It was a bloody 'red' day in the crypto market... which always an opportune moment for a bit of perspective.
First the money...
When your cryptocurrency portfolio ballons and increases by more than 150% in a couple of weeks then retraces 25% in a day, what do you focus on? The recent loss or the 100% gain overall?
It is really easy to lose perspective when investing in cryptocurrencies. This industry is so engrossing. The market never sleeps, it's 24/7. The news never stops. The development, the coins, the innovation and the opportunities just keep on coming. Everyday feels like a pivotal moment!
Lost in the game
You can get lost in this game. You'll be amongst friends and family and if the conversation isn't crypto related, you hear them but you're not listening. People close to you will think you've lost the plot. Or worse, they think you have joined some kind of cult!
Life changing process
It has taken me a few years to realise that the journey is more important than the end goal. Crypto has the potential to make a life changing difference in many lives in a relatively short timeframe.
For most (at this 'speculative' stage) it's about making life-changing money. In many ways you'd be crazy to be engrossed by the minutiae of day-to-day life when your portfolio is fluctuating by tens maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars a day.
Hobby turned to craze
For many people, crypto can go very quickly from a quirky hobby to a crash course in highly speculative, highly volatile investing. The technology and innovation that drove many to the space gets superseded by the financials. Switch on the news and it is very easy to forget easy to forget about what this 'bitcoin' and 'the blockchain' is really about for all the talk of trading, pumps and crashes.
The paradox
For me, this space is about individual empowerment. Some much of today's infrastructure is predicated on keeping people ignorant, dependant and disenfranchised. It is in the gap between perception and reality that most profits are made.
That is where we have a paradox in cryptocurrencies.
The technology is about lifting the veil.
We do not need to trust third parties and intermediaries. We can trust the consensus of the blockchain. We can trust what happened in the past based on the immutability of rhe blockchain. We can take advantage of the fact that it is censorship resistant.
Yet the paradox is that, in desire to put a monetary value on the technology, we get lost in practices and behaviours that are the antithesis of the blockchain.
We put our trust in centralised Exchanges.
We become driven by our allegiances (mostly financial) to a single project and self-censor our minds to other possibilities.
Our desire to maximise the financial opportunity outstrips our desire to maximise the potential of the blockchain.
This is the real danger to this technology.
We become the bankers and middlemen we seek the blockchain to replace. Driven only by greed and profit.
Play the right game
I feel for everyone that has been spooked by today's crash. However this is the speculative investing game. 'If you can't stand the heat' and all that...
Yet there is another game going on. One that is looking to change the way we relate to the internet. One that is looking to transform the lives of billions around the globe. This game, if won, can yield more than financial rewards.
If today has taught anything, it should be that 'money comes and money goes'...
Let's hope the blockchain is how it's intended to be, forever.