There Is No Alternative
I was reading an article recently that was looking at the growing fear of inflation, something that around this time last year, the same media was saying, "inflation being bad is old thinking". Well, I think we are soon going to see that it might not quite be true - especially for the ordinary people who just always seem to lose out. With stagnant low interest rates for years, investors chasing yields have had to keep investing into rising prices, but with nothing to back it. That isn't sustainable.
However, during this time, the financial institutions have been able to rake in massive amounts of deposits and then loan out enormous amounts at a very low interest rate. What this means is that they have been able to clear their debts, while encouraging more people into further debt and then, as interest rates start to rise, they can reap the rewards with the debt-laden getting squeezed.
Blame Covid-19 all you want, but as you can see from the gold trends that have moved about 50% since 2018, people have been making moves to secure their gains from the disreality of the stockmarket in something tangible for a while.
But for most, they think *there is no alternative* to the traditional markets they know, but over the last year or two, crypto is fast gaining notoriety as an alternative, especially with the interest turning to firstly the DeFi liquidity pools and increasingly onto tokenized assets like NFTs. I think that while from within the crypto industry this is going to be the way many people look to secure some part of their bullrun gains, it is going to become more attractive for the traditional investors to turn to in order to safeguard themselves against the inflation being driven by government handouts and ludicrous amounts of debt taking by consumers.
Yes, the prices on debt have been low making it attractive to take on more, but as people have done so and the interest rates start to rise, they are going to have to also pay back more, which is adding more magical fiat into the money supply - more inflation. See how this is going to probably play out?
Purchasing power is going to be *heavily eroded* as the rising interest rates will take money out of the pockets of debt carriers, and the inflation of costs will mean what is left in those pockets won't be able to buy as much. However, the banks that issued the loan debt will be able to rake in increasing amounts to cover themselves and the governments who handed out all of this "free money" will be hamstrung, because they have artificially held rates so low for so long and, that is pretty much all they have at their disposal. A lot of pain is coming.
Which is great news! Well, it sucks for many of us of course, but if there was ever a time for the average persona to wake up and see how fundamentally broken the economy is, it is now. The reason is that "There Is No Alternative" is *no longer true.* There are alternatives, but it currently takes somewhat of a leap of faith into an industry that is still in its infancy and a change in paradigm that an economy can only be underpinned by centralized authority. It is the latter that is the largest leap for most investors, as they are accustomed to only having semi-autonomy over their holdings.
But, as we have seen over the last couple years with a few larger and more visible companies making forays into crypto and the growing hype on the returns running into a bull market, there is going to be a lot of people raising the question on what to do. Most people know there is a crash coming as that is always the way it plays, but they aren't sure where their haven is going to be this time. Stocks are overpriced, currency is getting devalued and things like gold may move rapidly up, but comes with its own problems of economic mobility.
This could be a perfect storm for the "blow-off top" that many are predicting for Bitcoin, as new investors start to pour into crypto (Bitcoin being the mane target) in the hope to either secure their funds or make some outsized gains on the hype. This could see some very aggressive upward movement in crypto, but what will be very interesting to find in the coming couple years is, where the new floor will be.
If Bitcoin hits the 100, 200, 400 marks rapidly, it will naturally suffer a massive retrace, but where will that bottom out? I suspect that if it hit 400, we might not see 25 again, as there will be so many people who have bought higher than that, that they are not going to sell and that in itself is going to create market scarcity, which should hold up the base relatively well. I also predict that if BTC did see that kind of movement, many of the largest sellers are old-timers in crypto, so they are less likely to go back out to fiat, which means an increasing amount of wealth is going to be looking to settle onto the blockchains.
Will a Bitcoin whale look to secure their wealth in Shib or Doge? Unlikely I think. I reckon they are more likely to look at NFTs, games and tokens that have usecase and *usage* behind them. After all, this is what they have been waiting for - *crypto adoption* - why lose faith now?
Of course, I don't know what is actually going to happen across all of these highly dynamic factors that are subject to all kinds of FUD and FOMO influence, but what I do believe is that while here was no alternative - *now there is.*
And the alternatives are looking better by the day.
HIVE: When Pieces Coming Start Coming Together
Have listened to the The CryptoManiacs Podcast where Jongonlson and Taskmaster4450 interviewed Blocktrades? It was on trending page. If you are among those who like stay uptodate on all things Hive, chances are you have already listened to the podcast. If somehow you missed and didn't listen/watch it yet, I strongly recommend to visit the link above and enjoy this interesting and informative conversation.
