No Renter Left Behind

Not only are the house prices increasingly rapidly in many parts of the world, but rents are increasing too. For example in Australia, the rents are up almost 9% since this time last year, which is above the inflation rate of around 4%, which is still rising. This is well outside the wages increases, which have stagnated. This is to be expected of course, since the housing market was driven by investors and when you pay more for a house to rent, it is only natural that the rent required to keep a viable ROI has to go up too. So, not only can many people not afford to buy a house, but they are not even able to rent one soon.

All this, while "The Great Resignation" is expected, as people are leaving (or looking to leave) their jobs in droves. With interest rates expected to be on the rise sooner rather than later, it looks like the next couple years are shaping up to be, well, rough.

One upside is that with everyone quitting, there is likely going to be opportunity for those looking to have a decent salary available - especially for the people who are skilled and experienced. It is going to be interesting to see the demographics of those leaving their jobs though, as I assume that many of them are going to be in the younger age group, those who might not have much to fall back on.

While it is going to be a rough transition period, overall, I believe that this is going to be good for the creator economy and as a result, crypto projects too. I mean projects, not speculative coins. I think that while there is plenty of money to be made in trading on purely speculative tokens, it isn't the ideal life for the majority of people, especially after they lose a few times when the markets do this.

That is just a love tap of course, nothing to be concerned about - but the only people that can really afford to hold, are the ones that do not require their investments to earn in order to live their daily life. This means, people with jobs. This is why I think that the platforms (such as Hive) with diverse earning potential will do well, as more people will not only look to earn on their activity, but invest into what they are using in various ways to add value to their activity. As I keep saying, the future of earning is through owning and acting, and investing into where one earns is much more the profile of an entrepreneur, than trader.

Over time, this leads to a change in culture and a paradigm shift in our behaviors as an economic mass, driving more of our value into our own empowerment, rather than having it extracted in purely entertainment-based consumption, as so much of it is now. This means that the entertainment services and SaaS models, will have to compete for the attention of capital with places that might not be as convenient to begin with, but offer an ROI on usage. @threespeak over YouTube for example and, I am sure there are going to be many more streaming services available in the upcoming years that will be decentralized versions of Netflix and Spotify.

This changes how traditional business models work too, as while at first they will look to resist the shift, once there is enough wealth amassed on blockchains and across these goods and services that offer return, they will notice percentage loss on their own revenues. They are generally very top-heavy in terms of their revenue needs and as such, a few points trimmed can cause a landslide exodus of capital investors who can go elsewhere. Where is that elsewhere?

Well, the idea is very much like the property market, you want to be able to buy land before the masses are demanding to live there. You want the up and coming and soon to be gentrified areas, as the investment cost is low and the ROI is going to increase with demand, on both rental properties and sale.

Currently, crypto still gets regarded as the wild west, but that is no longer completely true, as projects are now offering far more stability for investors and, a reason to hold. This means that it is still very volatile, but more people are moving into the crypto suburbs looking for their chance at having the equivalent of the picket, white fence life. It might be a while away from that, but crypto is building cities with a very eclectic mix of users who will increasingly flesh it out to both offer more by way of use case and, demand more for usage - to create a diverse and robust economy.

It is going to be an interesting few years ahead, as while it is going to be very rough economically I think, the changes that are catalyzed by it will fundamentally change the way we live our lives. One thing seems clear to me though, it is either learn how to participate or, be left behind.

Trims