A couple weekends ago I was driving along the mountainous backroads of Virginia with my family. My brother and I were in the front while our wives were in the back and eventually our conversation turned to the trip we took to Colorado a year or two prior. While we didn't ride together on that trip, my brother in law and I did both drive out to Colorado and we both noticed many of the same things on the trip.
The majority of the drive was a stark contrast to the tight winding roads we were driving in Virginia. I've mentioned this before, but the funny thing is, when you go out West towards the Rocky Mountains, you expect these dramatic elevation changes. It's something that is just ingrained in you I think,
West = Mountains.
While that is technically true, you really don't get to the mountainous area until you are about fifteen minutes outside of Denver, Colorado. From there on things get pretty exciting. For the majority of the trip though, it's just a slow, uneventful, gradual climb to that mile high mark.
I was thinking about it the other day and as we approach that downward slope of 2025, I can't help but think this year has been quite similar to the drive out west as far as the crypto markets go. I think many of us were expecting fireworks this year just like you expect "mountains" when you think Colorado. What you don't realize is that the first half of Colorado is pretty unimpressive.
As such, the majority of 2025 has been relatively unimpressive. Sure, we got the new ATH thrown in there somewhere, but I don't think any of this played out the way most of us were thinking or hoping. Even with operation chokehold 1.0 and 2.0 squarely in the rear view we still are struggling to reach those peaks we had hoped to see.
Despite all of that, people are still building and I think that is pretty awesome, because heaven knows I probably would have given up a long time ago if I were in their shoes.
The Pub
The new community that was born out of the ashes of BRO/The Mancave is growing really well. We have a number of channels in the Discord server now with different people highlighting their projects. We also have a vibrant community with lively and entertaining conversation. Additionally, The Pub on HIVE is getting a decent number of posts each day and hopefully that will continue to grow.
My hope is that eventually some of the bigger curation groups will start paying attention to our community and give it some love.
COTI
It's a fact that the prices of most alts are down across the board. With HIVE under $.09, ETH heading towards $2000, and BTC looking like it wants to fall below $80K, there isn't a lot to be happy about. The price of COTI is no exception, but the project still continues to develop and grow. They just announced this week that they have now opened a USDC/COTI pair on Binance. I think that is pretty awesome.
It might not be the thing we need to turn the markets around, but I have a soft spot for projects that continue to grow and develop even when the world makes us feel like this is all going to crap.
Silver
Well, I screwed up. I made that buy a week or two ago of silver from APMEX and I was hoping for it to be here by now. The only problem is, one of the pieces (the Coca-cola one) was a pre-order or backordered, so they weren't going to ship any of my stuff unless they could ship all of my stuff. I reached out to them and being the stand up company they are, they agreed to cancel the Coca-cola piece, refund me the money, and ship the other stuff out right away.
The only problem is, that left me one piece short for my Christmas gifts. So I did what any good degen would do and I went back on APMEX and bought two more pieces. The only problem was, the spot price of silver was now about $1.50 higher than it was before, and since I didn't hit that $200 threshold, I had to pay shipping on the other two pieces.
Ugh!
At least my Christmas shopping is done now...
Black Friday
This time next week, we will be on the cusp of Black Friday shopping. In fact, by now there is a chance that many folks in the US will have already been out and gotten their shopping done and are back in bed at 7:30 AM.
Not me. I've never really jumped on the Black Friday bandwagon. I don't like buying stuff I don't need simply because it is a good deal. I went down that path in my past life and it doesn't lead anywhere good. It doesn't bring as much joy as you might think either.
Even my favorite stocks are getting hammered right now. At this point, I can only hope that maybe 2026 will bring those mountains that we have so desperately been longing to see.
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I've been across the Great Plains further north. Montana has the western 1/3 or so of spectacular Rocky Mountains Majesty, and then... Prairie. Sometimes there are ravines and buttes, but it suddenly goes flat as you drive east. Then, if you take the more southerly roads, you can see the Yellowstone region to the south and eventually you reach the Black Hills before emerging again on the rolling hills of South Dakota. Southern Minnesota and Iowa keep the flat plains terrain going. But if you hold to the north on Highway 2, it's pretty flat for hundreds of miles until you are 2/3 of the way across North Dakota when you reach lake country and forests rising in density toward northern Minnesota.