Regardless how much time you dedicate to learn about Hive, it impossible to stay uptodate with all the changes and progress that happen. Be it core protocol development, be it progress with various Apps or new Apps emerging, be it tribes and communities, be it authors and curators, or even investors joining the platform. If I can name one constant about Hive it would be ongoing changes and progress.
However, from time to time any of us may get a feeling that we are going around the circle and not making any progress. Often times main reason of such thinking comes during low Hive prices. But the reality is instead of walking in the circle, we have been traveling in a spiral slowly but consistently making progress. This becomes clear when can envision what Hive has to offer. Vision is not always clear and putting all pieces together to see the innovation may be difficult at times.
After watching the podcast I mentioned above, I came to realize a new vision for Hive. Pieces started coming together, things started making sense even more, once again I could see how brilliant Hive is and it has a great future. Because it has a lot to offer to the world.
Interviewers - Jongolson and Taskmaster4450 did a great job asking the right questions. Questions about things most of us have wondered many times. Not only questions were great and flow of the interview was smooth, the follow up questions brought even more clarity. My understanding this was part-1 interview with Blocktrades, and part-2 is scheduled to happen in couple of weeks. Hopefully, we will learn even more about things like Hive Applications Framework and layer-2 smart contracts.
Among topics discusses were HBD, Hive Applications Framework, Layer-2 smart contracts, more efficient API call response infrastructure while supporting the older API calls, etc.
The latest hardfork had some changes made to HBD. One of them was paying interest to only HBD in savings, which convinced witnesses to increase the interest. Another change was a new operation to convert Hive to HBD. These changes along with what HBDstabilizer have been doing made be impact on maintaining the HBD peg.
HBD is a unique stable coin. Unlike many other stable-coins where some entities should provide or promise USD to back them, backing of HBD peg is done by Hive, a decentralized blockchain. Hence, it is called Hive Backed Dollars. Hive promises that holders of HBD will be able to buy $1 of Hive for each HBD, approximately. Keeping this peg has always been a headache, and only recently it started behaving as a pegged coin. There was a time when many, including myself thought HBD was a failed project and probably would be better to eliminate it.
Pegged HBD is huge. It has more value than overpriced coin like SBD. It would would as a utility coin that businesses and entrepreneurs can integrate into their payment system that will be compatible with traditional way of accounting. For example, if I see a product to someone and accept BTC, I would have keep a record of the price of BTC at the moment of the transaction or immediately convert BTC to USD. And using BTC or other coins would create a taxable even due to the changes in coin prices. With stable HBD, a merchant can be sure that they are receiving the amount they were expecting. If this continues to work, chances are price of HBD would be at or very close to $1 during the transaction and when the merchant decides to convert to USD. Don't quote me on this, make sure to ask a tax expert before considering this.
Even if transactions in HBD would create a taxable event, the fluctuations would be so minimal and compared to the benefits of doing business this could be worth using. At the same time it removes the risk of participating in volatile crypto price movements, and have more predictable outcome.
So, this is one piece.
Next that made me really excited about the future of Hive is Hive Applications Framework. This would enable all the developers of the modern programming languages to easily create Apps on Hive blockchain without much need to learn and understand the underlying blockchain technology. Not only this will create easy access for developing websites, games and apps that will interact and utilize Hive blockchain easily, but it will also use most efficient approaches in accomplishing the tasks.
The way Blocktrades explained is it will be like developers interacting with a traditional databases, and give most developers already work with databases it will be a smooth transition. For those who don't know coding, but have ideas in mind they would be able to outsource the coding for cheap and make their ideas reality. This is also big. It opens the doors of Hive to the world of developers and entrepreneurs.
Now add this piece to the HBD piece. We can already see a hub of apps or app store of Hive Apps with HBD payments implemented.
Another topic they discussed was, revisiting how resource credits are spent and how each transactions is priced in RC and adding improvements that make sense. Using Hive blockchain and broadcasting transactions are not really free. They cost resource credits. More Hive power an account has more resource credits they will have. Optimizing how RC works will help using Hive based Apps much better, but also can create incentives to acquire Hive.
Also, I think Howo has been working on RC delegations. This is one of the features that has been asked by many in the community. This also can bring more attention to Hive Power and make buying Hive more attractive as an investment.
