The Most Valuable Free Mint
You’re probably asking yourself: “How can something free be truly valuable?”
It’s a good question, but not an easy one to answer. There are many levels to it as you expand your perception surrounding “value” & “price”. The two are often associated as the same.
Except they’re not. They’re completely different, so let’s break them apart and explore the roots of money and economic systems:
Price: the amount required as payment for something.
Value: the worth of something compared to the price paid or asked for it.
Simple enough right? Value is what something is worth; price is what someone would give up their asset for.
Most often, it’s exchanging goods/services for money.
For example, pretend I’m a plumber. I can fix your toilet. Your wife hires me to lay some pipes. It costs you $300 for my service which takes under 2 hours to complete.
I sold my time to you to use my worth (laying pipes), which solved your problem (for your wife). You found it to be worth $300 (or more); I found $300 to be worth 2 hours (or less).
All good right? You’re following me? Nothing too crazy to understand?
Good.
Now let’s go a little deeper (your wife likes that) and break down three more definitions:
Merchandiser: a person/business involved in trade or commerce of assets.
Consumer: a person/business involved in purchasing or using assets
Asset: a valuable thing, person, or quality.
Value is exchanged when a consumer meets with a merchandiser and agrees on a price denominated by any asset.
It’s something you’re likely all familiar with; but there’s an obscure lesson here.
The image says “asset,” yet the sentence below says it’s a “value” being exchanged for an “asset.” Is value not an asset?
You probably agreed with it, but do you see the irony involved?
I can’t know what you’re thinking, so let’s reflect & use the plumbing example to get on the same page.
The plumber sells his value to the person who needs pipes laid. In this example; the plumber would be the merchandiser and the person would be the consumer.
Still following right?
Except you’re wrong! Technically, that is. It depends on how you frame it & your choice of words.
In this framing the consumer is the plumber & the merchandiser is the person because the plumber bought $300 with his plumbing skills (a valuable quality).
Consumer & merchandiser are interchangeable. There is no difference.
I can’t stress this enough. There is no such thing as a buyer & seller. There are only exchangers. Buyers & sellers were coined (no pun intended) after the origins of bartering.
Just in case you don’t know what bartering is, here’s the definition:
Barter System: assets of equal value are exchanged between two or more parties.
Looks familiar, doesn’t it? Surprise!
It’s the exact same thing as a buyer & seller. The only difference is that the modern definition of a barter system specifically says that it’s “without any form of monetary exchange.”
That’s a weird clause to have on a definition that looks the exact same in practice.
The clause exists because barter systems undermine the perception that gives money its value in a consumer economy; the perception that trade only exists between “buyers” and “sellers,” and that it has to be denominated in fiat currency.
In reality, everyone is exchanging value. We just denominate it in fiat.
I sold my time to you to use my worth (laying pipes), which solved your problem (for your wife). You found it to be worth $300 (or more); I found $300 to be worth 2 hours (or less).
I bolded “more” & “less” because when value is exchanged, you perceive what you are exchanging for to be worth more than what you give.
So in this example, the plumber finds his skills to be worth $300 or less for 2 hours of work since he accepted the $300 contract for laying pipe. If he thought his work was worth more than that, he would have denied the job.
Similarly, the person paying the plumber found his skills to be worth $300 or more. For the person, there is more value in the plumbing work than the $300 he gave.
This is how two parties meet to exchange “equal value.”
If there wasn’t this independent value difference (where each side receives what they perceive as more valuable) then there would be no exchange.
Unless you have a monetary system! Then, you can’t barter. You have to accept the prices you see, or don’t buy. This gets tricky when there are necessities (such as food, water, shelter) being priced at comparable costs to wants (such as TV, phone, pools, etc).
You subconsciously end up “valuing” everything based on price. The underlying value of the asset being purchased with fiat is then skewed as the exchange is via price & not value.
Don’t think this is a mistake either.
Recessions only exist because of a monetary system being implemented. They happen when the value of money drops significantly due to the increase of supply.
There then becomes an imbalance in the exchange (or the supply & demand chart), driving the price to increase and “economic” activity to decline.
It’s artificial, created by governments to allow them to do as they please. They used COVID to spend trillions on themselves. WW2 cost $4.7 trillion (in today’s money), and COVID cost $5.2 trillion.
We all know how America profited the most from WW2. Don’t think that’s any different with COVID.
