I haven't had a Redbull in years, and even longer without vodka appearing in the mix, but I need something to keep me perky. It has been a long few days and I am glad to be on my way toward Amsterdam. I will hopefully drop my stuff quickly at the hotel and then meet up for food or drink or something with a friend.
Speaking of Bull, I haven't had much of a chance to look at the markets, but I see some spikes happening. It seems the spike was driven by the exchange hack though, so not much of anything to write home about.
I would like the crypto bull to get some wings at some point, but for now I don't mind the price doldrums as it allows me to stack a little more in the meantime. It is going to feel amazing to have a pile of useless digital currencies one day!
Of course, I don't think it will be useless or valueless, otherwise I wouldn't buy. It is interesting to consider how much stuff we buy near daily with no expectation of it going up and think it is valuable. The Redbull and chocolate bar I bought cost me about 25 STEEM and it will be gone in a moment and offer little else than some energy for a brief time.
I am quite confident that if I had to pay STEEM directly for it, I wouldn't have considered it worth it. The difference in value could be that what I bought is tangible, whereas Steem is more a concept and what is held now seems to hold more value than what could be held later, even though I know that once consumed, it is gone.
I believe this idea is tangibility is what holds many back from investing as the future is uncertain and the risk of losing it is higher than the risk of losing what is grasped now. It is this uncertainty that will filter out the instant gratifiers and those who are able to delay their gratification.
Instant gratifiers will rarely outperform those who are able to delay for a greater result. And due to resource availability, those already with resources can delay more and more easily, without having to give up all luxury.
Part of the reason money attracts money is because those with money have the potential to use their investment to earn, not to live. This will work the same on Steem of course as those who build Steem Power and apply it to earn more Steem Power will stack more Steem than those who use it to live or consume from. Of course, STEEM also requires some kind of liquidity, there is just far too much at the moment.
I like earning Steem and I like increasing my Steem Power, and I like the processes involved to do so. I think that I would be a terrible traditional investor because it would be far too passive and disconnected from my IRL life.
Steem comes with additional options that allow me to actively use my stake to earn and influence the entire system in various ways, vote, downvote, Steem Proposals, support, delegate and of course the traditional buy and sell factors. Not only these, all of the actions are tied to the actions of others to create a complex network of relationships that become an empowered community.
As I have said many times, the power of Steem code is that it empowers the community that uses it in numerous ways. I believe that the value of the tokens will be directly correlated to the community that gets built around the blockchain, even if those communities do not hold value themselves. The activity of a community is what carries value, not the potential activity. This is part of the reason I keep posting daily too, as it commits my activity to the Steem blockchain and whether someone reads it or not, I have been counted, my voice has been heard - if only be the blockchain itself.
Who knows, perhaps ten years from now some of the articles I have written will be dredged up by some obscure researcher and they will be useful for some reason. Just because I may not earn on it, it doesn't mean it isn't valuable to an audience and even if it isn't read today, it doesn't mean it won't be read tomorrow.
As I see it, my activity on Steem is an investment into my own future and that of others. That future is unlikely to be valuable because of the price of Steem, but rather, the value of the community that utilise it.
There is a long way still to fly, regardless of what the price is telling you today.
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]