This post contains a rant, so if you're easily offended, click away.
We've all run into them: crypto enthusiasts who say bitcoin is the future of money.
"It's hella rad, man, no central banks, no middle men, it's on the blockchain and it takes power away from the feds and places it in the hands of people!"
Some of you may be new to the scene, but when I first got into crypto some five six years ago, the gimmick around cryptocurrency was what was stated above: a revolutionary new form of currency that was not controlled by governments and central banks.
It was supposed to bring us freedom from oppressive government and their trash fiat currencies that make us all poorer in the form of inflation, and what was not stolen through inflation would be stolen through taxes.
That's why I got in and bought BTC back in the day.
What about now?
The crypto enthusiasts are still saying the same thing, but what do they mean?
In 2018, cryptocurrencies are nothing but a new form of lottery where people wish to make a profit - profit that is ultimately cashed out in fiat.
I've said it for a long time that the initial price rise of BTC was the worst thing that could happen to the cryptocurrency revolution, since it created the early bitcoin millionaires that made everybody jealous, and got them thinking that they want that, too.
So, everybody started to get in.
But not to start a revolution, no.
They got in to get rich.
And don't get me wrong, it'd be hypocritical of me to say that I haven't enjoyed the fiat profits I've made in crypto, I'm human, but honestly, what more is there to do anyway?
Crypto has become apt stomping ground for all different kinds of scammers, all in it to make a quick buck. Whenever someone praises a coin - be it bitcoin, ripple, doge, whatever - it has to do with the price going up.
It's never about the technology behind it, it's never about what the coin can do to move us forward as a species.
No; a coin is good when it enables one to get the maximum amount of fiat.
I'm a member of a Finnish crypto group on Facebook, and today finally got annoyed by the fact that each and everyone there - it seems - is simply a speculator, looking to make fiat.
Call me an elitist if you so wish, but I miss the days when people in crypto cared about a revolution. It was even more of a niche thing back then, but at least there were smart people around it.
Bitcoin is so outdated it's not even funny. What is so special about bitcoin? What can do it do besides go up in price? Nothing, not a damn thing. Development is slow to the point that it's almost nonexistent and no one cares about the problems as long as the price keeps going up.
Let's imagine bitcoin at 50k, 100k, 500k.
What changes? The amount of fiat people can get buy selling their bitcoin. Nothing else. Bitcoin is expensive and slow to use now, so take a guess how it's going to perform at 100k.
Do you see that as a currency used at your local supermarket?
"Okay, that'll be 0.0000000025 BTC! The average transaction in the bitcoin network takes about two months, so we have free coffee served on the camping site at the back of the store, enjoy your stay!"
The thing that really irritates me is the fact that a better coin already exists, and it's STEEM.
I have my issues with Steemit the website, and Steemit, INC. but STEEM the blockchain is very damn good. No thanks to Steemit, INC. at all, but it doesn't change the fact.
There's nothing BTC can do that STEEM can't, and if there's a coin that could possibly potentially bring us a crypto revolution, it'd be STEEM.
I rag on INC for not marketing STEEM, but that's not even the main issue, since the main issue is that people probably wouldn't care, anyway.
"STEEM? What's that, like 6 bucks, or som'n? Bitcoin is 16k, baby!"
"Okay, what makes it so great?"
"It's the currency of the future!"
"What are you buying with it, again?"
"Dollars!"
The other problem with crypto becoming a tech savvy lottery is the fact that what kinds of people usually buy lottery tickets?You guessed it: stupid people.
So, there you go.
That's your crypto crowd right there.
The embarrassing fact is that governments and central banks have absolutely nothing to fear from crypto currencies. Probably never will.
Man, I love your humor. 😂
Otherwise, I think that the current hype is a stage that simply can´t be skipped. BTC needs to grow beyond a certain valuation in order to be able to encompass big enough markets. And we are not there yet. BTC cannot survive long-term in a niche like it dwells in right now. It needs to grow beyond a critical size or it will disappear.
Both can still happen. However, as long as BTC remains on the growth trajectory it will produce Fiat millionairs as an unavoidable side-product. It´s human nature and noone can escape that.
The economical and societal transformation that early adopters had envisioned will follow (probably in unexpected ways) but BTC needs to grow much further before that can actually start. Fiat millionaires that arise along the way and the resulting FOMO is just a fire accelerant to get there faster. And yes, it may not be BTC that achieves that critical size first.
Cheers!
