There’s no denying it’s not looking good for cryptocurrencies right now. The FTX debacle has been an embarrassment for the entire space, and convincing people that cryptocurrencies are the future will be that much harder going forward.
But despite the current mess we find ourselves in, there’s no part of me that intends to cash out and walk away. Because to me crypto isn’t just about making a little money, or becoming rich beyond my wildest imagination, but a chance to set things right, which to me is something you can’t put a price tag on.
For the past five years I’ve pretty much been obsessed with crypto non-stop. It’s clearly more than just a hobby, or like any other investment I’ve ever made. When I invested in companies like Amazon, Apple, or Facebook, I didn’t create an entire blog dedicated to spreading the word about those companies. I didn’t spend countless hours learning the technology behind their products, or discussing with others online about how to make them better. All I cared about was the return on my investment.
When it comes to crypto, I’ve found that I have a totally different mentality. It’s like I see crypto as a kind of answer, an answer to a question I didn’t know I was asking. Here’s another way of putting it. I’m not trying to brag, or act like I have the perfect life, because I definitely don’t, but I like to think my life is pretty decent. I don’t consider myself rich by any means, but I’m appreciative of what I do have. I’ve been blessed with a family I love and cherish who fill me with a sense of joy and purpose. I have a steady job that makes me feel valued. And I live in a place where I am mostly free to live how I want so long as I play by the rules, like paying my taxes.
And for a long time that was perfectly fine with me. I never had a problem playing by the rules, or paying my taxes. I saw it as a necessary part of life. It sucked that the government took so much from every paycheck, but I told myself if I didn’t like it, it was on me to make more money.
There’s this famous saying that goes nothing is certain in life except death and taxes. But what if that no longer needed to be true? The fact that we see taxes as a certainty also means we see governments as a certainty, and it’s like the idea of taxes and governments has become so ingrained into our species that we can’t imagine any other way of living. In other words, we can’t imagine not being ruled. But what if there was another way?
Ever since I got into crypto my eyes have been opening to a new way of looking at the world. I see things I never noticed before and it’s become impossible to unsee them. Things like how rigged the system really is, and how my freedom is more tenuous than I could have imagined. And I’m not just talking about the fear of being put in jail for saying the wrong thing, or writing the wrong code, but the fear of losing everything I’ve ever worked for due to the incompetence of the people in charge.
While everyone is busy pointing the finger at Sam Bankman-Fried, I see what happened with FTX as a harbinger of things to come. Because just as FTX was bankrupted by the people in charge of their operations, it’s also just a handful of people who manage our central banks and the global economy that relies on them to properly function.
That’s why I’m not quitting. Because what really drives me isn’t greed, or altruism, but my sense of justice. Because I believe cryptocurrencies can help us create a world that is more just than the one we have today. A world where we aren’t ruled by central banks, or inept regulators, but by a system built on code and consensus. A system that’s transparent, and auditable, and can encourage people to be more honest and responsible because they no longer see the world as this place that treats the common man so unfairly. A world that makes it possible for any human being on the planet to connect to these decentralized networks and transact value with anyone else regardless of who they are or where they live in order to give us more opportunities for positive sum interactions.
I’m not giving up because no matter how bad things might look for cryptocurrencies right now, the idea of losing my freedom is exponentially worse. I believe in this technology called peer-to-peer electronic cash (“eCash”), because I’m confident it can change civilization as we know it. This is important to me because as a father, I want my sons to have the opportunity to live in a more free and just world than I did.
Growing up, my parents always told me and my brother about how they came to this country to give the two of us a better life. As I got older, I realized what a big deal it was for them to uproot their entire lives and move to a place where they couldn’t even speak the language. But there was also this part of me that rejected the idea that my parents did it for me and my brother. I thought they’d done it for themselves. After all, I’d never asked to move to America. In fact I remember sitting in our tiny one-room house all those years ago and getting mad when they said we were moving. I don’t want to go, I told them. I didn’t want to leave my friends, or our neighbors, and didn’t understand what made America so great to begin with. But now that I’m a parent myself, one that is trying to move my family from a world that runs on fiat to one that runs on crypto, I understand that my parents had indeed done it for us, the next generation, not just for themselves.
I’m obsessed with crypto because I believe it can make my life better, but more importantly, I want it to make life better for the next generation. I want my kids to grow up in a world that has more freedom than the one I grew up in, not less. While I can’t control their future, I want them to be able to control their destiny the same way crypto allows us to control our own private keys.
Let me finish with this. As someone who is married, I can tell you that marriage isn’t always easy. There can be times when you struggle, and even the occasional moment when you think about calling it quits. My wife and I have definitely had our fair share of arguments, and times when we’ve disappointed each other, or not seen eye-to-eye, but no matter how difficult things got, I have never considered giving up, or quitting, because deep down I know that what we have is worth fighting for, and that keeping our family together is the only way I will ever be truly happy. Well, that’s how I feel about crypto. Because while it may be possible for me to find other ways of growing my wealth, I believe that only crypto has the power to one day truly set me free.