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My 8 Years With Bitcoin and Cryptos: An Uneasy Journey...

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@denmarkguy
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A bit of a change of flavors today... as I found myself thinking about my fairly long and uneasy history with both Bitcoin and the cryptosphere, in general.

TL;DR:

I first "met" Bitcoin in 2012. I hoped it would become the future of payment systems, independent of governments, central banks and borders. I hoped the same thing for Alt. Coins, as they came along.

It's eight years later, and I am still waiting for something aside from people hoping to get rich out of thin air by having their investments Moon... whatever happened to functional use cases and banking the unbanked? Whatever happened to my being able to trade my artwork globally without ever touching fiat?

Seems like a great "TOOL" was built, but everyone is too busy trying to make money from "TRADING the tool" rather than trying to make money "USING the tool."

End TL;DR

Sometime in 2012...

The first I ever heard of Bitcoin actually came from my sister-in-law sometime in 2012.

The weird thing about it is that my sister-in-law is actually a total Luddite and yet there she was, standing in our kitchen, telling me about this new "digital currency."

"You're into computers and technical stuff," she said, "you should totally get involved in this!"

I figured that if my sister-in-law was actually excited about something technical, I probably ought to check it out. So I did.

Poking Around in the Technicalities...

Alas, my expectations as I went in, turned out to have been quite different from what I actually found.

My interpretation had been that my sister-in-law was all excited about it because it was a new currency; something that was going to become a global and borderless alternative to the way we use money. Digital cash.

So, silly me, I expected to find emerging marketplaces and blossoming commerce and various other indications that this was truly the gateway to our financial future. After all, science-fiction writers had been loosely describing this sort of system for decades, so it only made sense to me that someone would invent it.

Not that it was totally NEW, mind you. At the time, the Second Life virtual environment had already succeeded in creating its own digital currency ("Linden Dollars") fueling an internal economy in excess of US $500 million.

Of course, that was a closed loop system, where Bitcoin held the promise of an open system, accessible to all.

The Less Attractive Reality...

Sadly, at least to me, was that I instead found a bunch of hard-core coders, developers and nerds being all fired up about their "rigs" and the process of mining Bitcoin... and subsequently about how much money they were going to make in the future.

Not only was there little mention of actual use of Bitcoin, even being able to get your hands on any seemed to present technical obstacles that would make the entire proposition super unattractive to most people. And I'm NOT a Luddite!

Anyway, I shrugged and looked into this whole "mining" business.

It remained mildly interesting because you could evidently use your computer to create these "virtual coins" out of thin air. Being at least a little bit technically minded, I thought I could probably figure it out.

Disillusioned, Ver. 1.0...

As I dug deeper and it turned out that you actually needed specialized equipment and high powered servers and this that and the other, it soon enough it felt like I had stumbled into just another iteration of the early days of the Internet, where a handful of deep nerds were having fun creating a deeply technical project they could maintain their own little private club with.

My disillusionment was that I didn't see any evidence of being able to use or apply Bitcoin in a functional sense anywhere — it just was all about this mining thing and if you actually had some Bitcoin, it was just to "have some" not to actually use some.

So I kind of set the whole Bitcoin thing on the back burner, but decided to keep an eye on it because it might turn into something in the future.

Enter the Wandering Anarchist...

Several years passed and I didn't really revisit Bitcoin, until a visitor — let's call him our "anarchist friend" — came to stay with us for a week on his way to the annual Rainbow Gathering.

As it turned out he had gotten involved with the earliest iterations of the Ethereum project. Being a pretty paranoid type who thought the government was always chasing him and someone was out to get him, he was very gung-ho about cryptocurrencies and talked a good bit about both Bitcoin and Ethereum and insisted that this was going to be the future of money, particularly for global nomads such as himself.

I availed myself of the opportunity to ask him some of the same questions I had had in my mind when I first looked into Bitcoin.

"This is all very cool," I said, "but where do you actually USE this stuff?"

He didn't really have a good answer, except to say that commercial development would be something that would happen in the near future. He spoke of Ethereum as a "major improvement" on the "cumbersome" (this was 2015) issues associated with Bitcoin.

$300 Bitcoin!

Now I should add that our friend didn't really care very much about money since he basically traveled the world with his backpack and had no significant possessions or need for possessions.

Because he was on his way to the Rainbow Gathering, he needed some actual cash, so an agreement was made: He helped me create a "wallet" and traded me 1/2 BTC for $150.00. Which — I think — was actually a somewhat shitty exchange rate (at the time)... but hey, he was a friend in need!

Once again, I got busy with other projects and pretty much forgot all about cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin... until I completely accidentally ended up on Steemit in January of 2017.

At that point I still owned my one-half Bitcoin — which was now worth about $500. Interestingly enough, I had not bought it as "an investment," I had bought it to support the idea of a cryptocurrency as an exchange for something — in this case, helping out my friend.

To the Moon... and Other Disappointments

Now I'll be the first to admit that I have thoroughly enjoyed being part of both the Steem and Hive communities, and creating content on these platforms. However, my general perception with respect to the entire ball of wax that is "digital money" remains pretty much the same as when I first looked at Bitcoin in 2012.

The world is fundamentally a greedy place.

When we talk about Bitcoin, or Ethereum, or other Altcoins — including Hive — almost the entire context remains wrapped around the core issue of "When am I going to get rich, and get a Lambo, and when is the price going to go to the Moon, and how much money am I going to make?"

Sadly, there is still relatively little attention paid to the original idea of these being alternative functioning currencies; something you actually use to trade with your peers as a cashless borderless currency that is not controlled by the government.

For me, the appeal was that I (for example) could buy handicrafts from somebody in Thailand and have them sent to me the United States and all without there every being banks, fiat currencies and so forth involved.

Disillusioned, Ver. 2.0...

But that approach remains relatively weak in the greater scheme of things. Sure, there are functional use cases here and there, but it's still not where the majority of the energy of the cryptosphere is directed.

It's a bit like someone inventing a great tool, and then putting all the attention into trading the tool for profit, rather than actually USING the tool to make profit.

And ultimately, that's what I find a little bit disappointing.

We talk about this "magic pill" that's been invented, and its potential to create a great future for the world in terms of monetary systems, and yet all everybody seems to be doing is replicating the same greed that's currently inherent in central banks and big corporations — the very thing most crypto proponents claim to be combating.

Not very idealistic, what do you say?

It Has Been 8 Years... and Counting...

I think it has been almost exactly eight years, since my sister-in-law stood in our kitchen during our 4th of July gathering and first mentioned Bitcoin.

And for eight years I have been looking for material signs of the promise I had hoped this whole idea would eventually bring us.

Sadly, what I seem to keep encountering is not the idealized world of cryptocurrency, but little more than a microcosmic reproduction of the exact same money and power hungry greed that permeates the greater world. Almost like we are NOT "a better alternative than them, we simply ARE them, wearing a new suit of clothes.

Really? Can't we do any better than this?

And yes, I do remain enthusiastic about the potential of Hive as a pathway to breaking through to a better model.

But on a greater scale? We have to STOP selling this idea of cryptos as investments and then turning around and complaining that they are not being mass adopted as payment systems!

Thanks for reading and I hope you're having a great week!

What do YOU think? Are cryptocurrencies living up to their promise? Or have we become too involved in selling "the tool," rather than USING the tool? Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for LeoFinance platform.) Created at 20200730 11:57 PDT 0089/1317

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