I love the smell of hopium early in the decade

A long time ago someone who I don't remember the username of anymore (have on several occasions attempted to look it up without any success) wrote a post that changed my perspective on blockchain and the new web. The message was basically comparing this new internet to the people who first invented the telephone, the companies that sprung to life and made their wealth through it only to be trumped down by the internet shortly after and those companies that took the opportunity early and were successful made even more than the telephone companies could've ever imagined. Now comes the new internet that will once more wipe the old centralized internet and it's companies and make it obsolete, not just the internet but money by itself which means that the value that can be created can overpower what the internet boom and the dotcom bubble generated as well.

Having said that keep in mind anything can happen, the markets are still very early which explains the price swings and the brutal cycles. Who knows if Steem is going to become the next big thing, it could not, it could just become a small platform or become big and then do a lot of mistakes and be the next myspace.

The thing is though, even if there is a small chance, the upward potential could make it worth it for most users here today, maybe even a life-changing amount as it has happened before already even though many of those users are not left here anymore to tell their tale. I've had many discussions with people who keep telling me they don't have time for Steem or crypto because they are busy with other things or want to focus on other things, and that is fine but what I tell them is to not completely stop or forget about it. This new invention and what it enables is not something we are going to be seeing many times in our lifetime, sure there will always be new opportunities around the corner, new projects in blockchain, new ICO's, new top 10 coins, new this and that and even if you were to spend $1000 on 50 different coins split each it only needs one of them to perform well to bring your total investment to new astronomical heights even if the other 49 fail miserably. That's how early we are still and many coins, many still who have yet to bring anything concrete than speculation have performed similarly over the years and I doubt it's something that's going to stop soon. Even here on Steem there have been a lot of those tokens that have performed very well so far even though it's on a much smaller scale.

2020 started pretty well, last time Bitcoin performed this well the other alts didn't follow through as much so the recent movements have brought a lot of hope into investors and speculators that this might be the start of a fullpledged bull market that's not only affecting BTC but the majority of alts along with it. Although many involved in crypto are hoping the new money will be a bit more concentrated on actual promising currencies, even though many take this too far and let their greed take over and go full maximalists on their holdings - I doubt that the next bull run will be much smarter than the previous one that literally pumped most coins in the top 1k marketcaps. This is cause many make a lot of profit and they attempt to double-triple-etc down on the next coins, followed with a lot of manipulations of project and company owners (think some centralized coins that owned 50% of the supply and have sold a lot for BTC make x % returns and decide to put a part of it into their own coin to cause fomo pumps to sell the rest of their bags higher than what it is now). That's where most gamblers will exist where they see a coin go 50% up or even 100% and the sky is the limit in their mind so they'll buy in and hope for that get rich quick sensation.

Anyway, without getting too much into the markets, think about the psychology around this. Let's say there's a chance that Steem or another coin will go 100x+ from here, how do you think that affects the holders, buyers and earners of Steem. Even though Steem is so different from most where giving means receiving and the whole psychology within our platform encourages a community spirit without borders, there will always be those who will do anything for a couple Steem. Thankfully we've noticed over time that with everything being transparent it is easy to see the activity and judge certain accounts due to it, to many it shows their true colors - especially since the EIP came into effect a lot of them came out of the woodwork with their pitchforks. That is shortsighted though in my opinion. Of course everyone wants to earn Steem and do good in the future but being too greedy will affect your reputation and at the same time your future earning potential. Bear in mind Steem still has a long inflation ahead of it, it's not worth to go full selfish early on, get the whole community against you and having to either start fresh or attempt to fix it later. Many don't care about this though as we've seen time and time again.

Think about it, in this day and age, where on the internet could you go and earn a couple bucks for providing some of your time to the platform. It's not even asking you to do much or provide actual "work", it's asking you to provide some effort, creativity and helping hand for curation in return. Where else on the internet could you ask anonymous people you've never met for a loan or a donation and have a lot of people turn up to offer you their help - this of course also depends when on the market cycle you ask (be greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy) meaning when prices are very low many may not be as helpful as later on when they've had their returns and aren't as worried anymore. With this in mind, to those who are super greedy about their Steem earnings and rewardpool share constantly, ask yourself if Steem happens to become the next big thing and we all here are going to make hundreds to thousands the return of our current value - will it have mattered to have been greedy early on? Will it have mattered to put your reputation on the line, being known as that one user that only cared about himself and his returns instead of helping get the platform to where it is that day. It's a bit like Roko's basilisk (the thought process that AI were to take over the world at some point in the future and it's going to punish everyone that imagined this happening at some point but didn't effectively help it get to that point faster) if you're not helping Steem and the ecosystem get out there and become bigger, will you get punished for it later? Or will the ones that did help it just get rewarded more instead?

There's many users here today looking forward the time when Steem is entering a real bull run again, it's front-ends reaching new all time highs on traffic stats, more developers entering the space along with users, investors and entrepreneurs. Will you remember who was here through thick and thin and reward those users more? Will you still welcome the ones that left through the tough times or ignore them? I'm not one to personally completely ignore them, we're all people after all and invest our time differently and judge things differently, but I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't be nicer to those who stuck around even though they've also done well for themselves for having stuck with it. Of course though I'd choose new users over returning ones cause they've yet to have disappointed me. (:P)

Anyway, Steem is a completely different beast. Sure it fluctuates like crazy cause a lot of it's inflation is given out to effort, sweat and tears instead of investments or electricity/hardware like most others but at the same time it's one of its strengths and being super unique and the EIP makes it one of the most unique ones now compared to other delegated/proof of stake currencies and that's also why I am against reducing the inflation. The EIP is already taking care of a lot of abuse and leakage and improving constantly and will only increase the effects of the inflation over time.

On an ending note, is it worth to invest some fiat and/or your time into Steem even if it goes nowhere? Yes, it will have better to have tried than to regret not having if it takes over. What you gonna do with your fiat anyway?

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