Greetings Fine Felines and Hoomans of LeoFinance, Hivelandia and surrounding communities! Hope this wintry Monday finds everyone healthy and... well... relatively calm.
Sometimes it seems difficult to choose just what to set our sights on, here in the Cryptosphere.
First we watch Hive reach some very impressive new highs, briefly making it into the rarified air of being "a billion dollar coin." Wow! And yet? That wasn't even enough to make it into the top-100, by marketcap?
Screen shot of the USD-Hive pair on Bittrex; 2-hour interval
Then Bitcoin suddenly has yet another of its "Crazy Ivan" swings last Thursday, taking a flash-crash nosedive to a three-week low, not long after reaching a new all-time high.
Bitcoin-USD Pair; screen shot from Bittrex
So that leaves a bunch of people sitting nervously at the edge of their seats and another group of people endlessly analyzing the numbers in hopes of finding some signal to indicate WTF is going on.
Of course, very little of this actually represents new territory... and it's "no new news" to anyone that the crypto markets are insanely volatile, especially compared to the legacy financial markets.
Let's face it: An asset class that can increase almost 30000% OR lose 95% of its value inside a 24-hour period is "insanely volatile," no matter who you are or how you turn it.
Daily gainers and losers on November 18; screen shot from Coinmarketcap
Blessing... or Curse?
Whereas these wild swings may make us all feel rather nervous, it would still be hard to reach consensus on whether they represent a blessing or a curse, because it would ultimately depend on your individual perspective. Trader? Investor? Long-term HODLer?
On one hand, it could be argued that it's "pretty cool" that the potential to take $1,000 and turn it into $1,000,000 within a month even exists. You could argue that is what makes the Cryptosphere so full of opportunities.
On the flipside, the volatility could also be viewed as a major barrier standing in the way of large scale adoption of cryptocurrency. Few people have the stomach to see swings like these in their retirement fund... or even in their gaming money.
What IS This "Game," Anyway?
Personally, I have little doubt that new crypto projects will always come along and have the potential to do crazy things. That's pretty much a given.
However, I also believe that the broader perception of cryptos as "highly volatile exotic assets" needs to be substantially changed if we hope to actually realize the ostensibly "massive potential" we're always trying to convince the world this industry has.
In short, "That's just TOO risky for me!" does present itself as a barrier to entry.
In some sense, we face a similar process to what had to happen with the Internet, itself — moving from a perception of it being "for academics, porn addicted nerds, pedophiles and scammers looking to abduct our daughters and rip us off" 25 years ago to today's "the Internet is an integral part of life" mindset.
We ARE The Change...
Mind you, that change isn't going to just happen by itself; it has to be somewhat guided by those who are driving the industry forward.
What I mean by that is that WE get to choose where people's attention will be directed: Will it be at wildly speculative meme coins that offer a slim-to-no chance of making people instant Lambo owners because it's basically Vaporware with a flashy White Paper? Or will it be on more solid use cases that are actually useful to a broad swath of people... like being able to pay your rent, run a viable microbusiness, decentralized banking alternatives... or even buy a pizza?
Frankly, I choose the latter.
Which perhaps means that it's time to stop chasing Lambos, glorifying 10,000% gains and pitching "Cryptos" as some kind of stand-alone miracle and instead start pitching "what you can DO with cryptos" as where the real future lies.
The wild swings aren't about to go away, but we can stop making those the backbone of reasons for why those outside the industry should get involved!
Thanks for stopping by!
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CuratorCat 06-DEC-2021