A Point of Hope

You know, I always have a bit of hopium when looking at the charts, though it is often buried quite deeply under my fears that it is never going to be up again - you know those fears? I am guessing you do - unless you are a psycho - perhaps it is 50/50 - this is Hive.

Obviously, everything is tied to Bitcoin still, including Eth, but that is okay, as that is where the hype is going to be coming from as for most people - Bitcoin is crypto. Most, including those in crypto, are still under the impression that it is a Lord of the Rings affair, where there is one token to rule them all. However, it is like saying that there should only be one website in the world.

The tokenization of digital activity is going to require more than a slow-ass and expensive token to run it - it is going to take many thousands of tokens and, varied approaches to their interactivity and interoperability. This is going to change the internet as we know it, because it is going to change the economy as we know, redefining the meaning of value and through this, redistributing the value across a far wider and deeper portion of society.

The internet itself used to be for sharing information, which is still the case today, except the value of that information has changed or at least, the parts of that information that is valuable has changed. It isn't what you say that gets leveraged, its who you say it to and, who they share it to, whether they like it or not. It is the curation of content that is important now, and the ability to target the audience with particular messaging that generates the advertising revenue.

Currently, the worlds largest companies are those who are able to collect, translate and distribute this information, but they are able to generate so much wealth from it, because the source doesn't get paid for providing the energy. The source is us of course. We are the energy that make the internet so valuable, not any particular site, news service, social media, shopping platform - us - the consumer, the user, the reader, the viewer, the creator - we are the only reason anything has value at all.

And, it is because of this that so many different tokens will be able to have value, as they will become representative of groups of us, communities that gather around content, ideas and usecases. Through this, the individual tokens are able to hold value and grow in value, *if the users decide it should. Currently, the token value is pretty much coming from users buying the token, but more and more it is going to be derived from the user-generated transactions being utilized for market segmentation processes, meaning that there will still be advertising revenue generated, it is just that the mechanisms will be decentralized, improving the way in which it is used and, reducing the ability for centralized narratives to be issued.

But for now, it is far more speculative and there is far less business usecase for it, because most businesses are yet to onboard into crypto because there isn't a large enough market. But, that market is growing and becoming an increasing economic force that can make a difference to the bottom line. Not only that, the many people who are dabbling in crypto now are in age groups that will be moving into management positions at these same companies within the next decade, making "fringe" crypto users, decision makers in the organizations that provide goods and services, on and off line. They will cater for their own needs and in so doing, provide crypto abilities for everyone else in the process.

The speculative markets aren't bad for now though, for those who are willing to invest and patient enough to stay invested through the short-term ups and downs, while the businesses get their ducks in a row, or perhaps it might be better to say, ducks in a chain. Once mainstream businesses start their push, the mainstream consumer will do what they do and consume, stacking value into the crypto industry in the same way that has happened on the internet over the last 30 years. We are moving from "E-commerce" into D-commerce and it is going to happen faster than what it took for the last iteration to make an impact on the economy.

A point of hopium never goes wasted.