Early next year, my wife and I have a few large renovation bill deadlines maturing. We were able to postpone parts of the payments due to pandemic circumstances, which has been lucky considering we also had to add additional work to the renovation and upgrading. Now, we are working hard to make up the ground over the next 5 months and I am extra motivated, as any shortfall will be covered by crypto - and I don't want to cover any of it with my holdings. I have a problem for sure.
My name is Taraz and I'm a hodler.
Because of the future payments weighing on my mind, I have been looking at my own holdings with a little more interest of late and doing the mental arithmetic of what kinds of percentages I would have to use to cover what kinds of amounts. These amounts aren't extreme, but they would put a mighty dent in my holdings at these prices and I am hoping that there will be some kind of significant run up before payments are due. I hope that it will be a little earlier than I need of course, because I don't want to have to be forced into selling.
Being forced into making decisions is never a great position and I have been working over the last years to create some wiggle room so that I am not trapped into a corner completely. I started when I started my business about 7 years ago, but was cleaned out in the first months of my daughter's life by unforeseen circumstances that exacted a heavier financial toll than predicted and set us back significantly. My wife also took time off to finish her studies during this period, so it was hard to make much gain on top of all that was going on.
However, we have managed to manage our circumstances well enough that up until this point, there has been no pressing need to dip into the crypto kitty, my holdings, not that ridiculous Eth game. I think that the almost 4 year run of a zero crypto life is drawing to a close - but I am glad that if it does, I am not going to be using it frivolously and instead be moving it into another investment vehicle, our house. As much as it pains me, I am also looking forward to having something tangible to show for the relative mountain of time, effort and money put in over the last years.
For me, the problem is that crypto is in its infancy as an industry and while it needs to be used, using it also feels like selling out on the future, taking the bird in the hand, which equates to a weak hand approach. This means that at least for now, any crypto I do use will be out of neccessity, not to expand lifestyle. I wonder what the majority of people who made gains at the last bullrun have to show for it less than three years later and I wonder how many have more now than they did then.
The markets are all about speculation, which by definition means to form a hypothesis about something without firm evidence. In regards to investments, it is to act in the hope of gain with acknowledging the potential for loss. My hope is that my holdings now will be enough to sustain me for the rest of my life, but they are far away from being able to do that at these prices. So, I speculate that in the future, my holdings will be worth more and tokens like Hive will not only increase in value, but also give me a steady stream of income by holding stake in the platform and all of the second layer applications and services built now and in the future.
When I say "sustain me" for the rest of my life, I definitely so not intend to live solely off crypto, as I think it is far too volatile to do so unless a person has holdings much larger than mine in order to weather the ups and downs. What I am looking for is having tertiary sources of income that can trickle in to provide potential to either lower my living costs or hopefully, give me greater investment potential.
It doesn't matter if it is a little or a lot, in order to invest, there needs to be some level of economic freedom available, some extra resources that do not need to be spent on living and will not be missed if invested. The amounts might not be great now, but who knows what they will be in the future with strong hands holding them. A hundred dollars might not be much today, but it depends on what it is spent on as to what it will be worth tomorrow.
It is a broken record thing to reference now, but 100 dollars in 2009 is worth about 120 dollars today, meaning that due to inflation, 100 dollars is only worth about 83% of what it was 11 years ago. In February 2011, Bitcoin pulled level and gained parity with the US dollar, meaning 100 dollars would buy 100 Bitcoin - Well, that is worth 1.2 million dollars today - which covers the inflation rate pretty easily.
Now, Something like Hive is never going to be worth 12000 dollars each, but is 12 dollars possible? I speculate, yes. What will Ethereum be worth at that point, Bitcoin? No one really knows, so they hope for gain, while exposing themselves to the risk of loss.
What I find interesting is that currently we are seeing many people who have "done the right thing" suffer at retirement as their pension didn't return as expected. This is speculation too and it is a very long game, which means there is room for a lot of change in the process, wars, famines, global pandemics all eat into the return and there seems to be more down than up for most people. But, it is better to have something than nothing when it comes to resource availability and there are plenty of people with nothing. Four years ago, I was one of them and while still struggling and grinding away, I have at least managed to pull ahead and find a path to hack my way into investing.
If I hadn't have found Hive, I do not think I would own a stake in something that could be considered an investment in anything other than perhaps a property of some kind today. Still, I don't have anything traditional, other than my compulsory fund for my business, my contributions from my second job to a retirement fund and a few stock option I picked up from being furloughed - but I have actively built a small crypto portfolio that could one day be considered valuable beyond what it is worth today, minus the inflation.
While I understand the risk and volatility, it has given me a little bit of breathing room and some confidence in the future. I don't mean that it will actually be highly valued, but it has literally made me more aware of potentials and confident that I will be able to manage. When times are good, I will be able to invest a little more. When times are lean, I have a thin safety net to survive if needs be for longer than I could have before - which was zero, as I had no resources to my name.
This is where "consumer confidence" (however misinformed and misaligned it might be) comes into it, as when consumers are confident that they will have financial availability, they spend. However, when there is investor confidence, they spend too - it is just that each group buys different things. Once upon a time if I had extra in my pocket, it went on something consumable, something disposable, something that didn't have a chance of appreciating in value in any way. Now, I am far more picky with where the disposable income in my pocket goes.
"Disposable income" makes it sound like it can be thrown away - and most of us do throw it away. Not everyone though and I know people who have created a stable economic future for themselves by starting to use what they have early, rather than dispose of it until it is too late. Many of these people started when they were earning less than the average and a decade later, are in the top percentiles. But for most, that decade is far too long to restrict spending on consumables and direct it toward generative investments.
Now, I don't know about you, but I was tired of the constant chase in life well before getting into crypto, but I am also tied of the continued scaling back on the things I want in life in order to keep spending under control. The problem with the continuous cutbacks is, there is a minimum needed in order to live and at some point, all fat is trimmed, all entertainment, all hobbies, all the things that one might actually enjoy in life that take some amount of money to buy.
I think that a lot of people are learning to do without extras, which is great, but it can be a slippery slope if one is also not learning how to maintain or grow what they do have. I watch a lot of people bleed their economic future from a thousand cuts and are getting more and more depressed, not freer. The problem is that living frugally is fantastic, as long as one wants to live frugally. Having no choice and being forced to live without is soul crushing, especially when the things that start to get cut are those we want the most. It isn't enlightenment when there is still the conflict with desire.
There are a lot of people left wanting in this world while they themselves don't see that they play a role in there own outcomes, their on lack. Sure, there are plenty of exceptions on the cards too, plenty of individual circumstances, but on average, we probably all could do better with what we have than we are, which can be observed through people in similar positions as ourselves getting better results.
Right, this is far longer than I planned on writing for these thoughts and whether you can pick something of value from it is up to you - but for me, it is important to spend time understanding my position and considering if it is where I want to be or heading in that direction at all. I do this in many ways because life is complex and is made up of more factors of importance than what we generally pay attention to. However, one of those factors seems to be one that is almost of universal concern - and that is how much money we have in our pocket and, is it enough to buy the things we need and want in life.
Time. money, energy - we all make decisions with what we have to spend - Some will buy a drink, some a cigarette, some a game, some a few more satoshis. Where will you spend yours?
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
