The Shifting Sands of Crypto
Flat Architecture is weird!
Crypto is a difficult beast to capture or even comprehend. Like water the development flows outward instead of upward. We are so used to legacy corporate architecture and pyramidical systems that our very concept of what crypto is ends up being flawed by our false perceptions and biases.
Crypto is volatile.
The bull market is a flashflood and the bear market is an extreme drought. The sweet spot for stability is few an far between. The only way to truly make it in crypto is so cannister our value during the flood and save it during the drought when everyone else is thirsty.
Easier said than done, I'm afraid. It's like telling people to buy low and sell high. So simple! Sounds easy... and yet that's hardly ever how it works out during the FOMO/FUD cycles we see time and time again every four years.
That awkward phase of stability.
The market looks very good right now. This has been expected. Hive and Bitcoin are neither overbought nor oversold. You could buy here, you could sell here. Feels nice. Doesn't happen often. Savor the moment. It won't last long.
In fact, most tokens are trading well above their moving averages right now. At the same time no one is too keen at selling at these prices. They'd rather wait for the flood, amirite? Of course when the flood comes that's when greed is highest and the most difficult to sell.
Famous last words:
"But what if it keeps going higher?"
"Even if the price goes down from here I'll still be up a ton!"
We've all been the victims of this greed mindset.
And we've all been punished for it.
Multiple times.
Wen will we learn?
Maybe never.
Everyone likes an exciting coaster.
I wrote this post because I wanted to point out that crypto develops itself so fast that some ideas can become outdated quite quickly. For example: back in 2018 I had an idea in which we could boot up a new reputation system on Hive and leverage that system for peer to peer loans. Every once and a while I think about this idea. A good P2P reputation metric on Hive is sorely needed. Reputation is everything.
However, when considering the idea of P2P loans on Hive, the idea is completely worthless now. Why would you ever loan someone money on Hive if you can just park that money in HBD and earn a 20% yield with zero counterparty risk? Hive will always pay you back, and 20% is a much better return than most are going to be willing to pay back. That's practically loan-shark status at those numbers. Although credit card companies these days will tell you to hold their beer on that note.
We must always have our eyes open when we learn new things about crypto or when core mechanics change. It's a lot to take in, and the shifting sands will open and close doors on a whim. P2P loans on Hive are pretty much out of the question from the economic incentive side of things, but perhaps we can leverage that 20% into other derivative assets like bonds and whatever else. See Taskmaster for details.
It's also worth pointing out that we should always be wary of the know-it-alls in this space who constantly speak out of turn and never admit their mistakes. Their is very little that can be learned from these types of people because it's difficult to know what they get right and what they get wrong, as it's all just assumed to be right, no matter how outlandish the claims are. Blatantly incorrect takes are ignored rather than addressed. It's a terrible way to make progress and learn more. "Fake it till you make it" need not apply here.
The shifting sands are a great thing.
It's very hard to build anything centralized within the crypto ecosystem and have it last long term. We already see centralized exchanges getting cornered by the government quite aggressively. Is this cause for alarm? Quite the contrary, it just means it's yet another centralized path that is cut off from the ecosystem, almost by design. Legitimate paths to victory are decentralized. We know this, and yet we also seem to not know it. Again, it's weird.
Ironically enough, the regulatory agencies like the SEC probably know more about the shifting sands than anyone else. This is why they refuse to provide clarity. They know as soon as they make hardcoded rules that devs will run circles around those protections and entrench themselves into the system under legal protection. The sand turns to concrete when the legacy system allows it to settle.
Regulators are so outdated when it comes to crypto they don't even know what to do, so they do nothing and then just make up the rules as they go, often contradicting themselves. This is expected behavior, although many will rightfully point out the absurdity of it all. Working as intended.
Conclusion
This ecosystem will look completely different in ten years. The winds of change demand it. Ideas that are good today may be completely antiquated a decade down the line, while ideas that are completely untenable today may be the standard due to the rapid shifting sands of development.
The key to surviving this environment is to be agile, modular, and most importantly: actually decentralized. Of course it's hard to know what is and isn't decentralized because marketeers will always default to shilling us the exact same story across the board: a secure decentralized scalable new token awaits! There are no drawbacks! Sure bud. Sure.
Building blocks are the answer. If certain code becomes outdated it doesn't matter if those modules can be repurposed in other projects. Of course that's just the base foundation of open-source development regardless of environmental changes to the digital ecosystem. Staying up to date is difficult, but consistency is key. Speaking of which... it may be time to start writing a post once a day again. Everyone can do their part to some extent.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
We do not know what cryptos will look like in ten years
The entire idea of "money" is changing.
I bet bitcoin will be forgotten in about 50 years.