I hope you are right and we will see the change in the mind of the people. But that's the point, changing a currency system is not enough, i think peoples heads need to change.
If you are talking to people about cryptocurrency in these days, no one of them understands really much. They are not even interested for this stuff, just for the price. And i think this has to change. The people need to understand the revolutionary potential.
Usually, the mind of the people does not tend to change a lot at all. Those who are currently in crypto with the mindset of making fiat gains will keep that mindset. Most of them are anyway not interested in something like a revolution. However, that´s not key for the further expansion of crypto. It´s rather that those people who already have the right mindset but are not yet into crypto get onboard. And I don´t mean an intellectual elite but rather people for whom crypto can actually solve existential problems. Like those who suffer from being unbanked or from insanely inflationary fiat currencies. Those are the ones who will push the space forward in the end.
Like for example the Zimbabwe dollar I guess
It is great for parents who want to give their kids pocket money and know they won't just immediately run and spend it all on candy as they won't get the money before they are adults.
The most important worry from most whales right now is:
"How do I cash out?"
not "How do I change the world"
My prediction is that in 2018 also western governments will start dropping their hammers on crypto/fiat exchanges. The next G20 in April may mark the start of it. This could prove to be the biggest favour that governments can do for crypto. Exiting times ahead.
cash out slow ... like in life, move everything in stages ...
like pooping in the woods, and finding out you're squatting in ants.
"Blockchain!"
"SMART CONTRACTS!"
"rabble rabble"
"rubble rubble"
"Lambos! m00n! yolo!"
Exactly what came to my mind. This is just the point.
FOMO is what it comes down to
Smart contracts, dumb people?
When virtual cats can crash a platform, it's not ready for the big time yet.
LOL, totally true and sell them to speculators too!
I think you're missing the forest for the trees. Fiat currencies ALWAYS fail. They are 1 part social engineering, 1 part highway robbery. Engineered failure.
In the past, fiat failures meant poverty and war. Then, when the people were down on their knees, the bankers gift: more fiat.
Cryptos today are Damocles Sword, hanging over the banker's heads. Each fiat debacle, each bail in or bail out, now puts the Central Banks in peril, NOT the people. Because there is an alternative --an emerging one -- in place.
I predict more cryptos will fail, than fiats have failed. Cryptos are operating in an environment of very fast evolution. We certainly dont need 1400 different kinds of coins.
BTC will also eventually fail. Maybe in 2018.
But I get your point, don't trust fiats (either) !!
Agreed. Most cryptos will fail. But there won't be world wars or a great depression because of it.
On the positive side, there will be winners. Projects that think outside the box, like, maybe, Siacoin or Decentraland or DENT. Also projects targeted at the unbanked.
Think about Humaniq bringing biometric ID and banking to the billions. The wrong people are drooling over this idea for the wrong reasons -- then again, what the controllers have pushed for in the past has become our current system. So there will be winners.
i see cryptos as an intermediate system in this world transition phase
Debt-based currencies will always cycle between boom and bust. They have to. It's built in to their nature.
"The embarrassing fact is that governments and central banks have absolutely nothing to fear from crypto currencies. Probably never will."
Yep, you pretty much hit the nail on the head.
An interesting point regarding fiat and more specifically the USD, is the fact that when crypto enthusiasts say "the dollar is worthless" or "the dollar is going to crash" they have no fuckin' clue what a hyper-inflationary USD would do to the global financial system. . I think I have an idea, and it looks like the TV show, "Walking Dead". Post WWI Germany is a good example as well. . A USD crash is not good for anyone unless you enjoy global depression. . Good post.
It will be bad, but there is no way to stop USD from falling. Get crypto & gold to survive.
Just because people predict it will happen does not mean they hope it happens (though some do) that's like saying the weatherman wants a hurricane because he said it's coming...
My words, from yesterday. That can only happen on Steemit. It's just too bad so many do not understand what that means. It's too bad the crypto-lotterytard types don't know much about entertainment and how much of a draw the arts can be. It's only billions of dollars per year. I can't seem to figure out why those marketing experts can't even see this. I'll fucking stop talking now. Who listens to a comedian anyway.... (Stadiums of people... fucking stadiums.) If they want to make money here, all they have to do is be an audience. Alright. I've said enough.
It's easy to get frustrated.
However.
Most of everything that anyone does has to do with personal gain of some sort, whether it is done for fame or fortune. That's not a bad thing. It's what motivates us -- so let's ride that wave that nature has given us.
