Introduction

Bitcoin - and cryptocurrency in general - is in the process of creating hundreds and thousands of millionnaires. This is truly a mad time, where a small investment now - if current trends continue - could turn into a life changing amount of money in a short period of time.

Capitalism

I've always rejected the idea of traditional capitalism. People say that as you get older, you become less left wing and more conservative. They say it's out of necessity due to family commitments, the desire to remove yourself from the upbringing/life you experienced or perhaps a secret resentment towards the rich. However, amongst all the joke-talk of "moons" and "lambos" there seems to be a growing seediness to the growing crypto community.

I am fortunate enough to live in a country with a strong socialist history. University is free for all, high quality healthcare is available for all, unemployment is low, and crime rates are amongst the lowest in the World.

The creation of Bitcoin

One of the main reasons for Bitcoin's inception was to create a new, decentralized monetary system, separate from governments and the poor judgement of individuals, who failed the masses to benefit the few.

In today's society, wealth and status are worth more that empathy and community

I understand this is a somewhat divisive statement. I would like to point out that I'm definitely not religious and in no way a hippy - but there is a genuine layer of greed within every subreddit, in the comments of YouTube videos and in the chatrooms of Discord.

The creation of this blog

It makes me feel sick to be caught up in this sometimes. I hear myself speaking with friends or relatives about profits and investments. I keep repeating to myself that it's not me. In my head, it is coming from both a place of wanting them to be a part of it and also, the fact I just need to talk about it with someone sometimes to bring myself back to reality about what is really going on here (hence the creation of this blog... for me to unload these moral dilemmas from my chest).

I should also add that I am also not a communist. This is not a statement to encourage people to get rid of their belongings and sell their Bitcoin. However, with the economic upheaval going on at the moment - we are at the forefront of this new technology - and I believe we need to ground ourselves.

Some readers will no doubt have a negative response to this post. No worries - everyone is in this for their own reasons and there will be capitalists coming from a position of greed as well as from personal circumstance. There will also be people who are using cryptocurrency as a means to an end - which I will touch upon later.

What can I do?

When it all comes down to it:

I don't want to base investment decisions purely on the persuit of financial gain.

There are many moral factors I should do better to consider before investing in a new cryptocurrency or team.

Sustainability

First and foremost, the environment is something that should be talked about more. It cannot be denied that cryptocurrency mining is contributing to Global climate change. I am intrigued by teams such as PeerCoin and Power Ledger, and am interested that the Russian ONF are currently in the process of developing an eco-friendly cryptocurrency.

Community

There are now small cryptocurrencies being developed to help their communities in various ways. People are rewarded for positive work in their neighbourhoods and some cryptocurrency is being developed solely for use in countries where capitalism and government have totally failed. With expensive Bitcoin transaction costs, not to mention the impact of mining - there are more effective ways for people to retain money in their home countries.

Technology

Since these may be the early days of the "crypto-revolution", there are many teams fighting for the top spot of solving a particular problem. I personally try to consider the technology and the method that a team is tackling their target issue. But since we are basically all investors in these companies - their emphasis becomes that of making money as efficiently as possible.

The rich get richer

I am by no means "wealthy". I grew up poor, in a Northern UK town but I do have access to the Internet and have managed to get an education and have access to benefits that many people in the World go without. Living in the developed World gives many of us the opportunity to be ahead of trends and also be at the forefront of this whole revolutionary situation. The people who will lose out the most are of course the people who do not have the Internet, who are not educated and do not have money to make speculative investments.

I feel more could be done within the crypto community to solve this problem.

The richest 1% now owns half of the World's wealth.

As a whole, we have an opportunity to turn this Global nightmare on it's head and make things more right. There exists a real potential to help re-distribute wealth and end some of the most obvious and outragous forms of neglect and selfishness by the current World leaders. These are amazing times!

Conclusion

There are a lot of people out there looking for investment opportunities putting greed at the forefront of their thought process. Of course, being mindful of technology at an early stage can be profitable - cryptocurrency has also shown its potential for use in many communities where money and capitalism have failed the people. With Bitcoin offering an olive branch in these situations we have only scratched the surface of what is possible.

I'm sure there are other people who have posted about these issues before... the last thing I want to do here is preach. However if there was one thing I should remind myself of - it is to take a step back and think about the reasons why I make investment decisions.

My main goal for this post is to open up a dialog about these issues with Steem users in a hope to achieve greater consciousness in the community.

If anyone has any thoughts or opinions on all this, please - hit me up!

And if you enjoy any of the content - feel free to upvote!

Cheers