What do you know and think about what you hodl?

The other day, I had a little BTC sitting free on Bittrex and I bought some Steem with it. Then, I sold the Steem for BTC at the spike and am looking to buy back a touch lower than it is now. I have the urge to buy back now, but I will wait as it isn't that much and whether it touches my buy point or not, I am up in BTC so it is a bonus regardless.

I don't know about you in particular, but what I find is that for me, buying and selling Steem always has some kind of feel of emotional attachment to it making it seem much more of an event than me buying or selling any other token. I believe this is because at least for me, there is more to holding STEEM than a way to make profits, there is a community behind it and, the STEEM I hold has effects on that community in some way, small or large.

I think that for most traders who are looking for profits alone, they don't think much about the effects that they have on others through their trading, it is profit at any cost. In general, investing in most forms is done for individual gains alone and for example, many who buy stocks do not care for the company or the employees, as long as they get an adequate return on their investment.

One of my clients mentioned this in a session today and asked how is it that investors into companies can expect increases in profits year after year and realized that it is unsustainable as eventually they will drive the company into a position it can no longer provide adequate return. at that point, the pull out their investment and look for the next company, leaving the first in ruins. They will of course think, lucky I got out early without recognizing that they themselves played a role in collapse as they crushed supply chains and quality employee acquisition and retention in favor of short gains.

What is interesting on Steem is that even if the price of the token goes to zero, there is likely to still be many people here doing what they do day in and day out earning Steem from the pool. Sure, there will be even less people, but the creative processes required for many to earn Steem is in itself addictive, a hobby, a game, entertainment, a way to spend an afternoon - that doesn't disappear with no value - but it also will add value.

I don't really see how Steem would ever go to zero without the chain stopping and never restarting as regardless of all the dumping, there will probably always be someone willing to buy, and if anything, as the price drops, those who enjoy being here will buy even more than they would have because they like the game of Steem.

In time of course, there will be an increasing number of games on Steem through various communities and applications that will use the Steem blockchain as infrastructure to build their own unique experiences upon, and they will need some tokens to provide bandwidth for their users, even if those tokens are near valueless by themselves.

Even in a scenario of valueless Steem, there are benefits for the applications to leverage the blockchain as it gives them access to a stabilising experience that all developers have a best interest in developing and protecting. This way, they can leverage the population of Steem to provide a strong, stable, fast, secure platform to build anything upon. Also, they will have access for cross-application movement meaning that non-competing applications can utilize to support their own application.

As I see it from an investment perspective, the problem with most crypto projects is that they are essentially lone-wolfing it and looking for investors to take a risk on a single entity. That makes them more like a business who takes investors who expect a return, and if that return doesn't materialize, they will drop the investment to pick up another and the project will collapse. This requires them to continually maintain attention and demand in the market place as a lone wolf, something that is extremely unlikely as trends shift often and consumers and investors are fast losing any sense of loyalty.

However on Steem, no loyalty is needed and while each application will have to develop their market attention, all applications can come and go in trend cycles without affecting the underlying infrastructure. Not only that, since Steem is a general purpose blockchain that replicates internet processes by delivering essentially any kind of content, as new trends emerge in industries, developers can quickly replicate a tokenized version of it on a stable platform with a community of consumers willing to give it a go.

Over time, this process will improve to the point that it is no longer just replication taking place, but an increasing number of developers and development companies looking to leverage the blockchain and community, one that doesn't require the price of the Steem token to survive. I think that as a result, the Steem token price will climb and become highly valuable.

So, while I have an emotional attachment to Steem as a content creator who has put in a fair amount of effort, time and personal capital, I also think that as an investment vehicle Steem is a no-brainer to invest into due to the potential of having a fast, free and secure blockchain that is welcoming to development from all kinds of experiences and communities.

They do say, invest into what you know.

What do you know?

Taraz [ a Steem original ]