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Four years of crypto, blockchain and the non-impact on my finances

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@tarazkp
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So, the question has been asked:

> How has Crypto and Blockchain Technology Impacted my Personal Finance?

The answer is simple.

Not at all.

Four years of earning crypto by contributing content daily to blockchains. Three and a half years of trading crypto. Investments into various projects. Distributing crypto daily to thousands of users over the years and...

Nada.

Crypto hasn't helped my personal finances at all.

The reason isn't because I have failed at crypto or I am terrible at what I do - it is because I haven't used crypto in my personal life, I haven't cashed out, I have ridden the high and the lows and, I am still here. But, just because I haven't had an personal financial benefits from crypto and blockchain, it doesn't mean, my finances haven't changed.

I got into crypto at what was the lowest financial point in my life and one where there was the most at stake in my life. I had a newborn daughter and wife who needed medical care and the formula my daughter needed was costing 1.5x our mortgage. My wife and I had worked for years to build up a safety net and it was drained in less than six months and her own recovery due to some hospital screwups meant she was unable to work. I was working, taking care of both of them - no one was sleeping. So, in a drive of desperation - I started writing in the hope I could earn something to ease the bills. With a lot of effort, we made it through those times, but it has taken its toll on us in many ways.

Fast-forward four years.

As said, I didn't use crypto, even though my financial situation was dire. First off, the initial earnings were so meagre that it wouldn't have moved the needle much at all. But there was more than that. Back in 2017 I started to learn more about the blockchain and crypto scene in general, but more importantly, I started to pay attention to what I already knew about finance economy and realized, I didn't know enough.

I have worked since I was twelves years of age, where I was cleaning out newly built houses before the painters and fitters came in to finish them off. I have earned okay in my life and have pretty much always held a job of some kind and to this day, I haven't missed a job that I have interviewed for, barring the very first one for a restaurant and I was so nervous I couldn't remember the phone number at my new address. Yet, despite always having some level of economic availability, most of my life I have struggled with money.

While I have no one else to blame but myself, the foundation from parents matters a great deal, and they had struggled through their lives too. The apple didn't fall far from the tree and I have lived most of my working life far more hand to mouth, while wishing for something different. But, different doesn't come until different is done.

They say, that we are now in the attention economy and once I started paying attention, I improved my economy. I became far more aware of what I was doing and my own motivations as well as incentives to do what was effectively living my financial life on repeat. Continually doing the same thing that wasn't working, continually feeling that I never had enough and more importantly, never had anything to invest into my own future, and that of my family.

Crypto opened up a space of new opportunity for me, a place where I could not only earn, but also learn - and an ecosystem of applications and relationships in an environment that encouraged creativity. I didn't realize it at the time, but while I was constantly repeating what I had been doing for years in a cycle that held inevitable financial struggle, I had lost my creative self. The initial reason to get creative was for some reward, but the reward ended up being a side-effect of creativity instead. I feel confident that if I hadn't joined the community at that time, it might have been decades before I found my voice, if ever.

The worst thing about financial struggle isn't the going without, it is the being forced to perform continually like a sideshow animal getting whipped by masters for pennies in order to get a meal. No space to be oneself, only be what is required for the audience to throw some coins. I like working hard and I plan on never retiring as I want to always find something that is valuable to do, whether I need the money or not, but I want to work toward something meaningful, not just have a job to pay the bills.

Crypto and blockchain have given me a conduit to meaning that has interlinked so many aspects of my life to the journey, including the well-being and financial health of my family. For me, it isn't good enough to have enough for my daughter to be able to have what she wants, she has to have an environment that is conducive to her own success and happiness and like it or not, that is intrinsically tied to the community she grows in, which is influenced at the global level. If all parents want what is best for their children, it is time we as parents start working toward what is best for all of them. No one said it'll be easy or even successful - but it is necessary to attempt.

The problem is, the economic world we have created isn't built for this, it is instead designed to continually ramp up the extraction of resources to fewer and fewer hands. Most of the world keeps supporting this game in the hope they will be one of the few to "win", without seeing that it is going to lead to cataclysmic social failure and what is effectively, destruction of what our species has evolved to be - all in the name of profits for entities that have no skin in the game, no skin at all.

Something has to change and it has to change quickly, but that change isn't going to come from those who have the resources to change, as they are benefiting from things staying on course as they are. The only way to change the economy is to create a new one. To let the other implode while continually shifting the value it holds into a system that is far better at distributing widely, as it is controlled by the many, not the few. This means, generating wealth in ways that haven't been possible before; Crypto and blockchain.

So here we are - no personal financial benefits as yet, even though I am still financially struggling in the world as I always have. But there is a difference now - my process has changed. I am a poor person investing my creativity and resources into what I believe is a rich future that empowers many, rewards many, encourages many and promises to provide a space for broad creativity to once again be the driver of our economy - rather than narrow financial tools and vehicles that continually become more efficient extractors used to transfer wealth from the many into the pockets of the few - and are only open to those who have already accumulated wealth.

I keep participating daily and have built up a small stack of crypto that I hope can one day be used to improve my financial position and life experience - but my position in the crypto and blockchain space is important, as it is where I see the potential for the disenfranchised to rediscover the value of ownership.

Instead of just being where the ball is headed, let's own the field of play too.

As always, I see ourselves as the biggest hurdle to our future well-being, but that is the same as it has always been in our species, as we seem to find it impossible to truly collaborate for the betterment of us all. However, up until now, we haven't had the ability to organize ourselves economically at a global level from the ground up and have always relied on the top to dictate direction. Times have changed, the tides are turning.


This post originally appeared on the Hive blockchain: Transaction d226d9202749c4082828486de7f9e698949859e2 Included in block 49,034,637

We are now on blockchain time.

Taraz [ Gen1: Hive ]

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