This post is going to come across as complete copium or a useful reframe, depending on how you want to read it. As far as I am concerned, it’s whatever more of us decide it is.
After 9 years here (damn!), I think I’ve finally found a sweet spot. I am no longer dreaming of crypto solving all my problems or all the world’s problems, nor am I dismissive of what it’s actually done for me and the world.
I recognize all tht bitcoin and Hive have done for me and I am thankful and I hope to stay involved in the future too.
At the same time I’ve come to terms with the fact that my IRL friends and most of the people I have art and culture exchange and other interests in common with will never understand and they are important to me too.
For my first 5 or 6 years here I neglected them because this place seemed to promise a future brighter than any other that I was able to see in the job market.
If crypto or bitcoin does become as world shattering as the internet or AI though, it will take a lot longer than both of them and hardly be recognized for most of the impact it ends up having.
People have short attention spans and recency bias. We have a tolerence for risk and unless it’s stupidly high, we tend to fold at some point.
Also when money is at the center of it, so is the bullshit because people want to extract what they can.
I don’t think I will ever fold completely, but I am quite comfortable treating this like the side hustle and online community it has naturally become instead of some moon shot dream of a semi-utopian future.
I always knew others took it too far not hedging their bets and believing with full certainty that this was meant to be. It turns out I had taken it too far with my emotional attachment.
Slowly I’ve come to find this sweet spot where I am involved, and invested, but still prioritizing my work and projects that allow me to meet people face to face and isn’t so influenced by markets in that knee jerk reaction kind of way.
I am fighting an urge to censor myself here becuase when people build their lives on sand they panic easily and they carch FOMO and FUD very easily. I don’t want to contribute to the FUD, nor do I want to controbute the FOMO.
I want to acknowledge things for what they are, and take the good and try to change the bad if I can, and protect myself from it if I can’t.
It turns out diamond hands weren’t all they were made out to be. Someone is left holding the bags and it turned out to be me, and probably you too if you are reading this.
Luckily I took some profits this past bull market, for the first time ever. Luckily I got out of all alts besides Hive and Hive related projects, things that I was not connected to and that were complete gambling for me.
At least with Hive, the tokens do something within the ecosystem. Even if they become worthless in terms of fiat and bitcoin, they still have a function in this ecosystem and there is always some chance the price improves some day of we keep using it and projects stick around.
I am not to saying you should sell, especially at these prices, but I’ve decided I need to start thinking about the present instead of a future that I don’t know for sure will come.
I am not quiting.
I am not selling everything.
But I am taking the worst case scenario a lot more seriously now.
I think this could be exactly what this community needs. If we are being honest with ourselves $0.50 was unsustainable considering our numbers, even when they were at their highest. $0.25 was overpriced when it was $0.25, hype aside.
Yes, we had a valuable product.
Yes we had promise.
And yes, considering the best case scenario of crypto going mainstream and regulation being minimal and us making all the right decision and the right people finding us, $1 is way too low.
But get rid of the hype and the “what-ifs” and we are now approaching a valuation that reflects what we are actually working with.
Governments aren’t going to fold to the will of crypto maxis overnight. Inflation will flow into things people trust and that currently is not us. We have a few weak points and contentious aspects that are really hard to sell people on. AI is making it hard to tell what’s even real.
And most importantly, there is so much noise out there, getting people to hear you AND believe you is not a given. It would be the exception if it happened, not the rule.
But….
This may sound like cliche but it’s insanely relevent to us now, when you hit rock bottom, there’s no where left to go but up.
We may have hit rock bottom or may still have a bit more pain to go with regards to price, but the real pain is us accepting that Hive isn’t going to solve all of our problems. That doesn’t mean it’s useless or that it couldn’t go on to become all that one day, however unlikely.
I am not going to say we need to double down and keep building although I fully support that sentiment. I don’t have the right to say such things though. I am already too invested in my music and the Japan art scene to do much more than I am doing here now, and I don’t see any overlap between my online life and my offline at the monent, at least given all I’ve tried in the past.
What I will do is stick around and do my small part to keep this place active and alive.
I will not sell all my Hive at such low prices, even if I do end up selling a little to make my life easier when I need the money.
I will share the opinions I was too scared to share clearly and directly before because if anyone listens to them, I believe they may help this place survive.
I will spread a proactive but realistic mindset that keeps us from burning out and/or overinvesting, but also prevents the protocol from compeltey dying or spiraling out.
I will keep whatever relationships I have alive and introduce Hive to anyone who seems like they may be looking for such a place, and maybe with a focus on the right people instead of everyone, and without the unrealistic hype and suspicious cult-like promises of a new decentralized world, they may be more likely to stick around.
I will treat Hive as what it always was and introduce it as such. A cool place to connect with strangers and experiment with ideas and interact with an alternate economy with different rules and culture, and a place where earnings are possible but not gauranteed.
Let’s be realistic here:
When I first joined this community in May 2017, I had no hope of it leading to anything. It looked like a scam to me but I was mostly hoping to find a place to share my fiction and if I could convert anyone into a reader then I was satsfied.
I found a handful. And I found friends who I still talk to 9 years later. And I earned a bit. And found my creative voice. And I learned how markets worked. And I learned a lot more about South America and Africa and SE Asia. And I learned a whole lot about how the world and money and power and decision making and community building works.
I inspired people and I was inspired by people.
There’s no need for any of that to end, even if it becomes a little less central to my future plans. Maybe without any illusions, and with those of us who stick around having already faced our FOMO and FUD, we will be able to build something closer to what we hoped to build all along.