Back in February 2018 , I listened to a Sam Harris podcast with Eliezer Yudkowsky, an influential decision theorist focusing on AI. The discussion is interesting in itself, but toward the end when Harris asked about funding of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, Yudkowsky said that, because Bitcoin bulls interested in technology had made donations on the rise of the markets, they were currently well funded and the problem was, finding skilled specialists they could hire. Being at the cutting edge of AI or any industry means finding skilled participants can be very difficult.
As interesting as this is, I have been thinking about what might have changed since that time and whether it is good for the crypto industry. While the markets have always been speculative, there has generally been a drive in crypto for better economic mechanisms that increase the opportunity and well-being for more. Since markets are all consumer driven, this would mean that for betterment to happen, it isn't good enough just to generate value, that value has to be used to generate change. Investments into better need to be made.
Now, around this same time, Bitcoin had hit its ATH of just under 20,000 and the value of the market had drained into other projects, pumping the markets up considerably. However, at that time, there weren't many stable coins out there. Now with stable coins, it is more likely that the bulls will drop into those, instead of going into projects, because the stable coins offer stability - of course. While not much gain can be made, not much fall can be made either. I believe that this is a problem.
Not the gains or the falls, but if the large traders are doing this, what they are effectively doing is tying themselves to fiat markets, essentially keeping the system the same as it always was, mostly. Sure, they are still more out of fiat than they were and have more mobility, but they are more in it than they should be, if the idea is to change the economy. The reason is that going into stables means never having to go into anything else, including all of the projects that are building use cases for the crypto industry.
Like the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, what projects need to grow and survive is streams of funding from various sources to keep the projects growing. That funding can of course come from external fiat holders injecting in, but it should definitely be coming from internal profit takers who should be wanting to see the entire crypto industry grow.
While on Hive, stake is a voice, off Hive, wealth is a voice that an be used to support and shine a light on projects that bring value to the growth of the market place. Crypto is a tiny, tiny fraction of the wealth in comparison to the other markets and this is very early days. In order for it to really reach its potential, the world's wealth needs to start paying attention to the potential of growth and there is no better way to do that than by putting attention on projects that they would be willing to support directly. It really isn't good enough just to have Bitcoin as the potential for gains, there has to also be working crypto business models that make the industry valuable.
Currently, there aren't that many projects out there which actually offer usage, let alone end user experience, with Hive being one of the very few. Most projects focus solely on their ability to be investment vehicles, offering nothing more than a chance for gains. But, the only point of making profits is for those profits to be used - if there is nothing to spend them on other than going into fiat, what is effectively happening is that the potential wealth of crypto will drain back into fiat business models, instead of being used to build the crypto industry to rival it.
This means that the potential of the voice of the generated wealth of crypto is shouting into fiat, while whispering for crypto. If the idea is to continually keep increasing the wealth mass in crypto, that wealth has to keep building crypto projects to create the industry. The crypto industry isn't investment vehicles alone, it is the daily usage of crypto to empower the lives of people across the globe, by decoupling them from their reliance on fiat currencies controlled by centralized authorities.
In my opinion, the generated wealth of Bitcoin bulls should be looking to find projects to support that facilitate this end, as ultimately, it will also increase their position in crypto as well, as it will attract a higher degree of user mass in the industry, building stability, whilst simultaneously weakening the old fiat models by attracting its wealth onto blockchains.
Essentially, the crypto bulls need to start becoming industry leaders, rather than pure profit takers. While they may not want to be known faces, they can be very influential through the attention they can bring to projects. They need to be investors into businesses, not speculators on currencies. The problem is, that so many are looking for profits alone, they don't care about projects that help the industry grow or at least, don't see it as their "job" to help the industry.
This is very short-sighted and is why the "real" business leaders in the world will likely not only get their foot in, but will start to control the industry, because they look long on industry and they use their wealth to advance what they believe will bring more stable value streams in the future. Crypto people are generally instant gratifiers, thinking that 2 years is a long time, but it is a blink in the grand scheme of an industry, let alone one that is going to challenge the institutionalized economy itself.
Just imagine what the crypto project industry would look like if instead of Bitcoin bulls and bears heading into stables and fiat, they went into working projects with high potential instead. The entire ranking would change, market caps would shift incredibly and the attention of the masses would be focused on a much smaller grouping of experiences that they can actually use in their daily lives to cope with their daily tasks and challenges. This is the kind of marketing that crypto needs - this is the kind of attention that brings mass adoption.
And, this isn't charity from the investors, it is intelligent business sense, as it means that they are investing into where the mainstreaming balls are going to be, by engineering the field of play so that is where people will look. This makes the Bitcoin bulls angel investors into crypto business and will see them take massive gains on their early adoption, as well as distributing their risk and bringing stability to their portfolio.
When it comes to the crypto industry, stable coins don't bring stability, stable projects do - what these projects need is the funding to learn, adapt and provide for the driver of all markets - the consumer.