Last thing I would like to mention that was discussed is smart contracts. Many of us have been waiting for this feature on Hive since SMTs were announced. At this point SMTs seem to be a dead project. Those who saw that promises of SMTs wouldn't be delivered years ago, stopped waiting and created Hive-engine which turned out to be a huge success. Idea of creating tribes and tokens and experimenting with various projects showed how powerful Hive can be and kept many engaged with Hive.
I never liked the idea of layer-2 smart contract, because I didn't understand how it would work. But after listening the reasons Blocktrades provided of how having smart contracts on layer-1 wouldn't be a good idea and how the same functionality with consensus can be reached on layer-2 in more efficient fashion, I am now convinced that is the way to go. So, it seems like Blocktrades & team have some ideas and plans on working on such solutions. Considering what they have delivered so far, I am sure it will be awesome.
Putting all these pieces together I can see how Hive's future is bright and it indeed is a pioneer in making web-3 happen. What do you think? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.
Facebook And Snapchat Blame apple For Missing Revenue Expectations
During the earnings call yesterday Facebook blamed Apple's new App Tracking Transparency (ATT) feature for not meeting the revenue expectation and that this will cause a negative impact on Facebook's future revenue. Snapchat did the same thing in their earning call five days ago. They also mentioned Apple's new ATT feature as a reason for not meeting the revenue expectations. There is a lot of news here. Let's unpack them in an orderly fashion.
**What is App Tracking Transparency (ATT)?**
ATT is a new feature. It has to do with user privacy, data collection and use practices by the app makers. Starting with iOS 14.5, iPasOS 14.5, and tvOS 14.5 app developers are required to ask users for permission to track them across apps and websites owned by other companies.
If you use an iPhone or an iPad and are running the latest software, you may have already experienced a pop up menu when you start an app asking for your permission to track your activity across other apps and websites. Most of us would decline for obvious reasons. Why would we want any of them to track our activity?
The fact of the matter is that they have been doing this without us noticing for a long time already. They still do. This feature has exposed them. If you see an app asking for this permission, that means they have been tracking our activity not only on their app but also other apps and websites. To learn more about ATT in detail feel free to visit Apple's developer page on this topic.
Tracking refers to the act of linking user or device data collected from your app with user or device data collected from other companies’ apps, websites, or offline properties for targeted advertising or advertising measurement purposes. Tracking also refers to sharing user or device data with data brokers.
~Apple
I don't believe Apple has made this change out of goodness of their heart and that they don't want user activities tracked. I tend to believe they have ulterior motives, like diverting the ad revenue to themselves from third party ad companies and companies like facebook and snapchat. I welcome this new feature. They should have done this a long time ago. But at the same time I wouldn't completely trust Apple either when it comes to user data.
What is the revenue expectation or street expectation?
I had to look this up in Investopedia to confirm what I think it is. It is simply made up by so-called analysts who provide research coverage on various companies. To be more specific, it is an average of forecasts made by these so called market or company analysts. I do not trust them either. There is so much information manipulation going on the wall street, I wouldn't be surprised if they are involved with investment bankers and big money investment firms.
Sophisticated deception tactics?
After earning calls with both of these companies Facebook and Snapchat, both companies had blamed Apple for not meeting expectations and lowering expectations for the future revenues. Various news sites started reporting this, and stocks started going down, etc.
But the funny thing is both of the companies significantly increased their revenue compared to the previous ones. Span's revenue improved by 57% to $1.07 billion. This is the first time they had a billion dollar revenue quarter. But since the street expectation was $2+ billion, this is a bad thing? Doesn't make sense.
If we look at Facebook's revenue and compare with the previous quarter, things look great for Facebook. They have been making more and more. In fact, this Q3-21 they made the most at $29 billion.
I would like to highlight two kinds of manipulations I think are happening here. First, both companies at the cost of exposing themselves that they have been tracking their user activities everywhere and that's how they make a lot of money, they felt a need to do this in order to lower the expectations for the next quarters. Because in the end it is all about money for them. It is all about making their stock prices go up. When expectations are low and they beat them, news manipulation brings stock prices higher. They all make money.
Second manipulation is by these so called experts, investment bankers/traders, and newsmakers. I think all three share the same playbook and operate with the same goal - to manipulate the news and the markets. Regardless if the news is good or bad they can still make money, as long as they control the narrative. While I am just mentioning a couple of these companies, there are many more who do the same thing, follow the same methodology to enrich themselves and their shareholders.
