BLOCKCHAIN BABBLE #1

DeFi Denbar

This blog feed will be for those who are either new to blockchain technology or want to hear
my perspective on blockchain technology. As you know, by reading “About Me”, my Web3
journey began in 2019 with well-known coins such as Stellar Lumens and XRP. There were a
handful of others that I bought into when I entered the world of decentralized money. When
COVID hit, I stumbled upon DeFi (Decentralized Finance) coins such as BitTorrent, SHIB,
Saitama, and a plethora of others. To this day I still hold these coins as I believe they all have
their own use cases and utility. To name a few; community, energy efficiency, ease of
transaction, IRL (In real life) application, and a whole lot more. I have some analogies that
may or may not help those who are unfamiliar understand why they should care about this
industry. Let’s start with cryptocurrency, I will refer to it as crypto throughout this blog.
Crypto, in my opinion and the opinions of my peers, is the future of how we will transact.
Globally, 70% of the globe has a central bank. While this seems like a large metric, this means
that there are still about 2 billion people who are unbanked globally1

Most of us in America have a debit card or a bank account (cash). This is how you pay bills,
buy groceries, new shoes, milk, and bread. With that being said, the money we are talking
about at this moment is what is now called “centralized” and “fiat currency” through the
central banks. These banks oversee making sure funds are available for you to use as they are
constantly moving money around to hedge investments and make sure their liquidity pool is
in accordance with what funds are needed at any point. In essence, you own the rights to that
money, but you don’t “own” those funds contractually. This falls in line with the guideline
that most central banks cover $250,000 of cash you have in your account god forbid the bank
was hacked or compromised. If you had $250,001 the $1 would not be covered in the event of
something like that happening. Crypto works differently. When you buy crypto through a

1
Demigod-Kunt, Asli. “The Global Findex Database.” Global Index Database, The World Bank, 2018,
https://globalfindex.worldbank.org/sites/globalfindex/files/chapters/2017%20Findex%20full%20report_cha
pter2.pdf.
decentralized wallet such as Trust Wallet, Metamask, Trezor, and many more, you own the
coins. Contractually, you own them as assets. When using a centralized exchange like
Bitmart or Hotbit, you own the “rights” to those coins, but the exchange is the one who
controls the actual assets. You are obligated to these assets but are at the mercy of the
centralization of the institution. The best analogy for the use case of crypto is an extremely
traceable and open source “transaction hash” that allows you to see the movement of money
from wallet to wallet in real time.

The transparency of transactions has never been clearer. This is the fundamental utility of
what is called “the blockchain''. The same way you can see some public figures stock market
transactions, the blockchain is the truest form of information. The blockchain never stops,
never goes back in time, and can never be changed. As a reminder, the stock market is open
9:30am - 4pm EST M-F. The cryptocurrency market is 24/7 365 and doesn’t stop for holidays.
Not only does it never stop, meanwhile, transactions also take fractions of seconds to
complete and money can be sent across borders with no middleman. These are all human-
to-human transactions. This translates to, I can send and receive money from anywhere in
the world in a matter of seconds.

Let’s use a scenario, you are traveling in Europe and your physical leather wallet or purse
was stolen and you have no ID, no debit/credit cards, and no cash. What do you do when you
are in a foreign place and need to rent a car to get to the police station, hotel, etc. with no
money? In this case, I would have my digital wallet that I can use to help get me out of a sticky
situation. I flag down a taxi, tap my phone to the e-reader in the cab and head on my way to
resolve the issue. Without my crypto, I would’ve been stranded in a foreign country with no
money, no ID, and no way of getting home. Crypto got me out of that situation. There is no
conversion rate, there is no exchange. One bitcoin is always worth one bitcoin. The same
goes for street art or souvenirs. Instead of exchanging my money and figuring out what
something is worth in my home currency, I just tell the merchant, “Would you like to be paid
in Bitcoin, SHIB, Saitama, or Bittorent (or whatever crypto I have at the time). I scan their
wallet address QR code, verify the wallet address with them, barter the price of something
and funds are delivered within seconds. Crypto has the same intellectual value as something
as sought after as gold. Gold goes up and down in value as does crypto. Just about 200 years
ago, we were using gold and silver to transact even though we knew that it varied in value.
This didn’t matter to people, they owned gold or silver. It was theirs. If it lost value the next
day, that was fine, it'll be worth more tomorrow…or at least that is the idea. The same applies
with cryptocurrency.
Scenario:
Buyer: “Oh, you don't take bitcoin…that’s okay, what crypto would you like to be paid in?
Merchant: “I would like to be paid in Saitama”
Buyer: “Great! Give me just a moment”
In this case, I convert some of my USD or any other fiat/crypto into Saitama, pay a small fee (if
any), and send that over to the merchant. Done, transaction complete.

It sounds complicated, but so did credit cards when they first came out. The age of
technology has allowed a rapid change in the way we live our lives. Just 100 years ago people
rode horses and buggies to work. People said that cars are a “fad” and were also very difficult
to obtain as they were very expensive. People stuck to what they knew and could afford. The
same argument could be made for cryptocurrency. The only difference is that there are
already tens of thousands of cryptocurrencies available. There is a plethora of crypto
project’s coins varying in cost. We used to use gold and silver, then made currency out of
gold and silver. From there, we made paper money that had gold leaf in it that met the value
of the dollar. Then we used the “gold standard”. Since 1971, we have been off the gold
standard and the dollar hasn’t been backed by anything since then. In fact, 80% of all the
circulating supply of U.S. bills have been printed in the past two-ish years. The change in
technology, when talking about how we transact, is a once in a century event. We are
rewriting history and watching it happen before our own eyes. CNBC. Bloomberg, Yahoo
Finance, and more have mentioned cryptocurrency but do not do a good job of educating
individuals on this new technology called “blockchain”. History repeats itself; we are seeing
propaganda coming from all media sources while also seeing censoring and SEO (search
engine optimization). While these media sources do have articles about crypto and NFT’s,
there is always some type of stipulation. I have started these entries to give my community
and others who have yet to find me, a chance to get an insider’s perspective on blockchain
technology. I am ecstatic to start writing more and I hope my view on this industry helps just
even one human. I will be answering all questions in the comments and look forward to
meeting new people with a thirst for knowledge. WGMI.