Between 2012 and 2013, I picked up this idea to earn money online. It was a strange journey that started with me wanting to write a book. So instead of starting to write a book, I tried to figure out how I would be able to sell it. That's kind of how I discovered affiliate marketing and all the artificial traffic generation tools like viral mailers and traffic exchanges. I also discovered ptc (paid-to-click) sites and wasted a lot of my time claiming from them and surfing traffic exchanges. I kind of lost focus... Through the ptc pages, I discovered some virtual currencies in the German speaking community. The most important of these currencies was called klammlose and the surrounding community was quite big. With these Klammlose you could gamble and also promote websites. It was possible to earn these Klammlose by watching ads, by gambling and also by putting them into savings accounts.
I quickly became a fan of these Klammlose and even wrote my first e-book about them. I had learned enough about affiliate marketing and traffic generation to sell a handful of these e-books. However there was a big problem with Klammlose. They were minted by a single entity that had total control. So they printed and printed until the inflation was so great that the Klammlose became virtually worthless. Some linked websites stopped working because they couldn't put enough zeros in their code...
About at the same time, I discovered bitcoin and altcoins. It took me some time to understand how they worked but it was love at first sight:
- crypto allowed me to transfer value directly to another person just by knowing his wallet address. Even with Klammlose this was not possible. I first had to send them to the central website and from there I could send them to other users. At that time the transactions were pretty fast and almost free.
- The supply growth of crypto was defined by the respective blockchain code and this represented a great protection against wild minting like it happened with Klammlose
- crypto took away the intermediary. When I sold my e-book, the platform I was selling it from, took a big cut and then I had to pay paypal fees in addition to that.
- Crypto was independent from the tranditional financial system. Nobody can block my account or kick me out. Speaking about paypal, they kicked out a whole sector at a time... Just ask @jongolson...
Today crypto has become an imitation of the financial system with little regulation
When I look today what crypto has become, I fail to see what attracted me in the first place. Crypto has become a copy of the financial system with all the bad stuff it contains. The big difference is that the crypto world is kind of the far west. Little regulation leaves the way free for scams, rug pulls and simply mismanagement. It's pretty disappointing in my opinion. However, there is an exception..
Hive: a bright star in a dark world
Hive is the only place where I still find the things that attracted me to crypto in the past and it's much better that what I discovered first:
- I can send value to whomever I want. Within 3 seconds and for free as long as I have enough RC!
- I can know exactly how fast the hive supply will grow and how well it's protected against unlimited inflation
- On hive there is no intermediary other than apps that fulfill a certain role.
- Hive is probably the most independent and resilient blockchain out there. In terms of decentralization and distribution of stake, hive is in a league by itself.
For me hive is this little world that still does what I love about crypto. On hive, there is a ton of energy invested to reach exactly what crypto should be: a parallel economic system that is free of censorship, free of regulations and belonging to a community that stretches all around the world.
Let's connect ! You can find me on these platforms: