Things are looking upwardly mobile today in the markets and as a result, it has spurred some of my colleagues into gear and got them excited, after all of these months of quiet.
It is interesting to note the different behaviors of people as it is pretty obvious who has bought tokens to hold in the hope that they will go up in value and, who is active in the industry. I think that for the most part, my view of crypto is skewed because I am active here on Hive, interacting daily with people who are also active pretty much daily in the crypto areas available. Not everyone takes the same approach or paths, but all are doing something.
While I know that a lot of people are here to earn by posting, commenting or curating, the value of participating on Hive for the immersion into a community of active people is very high. It is very hard to stay active at anything when alone and investing is generally a lonely business.
This is changing though and I think crypto is a big part of the reason, as it has broken the taboo and normalized discussing "money" publicly and with friends, which has brought more people into the fold and spread knowledge wider. Why I think it is actually quite interesting and illustrative of the industry itself.
Firstly, the decentralization of crypto, meaning that "anyone" can be involved without an authority granting access, has allowed people who were previously locked out of investing to get in. There are many hurdles for the average person to invest and it isn't very easy with small amounts and in some locations, where only the privileged have access.
The second point is more interesting (for me) though, as while we talk about "money", it is done through the lens of tokenization, which removes a lot of the stigma and emotional valence that we carry about it, whilst preserving all of the attributes that are important.
Talking about tokens and tokenomics is like talking about money and economics in metaphor and euphemisms and while this allows us to speak more freely, it also accustoms us to interacting directly with the economy with intention. While we are always interacting with the traditional economy, for the most part we do it as users only. When we are doing the same tasks in crypto, we are doing it as owners and we are much more in control of our activity and aware of the affects we have on the economy itself.
Through this we start to learn through direct and shared experience in the community and we build up our understanding of potential and possibility. It is also very likely that we end up seeing the flaws of the traditional economy and precisely how it is working against so many of us, while favoring a few of us very heavily. Once seen, it is very hard to unsee and when that happens, we begin to change our minds and then our actions.
This raises more questions in us too, as when we start to think differently and move with intention, we start to bump against things that seemed "normal" before and we realize, that it isn't at all.
For example, one of my friends messaged me today to say that his bank had asked for screenshots of his Coinbase profile and some transactions, to prove that it is his. He is very much a law-abiding citizen, but said, "I am not a libertarian, but this just doesn't seem right". And it isn't.
While they are using the "law" to demand this, he already has KYC at the bank and if he is happy with the transactions from his account, the bank shouldn't have any bother at all. The reason for this invasion of privacy is "Money Laundering", as if that is a huge problem amongst Finnish IT professionals. If he doesn't comply within a week, they will shut down access to his accounts.
Yeah - he thought it was his money he was putting in the bank for safe keeping.
This is obviously going to happen more and more and it is out of fear of being replaced, so they the financial institutions are able to lobby the government which is in their pockets and change laws in their favor. What is interesting is that as crypto starts to scale upward, they can't compete. Just think, while they are going into negative interest rates, people moving into the DeFi space are earning triple digit interest on what they are putting in. As the industry matures and offers more and more services that banks currently offer at a premium, and then distribute the profits amongst a decentralized group of investors around the world and from all walks of life, who is going to put their money into a bank?
There will be many.
At first.
But as the conversation keeps growing around crypto and an increasing amount of people are coming in, businesses are created and products and services developed, the narrative changes.
While it takes time, we on Hive are pretty lucky to be part of the conversation and interaction daily. We might be a relatively small blockchain with an undervalued (in my opinion) token, but we have one of the largest active communities in crypto who are doing far more than just buying, holding or trading. '
What is happening on Hive is what needs to happen in the entire industry - places, spaces and reasons for people to get involved and start using crypto for something. It might be for gamming or the news, entertainment or a place to write thoughts - but on Hive, people are using their crypto daily to earn, play and reward in an economy that empowers a community.
Because of the general nature of the Hive blockchain, it is moving in many directions simultaneously, meaning that there are so many seeds scattered about and starting to sprout, that at some point, there will be a forest, with a network of roots that intertwine to create a foundation that many people can build across and live upon.
There are hundreds of millions of crypto people in the world now, yet most of them don't use their tokens actively ever day. That is going to change quickly, when they realize that the real gains are in nurturing the growth of the industry, not waiting for it all to happen from the sidelines.
It is so easy to get involved, but once in, it is unlikely one will ever want to go back to what they knew earlier. Ignorance might be bliss in many cases, but being ignorant in the economy doesn't mean that it is trouble free or without hardship, it just means that you don't know why you are suffering.
Being part of the crypto discussion helps us diagnose our struggles and is a step toward finding a cure to what has repressed so many.
Seeds planted?
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
