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“Our made-up, imaginary, internet money is better than the governments’ made-up, imaginary, internet money.” -Richard Heart (HEX.com
The digitization of off-chain value converted into digital assets such as cryptocurrencies, tokens, NFTs, DAO, DEX, Dapps, DeFi, on a blockchain or immutable LEDGER via smart contracts programmed with permissionless, trustless, autonomous protocols, are the vehicles which the dawn of this paradigm-shifting technology has charted to empower World Peace. Enriching the people of the world by offering a hedge against a gate-keeping, ruling class, that has passed down the acquired strong-holds on middlemen positions within the movements of value throughout societies to usurp money and power from the masses, is a starting point to getting out from beneath their thumbs. We are still in the stage of early adoption of this transforming technology, nearing the stage of exponential spread into societies across the globe!
Leading up to the Great Recession and 2008 housing crisis, the legacy financial cartel perpetuated an onslaught of predatory lending and financial products based on often fraudulent terms, across the United States of America. The standardization of the U.S. dollar as the global reserve currency, meant implications of this financial crisis had world-wide reach, spreading economic downturn for years. As a government intervention, the FHA-backed mortgages, essentially bailed out the banks opposed to the mortgage holders. In the end, while Wall Street was clinking the crystal of their champagne glasses to rejoice in their bail-out, 3.1 million foreclosures displacing more than 10 million Americans resulted in the aftermath
Sending ripples through the citizenry of feeling disenfranchised and abandoned by the force supposedly established to protect Main St. over Wall St., a new asset class was birthed as a response; “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”. According to the whitepaper, it was developed to enable payments, “directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution ...a system for electronic transactions without relying on trust.” From seashells and trinkets to gold and tender, money is imbued with specific functions. “The characteristics of money are durability, portability, divisibility, uniformity, limited supply, and acceptability Here was a proposed financial instrument actually programmed specifically for the functions of money, now in the arena to also facilitate transactions in a digital world as the World Wide Web penetrates global adoption. This was also a potential path to opt-out of doing business with the banks and institutions that often cipher excessive fees and outrageous loan rates, disproportionately from the poor, to the pay to play financial instruments that require a minimum investment to even participate, to centralized investing structures ripe with corruption among the gatekeepers to profiteer on the backs of the retailers. To a mind that might conjure justifications to any of these injustices, be warned those conclusions are outdated with the evolution or lack of towards that thinking, determining which side of the greatest wealth transfer we’ll likely see in our lifetimes, that any of us end up on.
Since the inception of Bitcoin (BTC), compared to the +38% gains over the past decade for gold, “bitcoin, however, has gained a whopping +8,999,900% …if you compare the +8.9 million percent BTC gain to investments in Netflix (+4,177%), Amazon (+1,787%), Apple (+966%), Microsoft (+556%), Disney (+423%) and Google (+335%), numbers show there is no comparison.” So although BTC was designed as a peer-to-peer payment system, it has turned out to be most efficient as a store of value. Thousands of digital assets have since been and continue to evolve to fill varying use cases and utility from payments, privacy, IoT, securing data, identification, gaming, community tokens, and DeFi products to name a few.
It’s All A Scam
In the early days of Bitcoin, still yet among the fiat-maxi hold-outs, it’s all a SCAM!! Somehow, privilege has blinded some to the need for a more equitable and just system of financial inclusion. The unbanked can now opt-in for the security of holding resources in secure, trustless systems they can easily access, borrowers can all equally participate in collateralized loans for amounts they can afford without the predatory interest rates or discriminating practices, no more outside parties determining which companies we get to invest in and support as long as they can jump through the centralized hoops to be on the inside of the horse and carriage stock market, middlemen fees, profiteering more off of speculation from consumer holdings than lending, government bail-outs for corrupt practices, lack of transparency, cronyism, and all the ways that the legacy institutions have hurt citizens rather than serving them. The vast array of schemes and crookedness that have seeped into all the corridors of establishment which the value flows of society are forced through, have widened the gap between the haves and have-nots. Of course, with so much capital flowing into this new asset class, scams certainly are out there and prolific in the space. Due diligence and a variety of measures and practices counter such risks and by no means should overshadow the potential that digital assets offer to empower humanity as a whole.
