Reflections

         Managing my own wallet, I say to myself...that's a lot of tokens. There are more people with a messier wallet than I do. In fact, there exist over 630 Steem Engine tokens at the time I wrote this. You can find this information on https://steem-engine.rocks/ .

         Some of those tokens belong to tribes. Some of them are for fun like the Drama token. For me, I chose several tribes I thought might be of interest. After all, tribes are about as close as we have to communities before the major updates ahead. For those who are curious, I bought in on PAL, LEO, GG, NeoxAG, and STEM.

         I dabble in other tokens such as SPORTS or CCC, but I am not vested like the 5 tokens above. By vested, I mean significant stake and alternate accounts. If you dislike me, it might be a great idea to crash those token markets for a little spiteful revenge.

         If anything, SE tokens gave us a taste of what SMTs would be like when they become a reality. Well, Steem Engine did base itself on the SMT whitepaper the last I heard.

         Speaking of SMTs, what will happen to the SE tokens when they roll out? I know they will add another layer to the rewards, but how will the tribes manage? Will they maintain the issuance of two tokens? Or, will they migrate to a system engraved on the blockchain?

         Like other Steemians have wondered, what is the end goal? Was there ever one, even by Steemit, Inc.? There are times it feels as if the ambiguity was intentional. Take this episode of Magical Crypto Friends, for example, and listen to the first 60 seconds of the show.

         Ignore Whale Panda's Bitcoin maximalist attitude for a moment, he does have a point. Many projects in crypto space serve only one purpose: to give the founders the means to buy more Bitcoin. I mean, STINC was selling 800K STEEM a month to sustain their operations.

         What do we do with our STEEM? If you need to extract the value, you'd have to sell them on exchanges for fiat. In that regards, STEEM is worse than BTC or LTC. At least, there are merchants that accept those coins. We are lucky we can exchange STEEM for some digital goods.

         Seeing BTC around 50% of its last all time high, where do we expect the alts to be when it crosses that line again? I, for one, don't think we would see $8 STEEM, $300 LTC, or $1.30 ADA when BTC hits $20K and beyond. I can see them that high again if there is demand or massive FOMO for the alts.

         Not to be a downer, but most alts feel like this:

         While it's not an original idea, it took me 30 seconds to make on Imgflip, so there's that. That's enough depressing talk. Things will work out one way or another. There are no great rewards without risks.

         SteemFest has already started, so...