Of course crypto is hammered on in order to cash out in fiat. But that's because fiat is the current denominator.
The whole point of crypto is to change the denominator. And we will reach a point where stuff is referenced in crypto rather than referenced in fiat. Only once we reach this point will fiat cease to have pricing power, and once it ceases to have pricing power, it will remove the ability to debauch the currency that central governments currently have.
Once this happens, the good things we saw in crypto can come to pass. Imagine governments with limited ability to debauch currency to make war!
The future is bright. Just have to have faith.
I completely agree. You rarely hear about technical developments, just price movements. People laid certain coins due to speculative price gains not new developments. The vast majority of people now interested in crypto are here because they think they can make money, nothing else. That is why shite coins which are a complete clone of existing coins can make 1000% gains in a matter of hours due to marketing not technical developments!
I believe it will take a large and sustained crash to allow the decent cryptos with valid use cases to rise to the top and to kill off all the dross!
Many of the alt coins were designed from the beginning as a payment mechanism. And many are pumping.
STEEM was not designed as a payment mechanism. And there seems to be little to no effort focused on turning it into a payment mechanism. So no reason for you to focus on a topic that STEEM will never solve.
STEEM seems to be special purpose coin, focused on social media. If you don't like that specialized niche, don't hold STEEM.
I know for a fact that ned, at least at some point, had a vision of STEEM as a global payment mechanism. I don't know about his stance now.
To be a "global payment mechanism" a coin must be sort of "price stable" .
My hope was that SBD could do the trick, but it obviously didn't .
No, money came first! Steemit is the idea of having a paying facebook I guess. It was not about a better one, it was about earning.
https://steemit.com/self-voting/@johano/that-s-why-we-need-a-self-voting-option
I won't profess to be a crypto expert but I can see without needing much expertise that Bitcoin is already an obsolete technology. Hashgraph appears to have improved transactional speed, although to too has it's issues. The story of 21M bitcoins guaranteeing it's value is pure hope. A technology solution, by it's nature, will always become obsolete and worthless as a better technology comes along. The future is much more likely to be in a gold backed crypto, where gold provides the store of value and the crypto element provides the transparent transactional capability.
BTC is dying in front of our eyes. 1,400 other crytpos are out there, one or more will be long term survivors.
BTC will end up on dust heap of history, as better technology passes it by.
I dare say only a small percentage of those 1400 will survive. It's the coins with utility that can be used in business that will survive.
I'm never going back to fiat. I enjoy the freedom that crypto brings. We've just entered a sort of craze, but most of these newcomers who only care about making money will probably leave after their first major bear market. Those of us who have deeper reasons choose to continue hodling and investing our savings here rather than the banks which perpetuate wars and financial terrorism.
"Okay, that'll be 0.0000000025 BTC! The average transaction in the bitcoin network takes about two months, so we have free coffee served on the camping site at the back of the store, enjoy your stay!"
😂😂👌
That got me too 😂
You can HODL till you die but you can’t take crypto with you either!
Hi, I can understand your feeling about.
I strongly believe this revolution will disrupt the way people think about money and the way the will use it.
By the way for me it's not really important they deeply understand WHY this is a revolution, by now they only see a way to be richest in short time .... it's always the same old story for the human beings ... don't worry about ...
This Revolution will help anybody, those more savvy, those less able to understand ... and the laws of natural selection will operate to let grows projects that solve true use case and die projects without any use... we just need to give them enough time to work.
Yup, this pretty well sums up my thoughts on the issue. Here are a few more: someone created a means of exchange out of nothing around 1917 and became exceedingly rich doing so; someone created a digital ledger in 2008 (created money from nothing) and became incredibly rich doing so. Neither system offers any equality of opportunity for 80% of the planet: both means of exchange--fiat and crypto--make very small percentages of people extraordinarily wealthy for doing next to nothing.
Decentralization: it's just a word! It would actually have to mean something to be relevant! Everyone will eventually have to pay tax to the fiat masters on their crypto; crypto will not erase borders or the control mechanisms of borders; the eventual long-term reworking of the financial system as a means of tracking every exchange will create the largest bureaucracy in human history--the exact opposite of a free anarchist ethic! But, about 10% of the earth's population will get richer under crypto so our long term imprisonment under this new model is not relevant! Rant over:D
Why is erasing borders a goal that you think is worth pursuing? History has shown we are better offer letting every tribe have its own little geographic area.
Why do you want to dumb down to the lowest common denominator?
