I get it. You think crypto is dumb. You think it’s full of nothing but scammers and the fools they prey on. As far as you can tell, crypto is useless as a currency, because hardly anyone accepts it, and the only thing it’s good for is speculation.
I don’t blame you for thinking this way. I blame it on this industry for having done such a bad job conveying its value proposition. The narratives keep changing, the goals posts keep moving, and instead of showing people the future, all we seem to be doing is going from one fad to another.
But what if I said I’m here to offer you another perspective? To explain what I see in this new technology and why I think it has the potential to change civilization as we know it.
For me, crypto is first and foremost a revolutionary tool. I say revolutionary because I believe it can lead to a dramatic change in the way our world functions, and one day maybe even an actual revolution.
So what is this dramatic change I’m talking about? I’m talking about a change to our entire monetary system. The way we understand money and how it works.
Just as the internet gave us a new way to communicate and access information, crypto will give us a new way to transact. No longer will our financial system have to be controlled by central banks or governments in which a handful of elites get to decide what’s best for the rest of us. No longer will we need to rely on institutions to send payments from one party to another. Crypto gives us the ability to transact peer-to-peer, no matter who you are, or where you are in the world.
In the past we had little choice but to rely on central authorities to ensure our money wasn’t easily counterfeited or double-spent. But that is no longer the case because crypto solves both problems without the need for a trusted third party. Rather than adding friction to our financial interactions, crypto removes it by being a superior technology than what we have now.
Think of all the steps that had to come before to make this even possible. We had to discover electricity, invent computers, and the internet, which is why one could argue crypto is the pinnacle of human achievement. But I see this as just the start. The finish line is still far away.
Maybe that’s why so few people seem to understand the ramifications of Satoshi Nakamoto’s invention. It would be like sitting someone down in front of a computer in the early 90’s, showing them the first ever website created, then telling them this is going to change the world. Only those with a strong enough imagination would have had the vision to see what was being presented to them.
I believe crypto will be the key to unlocking a truly free market economy. There’s that old joke about how real communism has never been tried before. Well, I think real free market capitalism has never been tried before, and for the first time in history, we have a means to achieve it.
I am a believer in technology because it helps advance the human species. Technology improves lives and does so at scale. It’s why I support free markets, because I believe that human ingenuity knows no limits. The only thing that can limit us is ourselves, and the only way to remove those limits is by demanding the freedom to make our own choices, including the freedom to choose how we spend our money.
I believe the reason our world is in the state it’s in is because the incentives are broken for far too many people. And the incentives are broken because the system is broken. Why work hard and try to think of ways to make things better if you have no incentive to do so? This is especially true for the poorest among us, and I can’t help but wonder if this predicament is due to the unprecedented amount of regulation and taxes that hamper our ability to profit from our work or pay people more equitably for their efforts.
When you see no hope of achieving financial stability, that slowly working your way up through sheer determination and hard work isn’t feasible, it’s easy to want to give up or take huge risks that could cost you everything in exchange for even the tiniest chance at success.
What I see today is a world where governments take half your money off the top causing people to feel the need to make huge gambles in order to offset what they’ve lost. Perhaps if our tax money went to good use and the benefits they provided were clear and obvious it wouldn’t be so bad. But what I see is a society on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
Meanwhile, governments around the world are no longer satisfied by how much money they take, so now they have resorted to printing it at unprecedented rates. This new money, all of it created out of thin air, causes prices to go up and the value of our money to go down, resulting in a feedback loop that only results in more people taking riskier gambles just to keep up.
Rather than saving our money and waiting for the right opportunities to deploy capital, we find ourselves betting it all on black and hoping for the best because for all we know in a year or two our money might only be worth a fraction of what it is today.
Our dollars, euros, won, and yen are becoming more like casino chips. Only there’s no way to exit this casino. All you can do is find a game you think you can win at and try your luck.
This is why I think there’s so much malinvestment in the world today. Why spend years building something of real value if in the end you’re just going to be left with a huge tax bill from the government?
I don’t want to live in a world where some pit boss gets to decide what games I’m allowed to play, or who gets taxed how much, and where that money gets siphoned off to. Because the global economy is too complex to be centrally planned.
I’m not saying that crypto and the free market can fix everything. There will still be poverty in the world. We will still have to deal with pandemics and other disasters in the future. But I think better technology can help us face any challenges that come our way.
I can’t tell you what the world will look like when crypto takes over. My imagination isn’t good enough, but I know I want to find out. I want to see what the world will be like when we have a tool that allows every human on earth to transact with one another instantly and cheaply over the internet. A system that democratizes finance, enables anyone to take part in the global economy, and leverages human capital to the fullest extent possible.
But like I said, this is just the beginning. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and crypto still has a long way to go. Critical infrastructure needs to be built and networks need to be scaled. But as the technology improves, more people will see its value, which leads to a common question many people ask. Why would anyone want to buy anything with crypto if they think its value is going to drastically increase over time? The simple answer is that because one day they won’t have any other choice.
Until crypto reaches critical mass, volatility will be unavoidable, but eventually I see crypto swallowing all the value as our dollars and other state backed currencies become worthless. Therefore you will have no choice but to spend your crypto in order to live, except now you will spend it wisely rather than risking it on longshots.
Once crypto is accepted everywhere, it will be the only form of money you have because it will be a better store of value, a more efficient medium of exchange, as well as a unit of account that transcends borders and provides an abundance of information to the market.
Only then will crypto provide a feasible alternative to the current financial system and free us from the tyranny of central banks and the rent-seekers who fight to keep the status quo in order for their survival.
More than anything, crypto gives me hope that we can finally have something better. This is why I don’t think crypto is dumb. In fact, it just might be the most important thing you can be working on today.