The good, the bad and the ugly.
Alice in Cryptoland
The world of crypto is a strange place, an Alice in Wonderland fantasy world that requires us to head face first down the rabbit hole with only our conviction to guide us. Across the threshold, we find a bizarre mix of revolutionary technology couched in a sea of scams, degenerate gambling and useless tokens in a new-age wild west. Most fall victim, but some achieve true financial freedom.
The Wild West of old was a harsh world, and yet it was a beacon of light where one could truly pursue freedom and opportunity. The visionaries of that old world embarked on the perilous journey to escape the elitist oppression, an oppression that had begun to rot society and create a life of monotonous slavery. They crossed the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas to navigate all the risks and perils in pursuit of a dream.
Crypto IS the new Wild West, the last frontier for the collective slaves of the global cabal, the last realm where the sovereign individual can still pursue the dream of freedom, financial independence, and true opportunity free from regulations, oppressive taxes, gatekeepers and all the other accoutrements of the parasitic government machine.
Just as money itself must be scarce; prosperity, opportunity and freedom require a difficult journey. Without that friction, it could not exist, and the masses would flood the new world and dilute the prize. Crypto is an asymmetric opportunity precisely because it is revolutionary and yet complex, new and poorly understood. Those with vision, conviction and patience are the few who stand to achieve true financial freedom, and escape from the rat race we were all born into. Most will fall in the attempt.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly:
The Good:
Blockchain is a revolutionary technology, one that eliminates the need for trusted third parties and allows every human being with a smart phone to become their own bank, and the custodians of their own wealth. It is the fundamental technology on which the crypto rails function.
Crypto itself separates money from State, and enables a peer to peer money and a permissionless and trustless financial transaction layer. The vast majority of society’s failings stem in some way from the rot of fiat money; malinvestment, incentivized debt, foreign aid giveaways, poisonous education systems, institutionalized theft via inflation, extortionary taxation, and much more. Crypto toggles off the fatal design flaw of fiat money … government control.
Ethereum enables trustless transactions via smart contracts on a decentralized computer. Bitcoin enables sound, permissionless, censorship resistant and self custodial money. Solana enables a fast and cheap retail transaction layer. Many more projects offer revolutionary protocols, or innovative iterations of the existing ones.
One day, crypto will permanently alter our understanding of money, and allow for a world that is truly free and in which an individual can achieve true self sovereignty. Sadly, for now, we are in the novel stage of this technology, where the largest use cases are memes, gambling, scams, and speculation.
The value of being the custodian of your own wealth cannot be overstated, and it will meritocratically change the balance of power in favour of the individual over the state and authorities. Storing and transacting your wealth in crypto will allow you freedom from arbitrary devaluation, freedom from censorship and confiscation, freedom from borders and arbitrary restrictions. True adoption of crypto will change the fundamental structure of human interaction by securing and solidifying our global medium of exchange from a flimsy decaying measuring stick, to a pristine digital one.
The Bad and the Ugly:
As a brand new technology fighting for survival in a sea of governments and authorities ideologically opposed to it, crypto remains a niche market with even more niche use cases. Being a niche market in the new wild west, the financial promised land is fraught with scams and degenerate use cases. Those mostly parasitic use cases are a necessary part of the prosperous new world … they create the dangerous environment that weeds out those without courage and conviction. Conversely, those scams also slow the genuine adoption of cryptocurrency and create friction for institutional capital.
More specifically:
Meme coins went from a crypto casino means of pursuing riches, to a VC means of milking retailTokens went from a means of participating in a protocol’s success, to meme governance and staking utilities and a means of raising funds from retail without giving up any equity or future revenue.PFP NFT’s were the original meme coins and digital bling, and have now transitioned to grandma’s antiques.Launchpads have surprisingly turned into crypto convenience stores … every protocol and their uncle are now launchpads, and the OG launchpads have had their value proposition syphoned.Web 3 games don’t need tokens … they sell tokens to raise cash and as a means of acquiring customers/community members. Any game out there could just as easily use USDC or ETH as currency.95% of protocols DO NOT need tokens. Instead of integrating tokens to the benefit of prospective token holders, projects instead use it as means of extracting value. The exception to this rule are the minority of projects that ensure 100% of value accrual goes to token/NFT holders, and participate in the success of their own project by holding their own tokens.Node investments are an unnecessary, superfluous and typically extractive means of acquiring investments. TLDR: 95% of projects don’t need nodes.Most Influencers will rob you blind while smiling and whispering sweet nothings in your ear. They are the bosses in the PVP game of crypto, treat them as adversaries.Exchanges are extracting value from your far in excess of the services they provide. They liquidation-hunt your perps, they counter trade you, they hide fees on spreads. Use them at your peril, and only as absolutely necessary.Market Makers are vultures that feed off the crypto market. They provide an important service, but their cost is not insignificant, and it is paid overwhelmingly by retail.Token locks are an artificial means of propping up your token price, again at the cost of retail. If a project needs a token, and investors want to buy it, unlock it and allow the natural supply/demand balance take over.MEV (miner extractable value) is the crypto version of theft via inflation. No one consents to it, and most overlook it or are completely unaware of it. Yet any trade of substance is stolen from like a toll booth on a local road.Crypto “partnerships” are a bigger joke than our geriatric politicians. Most are complete nonsense with no more substance than my partnership with Google when I use the search bar.Airdrops aren’t free, and you are not farming their tokens. They are farming you with a song and a dance.Maximalists are just intellectually dishonest or IQ handicapped zealots.
Conclusion:
Crypto is now at the fateful stage of Christopher Columbus’ first journey to the new world, a precarious balance between a crew ready to mutiny while only days from the new world and the discovery of a revolutionary new frontier.
Most retail are ready to turn around and drown on a pointless doomed return journey, selling at the local bottom only to realize they enormity of their mistake as Bitcoin rockets past $100K and beyond in the coming months.
The chances to be a pioneer in the adoption of crypto as a revolutionary technology are dwindling quickly as the gates to TradeFi and mass retail have begun to open. It is my belief this bull run may be the last great parabolic run, with overwhelming asymmetric chances to make life changing gains.
Good luck out there, and see you on the next one!
Sovereign Crypto (aka RickyBobby)
I release regular altcoin and crypto updates, subscribe for more info and to keep up to date!
Social Media:
Twitter (X) https://twitter.com/fourthesauriPhaver App: https://phaver.app.link/fourthesauri
Referral Bonuses/Codes:
✅Cross Chain Swaps & Bridge: RocketX Exchange
Best rates by far, bridge/swap ANY chain, swap/bridge in a single transaction, CEX & DEX, no KYC. 20% OFF Fees with code
✅Browser Wallet: (Metamask alternative): Rabby Wallet
Excellent security measures, very compatible, all EVM chains, built-in swaps and approvals checker.
✅Portfolio Tracker and Toolset: Nexus
Free version or premium version, best token & NFT tracker on the market, launchpad allocations, private sale tracker, research tools, etc.
Disclosures:
I own or am accumulating the above mentioned tokens/investments.Not financial advice.I rebalance my portfolio occasionally and the above may change from time to time.
The State of Crypto was originally published in Coinmonks on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.