Sep 28, 2021
Good Vibes Are Legal Tender
Reflections on the power to coin money and the wisdom to hold it lightly
It would be good form to lead with some historical definitions about currency and whatnot but in truth, FIAT depresses me immensely, as does the crumbling paradigm that gave license to the Central Bank to counterfeit our hard earned money! If the latter comment makes you raise an eyebrow, it might be worth checking out Robert Breedlove.
Debanking slowly but surely
Brushing the unpleasantness of inflationary national currencies aside, let’s focus on these crazy, beautiful times where we can mint coins and tokens to our hearts’ content. Surely, right after “Be Your Own Guru” comes “Be Your Own Central Bank”!
And what if you are not minting anything, might you ask? Well you can still very much “Be Your Own Portfolio Manager”. I worked in hedge funds for long enough to know that 95% of fund managers underperform relative to their benchmark. Hopefully no one reading this is buying crypto ETFs…
You are the curator of your own museum
Considering the CNFT space alone, it’s mind boggling to contemplate the universe of investment options. No two proverbial CNFT wallets can possibly look the same. Every collector has their own biases and their own awareness and understanding of the nascent market. Alongside awareness, qualities of discernment and open mindedness should contribute to building beautiful and economically sound collections over time.
Discernment is probably the trickier of the two and often we notice where we were lacking in hindsight. On one end of the continuum, discernment looks like conviction: it’s what happens when we buy a piece we love. This isn’t especially difficult but it’s still probably a muscle worth flexing.
At the other extremity of the discernment continuum, rests the ability to create boundaries, or stop losses, and to be able to walk away when a transaction no longer makes sense. This is a far more difficult skill, especially when one is buying on the secondary market while inhabiting the human form and therefore naturally subjected to the laws of FOMO…
Awareness is our most valuable resource
Of course different folks are playing at different levels with differing depths of wallets. What I’ve noticed though is the way in which all collectors seem to be voting with what I like to call their prana coins. Prana is a Sanskrti term which has various equivalents in different traditions. It might also be call our life force, or qi in TCM, or élan vital in French. More than time, our most rarified quality of energy is this life force. I am constantly impressed by how committed and how incredibly present people are in the CNFT space.
Makes one think that getting involved, even indirectly, in global, decentralized projects that are somehow life affirming, might be the secret sauce to reigniting the Marketplace. Fancy that! I use the term marketplace here both loosely and generically to point to the place where we come together, buy art from one another, connect and feel good about each transaction, in a way that we never could wearing the straightjacket we were squeezed into by forces at play in the dominant paradigm of the default world.
When I worked in hedge funds I bought expensive art in galleries. It was a radically different experience. I made no real friends and was often left feeling guilty afterwards, if not downright uncomfortable about the whole experience, often without ever having had the chance to connect with the artist of the piece I had acquired.
Dream big!
What I love most about the present moment is how malleable it is. Watching folks on twitter quit their day jobs is always this huge rush for me! It never gets old. What really warms my heart though? The way we exchange so freely and connect and support each other with kindness and more often than not, with generosity. It strikes me that while everyone is having an entirely unique experience, often sorting out their own complex karmas, we are also reflecting the light of this newfound quality of awareness back to each other. There is finally, a sense of, dare I say it? Possibility!
I’m beginning to view Cardano as a collective lucid dream that we can become increasingly adept at shaping for the greater good. There is no need to designate winners and losers in this space. It is spacious enough to accommodate all the dreamers.
If you’ve read this far: you are AMAZING! Thank you!