I think my mom and dad drove that a while ago when they headed out west. I need to try and get to that area. At least once in my life to say I did it. I really didn't mind Iowa at all. It was lush and green. That eastern half of Colorado wasn't entirely flat, but it was just all so brown.
I remember that drive across the middle of the USA. It's just a long stretch of farms and the most exciting thing is seeing what sort of food options the next exit has and hoping one of them is Taco Bell.
I remember reading somewhere that those roads could have been 100% straight lines but they put curves in them intentionally in order to keep people awake. I have no idea if this is true but it's interesting. There certainly was no geographical reason for it to be a winding road.
I've actually heard that the autobahn in Europe is much safer than the expressways in the US because of all the turns. Even though the speeds are much higher. So there is definitely something to that!
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I couldn't agree more. People are buying to buy, to consume and under water just to create a lot more trash which has to be disposed. Waste management has gotten a lot more challenging since internet shopping got a multi billion dollar business.
We are just distroying the world step by step! :(
Yes, that is very true. My wife and I are actually really huge recyclers. We generally have our bins full every week whereas most people on our block don't even roll theirs out. My wife has been a great influence since I have known her about not buying needless stuff. I wasn't so good at it before her!
We all improve 😁
We do seperate plastics and paper. These are collected once each 2 weeks.
The other week the grey bin is collected but I try to put it out only once a month. Food leftover are for the chickens.
I should try and do some more composting, but then I would have to actually be around to tend to my garden a bit more!
😀
So very true on crossing the country, flat and mostly incredibly boring driving across the plains. Once you hit mountains it does get better, but there are places that are horrible to drive even farther west. Stretches of southern New Mexico and Arizona can be painful. As can crossing the Mojave desert in California... But I'll take the desert over cornfields! lol
Hive at a dime at the moment, the good came and went, the bad has come and went, and now it's only the ugly. Until we see a turnaround in BTC things may just get uglier. The last thing we wall want to see is Hive at a nickel!
Silver is going to go up more, shortages in supply will drive things ever higher. Glad to hear your shopping is done, I avoid Black Friday too. Nothing but traffic and mob mentality in the stores. Not for me!
Have a great weekend!
The title of this post was actually inspired by the song Miles and miles of Texas and I know you have said that drive is pretty much horrible. I'm trying to put everything in perspective and not let how much of a let down 2025 has been get to me too much. There have been a lot of great things and the crypto market is just one small sliver of that.
I hear you one the markets have had better years, and hopefully those "mountains" are coming again in the future. I'm hoping the downturn is short lived, but the cycles are all changing, it hard to predict anything anymore...
Yes, I don't think anyone has a clue at this point. It's all hindsight and trying to support the narrative, not actually predicting what is going to happen.
Black Friday started today on Amazon... You could have stopped by the local shop to get some silver in order not to pay for shipping...
Yeah, but they didn't have a very big stock of what I was looking for. I checked their online store to see what they had and it was pretty sparse right now. The only thing I am looking for this year is a new smart watch, but I was hoping to use some HBD to buy that.
Ugh!!! Shipping fees!! Well, there is always something good out of everything that happens!
Enjoy the drive, @bozz!
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Thanks!
I find there is not a lot of stuff I really want to buy. I am about sorted for music gear, but I may expand my 3d printing setup at some point. I try to keep a wish-list as I think of things. When it comes to Xmas and birthday I have to suggest that others can easily buy. I definitely don't need socks this year.
I won't be spending my $HIVE for a while. I'll just keep stacking.
Yeah, that is a good point about gifts and such. I would never want someone to spend the kind of money on me it would take for most the stuff I want.
The year was for sure a bit different than people were expecting in terms of the markets! I think that’s the nature of this whole thing, expect it to do one thing and it does something different.
Sucks on the silver I get why they do it but it’s annoying lol
Yeah, I am still trying to come to terms with all of it.
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