Since 2005, the documentary television series "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" has followed the very true struggles of very real small business owners and very typical Americans as they try to make their dreams come true in the New Millennium.
Financial struggles are a constant worry for Mac, Dennis, Charlie, Sweet Dee, and Frank. Their small business, a bar named Paddy's Pub is decrepit and only seems to attract customers when those customers are too young to legally drink anywhere. Yet, they do not abandon Paddy's Pub, they keep trying to make it work, attempting scheme after scheme.
One episode from Season 5, hit a little close to home. The episode is called "The Great Recession" - remember the global financial crisis of 2008? That was a thing! I remember quite well how brutal it was, how regulations all around the world seemed to favor entrenched rich people, corrupt business practices, bought-and-sold politicians, and insanely complicated financial devices that seemed designed to make it impossible to know what was happening with assets. Governments and Business Leaders the world over vowed that they would fix it so that nothing like it would ever happen again.
Mission Accomplished!
I am accused of over-using sarcasm, and I apologize for that. I think the global financial circus is even more tilted toward rich douchebags, even incentivized toward buying off politicians to whoever has the deepest pockets, and even more dependent on turning regular folks against each other to keep us from seeing who's really getting away with murder. And, of course, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is not a documentary.
But, it did hit close to home when I watched this episode last night. In it, the recession has hit, people have been forced out of their homes and into vans, campers, and cardboard boxes, and everyone is scrambling to find a new way to make money. Seriously, though, does that NOT sound like "these days"?
The scheme Dennis and Mac come up with while blackout drunk is to create "Paddy's Dollars" - an in-store currency that is require to purchase drinks at their pub. Their drunken reasoning goes like this...
- create Paddy's Dollars, which we'll call PADD for short
- distribute them for free to the people living in their vans
- those people will then spend PADD at Paddy's Pub because that is the only place where they have any value
- they will get hooked on Paddy's drinks and will need to buy more PADD in order to drink there more
- Circular Economy!
Dennis and Mac try to create a circular economy!
After a scene in which the homeless van people are shown walking off with cases of beer, Dennis and Mac are thrilled to realize they have gotten almost all their PADD back. That is, all of the free PADD they distributed was spent in the bar. Max suggests re-distributing the PADD and getting the "wheel of money" spinning again.
This is when Dennis realizes that the van people do not have to buy PADD in order to get alcohol, they can buy alcohol anywhere they want. They did not succeed in locking in the value they were seeking. In fact, they have no money left and no inventory to sell, and are surrounded by people living in vans and cardboard boxes who are now drunk on free alcohol.
Does this seem eerily familiar to anyone who got into crypto recently?
The dynamic is a tricky one. In my opinion, there are currently NO CRYPTO ASSETS that have any necessary value. If they all disappeared, the world would barely notice. Other than in El Salvador, which already has been brutalized, it wouldn't make any difference to life for almost anyone. Compare that to the collapse of a bank or even a minor fiat currency.
If Paddy's PADD bucks lose their value, only the people left holding them feel the pain...If crypto dies, only the corpses go to the funeral. At least for now.
But, BUT! But, crypto feels very VERY important and absolutely full of incredible promise to those of us who are active in here. I keep telling my friends about the unbelievably cool advantages that crypto communities, investment vehicles, games, and NFTs have over regular real world equivalents.
I am convinced that crypto is superior, has competitive advantages, and will be widely adopted. Someday.
That is why I am here. I really see the advantages and still believe enough in human reason to feel that crypto adoption is inevitable.
But, I also believe that right now crypto is totally irrelevant to almost everyone who is alive. So, it is more like Paddy's PADD Dollars than like US Dollars or even Twitter stock (god forbid!). For now.
I see crypto as being like saving pennies in a jar. In the USA, pennies normally are seen as having so little useful value that people just leave them lying around. You can't get anything for a penny, $.01 buys literally nothing. The act of putting a penny in a jar is very nearly like putting a Paddy's PADD in a jar. At first it makes no difference at all. Instead of a piece of nothing, you have a jar of nothing.
But because of the competitive advantages of crypto, I really believe that someday each little coin will go from a value of $.01 or even $.0000001 to having a much higher value. And because of the mechanisms available to us in crypto, those pennies are getting sexy in that jar and having babies. HBD makes more of itself. Hive Power makes more of itself. Staked SPS makes more of itself. Gifting PGM makes more of itself, and on and on and on.
Some of the crypto I have that is busily making babies will be like PADD...worthless. And actually all of the crypto I have is worth less than it used to be. But over time, enough of those babies will have value that it will make a difference to me and my family.
That is why I actually think the #1 rule of crypto is not "Not your keys, not your crypto" or "DYOR" but is actually the same #1 rule of any long-term, risky investment:
Do Not Need Your Crypto Now
It is possible, I suppose, to get lucky - just as it was possible, I suppose, for Dennis and Mac to get the van and cardboard box people addicted to their alcohol - and make money in crypto today, that you can use today.
But where crypto is at now, in my opinion, makes it a very long-term play. If you have money you won't need for years and years, go ahead and do whatever you want with it. But please, do not risk anything or any money that you need right now in crypto. Instead, treat crypto as a jar where you let worthless currency make babies for 3 years, 5 years, even 10 years. Fill that jar with worthless pennies from projects you like and have fun with, like P2E games, or those that add value to your life, like Hive communities or LeoFinance, or those that you see being fixtures of a future crypto economy. But whatever you do, Do Not Need Your Crypto Assets Now.
I think that is the most heart-felt advice I can give.
Not financial advice, of course!
What do you think?
Thanks for reading!