Crypto in the Collective Consciousness
On sending ideas into the void and receiving answers (though maybe not how you would expect)
It sometimes feels as if our thoughts are not our own (If you’ve ever experienced a friend entering the room and could immediately sense they were angry, sad, happy, then you understand this well I’m sure). The whole human race, and even many pets, seem to be able to pick up on energies without even realizing it, and when this energy coalesces around a central societal pain point, history shows that radical shifts in how our everyday lives work come out of it. From locals being removed by invading Romans, to critical thinking around religious practices, even disillusionment at having to work repetitive jobs when technology seems to be providing a way out of it, We as a global community have always been mentally connected in ways normal science has never fully explained. Information travels faster than ever since the advent of the internet, but true belief in a movement takes much more than simple reading of facts, which is where this collective energy can push forward action.
Enter a massive crash in 2008, which the vast majority blames completely on a select group who came out of the crash richer and more powerful than before.
Does the above make you angry? If it doesn’t then maybe this won’t resonate with you as deeply.
I’ve played many roles in my time in crypto, from developer to trader to defi amateur, but I wasn’t around for the very beginning in 2013. I remember feeling angry during the 2008 market cycle, and also the intense frustration at the complete inability for me to have any effect in it. At the time I was working a normal 9–5 attempting to get enough scraps so I wouldn’t lose my house or ability to feed my children, and therefore really did not have the extra free time to spend looking for answers. And so the collective anger subsided over the years as things got back to “normal” for the vast majority. But like most other spikes in this shared energy in the past, it left some groups focusing on solutions instead.
We do not all have the same life situations, and for some the status quo has worked out very well for them, so any potential change is seen as others trying to “take their things away”. When these people also happen to be the ones making the decisions on everyone’s behalf it can be extremely tumultuous, and lead to many wins and losses on both sides.
I feel as if I put a call out a long time ago for someone to find a “better way”, but without putting any specifics on that we have a pretty large scope of potential “better ways”. What came from Bitcoin being released in the public and allowed to organically grow in the background has fundamentally changed how everyone thinks about money and transacting with one another.
Even if all the cryptocurrency technologies were shut down immediately, the seed has been planted in our collective minds that there IS a better solution, which is such a fundamental shift in thought for the majority that we are all going to be better for it in the long run.
No longer do we have to be a serf plowing the king’s fields if we choose not to be, as we now have a form of trade decoupled from that ruler’s sovereignty. Creators are empowered to explore their craft, normal wage earners have a means to store their rewards securely without relying on the rulers “allowing” them to spend it where they want to, groups can pool assets to become a larger collective to tackle larger societal issues if they wish without relying on a central authority to deem the goal “worthwhile”. These are the issues trying to be solved with this distributed ledger system.
I’m no fortune teller, so I can’t predict the future, but the past is painting a pretty clear picture for me. Crypto and the paths forward it unlocks are a better way of doing things for the majority, and those rulers who have found themselves fighting against a better way of doing things for the masses in the past have usually found themselves dethroned eventually.
