I have been making some silly investment decisions lately. Mostly concerning Splinterlands. I have gone from zero investment not too long ago to, well, too much. If this is just the hype and there is nothing to come out of it in the future, it is going to be pretty painful, but at least I will have some digital cards I can stare at. If however it does keep ramping up in value as more players come on board, it should be okay.
This whole crypto thing is very much pie in the sky at this point and even though we can feel smart for investing early into something that goes 10x or 50x, that is only the short-term result. Buying into a token that goes 10x and selling into fiat isn't the success of the token, even though profit was made. The long-term vision of success has to be tied to utility, where the token can be used or is part of solving a problem of some kind.
The buy and sell of it is just speculation and competition against other speculators, it isn't attached to anything useful, meaning the token could be literally anything. Once that speculation shifts to investment decisions being made on the speculation of which project is going to bring utility and then, the token value of the token is attached to its ability to deliver, then things start to change and real industries form.
What is interesting about blockchain and tokenization through crypto is that while it is an industry by itself in many ways, it is also supporting infrastructure for every industry that is currently connected to the current economy, which is all industries. The technology is versatile enough to be able to used in numerous ways that can interact with existing businesses to help them improve their processes, streamline and save costs; as well as support the innovation of new developments to be brought to the market to improve their client offerings.
Back in the day when the internet was rolling out globally into the mainstream, no one "invested" into it, they invested into connecting to it. This means that while we had access to the capabilities of the infrastructure, we don't actually own any of it, we are all renters. For practical purposes, blockchain tech needs the internet network for it to be useful to the majority of us, but this also means it has to run on the rented lines, which is of course a risk.
However, the internet and the potential of blockchain and crypto is of such value, that shutting it down is going to be far too costly, since it is able to reduce costs and generate additional income and capabilities, empowering the internet as we know it even further. As more corporations discover the potential and start connecting their own business models to the blockchain in the same way they connected to the internet back in the day, the entire world starts to change.
Back in the early 90s, no one saw what was coming in terms of how it would be utilized, nor did they see how it was going to fundamentally guide innovation. Pretty much everything we do now is in some way powered by the internet in some way and if it was to go dark, society would at least for a while, fall apart. We have got so accustomed to having the internet help us, that we don't even know all of the ways it does so, only the ways that come to mind.
Once the blockchain layer is integrated in, the second-layer goods and services start to sprout up too and many of the current methods to manage digital content of all kinds, will start integrating with blockchain and token technology in an attempt to save and generate wealth. Corporations are very savvy at utilizing technology to improve profits and it won't be long until they mainstream crypto, because it is in their best interest to do so.
Ultimately, even though I consider all of us early adopters and investors, at the end of the day it is impossible to know precisely what will successfully bridge the gap from value potential to realizing that value. Many people go quite wide with their investments and others stay narrow, some see massive gains, some see massive losses - but it is about being lucky as much as it is about being smart.
While I feel that I have largely missed the Splinterlands boat, if Hive was to go 10x in the next six months, there will be people who will feel they missed the HIVE boat. I can't say that HIVE will go up like that by Christmas, but I hope it does and then a fair bit further. However, the price would still be considered a short-term gain, until it drops back and finds a floor. Once that floor is stable enough that the mainstream trust it and don't mind building upon it, it is unproven as a problem solver.
The internet was once an oddity, a curiosity that people didn't really understand enough to see the future use of it, but the average person isn't overly innovative. However, once the innovators did see the potential to improve processes and create value for existing business, it expanded rapidly. Now, everything we do and have is connected at some point in its lifecycle to the internet, utilized heavily by the very people who couldn't see its value back in the day.
I remember people making fun of those who had car phones in the late 80s and the mobile users in the early 90s - how many of those people don't have a smartphone today because they do not see the benefits of the technology? Back then, the infrastructure was called "tele" communication - but who calls it the telco industry now?
It won't be that long until the same spikes happen in blockchain and crypto innovation, so that what people know of it (which is currently not much) start to change in the mainstream and they start to interact with it in ways that they couldn't before, often not even knowing when they are using it or if it was ever part of the production line of what they do and consume. It will just be another part of their day, while trillions of dollar equivalents of processes and usage, runs across it in the background.
It might be pie in the sky at the moment, but we have the ingredients coming together all the time and the oven is warming.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]