Freedom isn't really freedom without financial freedom. Why? It's because nobody can live a prosperous live on the labor of his/her own. One person doing everything is 'the bane of specialization and a society of jacks of all trades will not master anything. When people are specialized these people need a medium of exchange. Why do we need a medium of exchange? It is because barter is such an annoyance. But what do we exchange stuff for; some dumb pieces of paper? That's just madness. Originally precious metals were simply Barter 2.0 What they did was selecting one or very few things that everybody would barter for. If you had milk and needed shoes, you would have had to go through a dozen or maybe even more Tx to get to the shoes. That's a lot of trouble. Barter 2.0 guarantees that you can buy anything with 2 transactions. you sell the milk for silver/gold and your pay silver/gold for the shoes. This kind of exchanges have performed almost miraculous events. Milton Friedman doesn't measure up to a real legend like Ludwig von Mises. But he has contributed a lot too:
Our Civilization is In a Mess Because People Don't Understand Money
There are lots of things that are being told about money and I'm not going to repeat the same disk or attack the stupid arguments of Keynesians and communists. My main point is that people don't screw up things that they properly understand. Ask someone how money comes to existence. Almost nobody knows. they only know that certain notes have a certain worth and hey know about exchange rates and that's about it. They don't get or even know that the money is printed out of thin air. They don't know that the real value of dollar is less than the paper it is printed on. Real value of any government currency is absolute zero.
The reality is that every time you buy/sell you are exchanging something for nothing and that nothing can be printed and inflated into whatever the governments wish for. That is how Zimbabwean dollar had an annual inflation of 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000%
Cryptocurrencies Replace Governments With Math
If anybody ask you what gives crypto any value, tell them the above. Math is forever absolute; but the universe isn't and our civilization isn't either. Cryptocurrencies are more stable and trustworthy that the entire existence of human civilization; past, present and future. You could say Cryptocurrencies are simulated Barter 2.0 They have the same effect of gold/silver based exchanges. But in some cases like STEEM, it is more than just simulated Barter 2.0 It is actually plain old barter. STEEM is an actual resource with value. It is the token we lock to gain VESTS which are like shares of the STEEM blockchain. I've explored this topic here: https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@vimukthi/in-depth-analysis-on-fees-and-cryptocurrency-going-fee-less-when-to-burn-fees-when-not-to-burn-fees-and-proof-of-importance-pivx
"BTC mostly just records who owns how many coins and few more things like the block rewards for making new blocks etc. When you transfer tokens using our wallet, the same thing happens. Your other actions on steemit, Zappl, Dmania etc are recorded in a similar way. The blockchain is simply a distributed ledger. You could even call it a decentralized database. STEEM is a database that contain more than just who owns how much. How anyone keep the whole thing going without fees? For that make yourself a restaurant or an internet cafe."
"Just think you own one of those. It doesn't make sense for you to pay to eat from your own restaurant or watch DTube in your own internet cafe. You can forget about the fess. Now think you get a bunch of friends as investors and they are also consuming the resources without paying any fees. How can you keep this going without any screwups? You can make a free stuff allowance based on the amount invested. That way, nobody is getting free stuff on the backs of another person. The cost is self-sustained."
"Now imagine your company stopped serving customers altogether and decided to just give free stuff to the owners based on their ownership stake. That's how STEEM operate. It's a company that exclusively serve its owners. That's why you get free STEEM when you sign up. If you own 0.04% of all SP you can use 0.04% of the Tx capacity of the STEEM blockchain."
This entire elegant system is fully autonomous and without a single point of failure and not matter what people think or feel, math and code will remain as they are.
Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can’t exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce.
To trade by means of money is the code of the men of good will. Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort. Money allows no power to prescribe the value of your effort except the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade you his effort in return.
Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants: money will not give him a code of values, if he’s evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if he’s evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent. The man who attempts to purchase the brains of his superiors to serve him, with his money replacing his judgment, ends up by becoming the victim of his inferiors. The men of intelligence desert him, but the cheats and the frauds come flocking to him
- Francisco d'Anconia (Atlas Shrugged)
The last bit is extremely relevant to the crypto-sphere. Just look around and ask people aboutcrypto. How many times do you hear, see and exclaim HODL, Moon or Lambo? Is this a part of the technological development or promoting financial freedom and regaining independence or does that look like a cult that is high on something?
Does Any of This Look Educated to You? Well, Bitconnect Community Was Simply the Exaggeration of the Norm; Not the Exception
When I was exposing Bitconnect as a ponzi scheme I got attacked by people like
telling I was spreading evil by promoting things like SALT and while sharing the wisdom of scam channels like https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCymGwvgJV9q9jK_fnjrQ6PQ/videos?flow=grid&sort=p&view=0 and you should really check out the comment sections of these videos to see the level of ignorance in basic economics. We shouldn't let these people take over the cryptocurrency community.
Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth–the man who would make his own fortune no matter where he started. If an heir is equal to his money, it serves him; if not, it destroys him. But you look on and you cry that money corrupted him. Did it? Or did he corrupt his money?
- Francisco d'Anconia (Atlas Shrugged)
Crypto could very well face something similar to the dot-com crash and it will not be the fault of cryptography. It will be 100% the fault of ignorant people who do not understand money and economics. Joël Valenzuela from Dash Force News talks about 6 ways the crypto-community is economical ignorant. they just happen to be,
- Bias against paid work/profit
- No understanding of marketplace competition
- Dismissing the power of network effects
- No grasp of the concept of incentives
- Blindness to friction points
- Concept of ownership
How the hell is any project or community that is centered around building a medium of exchange succeed sustainably and not royally screw up when they are illiterate on the above points? You can read the full post here.