Crypto Does Not Change That...

Time and time again I read about how crypto is going to level the playing field, change the world and somehow offer more opportunity and fairness and riches to the masses.

Many people like to say "Crypto can fix poverty."

I say no to all of that. But hear me out before you shut me down. Because I have a few thoughts about all of this that you may find enlightening and may serve to give you a better understanding of why I think this way.

Part of it is that I just simply understand money and how it works. I understand how money is generated, how it is earned, and how it is distributed. I understand how it is valued and how it is grown.

There are always going to be rich and there are always going to be poor. I don't care what anyone ultimately uses as money. Fiat or crypto or maybe we go back to trading pretty rocks. Someone will always have more of something or less of something depending on what they do or don't do.

Crypto doesn't change that. It doesn't change the fact that one guy will spend his crypto foolishly, and the other will invest it in a way that affords him more of it than the other guy.

Just like happens now with fiat.

People will still have to work. People will still earn a certain wage for the work they do which will be determined by those who provide the job.

Crypto doesn't change that.

Whether it is crypto or fiat, it is up to the individual to understand how money works and to be able to manage their money in a way that allows them to grow it by investing in things that will give them more of it.

That is the way it works now and that is the way it will work even if crypto becomes the end all to be all.

There will be whales, big fish and tiny fish. Crypto does not change that.

You have to keep in mind that money and having more of it really has nothing to do with the money itself. It has nothing to do with the rich and the powerful hoarding it or holding back on paying certain wages to people. It has nothing to do with societal things pulling people down.

Even in the case of socialized economies where everyone essentially makes the same amount of money, there are rich and there are poor. Because the richer ones know how to make money and grow it, and the poor do not.

Crypto does not change that.

Money is a mindset. Pure and simple. That's what it is. If your mindset is the right one you will have more of it. If your mindset is the wrong one you will have less of it and forever continue to struggle to get ahead.

Because again it is not about the money. It's not about the form of it. It is all about what you think about money and how well you understand all the things that make money more valuable to one person and less valuable to another.

Poverty and the struggle with money has never been about how much someone makes or even about what things in life might get in the way of being able to save and invest and grow it. Granted, situations and circumstances can certainly make doing some of these things harder. But they are not the reason for the struggle.

It is the lack of understanding fundamentally about money and how to compensate for these things that is the problem.

Crypto doesn't change that.

I talk all the time about lottery winners that lose tens of millions of dollars typically in five or so years after the big win. This happens to athletes too, and movie stars, and musicians. People who earn millions of dollars a year can wind up broke while at the same time people who make far less money can become millionaires.

Again, not to beat dead horse. It's not about the money. It's about the mindset.

You have an academy award winning actor like Nicholas Cage with over 100 movies under his belt, who can command tens of millions of dollars per role, who has to now resort to making videos on demand for far less money just to cover tax bills and eliminate debts he has.

For all the money Nicholas Cage has ever made, he is essentially broke and struggling financially.

Crypto wouldn't make life any different nor any better for a guy like Nicholas Cage either. So what makes anyone think it would make it different for anyone else?

At the same time, crypto will be traced, tracked, regulated and otherwise taxed. The anonymity idea? False. Why? Because some things are just obvious, governments still have to operate and there is only so much that one can truly keep a secret.

If a government official drives past someone's house and sees you have four cars in the driveway and a 6,000 square foot house, they will know right away you have money and they will want to know where you got it from and how much of it you actually have.

Crypto doesn't change that.

Beyond that, even if governments can't trace or track the crypto it doesn't mean we will all be free from being taxed. That can be solved by simply making a universal VAT. And businesses can and will be regulated, so they will have to charge it and people will have to pay up at the point of sale. There is no way around this.

Going back to the money thing think about this another way. We clamored for a $15 minimum wage. "It will change lives," everyone said. But has it? Because of a variety of issues, mostly labor shortages, businesses that once paid $10 an hour are now paying twice that.

And yet people continue to struggle and say it is not enough. Why? Again, because the wages were never a problem to begin with just like money is not what any of these situations people run into is about.

It is the mindset, and crypto does not change that. Money itself does not change that, fiat or crypto.

The only way to get ahead in this world, and the only thing that changes whether we do or don't, is to change how we think about and how we understand money fundamentally.

Through the ages poor people have become rich and rich people have become poor.

Crypto doesn't change that.

We have to bear in mind that what we are talking about is simple money. Sure, it is in a different form. We call it something else. But at the end of the day it is still something we will earn, something we will spend, something we will invest and grow, and the parameters by which we do this will be exactly the same as the parameters in the current world of fiat.

Crypto can't change that.

As I said before, regardless of what form of money we have ever used—goats, rocks, other livestock, or fiat—the rules have not changed. The rules have always been the same. The rules will remain the same if fiat disappears and is replaced by crypto.

As always, this is not to discount, discredit nor disparage crypto. It is simply to offer a perspective and to remind people that if you really want to make a change in your financial life, relying on a currency is never going to be what brings that change. And falsely believing that it will only further advance poverty.

Not solve the problem.

Lead image courtesy of Pixabay, user BenjaminNelan. Bitcoin Cryptocurrency Finance - Free photo on Pixabay