Sometimes unfortunate things happen in life that just can't be avoided. For some reason back in 2020 
This was just about half a year past our basement flooding back in October of 2019. These days, it's quite easy for people to want to blame someone or something for all the bad stuff that happens to them. The reality is, sometimes bad stuff just happens and no matter how much you want it to be, it's nobody's fault.
It is time again for another Finance Friday/Friday Finance. This is a series I started where I talk about random bits of financial stuff that I have seen, gathered, or experienced during the week. I hope as a reader you find it informational, entertaining, or both. I also hope it can generate some good discussion and edify the community.
Disappointment works the same way sometimes. You can plan and consider pretty much every variable to a situation, but sometimes something happens that scrubs your plans. Disappointment can be debilitating if you choose to stay in that place. Trust me, I don't handle disappointment well, it's something I continue to work on. Thankfully, my wife is a saint and she still puts up with me!
With that in mind, I wanted to dedicate a portion of this #fridayfinance post to tokens that have turned out to be a huge disappointment for me.
I'd have to go all the way back to my early days in crypto when I was just learning the ropes. I was onboarded to that other chain that begat Hive by my wife's cousin. He was actually in the process of powering down his stake to move into a new blockchain called EOS. I figured he knew a bit more about this space than me (he still does), so I put what was a decent investment at the time into the EOS ERC-20 token before the mainnet went live.
Unfortunately, EOS turned out to be a bit of a loser. It's still around and people still do things with it, but thanks to a lot of mismanagement, it never really materialized into what we hoped it would be. The one good thing we got from EOS was the EOSIO software which several other blockchains are actively and successfully still using.
This is a pretty easy one for me. Travala is the crypto travel site that many of us thought was going to be the next big thing. I pumped a lot of my gains from the last bull market into Travala to hit that Platinum staking tier. Unfortunately, most of those tokens were purchased when Travala was sitting at all time highs.
I don't blame anyone but myself for that one, but it still stings. Travala is still around and people may still use it, but from what I have see the cost to book flights and hotels is about 20% more than you would pay on another site. Thus negating the discount benefit you get from the staked tokens.
Additionally, things have seemed to stagnate with Travala and I don't know if it will ever be able to recover to the hype that it once had. I was really excited about eventually one day traveling the world with my crypto, but that doesn't feel like an option anymore. At least not via Travala.
I still post in the Sports Talk Social community here on Hive, but it's pretty sad to see how far that community has fallen over the past several years. I'm not going to point fingers, but while I hold enough tokens to probably be considered a whale in the community, all those tokens are worth no more than $200 last time I checked.
In case you haven't noticed, sports is a pretty big deal. It's one of those things that bring people together from all walks of life. There is zero reason that a sports community on a platform like Hive should be floundering along. People have tried to revived the existing community, others have talked about starting a new separate community. I don't have an answer. All I know is it is extremely disappointing.
Clearly I would love for my tokens to be worth something again one day, but if the best course forward is to start from scratch with a new community, I full support that as well.
Let me reiterate:
Sadly, with all of the recent changes to Splinterlands, it kind of feels like that might make it to my list of disappointments soon too. I know a lot of other people feel the same way. It's sad, because I was an early kick starter investor in Splinterlands.
I really hope they can turn things around and we can see this game that has become an investment for many people actually viable again.
Finally, I wanted to leave you with some news on my silver portfolio. Some time ago I bought some stock in a company called Fortuna Silver Mines (FSM). I bought it relatively low and watched as it jumped to small high of $11 or something like that. I recovered my initial investment and I have just been holding since then.
Right now it is trading around $4.92 per share. A short time ago when we saw the price of silver spike a little bit it jumped back up to $6.26 per share. I have a feeling there is still room to move with FSM. I look forward to seeing how high it can go should the price of silver start trending up again.
I hope you have an awesome weekend. Try to pry your eyes away from the charts and get some sun!
All pictures/screenshots taken by myself or
