At first, I wasn't sure what I'd write today and my head went back and forth countless times on various potential topics. After coming back from a very gruelling and not so regular jog I thought I'd be very weak and unable to move, but surprisingly this was not the case. After eating I found myself arguing at almost the top of my voice simply because someone said something that didn't sit well with me. Someone in the room was trying to compare gambling and crypto. Let me drop a short backstory.
In my room, we are quite industrious and have somewhat built a bond. We always share important info regarding anything we do. Whether it's investment opportunities, crypto airdrops, betting codes (for those who bet), scholarship info, and so on.
Recently though, someone shared an airdrop opportunity and almost no one did it ( I included). It ended up paying a decent amount of money and since then I could feel those who bet in the room feel anxious and pressured especially because they're the ones who usually drop info that brings money. And that was how the crypto vs gambling comparison started. It was subtle at first, but then this night I decided to probe them a bit. One of them came to the room to show us the winnings of a popular gambling influencer, and he said
"crypto money can never."
I laughed because the gap between the valuation of crypto and the entire gambling industry isn't even remotely close.
Anyway, rather than narrating how the rather pointless argument went down and how in the end, he agreed to stop talking but refused to agree he was wrong, I will tell you two things I realized from the entire argument.
He was majorly focused on how much he had made from crypto airdrops. Something he hadn't taken seriously until about a month ago. His mindset was that of a typical gambler, Immediate results. You put in your money today, you reap the rewards in max a day or two. Gambling is high risk and quick reward. Crypto is more about putting in consistent effort and seeing results over time. But someone like that is not ready to be patient, they're looking for instant results. I think this is why I haven't introduced any of them to Hive.
The second thing I realized is that when he was talking about crypto he was only referring to airdrops alone. And that was where his mistake was. Crypto is very broad. We have crypto trading, we have investing, we have gaming, social finance (like blogging on hive), we have defi, you can build dapps, we even have gambling as well, and on a daily basis, a new narrative is being formed with tons of money being pumped into the space because people are seeing the potential of crypto, and how it can change the world. But gambling is just what it is, putting money into something you believe will occur and if it doesn't your money is gone. It will never be a sustainable way to live because you're always this close to losing it all. And yes that can also happen with crypto, but that is only if you gamble with crypto. There is absolutely no way to lose everything on established cryptos. Crypto even has the potential to completely replace fiat.
Now that I look back at it, I'd say it is an insult to crypto to even think it is anything close to gambling. You can gamble in crypto, but crypto is not gambling. And just in case my points weren't enough I'll end with what I used to end the argument. The total valuation of the entire gambling industry as of 2023 is around $500 Billion, while that of only Bitcoin is about $1 trillion. Let that sink in.
