As they say, history might not repeat itself but it certainly does rhyme.
For me, I am having deja vu all) over again. It seems like I saw this story before. Of course, many still fall victim to the same thing.
In this article, I am going to explain why it is foolish to buy into alot of the crypto narratives. We will illustrate this with a walk down memory lane.
The 1990s and the Internet
For those old enough to remember, there was once a world without smartphones, streaming, and wireless Internet. These are innovations of the last couple decades. The latter certainly made a huge impact upon society.
That said, the early days were far from clear. There was something called the dotcom bubble during the late 1990s. It was a time when the stock market went nuts over Internet stocks. The technology sector drove everything to absurd heights (at least for that era).
It was also a time when venture capital money was flowing like water. Kids were dropping out of prestigious universities to "start an app". For this, they received millions of dollars in funding.
The "Information Superhighway" was being built. Everyone was getting in on the modern day gold rush.
Then reality hit. Things came crashing down as the markets realized what truly was happening. While there were some good projects, most were crap. The college dropouts, did they even know how to code? I doubt many people asked.
Overnight, companies went from huge valuations to nothing. The era came to an end.
Of course, this isn't the end of the Internet story. That is not the era we are referring to. That was solid. Instead, the era of Internet stock insanity was put to rest.
From that point forward, building took place.
Insanity Revived (Again and Again)
Have no fear. The world did not suddenly get sane.
Cryptocurrency ushered in the insanity, but on steroids. Over the past 6 years, we saw a repeat of the DotCom era, on a number of occasions.
The DotCom era was one of technology and monetization. Through the stock market, projects were able to be values based upon market prices. This was rather novel considered, decades before, only the biggest and best were publicly traded.
As stated, cryptocurrency put it on steroids. There was no need to even go through the IPO process. Instead, simply have an ICO and put it on a website.
The problem with the crypto world is that every couple years we get a new buzzword. We certainly do love them in this industry. There was the ICO craze. Then DeFi. DAOs. Memes. SocFi.
And now we have AI.
All of these were tokenized. Man projects emerged, with a token, proclaiming a grand vision for the future. These things were going to change the world. Naturally, you had best get on board because this is the modern day gold rush.
Look at that list again. How many tokens from each of those periods is actually worth anything.
The main problem is the projects themselves are worthless. It is deja vu all over again.
A Lack of Building = Worthless Crap
During the 1980s, the fast food chain Wendy's made headlines with an ad series "Where's the Beef". It features an old lady at a competitor asking where's the beef on a hamburger.
To update that idea, and risk sounding like a broken record, "where the building". This is what everyone should be asking.
When looking at those buzzwords, how many projects were actually building stuff? Very few. The simply model is:
A lack of building = worthless crap.
Perhaps we can see why much of what is out there in crypto world is worthless. How many projects do you see talking about building value? About designing applications that actually offer value to the users. This could be in any of the areas yet, sadly, what we mostly see is buzzwords, white papers, and little else.
The Internet companies of today that were around during the DotCom era all have one thing in common: they kept building.
Amazon. Google. Priceline. Netflix.
Contrast this with dozens of other names you could look up from that period which are no longer around.
A token will not work out if the project is not developing and expanding. Sure, one might catch some hype, earning some money. However, as an investment, you are in the landfill surrounded by flies.
Concept Survive
We often hear how whatever the buzzword is dead.
That is incorrect. None of what is mentioned above is dead. All of them will have their day in the future. Fecentralized finance (DeFi) is going to be huge. ICOs will likely be the funding mechanism down the road. SocFi is legit.
What is dead is the projects which had tokens many were hyping. In fact, a case could be made they were never alive.
It gets old but that is why I continually harp on the builders. These are the ones who are making a difference. Look at the top Internet names from the early days and they all have that in common. Jeff Bezos. Mark Cuban. Mark Zuckerberg. The Google Boys.
The common theme is they kept expanding what they were creating. Some ended up selling out and moving onto other things but they remained until what they created had value.
This is the challenge for not only crypto, but everyone on Hive. What building are you doing and what are you following. If we are in the process of developing Web3, what part are you playing. It is a wide open arena, just like the early days of the Internet.
Fortunately, some tools are already in place to build without having the technical expertise. That is a major advantage over the past. Even if we are involved in something that is not our idea, tokenization allows us to have stake in the project. For this reason, there can be a direct correlation between our efforts and the ultimate value of our wallets.
