I was born in a small town in the South West of Romania, and fifteen meters straight away from my house door we have the big old Danube. You can literally get out out of the house and in thirty seconds be in the water swimming. You can do that, not me, because I can't swim. I learned though, when I was twelve years or so, but I developed a fear of water after I almost drowned, in one summer day, and haven't tried to get to far from the shore since then.
I am advised though by some doctors to go swimming as it seems to do a lot of good to back problems and my reply is always... that I can't swim, and their reaction is: go learn. Yeah, 33 and learning swimming seems a bit odd, but I might try, who knows. Till that becomes a reality let's talk whales, shall we. No not the giant whales landing on boats in viral youtube videos, although they're funny...for us.
It's the crypto whales that I am referring to in this post. The ones blamed for manipulating the prices in the market, and the Steem ones, blamed for circle jerking, igniting flag wars and getting to the trending page too damn often. It's them that I'm gonna throw my harpoon at. Just kidding, I don't eat whale meat and don't want to get eaten by whales either by getting to close to their mouths.
I'm learning to swim along them and I think you should to. You, the one ranting about them and looking always at the empty half of the glass. They're not that bad you know, and they're necessary for the ecosystem. Although I am calling whales, the giants from the both worlds, the crypto markets and Steem, they're slightly different in behavior and you're attitude towards them should as well be slightly different.
At first I'm throwing the harpoon towards the crypto market whales manipulating prices and rekting noobs. Thumbs up for that! Why? Because, if there weren't whales in this market, there would have not been $170 billion invested in Bitcoin. The average Joe and Marry don't have that much money to invest in this Wild West of assets, and without the damn whales, Bitcoin would probably have still been valued at under $1,000...or even less, and would kind of become a stable coin.
These whales not only pour money in the market, but have the capacity to trigger FOMO as well, helping BTC to skyrocket this way. At the cost of some burned noobs of course, but if you pay attention to the cycles of this market, you can make some really nice cash and you should be thankful for whales, if you haven't been eaten by them, of course. It's true that during bear markets, fake tail splashes can make you into buying the top of a pump and dump strategy, but that's entirely your fault, and you have to understand them. You need to eat a lot to feed tons of fatty tails, when being a giant fish.
Now getting to Steem whales, the only common characteristic that I see between them and the crypto market ones is... eating potential, and fats. Yes, they have big mouths and they eat some big portions of the rewards pool, but they also put some nice chunks of fat to the table. Buying high quantities of Steem and keeping it powered up can only benefit it price wise, and you/we should be thankful for that. Yes, some even dump high quantities once in a while, but most of them are avid hodlers.
Next on the Steem whales, and why we should learn to swim along them, is the leftovers. It's probably that most of them upvote each other in their friends circle, and that can become annoying when looking from a shallow coral reef, but hanging around with them will get you some small portion from their VP as well of you can entertain well, and for a tiny minnow, that's your daily fat diet on your long road towards becoming a dolphin and even a whale. I've seen quite a few practicing this, and I regret not doing it from my early days in here. I guess my ego was too dumb in waiting for them to notice me rather than me getting to them.
Last, but not least, hanging around with the big boys, gradually will help your develop big boy thinking as well, and you'll always be up to date with the latest changes and directions of this blockchain and implicitly, this new social media platform that we find as being unique and awesome. By no means am I advising anyone to ass lick whales in here, and by no means will I call all whales as being cool and worth hanging around with, or all of them being shitty companions that you have to accept just for some sweet rewards that you can collect from their upvotes.
However, I've come to the conclusion that in both, crypto markets and Steem ecosystem, whales are needed and if you're smart enough, and learn to swim with them, you won't have what to lose. On the contrary, such weird plankton/minnows and whales friendships can be quite rare, but highly beneficial. While the Steem whales can be quite transparent in their direction and preferences, the ones manipulating the prices on the crypt markets, are definitely unforeseeable sightings and you never know what boat are they gonna crack next.
Both are necessary in my opinion, and fighting them is not the right strategy. Watching them closely though and learning from them, while collecting leftovers, will probably make you a whale someday. So, I might not be able to swim in the Danube too soon, cuz the water's cold and my swimming would probably get me drowned, but I am looking at swimming with crypto whales from a whole different perspective. I bought the top they sold in crypto back in the days, I hated the Steem ones for sharing too much love between each other, but I learned from both of them.
So, next time you feel like blaming whales and cussing on whales, think again. They have an important role in this ecosystem and if you learn the game you might benefit from them, rather than wasting energy on playing against them. I'm curious to read your take on this one... if you bothered to read the whole shitty post I just shared on this platform. The harpoon is in your hand though, no matter the size.
Thanks for attention,
Adrian
Posted via Steemleo