Have you been reading Molyneux, dave? Of all the points you could have responded to in my post, why choose that one? You didn't even really grok the context of my point, either...Or so it seems to me. But I've no real desire to debate the merits of ethnonationalism other than to say if it's good for the goose it should be good for the gander. Just how do you propose to send every nationality back to their traditional tribal borders? Just curious about any plan you may have:)
This Bud's for you, dave:https://steemit.com/philosophy/@andrewmarkmusic/on-ethno-nationalism
I should add that the best hope for steem is that it becomes a type of basic income for most of humanity.
as you Say Many People Taking Crypto just as a Profit , & People Don't care about Project , Lot Of Pump & Dump .. They Cryptocurrency Need regulation in my opinion it's In mess now .. Rumors raise the price , but Also I think Only Great Projects Will Survive in the Future .. People did not realize the real strength of Cryptocurrency in Changing many things " Better Life " , Btc Have Big Problem now in Transaction Fees But with Lightning work Fees will be lees so it's will be a store of value & Payment Methodes ... STEEM Projects is Great & Growing daily we hope Seeing More improvement for any Competition
lol killed me with the "so we have free coffee served on the camping site at the back of the store, enjoy your stay!"
But in all seriousness you're right, Mr. Satochi should reveal himself and fixe the problem: A decentralized cryptocurrency that has a fix value, kinda like USDT.
Just buy Ripple obviously, it's the purest, most decentralized, real crypto around. Only true hardcore crypto believers have the guts to buy Ripple.
Wow are you poorly informed. There is no crypto that is more centralized than Ripple. Just ask Ripple Labs.
It was a joke bro
I think he might be trolling you.
Nobody could be that ignorant.
You're spot on, this post sums up what I've been thinking for a while. Bitcoin is the first and goes up in price, that's all it really has going for it. There are much better alt coins, Steem being right up there in my book!
"It's hella rad, man, no central banks, no middle men, it's on the blockchain and it takes power away from the feds and places it in the hands of people!"
Also, the rise of bitcoin is also reducing some functions of bank. Bitcoin is dominating like 50% of the digital market currencies.
I'm not going to buy a house with crypto. I have no illusions this is going to replace money. It could take a bite out of credit cards and PayPal dominance of online sales but even there you need an escrow for trust. I'm in crypto to make real money. I'm honest about it though
It has become the greater fools theory in my opinion! Buy a specified coin at X and as long as I sell it at X + something that is fine with them... It is quite sad unfortunately.
There's a lot of speculation and fiat-chasers but that was true of every Bitcoin bubble so far. I remember back in 2013/2014 during the last big one lots of people got mostly excited about the fiat worth as well.
But I have a more bright outlook.. I think every bubble we go through, we larger percentage gets converted to crypto hodlers. Adoption will come but not overnight, and we'll probably see a huge crash again before we slowly crawl back up, at some point, before we actually go mainstream.
In the meantime I do as I always do: just hodl. I do plan to cash out some fiat at some point, but I do think the meme applies "By the time we are done, you don't need to cash out into fiat anymore".
You'll need to cash out of BTC by the time we are done.
In 10 years, BTC will have gone the way of pets.com and myspace.com
Huge valuation in their day, but ultimately became irrelevant and went away quietly into that dark night
Oh but I think we're going to see a multi-crypto future. I hold a large variety, and only about relatively small percentage is in BTC :)
Agreed. Many god projects in progress, many coins will survive, BTC won't be a long term survivor.
But that's OK. Darwinism is OK.
vote I am a friend
Nailed it.
There are a few who still care about the tech and sincerely believe in the revolution, but the influx of scammers and hot money (I call them fast cash chasers) is kind of repulsive. Bitcoin has lost its way and the old power is moving in on the sector....but I'm still a believer.
Don't lose faith, just get in there and support the good guys and the good tech. If you're smart enough to figure out who/what they are you will see the revolution and it's ideals are not dead.
The fact that bitcoin is so wasteful on energy, so dame slow, and forking left to right is exactly why I don't want to hold it. I haven't put any fiat money into cryptos yet but am looking to make a move soon.
I will definitely not be investing into any of the bitcoin forks or other cryptos based on the bitcoin blockchain tech unless they are actually solving a problem.
Coins that are actually going to be used to buy some sort of good in the real world will will likely get my dollars.
Not sure if I would condamn the whole crypto thing. I see with it also the technologic prospect. Blockchain is already changing everything and banks are flirting with it too.