Because money will change that much.
Probably be tied to creation of goods.
Or become something that is really barter-aid.
And loans may turn inside out.
A young person needs a house?
Start a KickstarterStarterHouse and people will donate time and materials, and get you a house (because no one should be homeless, unless they are druggy that doesn't return anything to society... or their HIVE reputation is low)
And regulators? They haven't ever regulated anything fairly or honestly.
They should be gone.
I hope that peer-peer trading happens more automatically soon. (it is coming)
I agree with you completely.
I feel you have a good grip on the issues here and although no one can see the future, we know it will not be like this.
Steemit Smart Contracts were defi and we didn't even recognize it by that name, but they provided permissionless and trustless transactions and earnings. But we didn't always recognize what we had. But like you said the centralized aspects of the project killed it.
We are going through a painful period, and many people are ou have a good afriad at the loss of centralized financial rails. But you are right, we should embrace the future, which hopefully is decentralized in the dimension we live in, but could become a dystopian centralized affair like China is evolving into.
Few recognize what you are saying, the SEC and other units of government are attacking the centralized financial rails, because they can, because they are centralized. They will find it much more difficult to attack decentralized financial rails, and that is a good thing, because the more independent we are of things they can attack, the more independent we are of the government.
We can be law abiding citizens, who the government can't attack, that is the dream, but crypto will go through several evolutionary steps to get there.
The current stablecoin trilema of creating the stable coin which balances decentralization with liquidity with value/peg to fiat, is based on a limited intellectual mindset towards the value of centralization and control versus decentralization and no control. we still cling to centralization as a guarantor of stability and value, while ignoring the multiple examples this past year of centralization, corruption and indeed contempt the centralized leaders have for those who trust them with their cryptocurrency.
Cryptocurrency gives us control and independence when we use it's natural safeguards; encryption. Many have historically given up these protections to participate in lucratiove but centralized financial strategies, and many paid the price.
You are right, one day future crypto investors will look back and laugh at the immature systems we use and the unsafe nature of our investments brought about by our glad participation in centralized projects. They will probably think we were ignorant fools, as they will have no point of reference to our current helplessness and few good choices.
But I take heart in the fact that everything, everywhere and all the time... things in cryptocurrency are changing. Ideas are born every minute to make this financial niche better, safer and more reliable through transparency and creating more investor control over their assets.
We will progress, we will get better, our capitol just has to survive until then, and we just have to live long enough to see it come to pass.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
I recently had my credit card bank raise my credit limit without me even asking for it. Usually you have to ask and provide updated income information. It’s a card I’ve had since the time when I had a 40 hour a week job. Retired now, so my income is less than half what it used to be. But they raised my limit anyway.
Have these people met me?
We are in for quite a bunch of rapid shifts in the coming decade. Although I despise the old bag, old Schwab is certainly correct that things are going to be radically changed. Is that a bad thing? I don’t know, but change is the one constant. I wonder if previous human civilizations that we don’t know about ran into this thing where technological innovation happened so rapidly that people freaked out and destroyed everything. Then there’s the other groups who handled it better and left. How we this current crop of humans end up? Hopefully you and I can contribute to it being successful in however small of a part we can!
You are right my friend, crypto is really a beast and is not as easy to comprehend as some people Make it seem.
A really nice write up.
Do you know what it is about this post that makes it attractive and captivating? The way you have presented it. I liked the poetic uses of the first three paragraphs, for act next, explains with better technicalities and skill the world of cryptocurrencies and their implications in finance. Excellent work, brother, @edicted
https://twitter.com/1415155663131402240/status/1647826544201728001
https://twitter.com/320198057/status/1647856766812577794
The rewards earned on this comment will go directly to the people( @rzc24-nftbbg, @kriszrokk ) sharing the post on Twitter as long as they are registered with @poshtoken. Sign up at https://hiveposh.com.
I agree that the world of crypto is complicated and changes quickly, and that our usual ways of understanding and dealing with things might not always work. The idea of flat architecture, which is different from the hierarchical structures we're used to, can be hard to understand because it's different from what we're used to, but it's an important part of what makes cryptocurrencies decentralised. I like how you pointed out how important it is to keep up with the latest news in the crypto world and be ready to change as things change. Crypto's shifting sands can be both exciting and scary, but being flexible, modular, and truly decentralised can help us make our way through this landscape. Thank you for sharing what you think and know about this subject.
Maybe this will help: Is it a cow?
When people come to the mindset that crypto is a commodity whose purpose is to facilitate a trade for a good or service, then things will begin to click.
We anticipate great and innovative changes for good in the future.
!PGM
!PIZZA
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
$PIZZA slices delivered:
@torran(7/10) tipped @edicted