I was interested - I was hooked.
This is better than any show there is on Netflix, any book, any entertainment at all. It is better than sex.
Scrub that last one.
It is better than sex.
But, you need something to do when you aren't having sex.
It was around the start of November 2017 that I made my first ever purchase of tokens with fiat, I took money that I had scrounged together (as things were still very, very hard at that time) and put about 200€ of my "real" earnings into tokens. At that point, I became a real investor and not only was I interested, my entire mindset changed into a different position - there was a personal paradigm shift.
By this point and after 10 months, I was already getting some traction with my content, but my interest in the workings of the platform started to take precedence. Rather than being an enduser, I began looking at myself as an investor who should know what they are investing into, understand the fundamentals, the layers and of course, the risks associated with my investment. My very meagre investment.
The thing that many don't seem to realize is how little it takes to start building an investor mindset on Hive. I think that many look at the large accounts of "investors" and think that since I can't put in those kinds of values, it isn't worth it. However (in my opinion) all it really takes is to be enough of an investment that makes a person, not want to lose it, enough that it would hurt a little. For me, that 200€ at the time was enough, for someone else it might be 20€, another 200,000€. It doesn't really matter.
Why would you sink costs into a platform that has high risks?
Because of the potential to build the mindset - really build the mindset, not just think you have it. Investing oneself into developing knowledge, processes and habits that aid investment on Hive doesn't limit the applicability to Hive, it can be applied anywhere in the world. Most of us aren't good at dealing with risk and loss, most of us do not intuitively understand compounding value, most of us are too impatient to get significant returns, most of us in this world are not investors in our life infrastructure - we are consumers on the disposable enduser layer.
I can only use myself (and the many people I have interacted with on and off chain) as an example, but putting some skin in the game of whatever we find important enough to spend our time on, gives us the best opportunity of success because it increases our interest and willingness to learn. As they say, don't buy stuff, buy experience, and putting a little capital in buys experience as an investor. And in my experience, it is those who do this that end up developing themselves as they recognize that in order to best "play the game", they need to be better. It is an investment into self-improvement.
This doesn't mean one has to keep investing more in, it doesn't mean that all the financial dreams will come true, it doesn't mean losses won't be incurred. What it does mean though is that there is an active process intentionally applied, it gives a person agency in their own path. Once this learning starts happening, the similarities to other aspects of our lives become quite obvious as the patterns are the same and what this does, is increase agency in the walking world in areas that seemed "out of the bounds of influence" earlier.
Some people will spend their time forcing themselves through entertainment activities until they enjoy it, like learning to smoke. The first cigarette doesn't taste good, but people will continue until they are addicted. The same discomfort goes for all activities, so why not at least try to sink the cost of time, effort and money into something that improves one's own life in ways that matter to the person?
For me, financial stability has nearly always been a pipe dream - but it is no longer so, as now I have the sense that it is within reach - on and off the platform. I think I would be far further from this position if back in 2017, I had given into my fears and not put that 200€ in. At the end of the day, it is an insignificant amount over time, but it was a sharp pain in the moment.
A little pain and potential for loss goes a long way, which is why having some skin in the game matters. While perhaps it shouldn't there is a difference between the value sunk in through effort and time, and cash. Perhaps it is because we have more of a sense of control over the effort and time, but money is always external and at least made to feel elusive.
What are your thoughts on having skin in the game?
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
Posted Using LeoFinance
I think not having skin in the game of cryptos, Hive, Leo is a reward:risk everyone has to take. The risk is not being somewhat invested. If you think about it, it really circa 2001 all over again. Meaning the next Amazon, Apples, etc are being born now in the crypto space...and we know how those companies turned out.
Posted Using LeoFinance
For sure. Some will never learn, however many trains they miss.
What I like about Hive is it has the potential to house many of these companies directly, so holding Hive is like an index fund of startups now, and in the future. It is investing into things one may never even know about, and benefiting from them going viral.
Lovely article and I have to agree with what are saying.
Even though I could only afford to invest really small amounts into increasing my Hive Power over time here, doing so with real cash does give you a certain feeling of :
"Hey, I want this to work and I want to learn the best ways to make it work."
Posted Using LeoFinance
It is from here that people end up making better decisions and generally, actions that support the community as a whole.
I agree that investing time and energy into something, especially something as complicated as cryptocurrency and in this case DPOS, blinds you to the Cons sometimes and you see only the pros.Hi @tarazkp
I personally invested a lot into staking coins, which paid me more of the same coin and was blinded to the effect of coin inflation because I really needed a big score to fix my roof and paint my house.
I learned from those errors and moved on, but recently I have lost confidence in DPOS to protect my stake and any hopes of a big score after 2 years here are Pretty much dashed to the ground.