The problem with all of these companies and parties involved is that they utilize deception and manipulation in achieving their money making, market grabbing strategies and goals. It is not about the free market anymore. It is about how to control the market, how to control the people, and monetize anything and everything they can.
Decentralization is the way!
For this reason decentralized solutions like Bitcoin and Hive are important to emerge as strong alternatives. Because these innovations bring the power and ownership back to the people, provide transparency, create fair free market networks.
Big tech networks are too powerful though. Despite the fact that now iPhone users have an ability to opt out of their activities being tracked, they still made record revenues. Despite these companies publicly exposing themselves that the way they make money is through advertising using data on their users, their activities, browsing history, purchasing habits, it is highly unlikely to cause mass exodus from these platforms. They still have tools in their pocket they can utilize to keep users around and keep onboarding more.
Just consider this. Out of Facebook's $29 billion total revenue, advertising revenue was $28.28 billion. 97% of their total revenue is from ads. And how much of that do they give back to their users?
To quote Douglas Rushkoff, technology and media expert about traditional social media - ***"Digital networks are just the latest media to go from promoting social bonds to destroying them - from fostering humanity to supplanting it"***. Shifting from centralized social media that focuses on neatly packaging 'eyeballs' and 'clicks' as a form of business model to decentralized standards that ordinary people derive value and participate in economic models that benefit them may just be the future.
***When you give people freedom, you get chaos, but you also get incredible creativity. Everyone tries to contribute to the community.***
*~ Brafman and Beckstrom*
Why do you invest in Hive?
A question any responsible investor should always ask and reevaluate is why to invest and/or stay invested in a certain asset. If you have any Hive power, liquid Hive, or HBD you are an investor in Hive, regardless how you obtained these assets. Hive investor is not the only ones who bought Hive using their fiat currencies. Because the method of obtaining or accumulating Hive assets doesn't matter, when each and every one of your/us can sell it at any point of time.
Of course investments can be of various kind. Some use their money, some use their time, some use their skills. But the type of investment I would like to talk about asking about is the financial one. Why do you invest in Hive financially?
You will rarely see me telling people to buy Hive assets. At the same time you will see me telling people to use Hive, as I see many benefits this decentralized network can provide to many people around the world.
This is an important question - why do yo invest in Hive? Answers differ for every one of us. Especially in a decentralized space everyone has different motivations, different goals.
Before I ask you this, I also would like to share my own answer and see how they compare to yours. And these answers are not fixed and change from time to time depending on various conditions.
I have never sold a single Hive. Never cashed out to fiat. However, I have sold Steem and converted to bitcoin. There are many reasons that I haven't sold Hive and remain invested in this coin and the network.
The idea of a decentralized network that can power social media apps is an interesting one. I have yet to see any strong efforts or competition in this space. If you know any please let me know. Just like bitcoin offers an alternative to traditional financial systems, Hive offers alternative to traditional social media. I do believe there is a huge market and need for that.
Hive is a working product. Anybody can implement the technology today. In fact, it is being used for social interactions and gaming already. That leads me to another important reason why I remain invested in Hive. It is the Hive apps and game builders.
Ecency by Good-karma and team is one of the oldest apps and community that have been building and contributing to Hive for a very long time. There is a strong long term commitment from them. I have no doubt they will be around for years to come.
Splinterlands, Hive-engine, etc. Works of Aggroed and Yabapmatt are also just amazing. I have not played the game myself yet. But the buzz around it in the crypto space even beyond Hive is amazing. Aggroed, while is a controversial figure in the Hive, has put in a lot of effort and shown long term commitment to the network many times. I remember the early days of minnow support efforts that had a big impact on the network. I haven't kept up with the latest on what minnow support does, but this community, team and individuals has give me a confidence on further innovative and creative thinking on Hive.
LeoFinance and Team! Absolutely amazing. Something that just started with a simple tribe concept became a huge network of finance and crypto hub, innovating in defi space, creating bridges among Hive and other blockchains. This is by far my favorite project. I have been using Leofinance interface for posting for a long time now. No doubt super skilled team in the leadership of Khal with a long term vision.
3Speak, Vimm and others are among the builders that continue innovating on Hive. It physically impossible to keep up with all the work that is being done on layer 2 on Hive blockchain. No doubt 3Speak with its video sharing platform and innovation to provide tools for any other apps to develop on top of decentralized system is amazing.
There are many more efforts, apps, and games are being build, used and played already. I think Hive projects has extensive list. These efforts show Hive is a interesting and potentially profitable investment to bet on.
