Often in the heist movies the big prize is a pile of diamonds but as any jeweller knows, diamonds are pretty much worthless in the big scheme of things, although they will happily sell you an extremely overpriced one. Any investor knows why this is the case too, market manipulation.
The diamond market is a restricted market where the major companies, De beers being the largest, control the flow so as to maintain high prices. If they released all of their stores at once, the diamond market would plummet to zero. Other than sentimental value, diamonds are worthless other than their property as being hard. This is why they are not traded as a commodity, like gold, silver and... corn. Corn is on there but not diamonds? Yep.
So, why buy an overpriced wedding ring with a sliver of gold (that has value worth its weight) and a diamond that is worth its overrated impression? Not only that, even the impression of it is all just advertising fluff.
They say the ring should cost 3 months salary... seriously. Do marketing companies have no shame? Unless...
"Will you marry me?"
"Yes but, that ring looks like it is made from one pound of gold..."
"2! I got a raise!"
True Love.
I wonder when the ring will actually hold significant value? My wife takes hers off when she 'goes out with the girls...', but also when she does the dishes, goes to the gym or anything really at all. She leaves them all over the place also. But, but, I thought it was a symbol of our eternal love, you'd think that she would never take it off, especially since she forced me to buy platinum. She wanted that 'white gold' nonsense that has to be replated every year or two. I suppose she expects me to pay for life insurance also, "just in case"..pfff.
Perhaps there will come a time where instead of a ring, it will be an encrypted key with access to a joint portfolio.
"Will you marry me?"
"Let me check.. 0.5 BTC, 1 Eth, 200 Steem, 1000 Bitconnect?? I am sorry, I just can't trust you."
Really though, at this point, even with all of the FUD and risk involved, if one was going to buy a wedding ring it is likely much more valuable in the long-term to buy a silver ring for 40 dollars and use whatever was going to be spent on top to invest into a range of hold coins. Sure, some will likely fail but some could also go up significantly.
Think about it from a relationship standpoint though. For those of you who are married, how often do you look at the rings together (unless you are looking to pawn them for grocery money) with any real interest? Instead, each week on a Friday night, you could pour a couple glasses of wine, put on some chilled music and sit in front of the markets deciding what to buy and sell together.
It also makes breakups easier 'just in case'. As well as inheritance division.
"But, I wanted mum's wedding Monero."
"Too bad, she gave it to me."
"But, its going to moon so hard soon."
"No, you were given the EOS, you will keep the EOS."
"Stupid radical transparency... post for rewards nonsense..."
Just imagine, people thought white privilege is bad, just wait til crypto-privilege really takes hold. The curse that are the millenials is nothing, they are going to have children! Not only will they not be working and living off the parent's money, their parents didn't even do much for their wealth. They will be old money without anyone having lifted more than a mouse finger. Talk about entitlement issues.
I think the near- to mid-term future is shaping up to be a pretty hard time on relationships to be honest. Even now with all of the dating apps and fears of commitment it is breaking down. Soon, there will be robots and virtual cryptopartners to choose from and trade when tired of them. I wonder how it will all pan out as the transition from the traditional relationships move into the much less so.
Considering how far identity politics are taking things, I am guessing it is going to get a little freaky up in here at some point. How will the proverbial dinosaurs like myself cope in such an environment? With each generation, the speed of change quickens so what will the world really look like in 40 years from now?
Meh, with my non-augmented, still aging body, I am unlikely to see it anyway.
"Honey, will you hold my keys?"
"Yes! A million dollars times yes!"
I bet if instead of the date of our marriage her ring had a private key inscribed on the inside, she wouldn't leave it on the bathroom sink anymore. That is not true, my wife probably would still.
Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]
Well written and interesting to read. I can’t imagine not buying a ring for a proposal though. At least not soon.
Read this last night, but had to wait til today to get my VP up a bit. I really enjoyed this post. Personally, I don't desire diamonds, why would I? I don't think they're more desirable or valuable than the jewellery I wear, so..
