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Cryptocurrency

Nothing on this page should be construed as financial advice.


First and foremost, I'm not going to be talking about prices, price-action, current/future values - or even specific tokens/networks.

YouTube has tons of superstars you can get great financial advice from! /s

Why Crypto?

For me, this is simple: the existing system of layered middlemen lobbied, litigated, and lured politicians into providing an environment that favors big business and the ultra-rich.

Pot, meet Kettle!

I fully understand that the current crypto-ecosystem is full of greed and scammers. I hope this improves over time with regulations and technological-maturity.

I see crypto as a means for:

  • Fewer middlemen taking their cut of my transactions with other people and businesses

The middleman becomes the network/code, but the rules that govern it still apply uniformly.

  • More control over my own data, who can access it, and how they can use it
  • Better feedback models in the form of governance solutions (DAO)
  • Less-reliance on companies to provide my online identity
  • More peer-to-peer transactions (which I believe is good for the overall economy)
  • In theory, financial transparency that could reduce some corruption

NFTs are a scam!

Yes, absolutely, the current iteration of NFTs are garbage. Don't buy them.

However, long term, the concept of NFTs has real utility for our society - I think.

The goal with NFTs would be to provide ownership records (much like the physical and digital ownership records that exist today) that do not require a central authority to use.

In my mind, they are the natural evolution of where paper and digital records have been heading - we just need a way to mitigate the risk of a central authority having ownership. NFTs might be able to solve that.

Reducing dependence on middlemen

This is a list of middlemen we could cut out using cryptocurrency/NFT technology in some form (non-exhaustive):

  • Credit card fees for accepting payments
  • Ticketmaster and other ticketing services
  • Almost all greedy financial services
  • Platforms that skim profits from creators
  • Paying $25 for a copy of your birth certificate
  • Social Security Numbers for identity

Maybe this is a better read? hbr.org/2017/03/the-promise-of-blockchain-is-a-world-without-middlemen

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