In the crypto market there are investments and there are gambles, the market and the casino. Many people have the wrong view that investing, both traditionally like in the stock market or the crypto market is just a big gamble and its all just a game. Lately it certainly seems that way, we have Game Stop, AMC, Doge Coin, Shiba Inu coin all driving huge gains and making early “bettors” really rich, that’s how you do it right? Find the next thing, make the right bet, put your chips on the right color and when that ball finally drops then you get huge gains! You’re rich!!!
That is one way of doing it (I’d argue a bad way), but that is not investing, that is gambling. Here is a question to ask yourself which will help you see if you are gambling or investing. Is the reason you are putting money into something because you think it provides a good or service to people that makes the world a better place in some fashion? Yes? Then you are investing… If you are just putting money in something because you think it will go up because other people might buy it later, or because its exciting, or has been going up, then you are probably just gambling or the nicer term for that is speculating.
There are many traditional investors out there that consider the entire crypto market just a giant gamble, a big casino. That is an uninformed and lazy view. People who have that view have never taken the time to understand what is happening in the crypto market, and honestly I’d have to question their opinions on many other subjects. The crypto market and the projects in it are nothing short of a revolution on multiple fronts and ignoring it could be the greatest mistake of your financial life.
We are just at the beginning, but at this point Crypto is currently rewriting the rules in finance, markets, globalization, money, art, organizational structures, capital raising, and I’m sure others I’m not thinking of right now. There are so many interesting and impressive things going on its literally hard to keep tabs on all of it. It is not a casino it’s a vibrant market of potentially world changing projects and organizations. Don’t get me wrong a good chunk of what is listed on the different Coin listings are just gambling tokens, but it is not the main story of what is going on here.
What are some examples of potentially world changing projects that I’m personally aware of…
Aave: Basically a crypto bank. You can go to this site connect your wallet and take out a loan against your crypto assets in just a few clicks. There is no, “Who are you?” “Why do you want the money?” “Do we like you?” “How are you going to spend the money?” “How rich are you?”… just “Do you have the assets to borrow against? Fine do what you want.” No forms to fill out, nothing to sign, all enforced by the system, like a kind of financial magic if you’ve dealt with a bank at all recently.
Compound: A competitor to Aave, an example of what a truly open free market looks like, as there is no barriers to entry anyone can compete in the crypto area with no one to say no to them (I should say Compound did come first).
Helium: A decentralized data network for the internet of things. At the time of the writing of this post 60,000 mini cell towers dot the world providing coverage using the helium network as a way to coordinate their efforts.
Arweave: A decentralized permanent storage solution on the internet. You save something and pay the fee, it will be available forever (theoretically) and no one can remove it or sensor it.
Uniswap: A completely decentralized exchange that allows you to trade any Ethereum based asset for any other, no matter if the government says your rich enough to buy that token or not (US securities laws only allow rich individuals to buy certain high risk high return securities). And on the other side of that coin if you have the assets to trade you can provide them to the protocol and earn fees on your assets.
Aragon: This project lets you set up organizations on the blockchain so you can coordinate and make decisions all in a secure way.
The above projects are just a tiny sample of what is going on, I completely ignored the “layer one” projects like Ethereum, Solana, Cosmos, Polkadot that are what these other projects are being built on, or all the projects that are trying to be money like Bitcoin, or all the infrastructure projects that are helping enable these projects.
There is plenty to INVEST in, you don’t need to roll the dice on the latest meme coin, you can put your money into real projects that if successful could be the Amazon’s and Googles of the next 20 years. This of course is not investment advise it’s a suggestion to take a deeper dive in this area because of what is going on.