Crypto isn't the thing, it's the thing that gets us to the thing
The third element of crypto might be the most important
I’ve often said there are two elements of crypto, and that they’re completely separate. Those are price/investment and technology. And I’ve spoken about how they’re oddly decoupled right now.
But I was cursorily aware of a third element: community. I was aware, but I’ve taken it for granted.
I recently joined a poker tournament as part of the Womp Crew. The Womp Crew is a discord group dedicated to promoting crypto and NFTs, largely in the Algorand space.
I hadn’t played poker in quite some time, but gave myself a little brush-up playing online, and then joined the group. It was really fun, but also made me feel more connected to a group.
The prizes are crypto-based — this one was free, but others include a buy-in or ownership of a particular NFT. Another one that happened later in the evening (too late for this old man to join) required shuffling a new Rxelms space for the developing Algorand metaverse project.
I did a video on that shuffle below:
I’ve since played several games with the Womp Crew.
I’m starting to think that community is what helps explain the gap between price and technology. Something like Algorand seems to be doing all the right things in terms of technology, real-world adoption, building actual applications, etc. But coins like Dogecoin outperform it.
I won’t state that definitively that community is the link I’ve been missing. But it helps explain a lot. I’ve said before that crypto is based on vibes and memes. But the community concept is much more solid and viable a link to connect a gap I’ve struggled to understand in crypto.
I want to explore communities in other spaces such as Sui Network and HBAR. If you know of any, drop me their discord or other platform and I will check it out.
In the TV series Halt and Catch Fire, a character played by Lee Pace uttered a phrase about the internet that’s stuck with me since, and applies to many other aspects of life: This isn’t the thing, it’s the thing that gets us to the thing.
I think this is true about crypto too. Too many people are focused on crypto as the thing. But it’s the thing that gets us to the thing. What exactly that thing is isn’t yet clear. But I get the sense that whatever it is, it’s important. Much like we didn’t know where the internet leads (remember Paul Krugman saying in 1995 that it was a fad?) I don’t think we fully know where crypto leads.
I think it’ll be somewhere cool.
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