Without consumers - an industry isn't an industry at all.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
We've talked about it before: people are looking to make money without much investment. The progress that I have seen in many users of HIVE with more than 70 of reputation and with a very low SP, speaks of the little interest that there is of investment, to add. Winning to get out, to subtract. I hope that this year will be more productive and positive for everyone. Greetings, @tarazkp
Yep. They never seem to find a good opportunity to buy back either. They don't mind selling at any price though.
Understand that I am 8 days without tobacco and consequently pretty pissed off most of the time. But.
It's best for Hive to not grow now. The chain is almost as slow as ETH and no where near as accurate. That is with 3500 users, start adding zeros on that number and shit comes completely apart early and often.
Nobody seems even remotely interested in fixing the problems. The consensus for life folks make their money either way and have no apparent interest in UI or UE. What we have is a really nasty case of decentralized neglect.
The chain is fine, it is all the social stuff on it that is the problem :D
It is pretty bad how little has seemingly been done to fix the UI stuff after the last HF. Not sure what the deal is there.
I think many of us have wondered if there will be an Alt season at all this time. Stable coins are one aspect, but I think the other is where 'much' of the investment into BTC has come from this time. Institutional investors, in my opinion, are far less likely to chase pumps on coins offering little/zero product. The hope is that there will be just one that takes a liking to the Hive - perhaps via LEO, or Splinterlands.
Yep. I think this is possible. The problem being that the institutions will back projects that have use case, and if they are only produced by "real business people", the crypto speculators will be pushed out of the market entirely over time.
Might be an idea to look for these and lay in wait for some institutional investment. Oh wait, we are already here :)
:)
What got me into believing in Hive blockchain are the people and projects in it. It still needs more innovation and support from the users it keeps. I'm starting 2021 with a bullish feeling for this token and even if it doesn't go pumping, I still bank on believing in the team and projects being built on top of the blockchain.
As a small user, one can simply support the blockchain by opting out of cashing out frequently and stake their Hive or reinvest on Hive Engine token where some projects for wealth building are made. You're right about most having instant gratification, it's always part of the problem to please traders and investors of any token. If one thing has changed over the past few months I've been active, it's that I see more ways users can now creatively exchange their Hive for other values not just cashing out to fiat alone.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
Investors often tend to be investor mentality. What I mean is that investing isn't seen as a social benefit, it is for individual gain. This means that it doesn't matter what project gets bought, as long as it gives an adequate ROI. People still trade in oil after all.
Point taken. Indeed, I was considering more on the social aspect of investing. This doesn't apply to everything I put my money on but some projects I put money into need to have people with of good reputation. I invest in the business but I need to know the people running it are good for the business to give me that ROI. It's more complicated to factor that in a decentralized blockchain. But when we got tribes that are really pushing for their tokens to go up with real value backing it, I can't help but put a little more faith into the platform to give me that ROI.
From where I stand, I don’t see the banks or fiat going away anytime soon.
As I slowly digest the crypto world I see so much potential there to accumulate wealth, but the average Joe, will stick with the current system
It’s what is understood, but forward thinkers, people who see the long game like @ryan313, I believe will help move our economies slowly into the crypto world. But it’s a long road ahead.
Nah, they aren't moving any time soon - but they will have to adapt eventually. The long road is going to be even longer as even the people already in crypto don't actually care about anything other than their profits, making them far more Wall street in attitude than what they might purport.
That's always been my worry, Wall Street takes over , or buys it's way into the crypto world just to keep it under it's thumb. I know the concept is break away from the norms of the existing monetary system. To take control of our own destiny without big business or big government or banks, having to, well "know" our business.
Anything is possible, but the big boys will not go down quietly. Instead I think they will scramble to jump on board, as we are already seeing with some of these large hedge funds.
I patiently wait , but so far 2021 is looking very good, bitcoin is really giving us a good show.
Peace!
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Do not miss the last post from @hivebuzz:
one of the big opportunities we missed is for SBD/HBD to become an important and useful stablecoin. Even though that type a coin has its critics, a lot of people find them useful
yeah, but it has to be stable - it wasn't/isn't.
So, the new show is being run by the same old tricks? It is not a wonder crypto hasn't jumped forward of the regular industry. Basically, it is like turning gold reserves into digital currency and using it in the same way: keeping it safe.
The bad part of this weird homeostasis is that in traditional business risks are taken because that's the way to push forward. If the whole idea of crypto is to push economy forward, are we looking at people trying to sabotage progress in favor of keeping economy as it is or just people playing safe with investments?
Also, this makes me think I'm doing the right thing putting my earnings back in the blog to make it grow and grow. At some point it will pay off, but I'm not in a rush to see profit from it.
I think this year we will see a continued effort on the part of the larger so called social media to continue working to get their own crypto coin, or to continue in their crypto projects. Since it seems to be FIAT types driving the up swing, I am sure that Mr FB, will be real happy this year now that his buddy is going to be in charge and be able to keep that pesky SEC off his back, good or bad I don't know. I lean toward the bad.
I sometimes feel like some people want to keep things the same just with them at the top while deluding themselves that it’s different perhaps because they don’t have the imagination for much else 🤣
It’ll get there eventually.