Tonight is the staff Christmas party and it is a fancy dress theme (as it is every year) and the theme in question is sports, which is interesting for a tech company of people who likely failed gym class. Actually, I have been pretty surprised at how active people are for people who spend even more time than I do at a keyboard. I haven't got much of an outfit planned yet, I guess I should get on that. What I did do tonight is transfer a little bit of fiat so that I can have it ready to buy something - anything.
Many people are pretty here and there on the future of crypto at the moment, but I am one of the ones who believes that it is going to attract a massive amount of attention in the future. What we have seen so far has been essentially nothing in comparison to what it will be. Once the institutional infrastructure is in place, they are going to hype the fuck out of it and pull in as many of their clients as possible to stack on top of each other, the first in will get the largest gains. The problem is always going to be picking which horse to back of course and most projects will fail as let's face it, there isn't much propping them up.
Every month after payday (and if I have no expected costs coming in) I put a little bit into crypto and have been doing this since the summer or so. While in the big picture of life the amounts aren't anything to brag about, I do consider that it would be significant if the investment vehicle does gain traction.
21,000,000/7,000,000,000 = 0.003
That is how much Bitcoin each person on earth could have if distributed equally. That is $22.50 worth at the current price. How much do you hold and then - factor in the estimated 20% that is locked up and whatever else will never move from the wallet it is in now for one reason or another. To put that amount in perspective by comparing it to Steem, if everyone on earth could have a little bit each;
331,000,000/7,000,000,000 = 0.047
Yes, that is 16 times more STEEM each! It has a value of 0.005 - half a cent. Pretty much to guarantee adequate access to the Steem blockchain for life, a person likely needs about 50 Steem powered up, or the equivalent in Resource credit delegation. 50 Steem is about 6 dollars worth. That is about two weeks of a Netflix subscription at the moment.
Wouldn't it be interesting if the content creators of the world started somehow integrating tokenization into their productions so that they can get accurate and independent verification of views. Would Netflix and Spotify be happy about that? What would happen if a new platform did the same as Netflix except it offered a near 100 percent feedback of value to the content creators and the audience. Paid to watch. Oh, this is happening slowly already though isn't it?
Who knows what the next technology is going to be, but one thing that blockchains have going for them is their simplicity and robustness in concept, as they have literally been around for 1000s of years, just not to this scale, nor to this level of security. Just like the internet supercharged communication at the global level, blockchains are going to spread across the same network to track those relationships and crypto tokens are going to travel the digital pathways created to represent value.
At the moment, people are still comparing Steem to Facebook and Reddit, but there is much more to it than that due to the infrastructure it leverages and potentially a great deal more yet to come that is yet to be thought of. Out of those who were the pioneers of the internet infrastructure, who amongst them envisaged the internet as it is today and what would be popular or, what would be valuable.
If Steem or all of the cryptos I hold fail, I will have lost my direct financial investment which is significant, but far from devastating to my economic life. A few years of percentages put away is not going to kill me, though it might put a dent in my soul. Over the last ten years I have put much more into alcohol than I have put into crypto the last two. I don't drink much these days - but if it all failed, would I start? :D
Don't risk what you aren't willing to lose completely, but I think that for many the greatest barrier to investing themselves is they risk feeling stupid if it all fails. This fear is leverageable by those who spread FUD in order to loosen weak hands that are more concerned with protecting their ego than their investment. I might be wrong and Steem and the entire crypto industry will amount to nothing, but I don't think that I am, so based on what I think, I will act and invest toward the outcomes I believe are possible.
Many will wait and see before jumping in which is fine, but the longer one waits for confirmation, the further along the industry has moved and the lower the potential becomes as an adopter. Everyone can benefit from the technology without being an investor in the infrastructure or the process that makes it possible. Not everyone will need be an owner though which means they can use it risk free with no skin in the game, but the upside potential is using a different mechanism entirely. People have a lot of fun on Reddit and Facebook without any financial reward, Facebook owners have a lot of fun with financial reward.
There is a difference in mindset between owner and consumer normally, but what I like on Steem is that one can be both simultaneously across a diverse set of uses. While I like to write articles like this, someone else can post a story that is dear to their hearts, write poetry, stream a game they love to play or review the latest restaurant they visited. All owners of the same infrastructure, all creators of diverse content, all consumers of a mix of what other owners and creators have added to the chain.
We are at the point where it is going to get increasingly important to add more users into the mix, but that is the same for the entire crypto community. Once those institutions pump the hype on their investment vehicles into crypto, Steem can ride on the coattails for all of those looking to get up to speed fast. This is the most diverse and noob friendly crypto experience out there, and that is going to be its strength moving forward and the apps will play the key role in this area.
Whatever the result, I still rather spending my time writing for Steem than consuming for nothing.
There is always FUD and it is greatest in the early stages of an industry. Some will believe it and act to support their belief, others will ignore it and act toward another belief. Only time can tell the outcome and what I find in crypto is that many people underestimate the time frame required to change the world.
I am already home.
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]
