The Good:
Blockchain is a revolutionary technology, one that eliminates the need for trusted third parties and allows every human being with a smart phone to become their own bank, and the custodians of their own wealth. It is the fundamental technology on which the crypto rails function.
Crypto itself separates money from State, and enables a peer to peer money and a permissionless and trustless financial transaction layer. The vast majority of society’s failings stem in some way from the rot of fiat money; malinvestment, incentivized debt, foreign aid giveaways, poisonous education systems, institutionalized theft via inflation, extortionary taxation, and much more. Crypto toggles off the fatal design flaw of fiat money … government control.
Ethereum enables trustless transactions via smart contracts on a decentralized computer. Bitcoin enables sound, permissionless, censorship resistant and self custodial money. Solana enables a fast and cheap retail transaction layer. Many more projects offer revolutionary protocols, or innovative iterations of the existing ones.
One day, crypto will permanently alter our understanding of money, and allow for a world that is truly free and in which an individual can achieve true self sovereignty. Sadly, for now, we are in the novel stage of this technology, where the largest use cases are memes, gambling, scams, and speculation.
The value of being the custodian of your own wealth cannot be overstated, and it will meritocratically change the balance of power in favour of the individual over the state and authorities. Storing and transacting your wealth in crypto will allow you freedom from arbitrary devaluation, freedom from censorship and confiscation, freedom from borders and arbitrary restrictions. True adoption of crypto will change the fundamental structure of human interaction by securing and solidifying our global medium of exchange from a flimsy decaying measuring stick, to a pristine digital one.
The Bad and the Ugly:
As a brand new technology fighting for survival in a sea of governments and authorities ideologically opposed to it, crypto remains a niche market with even more niche use cases. Being a niche market in the new wild west, the financial promised land is fraught with scams and degenerate use cases. Those mostly parasitic use cases are a necessary part of the prosperous new world … they create the dangerous environment that weeds out those without courage and conviction. Conversely, those scams also slow the genuine adoption of cryptocurrency and create friction for institutional capital.
More specifically:
- Meme coins went from a crypto casino means of pursuing riches, to a VC means of milking retail
- Tokens went from a means of participating in a protocol’s success, to meme governance and staking utilities and a means of raising funds from retail without giving up any equity or future revenue.
- PFP NFT’s were the original meme coins and digital bling, and have now transitioned to grandma’s antiques.
- Launchpads have surprisingly turned into crypto convenience stores … every protocol and their uncle are now launchpads, and the OG launchpads have had their value proposition syphoned.
- Web 3 games don’t need tokens … they sell tokens to raise cash and as a means of acquiring customers/community members. Any game out there could just as easily use USDC or ETH as currency.
- 95% of protocols DO NOT need tokens. Instead of integrating tokens to the benefit of prospective token holders, projects instead use it as means of extracting value. The exception to this rule are the minority of projects that ensure 100% of value accrual goes to token/NFT holders, and participate in the success of their own project by holding their own tokens.
- Node investments are an unnecessary, superfluous and typically extractive means of acquiring investments. TLDR: 95% of projects don’t need nodes.
- Most Influencers will rob you blind while smiling and whispering sweet nothings in your ear. They are the bosses in the PVP game of crypto, treat them as adversaries.
- Exchanges are extracting value from your far in excess of the services they provide. They liquidation-hunt your perps, they counter trade you, they hide fees on spreads. Use them at your peril, and only as absolutely necessary.
- Market Makers are vultures that feed off the crypto market. They provide an important service, but their cost is not insignificant, and it is paid overwhelmingly by retail.
- Token locks are an artificial means of propping up your token price, again at the cost of retail. If a project needs a token, and investors want to buy it, unlock it and allow the natural supply/demand balance take over.
- MEV (miner extractable value) is the crypto version of theft via inflation. No one consents to it, and most overlook it or are completely unaware of it. Yet any trade of substance is stolen from like a toll booth on a local road.
- Crypto “partnerships” are a bigger joke than our geriatric politicians. Most are complete nonsense with no more substance than my partnership with Google when I use the search bar.
- Airdrops aren’t free, and you are not farming their tokens. They are farming you with a song and a dance.
- Maximalists are just intellectually dishonest or IQ handicapped zealots.
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