Now with this move to hive I see more and more the futility of some of what I do here and although I have learned a tremendous amount here I currently have no hope of a significant increase in price and even less chance of life changing gains.
While I continue to learn a lot I am still trying to create a lucrative vehicle out of the various pieces of knowledge learned here.
I don’t mean to be down on anything here. I am just saying that it’s time for me to realistically face the fact that this is just for enjoyment and will probably not change my financial status at all.
P.S.
I really envy the level of engagement you have.
I know it was earned through hard work, and well deserved.
Take care
Posted Using LeoFinance
Same, after steem fiasco and many other cryptos I had been involved in, I find crypto space fragile, I don't care anymore.
Just don't stress, have fun and treat it like a game you want to play for a very long time :)
Perhaps this is the position people should start from?
It definitely takes time and at the end of the day, people have to be at least somewhat supportive to the overall person. I think that a lot of people are short-sighted in what they think makes them gains. Back in the days of bidbots, a lot of people bought votes thinking that they were making value as they got that 5-10% return each day, the problem was that they never built themselves truly into the community and it turned a lot of the serious people away from supporting them, no matter what kind of content they had. They rarely lasted. The ones that did build community are earning far past that 5-10 now and have closed the gap and surpassed most. The vote sellers however (if they had large enough stake) won a lot. rentseeking behavior often does well.
I think that a big score is going to depend on personal opinion, but I enjoy my time here regardless :)
If you have time, take a look at this post and tell me what you think of the opportunity. I think it cold be done on Hive natively with or without the side chain due to fast transaction times, no per transaction costs transaction cost and a system already containing micro-units of hive.
https://hive.blog/hive-169547/@shortsegments/light-nite-and-in-game-bitcoin-rewards-how-this-works-a-non-technical-overview
Investing into something you believe in always ends up being a case of "No Pain, No Pleasure", much like you investing a little, learning a lot, devoting time and man power into something, may or may not pan out at the end of the day.
So glad I started into blockchain technology, have enjoyed a bumpy ride since 2015, still here in one way or another.
Have an awesome day!
@tipu curate
Upvoted 👌 (Mana: 0/4)
I wonder if it could be enumerated, what the "learning value" is actually worth?
I remember talking a friend through sunk cost fallacy once upon a time. They were confused coming out of a bad relationship that they kept trying to fix with the ex even though they told me neither of them even wanted the relationship anymore and they did eventually come to realise that it was purely because they'd been together for what passed as a long time when you're high school/uni age and it seemed a "shame" to give it up after having spent so much time and resources on it.
We didn't even know there was a name for it at the time.
People's ideas of "enough of a chance" vary so much. I'd consider half a season a pretty good chance. But then again I once got told by a dismayed friend when I decided to switch to Mac that I "never gave Windows a chance". Apparently the prior decade or so where I'd exclusively used various versions of Windows (3.11, 95, 98SE, and 2k Pro that I'd started dual booting with Ubuntu before finally and angrily jumping ship) wasn't enough of a chance either XD and meanwhile I know of others where if the first episode of a show or the first sentence of a book doesn't grab them they're done.
Skin in the game is exhausting.
And a lot of organization... :D
You only use an Apple? you left too early. Windows 27 is going to be amazing!
Yup, which is why so many people proxy their skin to others and then wonder why they get cold.
Bahahahahahhahahaaaaa XD
It can be as amazing as it likes, will stick with my linux frankenbox and my Apple portables ;D (least til Apple pisses of right off too)
Two simultaneous mental images with the skin proxy comment was of ancient humans with animal skins (or more specifically one with all the proxied skins and others with no skins being cold) and the other was a modern human with human pelts and puzzled skinless humans around them, and me wondering in the latter case how all the muscles and organs and things were staying in place (clearly the same kind of magic that animates skeletons in undead hoardes).
Back in the ancient days, they definitely had skin in the game and it was either take the animals or, have yours taken. I wonder if besides warmth, it was also used as a way to connect with their world?
Do you remember the movie silence of the lambs?
Enough to know what you're talking about XD
Hey Taraz,
Back in 2017 I joined the crypto-scene during the hype with a decent amount of money. I had no idea what I was doing from an investment-approach. Crpto was at an all time high, and I heard about it on the national radio. I started doing my research and got enthousiastic about all the different projects I came across. I was (and still am) convinced that blockchain-technology has the power to change the future.
So I put my money where my mouth was, for the first time in my life. I had never invested in assets, funds, had a complete lack of knowlegde how markets behave. I strated to follow these tradeview-analists and completely lost myself in the bullrun the was happening. A few months later I had 10% of my investment left and I felt like a complete dumbo. But at the same time, it was the price I had to pay to start understanding markets and Warren Buffet's saying about there's money to be made when there"s blood on the street.