$13 trillion was printed. $5.2 trillion for COVID, $4.5 trillion for QUANTitative easing, and $3 trillion for infrastructure.
Weird that $1.7 trillion, nearly 50% of what didn’t go to people, is labelled as indirect, isn’t it? Where the fuck did that money go if it wasn’t in your pockets or to actually solve problems?
It went into the pockets of the rich. It went to the people who control the production, control the narratives, and control the merchandising.
Now now before you call me a conspiracy theorist, let me expand on what I discussed before with the Value Exchange model using an entirely hypothetical model to represent COVID and that $1.7 trillion printed at the will of the Federal Reserve.
Jerome Powell, if you see this, no you don’t.
Also I stress this is hypothetical because it is not 100% accurate. The idea I’m trying to portray isn’t what exactly happened during COVID, but it does cover the flow of money during it & why those with money want it to have perceived value.
For the sake of the demonstration, let’s say that $1.7 triillion was given to medical producers. This isn’t just vaccines themselves, but the products required to administer it such as needles, wages, transportation, storage, etc.
Referencing again WW2, consider the vaccine the battles & the $1.7 trillion the manufacturing of weapons, wages, transportation, storage, etc.
The “indirect” money was spent on the “indirect” needs of administering vaccines. Stuff the public wouldn’t be thinking of in terms of costs.
Alright this is a big graphic. Take a minute to digest it.
Notice where the money ends?
It ends when it gets to you.
Why? Well, it’s because the money, the vaccine, & the products are only valuable if they can get to you to exchange yourself for the vaccine.
This is why prices always rise before wages/salaries. You are at the very bottom of the “trickle down economy.” You are only worth what you spend. You only work to spend.
The money first goes into the hand of the rich and, as they spend it, it finds its way to you. You are the first to see prices rise and the last to receive pay increases.
This is the principle of a consumer economy.
The consumer is the value. The consumer is ultimately what is being exchanged. It is where all value is derived, especially money. Fiat money is only valuable when people find it valuable and are willing to exchange for it.
The problem of a consumer economy is the people are sold for money. You, me, all our friends & family, all our enemies, and all those who we’ve never crossed paths with were sold to the medical industry to administer vaccines.
We were the product. We were taken advantage of. We were sold as if we were nothing, and we got nothing from it but the loss of purchasing power.
That should piss you off. It certainly aggravates me.
I dropped out of majoring in finance (with a minor in psychology) just over half way through my degree. I dropped out with one key takeway:
Modern economics & fiat currencies only work because people think it works.
People trust it has value.
The modern theory of economics is wrong, designed to perpetuate beliefs that aren’t based in reality (only theory).
There’s a reason the saying, “if you can’t do, teach” exists.
How many of your favourite economists try to pitch solutions to problems they see? Most just highlight the problems.
They perpetuate and encourage issues; it’s their damned business model.
It’s the problem with most influencers too. They encourage issues.
I’d like to highlight my old tweet during FTX crisis where everyone called for regulations to solve it. Regulation perpetuates issues because it leaves it in the hands of the few to solve for the many.
FTX was already fucking regulated. They were Biden’s #2 donor during his election campaign. America LOVED them.
notice that alameda/ftx repaid defi loans first, can’t cheat good code
We need to minimize trust & encourage transparency.
They may have not been able to cheat the DeFi loans, but they were able to cheat customers out of their deposits.
You couldn’t do that on Injective because no centralized authority owns customer deposits. You are the custodian of your own assets.
For FTX to work, they have to have custody of your assets. Full control to move them as they wish. This is how they can match you with other parties (with or without your permission!).
There is no need to trust a middleman to facilitate the exchange of value with Injective. You exchange value directly with the other side. Your assets only move when you sign a transaction. Only then. Only when you want.
Simultaneously, since it’s a decentralized exchange infrastructure, anyone can own a means of its production (the exchanging of value).
You can own the infrastructure that you use to transact value.
You are the value of the exchange, and you own the exchange.
The consumer is the value. The consumer is ultimately what is being exchanged.
Ironically enough, while you own the infrastructure for exchange, you are the value of the exchange. Funny how that works, huh? Welcome to a principle of socialism.
Don’t get your panties in a bunch at the mention of socialism. I’m not pushing any political beliefs or conspiracies about the world. This piece is simply for economic systems.
Socialism without capitalism is communism. Capitalism without socialism is fascism.
