In the pursuit of crypto riches, what is being given up?
The creator of Dogecoin, Jackson Palmer, although no longer involved with DOGE in any way still maintains activity as a commentator in the space. He has recently penned some interesting thoughts and fascinating perspective in the Diar newsletter: https://diar.co/volume-2-issue-44/
While many cryptocurrency enthusiasts express blind enthusiasm at the notion of positive price impact associated with this money flowing in, it’s important to take a step back and analyze what this phase of the cryptocurrency lifecycle actually represents, and how far it lands the movement from its original goals.
It’s no secret that the last 10 months in Cryptocurrency since January have been brutal for a lot of people, myself included. I borrowed money myself to put in to cryptocurrency in December, which is now worth 80% less than what I borrowed. It’s painful indeed, but as somebody who’s been around in this space for just over 5 years now, it’s not the end of the world.
You see, we are inviting (And unable to stop, even if we wanted) the impending influx of money from “institutional investment”. Why do we seek this so badly?
I’ve spoken about how how our existing banking system is somewhat horribly broken. It’s slow, clunky, requires you trust a central company (And your government), not to mention the supply and ‘value’ of that is in complete control of your Govt / Banks. You can watch the YouTube video of this talk here if you’re interested.
By inviting this institutional money, no doubt a few early adopters who have been hoarding, or “bag holding”, will see their portfolio value increase significantly. Without a doubt, I too stand to gain with my modest cryptocurrency holdings. Anybody who has cryptocurrency at present does, in fact.
It’s understandable why people would want that, it’s seemingly “easy money”. Who hasn’t dreamed of “lambos” and yachts?
However, again I ask: What will we be giving up in the process?
There will be a large influx of institutional investors who purely invest in this to get rich, or for the “safety” of that money. Investors who don’t even know what a private-key is, elliptic curve encryption, or the power that a fixed money supply can offer. Do they need to, though, in order to make a profit?
To which I would suggest “No, no they don’t”.
Again in the article, Jackson Palmer stated something rather insightful:
The challenge with institutional entry into cryptocurrency is that it tears down all three core value propositions the technology aims to offer.
If a user is accessing their account through a centralized website, handing custody of their private keys entirely to a trusted third-party, and is unable to verify a ledger of how their funds are being handled by that third-party, are they really using a cryptocurrency?
You see what we have currently is:
1. Censorship resistance
2. Trustless transactions
3. Verifiable history
What we have with all of this trading going on inside of Exchanges is none of the above.
People have lost control of their private keys by putting their funds in the hands of a 3rd party, with no way to verify and validate the location or ownership of them.
Yet for some reason these platforms we are setting up for “institutional investors” is seen as the way forward to some how give credibility to this space.
The result of all of this money coming in to the space, is supposed to also bring more end-users with a renewed interest as a result of the price / value increase.
Again though how many of those users are going to be here simply for the money, and not the freedoms this technology can provide?
How many people will be here to chase a dollar, not chase the future of finances, technology and more?
DigiByte has been a guerrilla movement, much like Bitcoin before it. It has started, and survived, thanks to people who believe in the project, what it stands for, and what it can become. It has done-so without any central governing body, or individual group / corporation with a slush-fund to advertise it on it’s behalf. The closest being the DigiByte Awareness Team (DGBAT), however they, like I, do what they do without being paid themselves and without any funding of their own. They do it for the love of the project.
Again I find myself asking “what are we giving up, by selling ourselves short here, in pursuit of a quick buck?”.
You see DigiByte is in a prime position here, with it’s focus on cybersecurity and being on the eve of its own 5th birthday. DigiByte has no complex or tainted history as many other projects do, it has no large pre-mine, nor is it centrally controlled, nor is it limited by minor scaling issues.
We have so much going for us right now, and we have so many ways we can improve the lives of many. DigiByte has proven over the last 5 years of steady and consistent growth / development that it’s everything these new investors should be looking for. From the use-case as a fixed-supply decentralized global currency, to the end of document fraud, to what is arguably the most secure and yet simple authentication that this world has ever seen!
DigiByte isn’t just a single-focus blockchain that derives value from being “marginally better” than Bitcoin. DigiByte is leagues ahead with so many possible avenues for growth and impact, it’s no wonder the founder Jared Tate has stated numerous times “DigiByte through blockchain technology can solve 95% of the worlds cybersecurity problems”. Just think, we are only scratching the surface here of what DigiByte can do!
We’ve already come so far with what we have today, and through our word-of-mouth we have one of the largest and most passionate communities in the crypto space. In addition, they’re educated about what DigiByte brings to the table both now and into the future.
This isn’t a future that needs us to sell out in the short-term. The tide is turning and the tsunami is coming. Let’s remember why the likes of Bitcoin and DigiByte were started. Let’s be mindful of the value they bring, and how they bring it, and continue to teach new people of these incredible benefits.
But let’s do it one person at a time, not one bank at a time.
Let’s continue to do it through relationships, and through helping people, as we have been.
If you got into this space for a quick buck, that’s totally fine, but I would implore you to investigate the technology, and why it has the potential to be world-changing. Why we talk about banking for the unbanned billions in the world. Why we talk about solving cyber security issues.
It’s the tech, and these solutions we are building, that will cement DigiByte in history, and not the quick dollar you made off it.
If you want to know more about the underlying technology, check out DigiByte.io, have a look at my YouTube where I do DigiTalks explaining some of the technicals in layman’s terms, or join our vibrant Telegram community to chat about things. Links at the bottom of every DigiByte.io page.