I decided I was in for the long run and refused to take my losses. I never sold any of my positions and saw my money evaporate and slowly coming back during the last months. When ETH (the project i'm the most invested in) and BAT were at their low points in March I decided to increase my position once again. I I thought ETH was worth 1300$ two years ago, why shouldn't I buy it at 135$? I learned to look at the markets in a more rational way.
So now the crypto-markets are slowly recovering. For all I know it might take us another two, three years to reach a new ATH, but I'm still very convinced that crypto is here to stay. So I'll wait it out, strap on and enjoy the ride as long as we can.
And (I don't know your age) for the rest of your life you will have a different perspective than most people on markets, as well as a different relationship with money. There is massive value in that and perhaps it takes the hard lessons to reach the conclusions that shift action. A lot of people play the markets in their head and think they have an understanding - if there is no action, it is a waste of time.
If your investment portfolio went 10-20x in 5 years, would you be upset?
Ups and downs, gains and losses are part of the journey. What we actually have to see is the end goal which we need to keep track and it changes according to the individual.
The endgoal definitely is different for each of us, but I guess in general - we do want value to go up :D (long-term at least)
That's absolutely true, we want that to go up :)
In all no pain, no gain... its either go big or go home ... Wonderful post
No pain, no gain. No investment, narrow learning - knowledge is valuable.
First: Difference in perspective. About 10 years ago I told a friend/lover that I would gladly trade the sex I was going to get for the rest of my days for good conversation :) May have been an error on my part. She took me seriously and started talking...
I believe absolutely in skin in the game. I have about $1800 total invested in Hive and the other place. There have been a couple of times that money would have looked good in my account.
I never, ever considered it an investment, but skin in the game. I've never had the intent to sell so it's really hard for me to consider 'investment'.
When I go to Las Vegas or the horse races I am a player not a gambler. I actually visualize the money I have to spend as gone. Now the idea is to play as long and as hard as I can.
:D
I think in some ways this is the position of "taking a flutter" on the races - it makes it more interesting. I don't gamble, but then, every investment is somewhat of a calculated risk - and I am bad at math.
I do this too. The money invested is already a loss, so is no longer mine.
When I first got in to crypto currency, it was around ATH of BTC, the frenzy from 2.5 years ago. Always wanted to get in to BTC but had no idea how until someone told me how I can do it... then I watched 95% of that money invested vanish in front of my eyes. Sickening.
A steep learning curve but it worked out for the better as it completely flipped my thought process on to what can be done and the long term vision with investing. I could've just taken everything out with a 95% loss but I thought, well, what's the point, it's there now. I stumbled across many different projects, looked at them, researched, looked for clues and got better at that side of it.
Now, after 2.5 years, instead of being 95% down on that initial investment, I'm about 40% up and like to think I've got better at understanding markets and sentiments, projects and teams working on them. There will always be things that happen that are totally unknown but like you, I bought what I could afford with Hive/Steem at the time last year and want to make something of what I have here.
Painful eh? :D
It is this flip that is the most important. Many of us have grown in a society of quick and low results that are largely meaningless, and then wonder how we never get ahead. Long term investment generates value because most people can't wait - being patient is a hurdle most don't overcome.
Yeah very, thankfully I managed to stomach it but there were a few close calls!!
As for the long term, I full agree and that's one thing the PhD taught me about patience, persistence and seeing something through to the bitter end, with the ultimate reward at the end of it all - different challenges have happened since then of course and life is just one big PhD haha
Sometimes I kick myself for not selling, then I kick myself for thinking that if I had sold, I would still be here. From what I have seen, many of those who sold, never had enough to buy back in.
I have no PhD, but patience definitely is a virtue in this space and there will be plenty of people who fall by the wayside before the mainstream.
I'm playing the long game but the great things about Hive is that there are so many ways to get Hive that you can get it back just by being active whether it's playing games, commenting/posting, entering contests, raffles, leasing, delegating to name a few!
I agree, have already seen a lot of musicians walk away from crypto due to previous frustrations and revert back to Web 2.0 despite it not working for them. Either I'm the crazy one for sticking it out or they are... time will tell haha!
It certainly changes the perspective, but I guess it also depends on the person. Personally, the more money invedt the more involved I find I myself in a project. On the other hand, my rich ass trader friend doesn't give a shit and swings fortunes worth of money with out a blink.
A fortune for one is a penny for another. Not many in this world can go all in and lose it without a blink :)
As much as I enjoyed this, you're totally right. This thing, this Blockchain journey is a process and along the way we're lucky to incur gains but, the losses are also part of it and it's duly intertwined. Nevertheless it's all part of the process
The losses are and it is how we recover from those losses (our own mistake or externally forced) that matters. Some get bitter, some get interested.
