(2024-05-27) A small crypto rant
--------------------------------
The state of things gets... well... interesting but I'm getting tired pretty
quickly. When I'm not as mentally strained as now I'll definitely have a 
follow-up on the JJY signal format. For now, I'm gonna focus on something 
that I can fit into four paragraphs, not including this one. As hard as it 
gets, I'm not going to name names, but I think it will be easy for everyone 
to guess what exactly I'm talking about. The reason I'm not going to name 
names is because a certain cryptocurrency has developed a cult-like 
following, and I don't want to become a target of hundreds of brainless 
fanatics thinking that their chosen coin, which in fact fully deviated from 
its original vision and essentially became fiat in disguise, is going to be 
the future of online transactions and a path to real freedom. People these 
days get easily triggered by the smallest amount of criticism, especially 
when they cannot into a single bit of critical thinking themselves. 
Therefore, my rule of thumb is: if *anything* develops a cult-like 
following, run away from it as far as you can.

For now, I'm not even as deep into crypto as most of its (non-fanatic) users,
but from what I have observed, there are about five types of them (besides 
those fanatics and self-proclaimed influencers): stackers, traders, 
cypherpunks, miners and normies. Let's start with the last category. 
"Normies" isn't necessarily a bad thing in this context: they just use 
crypto like any other currency, to hold some of it and pay for goods and 
services. They don't like volatility so they usually use USDT or other 
stablecoins, not caring about privacy implications much. For them, it's just 
another way to pay. Cypherpunks, on the other hand, also view crypto as a 
mere payment tool, but privacy is of the primary concern. I, for instance, 
place myself on the overlap of the normie and cypherpunk category. I don't 
like volatility and like doing good things, but only if they can be done 
anonymously, because that's the way to go.

Miners, as the name suggests, are usually only working with the first-gen
cryptocurrencies where the "proof of work" is required, because they produce 
it themselves. They also may or may not be stackers, believing in the market 
stability of the coin they own and mine, but the stacking concept is beyond 
the PoW currencies, and most of the time people mine one currency and then 
exchange it to stack another. The weakest-minded stackers, however, may 
become the aforementioned fanatics, and their amount is a clear indicator of 
what cryptos you should avoid. Finally, there are traders, and they don't 
believe in the crypto at all but try to make everybody else think they do. 
For them, it's just another speculative asset, and they essentially don't 
differ much (if at all) from stock exchange traders because the nature of 
their business is pretty much the same, only with a little bigger grade of 
anonymity, although KYC-only centralized exchanges take away that advantage 
as well, and most coin traffic is still going through them. Which, IMO, 
nullifies the value of cryptocurrency in the first place, but hey, I'm more 
of a cypherpunk type.

Now, where am I going with all this? As with any other topic involving money
(especially big money), cryptocurrencies can and do generate a lot of hype, 
controversy and hate. The more money is involved, the more people start 
forgetting that it's just a tool. When a tool becomes an object of 
speculation, it's bad enough already, but when it becomes an investment, 
it's outright pointless and sometimes even dangerous. This equally applies 
to, say, luxury watches as well as cryptocurrencies, and the existence of 
some real marketplaces where one can buy the former for the latter just 
indicates how spoiled the society has become on so many levels. And the 
apparent ease of entry, by the way, attracts more gullible general public 
that doesn't have a clue how to behave in this space and falls prey to 
multiple scammers, which, by the way, are among the loudest crypto endorsers 
out there. All this paints an even more negative image on the technology 
itself and certainly doesn't help the cause it was initially designed to 
serve.

Let's be real: most crypto users don't even realise why it is better than
fiat. They just want fiat minus some qualities they don't like about it. For 
miners, this quality would be governmental monopoly on issuing, for 
cypherpunks — governmental control and lack of privacy, for stackers — 
inflation, for traders — tighter regulations. Surprisingly, very few people 
actually get the entire picture and fully understand why they want a totally 
new form of peer-to-peer digital currency, not just "a better cash". And 
when they do understand this, there remains no place for hate, arrogance or 
fanaticism. Only a desire to make the world a better place by doing what 
they can with what they've got.

--- Luxferre ---