Shifting the Paradigm
We’re witnessing the creative destruction of financial services, rearranging itself around the consumer. Whoever does this in the most relevant, exciting way using data and digital, wins!” -Arvind Sankaran (Fintech Advisor/Investor)
Winners in this space are fast becoming the platforms that most efficiently adapt real world products into digitized counterparts. As far as financial products go, among the most basic are Certificates of Deposit or CDs. This is the “store of value” utility sought with the intention of earning yield (earnings generated and realized on an investment over a particular period of time.) While banks are offering a measly ~2% yield on investment through CDs, the first digital CD, HEX, offers ~40% with “ significantly higher average interest rates, removed banking fees” via a decentralized cryptocurrency. As a digital asset specifically designed to be a store of value, it already appears as if the rate of growth will follow suit with BTC if not outperform it all together, when comparing both from a decade apart in launch dates.
HEX launch in 2020 compared to BTC from 2010
Not Financial Advice
All of this is based on my personal opinions, education, experiences, and existing data. It seems obvious that the path people will opt for will be to break the chains of the established usurpers that essentially hold back progress while the gluttony of those very disenfranchising practices will soon expel the masses when an alternative becomes more accepted and understood. In such a new, unknown, and rapidly changing landscape to become familiarized with, not everyone participating in digital assets wins. Most likely, if due diligence is done and someone has still lost money with cryptos, the most likely reason, because of the volatility, is that they haven’t held onto the asset long enough. HEX incentivizes HODL and rewards participants with greater yield the longer the staking. Staking HEX essentially enters a smart contract for a designated length of time. Any fees for early or late withdrawals are redistributed in yield to current stakers, opposed to the banking elite. I personally started with a small amount for three months and was so blown away by the returns that I have since set up staking ladders to “ripen” at various dates, up to the 15 year, or 5555 day max. It may be all speculative but if the historical data provided over the past 12 years since the inception of BTC can offer any clues, it seems obvious which side of the financial trajectory will be most beneficial to utilize and represent!
How To Win in Crypto
Blockchain technology is still maturing and there are certainly hindrances to achieving the most ideal of aspirations with its progress. Gas fees on the most commonly used Ethereum network for example often counter the benefits of participating in the ecosystem with excessive fees from a congested network. Although HEX creator Richard Heart is currently developing a solution to this problem with Pulsechain PLS, in the meanwhile, be prepared for gas fees if you are new to DeFi and Dapps. Also, waiting for the wee hours of the weekends ~midnight to 4am to do transactions, helps to significantly reduce gas fees. https://ethereumprice.org/gas/ is a good resource to monitor past and current rates.
The steps to staking HEX:
- Onboard Fiat: Exchanges like Binance, Coinbase, Celsius, Crypto, etc. provide a ramp to bring your fiat currency into the digital world. Convert this for Ethereum or go to HEX.com for accepted currencies if you have or prefer to use another. (Be sure to choose one that gives you access to private keys, for example, Robinhood offers crypto, but you do not own it or the keys, so you cannot send it out.)
- Download Wallet: METAMASK is quite popular and offers a variety of features though there are an array of wallets in your app store that would do the job equally of providing access to DeFi products.
- Send Funds: After setting up your wallet, find the Ethereum address or whichever token you choose to send and copy it onto your clipboard. From your fiat ramp, go into the token being sent and paste the address to send the funds to the copied address. (Again, don’t forget to include extra for gas fees.)
- Stake HEX: Once received in your wallet, click the Metamask menu, then click the browser icon, then navigate to HEX.com. Once there, determine the time and amount of your stake.
The community has also developed the Dapp which can be used to gauge your staking progress, along with other staking statistics that can be used to optimize future stakes accordingly. Word is they are currently working on a fiat ramp, so it may be worth checking out first to see if they have since done that following this publication date. There is a small ETH fee for the use of
The potential of digital assets to disrupt the legacy financial systems is a welcome win for us commoners, essentially redistributing the trillions of dollars worth of value that have otherwise been ciphoned off over the past decade alone, back to the people over the coming decades ahead. Countries have tried to “ban” this paradigm, China multiple times with no avail! The momentum cannot be stopped! Eventually, this technology will conclude in global penetration with use as common as the cell phone. It will be interesting to see along the way, who will be the early adopters and who, the laggards.
What about digital assets is most exciting to you? Have any forecasts for blockchain technology as a whole?
Would love to hear your thoughts!!!
Thanks for sharing :)