Definitely, irrespective we enjoy the journey because that's the fun we derive from it; losing and winning
Hopefully your own recovery doesn't take too long mate.
I can feel how it's like to be hooked on a platform like Hive. I think it is the presence of highly articulate and smart members that makes me so happy to post here. Skin in the game... Actually you are right. No need for enormous investment at first. Building the mindset, I can agree with that and I love the perspective you have thrown regarding this. Maybe even a newbie can do more than sit and watch. Good point.
When I have read the lines about smoking. Well...if people who smoke would make some calculations.. . And choose to quit smoking and invest that money... They would be better off for sure. But not all people see things that way
Yep, and they forced them through all that bad taste to get addicted to something that will cost them money and their health. I was a smoker once.
At least look to learn more deeply than, "what will get the largest vote" :D
I never smoked. I appreciate people who gave up this habit on their own, using their own ambition to say no
I already suspected that something pretty weird had happened to you. I started noticing those changes in your prose and that newish dye in your posts that were always whispering and mussitating out loud "I became a real investor" from the start of November 2017 onwards. LoL
Well, I'm afraid that some underdogs out there haven't been able to put those 200€ together yet as to feel that sharp pain at the moment. };)
But yeah! that's right "don't buy stuff, buy experience" :)
Yep it was weird - started thinking about the community here much more ;)
Some haven't managed 20 cents. That 200 in Finland doesn't amount to much experience in the real world - it had far more value to me in here.
I have not the slightest doubt about that my friend. I guess the thing gets harder when you are in a place where the incomes doesn't come as high as in Funland. Hahahaha
It is all relative isn't it?
Undoubtedly!
With doppler effects and everything else too! :D
Beautifully said! To me, it started when I used my first earnings on the platform to power-up. It felt awesome and I was immediately attached to what I'm doing and how to get better.
Peace and love!
it is a good feeling for sure. I had been powering up a long time before I bought in - I was already deep into dolphinhood, but the buy changed it all again :)
Very good joke !!!
Life is a game. I appreciate any experience, but for this I have to constantly (daily) devote time to analyzing actions throughout the day so that I can understand and internalize the experience in this wonderful game.
It is like a game of chess, risk, poker and hungry, hungry hippos all at the same time :)
Steem is still frozen on Bittrex... Smfh
Getting. "skinned" in the game.
Thank the crypto godz it is a small amount, others are not so... "lucky?"
it is open on binance and huobi. As said because of the hardfork on Steem, Bittrex has chosen not to run the fork for now - which means, no Steem transfers in or out.
Just signed up for Binance, but had to run to town. I am going to power down the remaining into Binance. As they are partnered with the SafePal S1 hardware wallets we just purchased. I was looking forward to an opportunity to convert the steem to hive. Still learning here. Therefore stalking your posts. Well that and also the little bugger that is sooo cute! @smallsteps
Amazing!
#PoSh
'Skin in the game' is better than a drug. (In a sense, it is a drug.) The difference is that there are benefits, win or lose, that one can count on if they choose to investigate and learn. Sure, we make mistakes, but when those mistakes are archived into the 'low-equity' move section it opens up a clearer vision of the 'high-equity' decisions. Similar to playing chess or Texas Hold'em. (Especially Hold'em, because the game is a multi-layer game of investment and truly winning is not about a single hand, it is about using mathematics to 'win-over-time.')
I agree with you that breaking into the markets opens up a whole world where 'knowing your trade' and its ins-and-outs becomes critically important. I am learning more about it every day. Lately it has led me to the desire of learning stocks. We can draw certain correlations about things that can affect the price of any currency, but stocks could be a bit easier to figure (with or without understanding a great deal of technical analysis.)
For instance, if I was in stocks when the world lockdown occurred, I might have been watching the price of Crude Oil in lieu of travel restrictions. Could have made a lot of money there, that's for sure.
Anyway, this was a really good post. You are far beyond me in understanding the financial aspects, but I believe I am on a similar path to yours (just at a much earlier point.)
Cheers!
You actually advised me to buy some HIVE a while back, which I did. Only a few hundred pesos but I think it's working. I'm more invested and aware of the things that are happening on HIVE, on twitter and other platforms. For me, having skin in the game is like paying for 'tuition fee', even if it is a small one, there will be an effort on my part to take away something out of it. Thanks.
I think of any investment of dollars I have made into Hive as 'entertainment'. Rather like spending money to go to the movies or buy a novel. I will be pleasantly surprised if it ends up having value, and if it doesn't I can say I've had fun, met lots of wonderful people, and learned an incredible amount! For me that's where the real value is.
And speaking of learning... How do you transfer powered up Hive? Thanks for the HP you sent me this week!