> I don’t want to settle for a world where crypto is just speculation and gambling.
When Bitcoin first came out, many years ago, it was sold as being a decentralized currency and that phrasing caught my attention. I'd follow it avidly and watch with interest as different shops and retails were starting to accept payments in Bitcoin. I'd make it a point to spend Bitcoin with those places to show my support.
But over time, as the currency experienced volatility, all of those places withdrew the option.
When I tell people about this and how much I've spent, their reaction is always that I could have been rich if I had held on to the coins, and to me that misses the point or the original intention. In fact I think very few people still subscribe to its original intention.
My point: it's always been speculation and gambling, right since the beginning. You will need to settle now, or plan your escape.
There are some coins that are just unsexy currencies and nothing else, with clear goals to optimize speed and minimize intermediate costs, and I think that's precisely why they're unsexy now. It seems to me that this space has been a fractal of ponzi schemes designed to defraud small and poorly informed players and when something actually works, it's immediately cast aside and shunned because it had no use to the carnival energy that large players are trying to maintain.
And some with the clear goal of deterring speculation, by having a pure linear emission which keeps the yearly supply inflation rate high for many decades (taking a century to drop to 1%). Thus, no fear of missing out, early adopters are not favored, and later generations not handicapped.
Similar feelings here. When the project started to become more well-known I was paying attention - it seemed obvious that a digital currency would be useful for many things.
I didn't mine, I didn't buy, but I thought it was cool. Over time it started to become a big deal when more and more online services started accepting bitcoin, and it just seemed like it would become more and more useful.
Now? It's all HODL and online scams.
I think in the future we will have some digital currency, but it won't be bitcoin, or anything else we have at the moment. There are so many ways it could be used, from micropayments for news, to cross-border payments. But having seen all the fallout from current systems it will probably be a long time coming..
It turns out the Bitcoin thesis was only half successful. It did not end up becoming peer-to-peer electronic cash, but it did succeed in creating a decentralized ledger that is tamper proof, resistant to double spend attacks, and can facilitate peer-to-peer transfers. This part of the technology can be used to operate other ideas, like stablecoins and decentralized identity systems.
Does anyone have an example of someone who was unable to get mortgage from a traditional banks but was able to do so via Crypto? Are there any examples of someone with a great business idea who couldn't get a loan from a bank but was able to get funding via Crypto?
I wouldn't see how. AIUI, DeFi loans are over collateralized. It's appears to like taking out a second mortgage on your home. You make payments or the collateral disappears.
The only benefit of this I can see is converting tokens to cash as a hedge against a crypto crash. If you pay off the loan and the token price continues to grow, you get all your tokens back and it only cost you the interest. If the token price crashes, well you already have the cash, so you can default on the loan and the only collateral is worthless tokens.
Still no serious discussion about how giant traditional finance players waltzed right into crypto after the hard foundational work was done and easily pushed over multiple marketplaces and currencies to cash out any way they could. Also no discussion about how crypto totally failed as a hedge and moved in lockstep with real markets when things started to look bad due to strong ties to conventional finances, thus defeating the purpose. No discussion either about how DAOs have now intervened multiple times in trading and seized money and made unfavorable trades on behalf of investors.
When do we get an honest cards-on-the-table post mortem for the past few years of crypto?
When Bitcoin first came out, many years ago, it was sold as being a decentralized currency and that phrasing caught my attention. I'd follow it avidly and watch with interest as different shops and retails were starting to accept payments in Bitcoin. I'd make it a point to spend Bitcoin with those places to show my support.
But over time, as the currency experienced volatility, all of those places withdrew the option.
When I tell people about this and how much I've spent, their reaction is always that I could have been rich if I had held on to the coins, and to me that misses the point or the original intention. In fact I think very few people still subscribe to its original intention.
My point: it's always been speculation and gambling, right since the beginning. You will need to settle now, or plan your escape.