Besides, is that really what you should be spending on when you're at the beginning of such a journey? Bling?
I don't think so. Same goes for a big lavish wedding. It's silly that we think we have to spend money on these 'traditional' gifts, when we could be giving something that is actually valuable - like a private key! Now, I'd want one of those any day :D
I think at some point the ring was also seen as a valuable item to sell if anything happened but it is generally valueless.
We would have liked to have a few people with us for a quiet dinner at a nice restaurant but even that was out of our price range considering the time frame we had. The wedding was a late decision to fit in with an already planned holiday and my wife's new job (at the time) starting. :)
Funny!
What is not so funny is that my wife last her wedding ring. Now I was disappointed about it, but the ring is just a material fact, wearing it does not show anything about how much you love each other.
I also never proposed to here. We just drove by city hall on a free day, we look at each other and ran it, to register a date for our wedding. Went out phoned the family, ran back inside the shift it by one day!
Still the best decision I ever made. And yes I'm still wearing my ring day in day out for 14 years already!
I hope you replaced it with a 40 dollar silver one :)
My wife and I eloped and sent postcards to people from our honeymoon. I even took our wedding photos. People make a big deal about things that mean little and don't pay attention to the little things that mean a lot.
Our wedding was just a small garden party with no more than 40 people invited! Not I did offer her a tattoed ring, which she could not loose :)
Hi taraxkp. Learnt something today. Didn't know or haven't noticed that diamonds weren't traded like gold, silver etc. Very interesting.
Lol!
Let's see, my engagement ring was bought at an antiques and collectors fair for not a lot and has sapphires. I love it because I love how it looks and it doesn't catch on things like the traditional sticky out ones.
We had a 14 year engagement because marriage is just a legal contract and meaningless anyway other than our commitment to one another. We finally married legally for our move to Australia. I asked if I could have my late grandmother's wedding band, because it had way more sentimental value than buying new. The whole wedding was less than £1000. My dress was gorgeous and cost under £200.
We bought hubby's ring, but he works on electrical things so never really wore it and it got too small anyway. Had it stretched to the largest size too. Maybe it'll fit him again now he's lost a bit of weight. ;)
If I take jewellery off I rarely ever put it back on, so unless it can be worn all the time I don't bother with it.
The diamond in the ring above is one from one of my mother's rings (she passed away long ago) and the design is something that is personal to my wife and I about something when we met. The ceremony was at the magistrates office, we went to a nice restaurant that over-looked the city and left for the honeymoon in Milan 2 days later. In my opinion, marriage is a commitment to each other, there need not be other witnesses or a contract at all.
I am so cheap our wedding photos are selfies :D
https://steemit.com/photography/@tarazkp/selfies-as-wedding-photos
Moving to Australia is perhaps something we will do in the future, if we have the opportunity.
That's the way it should be done! I particularly love that you took your own photos!
I do like the ring in the photo and the sentimental value makes it so much better.
Exactly true. Diamonds are worthless. Mined by African through sweat and blood, exploited. It is overpriced when in fact it is really worthless. Gold, and Silver are natural elements, they are in the periodic table but this Diamond it is just made up of Carbon.
A ring maybe a symbol of love but love is love and a ring is a material manifestation of that love. You love the person not the ring haha. Only Smeagol/gollum loves ring.
To be honest, it's a very progressive light to think from. While your were obviously being silly in some parts of the post, I find it extremely ingenious to use passwords to crypto wallets as an alternative to using rings for marriage proposals
invest into each other's future and keep investing.
One advantage to a ring in the case of a breakup...she can throw it back at the ex, major insult!
I would prefer that than her release the private key publicly ;)
Good point!
A ring is not for the man . Its so a woman can say "thats mine" The alternative was a tatoo across the forehead "Private Property"
The result of compromise is the ring .