"This market's un-bear-able"

_ Depression Bear

That is a direct quote.
_{I don't make this shit up.}

Depression Bear might be my "spirit animal", as I think that we generally have the same thoughts. But where we differ is, I have a stubborn streak of "hope" through me that I can't seem to shake. In fact, I tend to work better when the markets are depressed, than when they are riding high, which could be because I get a good "why" to do the work, rather than asking myself, "why am I working?" That vein of hope sees light at the end of the dark tunnel, so I will keep working, blindly heading toward a better future.

Do you know what is happening with crypto?

This is a question I got this morning for a recent crypto convert, even though they have not bought any and do not own any. They are converted to the "idea" of it, but haven't yet built any understanding, yet, despite having zero skin in the game, they (like most people) focus on price too.

it is a response to the massive overprinting of cash during the last two years, which postponed and worsened an inevitable crash

While not entirely happy with the "the entire economy is collapsing" argument and the fact that tech stocks have been taking a hammering for 6 months, with some of the largest down 40-50% YTD.

I assume you are talking about prices, because in regards to everything else, development keeps on happening continuously :)

I also added:

Price is affected by liquidity, and the majority of tokens are not necessarily liquid, especially with bitcoin. There are many large holders, meaning only a fraction of the tokens are available to buy, so scarcity is high and when demand is high, price moves very fast up. But, when it gets to the peak where people are more willing to add their liquidity and sell, it moves very fast down, as the market is thin.

A simple example I know..

So, what is a better indicator than price?

What various projects are doing. Look at it like company stocks. What does a company need to do to make those stocks valuable and offer dividends?

Build of course!

Establish a supply chain and process, create and reliably produce a product, generate demand willing to pay, nurture a customer base, innovate, consolidate, improve efficiencies...

Be a business.

Do you recognize what "being a business" means? Well, a business has to survive the bear markets - it can't just be around when times are good. This means that the bear markets are building times, not hibernating times and in order to keep building, there has to be the resources available to build and what gets built, has to be something that is going to be in demand enough that it will cover operating expenses and hopefully, be in much higher demand down the track when the market sentiment changes tack and heads up with the wind of sentiment at its back driving it.

A business can't afford to hibernate during the bear markets, because they have obligations to meet regardless of market conditions. So, they scale back on staff, they crush supply chains to reduce costs and they consolidate their activities into survival, finding a balance between development, survival, market growth and share, as well as employee retention and wellbeing - at least to some extent. Whilst this all changes and has many factors and variables depending on the industry and business model, very few businesses can "shut up shop" and sleep when conditions aren't ideal.

However, since most crypto projects have no real staff, no product and their only usecase is trading (in some form) demand, shutting up shop is quite easy, because the overheads are low to non-existent and there is very little commitment from *anyone involved - including the "investors" who hold the associated tokens. For most cryptos, there is zero reason to actually hold through a bear market, because there is nothing to do with the "assets" involved.

There is a good reason that crypto skeptics will argue that crypto has "no usecase" because the vast majority of it doesn't. People will argue and complain about this from many perspectives, but the fact is that 95% of cryptos will disappear, and other than the "financial loss" of the perceived market value of the tokens, nothing changes. They don't touch on anyone's lives practically in any way - they are valueless.

Now, some of them might have "unrealized value", meaning that they are like startups that are building their product and will eventually go to market with it, generating demand and a market share. However, most are like the dotcom bubble startups, an idea, a URL and high levels of stupid venture capital investment. Not many of those survived past early the 2000s, but those that did and those that came after, created an incredibly valuable industry that has touched our practical lives in a myriad ways daily, for better and worse.

But, I don't own a blockchain business, yet I am still actively looking to participate and build within the industry. This takes form clearly on Hive, where it does affect my daily life and I have a daily demand for the product it offers, which is an experience within a community, content, relationships and of course, the various applications and games like Splinterlands that I interact with daily too, which have their second-layer values in-built, that increases my connection to Layer 1, with layer 1 increasing my reasons to support Layer 2.

And, within this ecosystem, I am able to interact with people who like me, have hope, even if sometimes the fears bubble to the surface too, and people get scared that what they value, is not going to survive. This is natural, because whilst most people aren't running Hive businesses and there are no clear owners, most users see themselves as investors who are supporting a whole network of businesses, in the hope that sometime down the track, there will be returns, not only for themselves, but also for the entire community.

This makes me even more hopeful, that bear or bull - there is value in Hive because people are willing to make it part of their practical lives, even if it is only to drop a vote, write a comment, a post or submit a team for battle in the hope for a win.

Being part of an active community - makes a bear market,

Bear-able.

Even Depression Bear survives on Hive.

Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]