See? I like capitalism too. One could even say that it’s the best system the world has ever adopted. We are currently at the largest percent of the world’s population being out of poverty that we’ve ever had.
But that doesn’t mean it’s perfect.
Capitalism and socialism in harmony is utopia.
Boom. The exchange of value within economic ideologies.
Remember that competition drives innovation! That’s not just with companies, but ideologies as well.
So let’s dive into some of the most discussed political ideologies:
Communism: a classless system where all means of production are owned communally & private property is nonexistent.
This is a bad social system.
Fascism: a system that encourages extreme nationalism, militarism, and the supremacy of both the nation and the single, powerful leader over the individual person.
This is a bad social system.
Capitalism: an economic system where private actors own and control property in accord with their interests, and demand and supply freely set prices in markets in a way that can serve the best interests of society.
This is what used to exist, but we’re nearing a facist system in North America due to the lack of ownership in production by anyone but monopolies & government.
Socialism: a system on the collective ownership of the means of production.
This isn’t great, but getting there. Socialism is best applied to capitalism, not as its own system.
Now, let’s model Injective’s value capture for facilitating exchanges.
Woah! That can’t be right, can it?
The FTX’s Value Capture for Facility of Exchange model is almost identical to Injective’s Value Capture for Facility of Exchange model.
Do you know what the difference is?
The difference is the facilitator. The means of exchange.
Why is it different? You can’t own, govern, or contribute to FTX’s production.
You can on Injective. You can own, govern, validate & exchange, at your whim. You can move & follow funds with complete transparency & no centralized points of failure.
Injective isn’t just a decentralized exchange, it’s applying socialism to capitalism. It’s allowing the people to own a piece of means of the production. They don’t get equal power, because equal power would be communism and that is proven to not work lol.
If you want ownership of INJ, you need to exchange value for it (pun intended).
Bitcoin is programmed scarcity; Injective is programmed exchange.
What good is a scarce asset if it can’t be effectively exchanged?
Hint: It’s not.
Let’s play a game:
What came first, the scarce asset or the exchange?
The exchange.
What gives the scarce asset value?
The want to exchange it.
What happens without the facilitation or need to exchange?
Scarcity then has no value.
The value from scarce assets is the desire to hoard & exchange it.
Similarly to Bitcoin, Injective’s value is only the people that use it. The people that hoard it. That build on it.
That is what makes systems work.
The perception that it does, and the desire to keep using it.
Injective is the next evolution of decentralized finance. It is the reinvention of the barter system.
Bitcoin is programmed scarcity.
Injective is programmed exchange.
They need to coexist to be effective.
My mission with Premier Ninjas & Quants is to drive the adoption, vision, and understanding of Injective on a personal level.
It starts with me and you. Our exchange of value.
As an NFT collection, the value of both Premier Ninjas & Quants come from the people in them. I’m using this article to exchange my knowledge of economics for you to come to Injective.
To explain why Injective is actually, truly, valuable.
While the Ninjas are the leading collective on Injective, holders of the Quants can utilize the royalty burning to constantly tie the Quants in with every single burn Injective ever has after its mint.
NFTs & crypto are a game of presence, and it’s a constant battle of attention.
These games are set to target what will be mentioned most about Injective, but through NFTs which can attract a wider audience, be used to onboard new people, and subconsciously validate the existence of them.
Do you think naming the first collection Premier Ninjas was a mistake?
Every time someone from NFTs sees Injective reference Ninjas, people will think it’s us. We own that branding as a community now.
The second largest talking point of Injective is their burning mechanism. Following the Quants mint, their contributions will be apart of the burn discussion. Permanently.
While this is happening, people who come over for NFTs (since they’re the most fun) will then learn about what Injective truly has to offer.
Similar to most of you reading this after joining the Injective party for Ninjas.
Most of you probably just came because it was the first mint. Most of you probably don’t care about the underlying asset and its value.
I want to change that for you. Then, you’ll change that for others. It will keep rippling.
The more valuable the ecosystem, the more valuable the pieces of the ecosystem. The more valuable Quants are.
“The most valuable things don’t cost any money.”
It will be up to you to determine the price of Quants.
The value I get from it is you. You can decide what you value more; Quants & the mission with Injective, or money.
Either way, Quants will be the most valuable free mint, because people are invaluable. You can’t put a price on them.
