Thousands upon thousands of hours. Was it a waste of time? Certainly some of it was, but there's no changing the past now, is there? Gotta play the hand we're dealt. The present is now.
I actually learned a surprising amount about economics from WOW and the global economy therein, so it's hard to say. These days I refuse to play games like this because I feel like the future of gaming is going to be completely scooped by cryptocurrency and I just can't bring myself to move backwards. Why would I support a product owned by some random company when it should be owned by the community itself?
Sometimes my mind just randomly frames completely unrelated topics as an MMO or some other type of game. 
But Dan isn't really a main tank, is he? He's not out there playing it safe and doing everything he can to mitigate damage. He's not running around with a shield. NAH! He's swinging around big ass two handed axe. Kicking ass and taking names. Full on berserker tank. Taking hits just pisses him off and makes him swing even harder.
Yes I think if Dan was in my party, this is the weapon I'd expect him to be holding. And in this moment, it's a good choice, because it's all about context. These are the early stages of crypto. The really big battles aren't going to happen for like another decade or more. We gotta level up and work our way through the early game before specializing for the late game. Crypto is still small and the groups we form are small. This is not a 40-man raid. We are just running around in a 5-man dungeon hoping to find some nice loot that can carry us forward into a more difficult level.
Everyone is running around pretending to compete with each other instead of realizing they need to group up and fight the real enemy. Imagine we were playing a board game. What happens when the central banks, governments, and billionaires of the world realize that crypto is so strong that it can win the game even though every single rule is tilted in their favor?
They're going to try 'n flip the goddamn board is what will happen. Look at all the man-children running around playing god. Do we really expect them to allow a peaceful transition of power? Dinosaurs don't just roll over and die. They get angry and stomp the ground beneath them first. Watch where you stand. This temper tantrum isn't going to be pretty. Or rather it will be pretty vicious.
In the context of an actually collaborative cryptosphere that works together to stop everything from falling apart, we can also frame the communities themselves as heroes within an RPG.
Bitcoin's role is obvious. Bitcoin is the anchor. Bitcoin is the backbone. Bitcoin is the main tank. Bitcoin can take all the arrows and laugh because the enemy is out of ammo.
Bitcoin can't make any killing blows because the protocol is too basic. Bitcoin can't replace even the most basic infrastructure in the legacy economy, no matter what the maximalists are spouting. But that is not the purpose of Bitcoin. The purpose of Bitcoin is to SURVIVE, and simply the defiant act of Bitcoin surviving makes it possible for the other cryptos around it to survive as well.
No one ever said survival was guaranteed. Some coins are dead on arrival. Some are cash grabs. Some are rugpulls and outright scams. Others are redundant NPCs that are more likely to accidentally walk off a cliff than help us in the battle. That's not what we are here to focus on. Certainly, we can learn from the failures, but dumbfoundedly staring at a river of blood isn't helpful to anyone. Snap out of it.
Hello my name is Russel Crowe and I am Bitcoin.
Are you not entertained?
ETH, EVM chains, and other generic-purpose blockchains are the supports. Traditionally, support is a very unflattering role that gets none of the accolades of the tanks or the DPS, but without them a party will surely be slain. Looking for healer.
General platforms with smart-contracts are the true birthmothers of thousands of child networks. Pretty crazy when we actually take look at them. Unfortunately just like a turtle laying a thousand eggs, statistically very few of them are going to survive long enough to make it to adulthood. Perhaps we need to upgrade our incubators, or perhaps that's just the way it is.
Who's the sneaky one? Who's the one who may or may not be doing something illegal under the cover of darkness? Privacy coins like Monero are the rogues of crypto. They're a bit antisocial, but they pack a hard punch.
Privacy is the basis of not only fungibility and currency but of freedom itself. The argument: "You should have nothing to hide." is one spoken by vipers. They are the enemies of freedom who wield privacy themselves while trying to impose draconian laws on others. Rules for thee not for me.
Privacy coins have the power do to amazing things that other projects just can't. Imagine a world where roads are funded and built with the click of a button. What is the purpose of taxes in this future, other than to siphon value from the poor and funnel it into corrupt hands? Perhaps saying tax evasion is Monero's key function is a bit... stupid. But honestly if the one collecting the taxes is basically an evil imperialist pig, is it really such a stretch to say we should avoid such a thing?
At the end of the day privacy coins can be used to evade the worst kind of centralized corruption and violence on the planet. It isn't easy standing up against tyranny, and those who do need as much help as they can get. Just like the rogue, it is stealth and doesn't play by the rules, and will annoy the old guard to no end as they lash out blindly in the shadows.
Which class is the chain that tries to bring them all together?
Another support class I suppose.
Not a healer, maybe a Bard?
Not my style but it's still nice to have the diversity.
Interoperability is a key component of crypto. The importance of being able to transition from one network to the next seamlessly with as few centralized vectors as possible can not be overstated. Without interoperability we are all locked in a bubble with no bridges to the outside world. Can't have that.
Then again I suppose the argument can be made that everything pretty much supports everything around here. No matter what the role, a team can't get the job done unless every piece is in its place.
So where does that leave our little platform in the grand scheme of things? I don't know. Perhaps I'm in way too deep into this weird metaphor. Hive is a bit of shape shifter. Perhaps we can be a Druid.
Hive looks like a social media, but it isn't social media.
Hive can look like a gaming platform, but again, it isn't one.
So what is Hive? I don't know. What is a shapeshifter?
Everything and nothing. A paradox waiting to discover itself.
The key component of Hive is communication. On-chain communication on Hive is lightyears ahead of other networks. Our ability to yield farm bandwidth using powered up stake is a big part of that. Our ability to transmute RCs into other scarce digital assets also runs parallel to themes of shapeshifting and alchemy.
Still, Hive needs more development to find its true footing. Hive Application Framework and the ability to outsource smart contracts to the second layer will help us divine the direction that we are headed in. A lot of what could go down in the future in terms of killer dapps and whatnot could be totally random and up to blind luck just depending on who creates what.
Where are my Headhunters at? Think about it. Shouldn't crypto be scooping up all the talent in the world and offering them more money to work for the blockchain? Makes sense. As crypto grows, so does our influence and power of the rest of the world.
As it stands now we simply can't afford to undercut the legacy system. Not only that, we don't even have the infrastructure to offer the same types of jobs that are created intrinsically from a scaled-up system. Will that always be the case? I highly doubt it. But I can guarantee that when it does happen the legacy economy will call foul and try to blame crypto for their own obsolescence.
My rangers, illusionists, paladins, and monks? I guarantee there is going to be a crazy unpredictable merge of crypto and religion and/or spirituality at some point. It's unavoidable. Need to explain the unexplainable? There's a crypto for that! A popular one at that. All in good time I suppose.
Okay so maybe this is all a bit ridiculous, but what isn't ridiculous is framing the cryptosphere within the context of cooperation and collaboration instead of one that is in constant competition with one another. There's no such thing as an XYZ Killer. Show me a single example of one crypto wiping out another one in a dog-eat-dog melee. A cryptocurrency's biggest threat is the weakness of its own protocol. Just ask LUNA.
At a certain point I think it's going to become painfully obvious that all this infighting and perceived competition within the arena is completely ridiculous. There will be a time where we will be forced to work together to survive, or perish alone. The choice between those two is an easy one to make.
Sometimes it takes an alien invasion to unite the clans. ---
