Endgame - The Daily Gwei #284
Where is Ethereum headed?
I often talk about how I plan to never sell any of my ETH and that I buy more of it every day. Typically, I’ll get asked the same question when I say this: “what is your endgame if you aren’t selling your ETH?”. Honestly - I’ve never really thought too deeply about it outside of the fact that I want to use that ETH productively (in staking or in DeFi) and increase my share of the ETH pie over time. This got me thinking though - what is Ethereum’s “endgame”?
Well, I view Ethereum as the ultimate global settlement layer - all types of value worth trillions of dollars or more will eventually settle on Ethereum - so this logically points to Ethereum becoming the backbone of the world’s value transfer system as its endgame. Obviously this is no small feat - Ethereum is basically taking on mega-corporations, governments and the entire banking/financial system - so Ethereum’s endgame is going to take quite a while to reach (probably decades worth of time and lots of fighting against incumbent resistance).
What about DeFi itself - what’s the endgame there? Well I think that’s easy to answer - DeFi promises to replace the entire existing financial system with something that is radically more efficient, transparent and open. Ergo, the endgame is to supplant the incumbent financial system (aka those damn dirty banks). I think you can basically apply this same endgame to every use-case that Ethereum enables - NFTs want to radically transform areas such as collectibles, gaming and more, DAOs want to disrupt and replace as many forms of human coordination as possible, web3 wants to decentralize the internet and things like “social tokens” want to supercharge communities. The through-line to all of this is simply that everything built on Ethereum wants to disrupt their centralized counterpart.
Have you ever thought about what your endgame is with crypto? Why you got into this industry in the first place? What your goals are or what you hope to achieve? I’m sure many of you have and I’m sure we all share similar goals but personal endgames will obviously vary greatly from individual to individual. A 60 year old person is going to have a very different endgame to a 20 year old one but, of course, it isn’t just an age thing. There are plenty of people of all ages who don’t really care to go “bankless” with DeFi but they care deeply about creating tools that enhance user privacy or participating in new forms of communities. Hell, your endgame with crypto could simply be to make lots of money to provide for your family - nothing wrong with that!
All in all, even if you don’t have a personal endgame with crypto, I still think it’s worthwhile to get involved and just see where this ecosystem takes you. Not everything has to be meticulously planned out or have some kind of grand goal attached to it - you can simply get involved in crypto in any way that you think can provide the most value.
After all, Ethereum is for everyone.
Have a great day everyone,
Anthony Sassano
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All information presented above is for educational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice.
I liked the personal tone of this article, the fact that you share your point of view on why you keep your Ether, and what is the endgame in your opinion for Ethereum. That's exactly why i got into crypto in the first place, years ago, the Ethereum ecosystem and its promises of a new kind of world. I've felt in numerous traps along the way, one being that i didn't held long enough or at the right time to my Ethers and feeling regretful about it. Do you think in your opinion that investing money (and time and belief along the way) into Ether now is still a valid option in the long term for new private investors? You kinda did answer to that in this piece, indeed...