The Hangover - The Daily Gwei #90
What goes up must come down (but it will also go back up again soon).
Are we all coming down from a wild drunken night out in the city or from a mini crypto bull market? It’s actually been hard for me to tell the difference given what I’ve witnessed play out in the community over the last few weeks and frankly, it’s been pretty sad to see so I wanted to talk about it in today’s piece.
It seems the community has become irritated and overall turned bitter since the numbers stopped going up. I’ve seen more public spats happening between people on Twitter and people seem to attack any new projects if they believe they are “unfair”. This is not the traditional spirit of Ethereum that I’ve come to know and love over the years. In Ethereum, we embrace new ideas and experimentation while cheering on the builders in the community. So, what happened to cause this?
Unfortunately, I feel that over the last 3-4 months enough people got burned on the food ponzis and actual scams that they now have a general distrust for most teams deploying new projects (especially those with tokens). The “fair launch” that Andre Cronje pioneered with YFI has become a meme and has pretty much lost all meaning. In addition to this, there seems to be a sense of paranoia among the community and people are very quick to judge things based on limited information or misinformation.
On top of everything that’s happening in crypto, the world is also a pretty dark place for many people right now. We have the COVID pandemic leading to deaths, record unemployment and fear + uncertainty, we have extreme macro uncertainty in the U.S. with the upcoming presidential election and, because of COVID, we have civil unrest across many places in the world. Due to this, I believe that the “lashing out” we’re seeing in the crypto community is just a symptom of a larger cause and was only hidden until now because of the euphoria of the markets.
I personally used crypto/Ethereum as an escape over the last few months as I’ve been self-isolating since February in my home so 2020 has felt like a blur. This has of course led to my mental and physical health deteriorating and I’m sure I’m not alone in this. Thankfully I’ve had a great support network with my fiancée and close friends but I realise others may not have this so if you’re feeling down right now, you can feel free to reach out to me on Twitter or Telegram (@sassal0x on both) - I’d be happy to chat.
I hope that this piece sheds some light on why the general sentiment right now is quite negative and bitter on social channels. I believe that this will pass with time as things in both the real world and crypto start looking better but for now the best thing to do is understand why it’s happening so that you can react and manage it accordingly.
And, as always, try to play long-term games.
Have a great day everyone,
Anthony Sassano
All information presented above is for educational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice.
I'd say that is an accurate assessment overall, all things considered....remember to take care of yourself during these difficult tymes