On layer one level, many people like Blocktrades and team, Howo, GTG (The Hive Wizard), and many others continuously deliver improvements to the core code that makes Hive possible.
Tribes, communities, apps, developers, witnesses, authors, curators, and other participants continue dedicating their skills, time, money, and efforts to make Hive a success. This is why I continue being a Hive investor, and a participant of this network.
Among other reasons, I can list is using the network, believing in the future to be web3 that is being pioneered by Hive, passive income, active income, etc.
There are many smart people who are involved on Hive who have a vision to deliver something that can be beneficial for all. While I can't contribute much myself, I can see there are many working and building on Hive making my investment a meaningful and potentially super profitable one.
I am sure I haven't listed all the reasons. I tend to forget some of my thoughts. What are your reasons and thoughts? Feel free to share them in the comments and let us have a conversation.
Why do you invest in Hive?
Is Robinhood Getting Ready For A Big Crypto Play?
Robinhood's actions like freezing trades for GameStop stock in the beginning of this year have damaged its reputation and many started questioning its original vision and goal of democratizing trading. I think Robinhood could repair its reputation by taking measures that wouldn't force them to freeze trades, but most importantly by going back to their original vision and innovating to democratize trading further.
They were the pioneers when they came up with zero fees trading. This made many other trading platforms go to zero fees as well. It was a successful endeavor.
Robinhood also became a crypto trading platform about three years ago. However, they have a very limited list of crypto assets available to trade. One of the main issues and concerns for their crypto trading platform has always been the inability of the users to send or receive their crypto assets to and from external wallets.
A month ago Robinhood announced their ambitions to start implementing crypto wallets on the platforms so that users could send and receive their coins from other wallets. They sent out emails to their users about this with an option to join the waitlist.
Today, they revealed that one million users have joined the waitlist. While this shows the interest and demand to have the actual wallets on Robinhood, it also demonstrates that Robinhood is serious in making this happen. For those who understand crypto assets, use them, trade them, it is a no brainer. They should have done this a long time ago. Perhaps they didn't have technical resources, or there were legal obstacles in the past. But if they can pull it off now, not only they can repair their reputation, but also transform themselves as a company of the future.
Robinhood is a publicly traded company. They went public just recently, at the end of July of this year. Similar company in the space is Coinbase, which also went public this year. The reason I mention Coinbase is, what Robinhood is trying to do may create a huge competition to Coinbase that will make them rethink their business model.
Just like stocks and options are traded with zero fees on Robinhood, crypto is also traded for zero fees. In fact, that's how they advertise themselves by comparing fees with other exchanges like Coinbase. This wasn't much of competition for Coinbase before, because Robinhood didn't have actual wallets that users could send and receive coins from external wallets. Adding this feature will be great for Robinhood in three ways and help them significantly increase their user base.
First, people in crypto space will take them more seriously. More users will join knowing that they can have full control over their assets purchased on Robinhood.
Second, Technical knowledge, skills and infrastructure they will build to support wallets will enable them to add many more crypto assets to their trading list. This will also attract more crypto enthusiasts.
Third, and perhaps the most important one is taking business away from their competitors if they can maintain zero fee trading. For example, if I had some crypto assets in some wallet and wanted to sell them one of the options would be to send them to Coinbase and sell them for % fee. Now if the same thing can be done using Robinhood with zero fees, I probably would choose Robinhood for this transaction.
This is a big if, because it is a big challenge. But if they can indeed have full feature wallets and maintain zero fees that will be a game changer in the crypto trading space. I understand, DeFi alternatives may be better and more interesting for many. The fact of the matter is there are a significant amount of people who still use and rely on centralized platforms for trading crypto. This will continue for a while. Defi platforms require learning new things, while CeFi can be an easier path for onboarding those who are new to the crypto world.
I believe there is a huge potential for Robinhood in crypto space. Especially since they operate securities part of the business and crypto business as separate entities. As they get better in crypto technologies, keep their original vision, and prove loyalty to their users, they may continue being a successful company.
Considering all this, would Robinhood stock $HOOD be a good investment or a position trade opportunity? Currently, $HOOD is trading around $41 and has a market cap of $36 billion. In comparison, Coinbase stock $COIN is trading at around $300 and has a market cap of $63 billion.
What do you think? Is Robinhood getting ready for a big play in crypto? Let me know in the comments.
@Geekgirl