Technology
Another reality is that we are dealing with nothing new. When it comes to technology, the failure rate is huge.
This is something that is not going to change. Success in this realm depends upon a ton of variables. For this reason, it is best to be leery of most projects. When it comes to the individual components, most projects will come up short on more than one.
Here we see the major problem.
Rug pulls are nothing new. The college dropouts received a ton of money from VC firms with no intention of building anything. That was the rug pull of that era.
If you want to succeed, get involved with those projects that are building stuff. They are not sexy on a daily basis but they is where the difference is. Most of what we see is more likely to end up as WebVan than Google.
Keep that in mind.
Posted Using InLeo Alpha
I had to google Priceline, never heard of that one before.
So many projects coming up in Crypto world and this causes more to keep crashing because there is no solid foundation therein
This is why I am very conscious about the projects I join. I try to do extensive research on them before I invest any substantial amount over $10. I usually toss a few dollars into the game just to strat and try it out. You are right though, you have to be careful, you just never know the intentions of the devs and a lot of trust is put into them.
A smart approach.
"The lack of building = worthless crap." couldn't agree more.
So many have created crap the pile is constantly growing, the dot.com era was scary when collapse hit, tokens have taken many for a ride financially stripping people along the way, sound advice with links to reference!
@tipu curate
Upvoted 👌 (Mana: 49/69) Liquid rewards.
Watching the technology realm for so long, it is a logical conclusion.
By what I noticed too many hit the market with no plan, gave tokens a bad wrap, not performing many felt (were) a ponzi scheme, then walked away without delving in deeper.
Research Oh so necessary for everything in life.
Personally I am glad that you often focus on building because it reminds me that I should be building also... even if the only thing I am building are ideas.
I still think that a Hive operating system would be a big hit and quite useful. Imagine an OS that has all the Hive applications built into it as well as the code bases for developing Hive applications. It could also be packed with content creation tools.
Such an OS would (in my mind) have three versions:
An end user version with a focus on content creation, gaming, curation and application development.
A CLI (command-line interface) version that is for easy Hive node (or Witness node) deployment.
A mobile version that is solely designed for mobile devices (like phones and tablets) and geared towards both content creation and content consumption.
It is true that as much as the current technology has improved us, these technologies also have many limitations. Today most of the engineers who come out of university or people who look for jobs are mostly running after money, they are not connected to the technologies that make the whole and do something good from it.
There is a completely different mindset from what people are use to.
Lol I am sort of awaiting for the next one!!!
You are appointed to name it.
I think that the main problem with Tokens is the repeated imitation of projects without any logical feasibility study.
The question is whether the project teams have any plans.
It's good that you mentioned the Internet
The same applies to crypto, as the index also rises over time, which always makes me confident.
https://inleo.io/threads/omarrojas/re-leothreads-23bphym3c
The rewards earned on this comment will go directly to the people ( omarrojas ) sharing the post on LeoThreads,LikeTu,dBuzz.
Congratulations @taskmaster4450! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain And have been rewarded with New badge(s)
Your next target is to reach 1950000 upvotes.
You can view your badges on your board and compare yourself to others in the Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPCheck out our last posts:
!ALIVE
!PGM
BUY AND STAKE THE PGM TO SEND A LOT OF TOKENS!
The tokens that the command sends are: 0.1 PGM-0.1 LVL-0.1 THGAMING-0.05 DEC-15 SBT-1 STARBITS-[0.00000001 BTC (SWAP.BTC) only if you have 2500 PGM in stake or more ]
5000 PGM IN STAKE = 2x rewards!
Discord
Support the curation account @ pgm-curator with a delegation 10 HP - 50 HP - 100 HP - 500 HP - 1000 HP
Get potential votes from @ pgm-curator by paying in PGM, here is a guide
I'm a bot, if you want a hand ask @ zottone444
@taskmaster4450! You Are Alive so I just staked 0.1 $ALIVE to your account on behalf of @ tuisada. (6/10)
The tip has been paid for by the We Are Alive Tribe through the earnings on @alive.chat, feel free to swing by our daily chat any time you want, plus you can win Hive Power (2x 50 HP) and Alive Power (2x 500 AP) delegations (4 weeks), and Ecency Points (4x 50 EP), in our chat every day.