Steemit fans are not better than Bitcoin fans. it is of course all about money: https://steemit.com/self-voting/@johano/that-s-why-we-need-a-self-voting-option
There is a hidden blessing in the volume of speculators jumping into the crypto market - awareness - an awareness that wouldnt have been possible without the general FOMO and profits.
Profits rule the world - and making a profit on anything is a good way to generate awareness of the activity.
Cryptos and blockchain are still in their infancy - getting a number of large organisations interested also means a generation will grow with the knowledge of how the technology works, and the new seed will also spawn true proponents of the tech.
This is when critical mass will start in sway towards the true purpose of the blockchain - real decentralisation.
why not use the not-so-future-oriented coins as a way to make "quick bucks" and take a percentage off the gains and invest this in long-term future-oriented consciousness-growth earth-healing coins? :D
best of both worlds ...
some "insider's info": at some point litecoin is expected to take over from bitcoin due to its superior "transaction speed" ...
(hint hint :P)
Crypto has already improved so many peoples lives, mostly in country's where fiat is hard to come by for one reason or another. Coins with high miner fees are a joke and not in keeping with a peoples coin. If I want to use my coin for anything, be it fiat exchange or making a direct purchase, I don't want fee's ( taxes ) going to greedy miners that just want it all, and would not confirm transactions without making money for doing it. Millions of computers are online at any given moment all capable of doing the same thing for free. These are the types of coins that will rise to the top. Steem is in keeping with these pricipals on all counts. I do as I please with steem freely, All my communications pay me in steem and the people I communicate with. If and when my dealers buys steem will be a great day for me because now I have to pay to exchange to DASH first. But at that point it takes seconds to get USD with just a click click.
We used to use moneygram, western union or bank transfer but they all shut him down, refusing to let him send or receive funds, banks simply closed his accounts. And that is in Panama where we have no tax at all beside a small sales tax that most people don't charge anyway. It's only face to face dealing now and he charges a good premium because its hard for him to get buckes of cash to buy from his customers. You think banks aren't worried? If I had the funding to get started I would gladly do this service here in central panama. Maybe some day soon? But trust me, banks make it hard to use their fiat when you start dealing big time.
Cheers
Lol love that part on the camping site with free coffee 😂 But unfortunately you're right as too much dumb money made the cryptosphere become a large casino... I'm waiting for the day armageddon hits and only the useful projects stay to make people aware of what's really important: A Use Case!
I heard somewhere (probably not true...) that satoshi nakamoto actually planned btc to rise is price dramatically like this in the beginning as a sort of marketing mechanism. The price keeps rising until no one can ignore it and once your in, you're not going back. If that's true, I'd say it's genius. That's how many people get into this space, they keep hearing about it so they start researching and yeah, some are just trying to get rich quick, (the stupid ones) but many see the potential, they see the revolution and that is what keeps them here. I am one of the latter.
I'm one of the new Crypto fans. We offered couple of years back to pay for our books or sponsorships in Bitcoin. And the idiot I was, I sold some of them couple of years ago for USD. But I did keep some (well fractions of a bitcoin) forgot about them and just recently took a peak into my wallet, not believing my eyes (in comparison, peanuts though).
But the main reason I'm here on Steemit is the fact for years we've been posting decent content on our Travel Blog. At the beginning we had great interaction with our readers and we got decently paid by Adsense. But over the years we noticed a stark decline. Especially when Facebook started hawking their users, not showing our updates to our followers. Making it super easy to rather comment on a Facebook post then on the actual article. And the recent push for asking to pay for boosts really turned us away.
So finding out about Steemit gave us so much hope. Over the years we collected so much great content we're eager to share and we're constantly creating new stuff as well. And yes, the money aspect gives a peace of mind BUT we also love the community, in just one month we've connected with some amazing people here. I can't wait to steem on!
"The embarrassing fact is that governments and central banks have absolutely nothing to fear from crypto currencies. Probably never will."
not only that but they are going to use it to make more money for themselves! and / or use certain currencies like ripple to expedite that eventuality. I personally have not traded 1 coin or part of coin for fiat. I have moved to different alts and now some to steem. I have blogged on different platforms and it has only ever cost me to do so. Platforms like Steemit, to me seem like a much better option. I may only use BTC to purchase mining kit.
Thanks for a great post, upvoted and resteemed.
I don't know about others, but crypto coins are here to stay on the long haul.
That makes we want to get out of STEEM as fast as I can. Marxists socialist like Che is the last person we need as an idol.