This is why the world needs crypto, and especially why it needs Internet Computer Protocol. Right now we live in a world where the value of our time is usually translated into money. We work for money, and then that money is controlled by governments and global institutions that are constantly devaluing what we earn. So you can't really save any money, because the value of the money you earn keeps going down. What's exciting about cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin is the idea of something you can actually buy that consistently goes up over time on average, because that would finally let you save.
If you want to get into a bigger level of why we need crypto, consider this: right now the internet is controlled by a handful of companies. Five or ten big companies have the vast majority of the world's users on their platforms, like Facebook, Instagram, Google, Microsoft, TikTok, and Twitch via Amazon. You've got a very small number of companies that hold gigantic power on the internet, and there's almost no regulation or transparency as to how that power is enforced.
Have you ever wondered why certain topics are sensitive when, rationally, it doesn't seem like they should be a big deal? Have you ever wondered who's the person deciding that certain people should get canceled while other people get algorithm boosts? We spend all this time on the internet, but we do it with almost no clarity as to who has real control over the things we're using. In my view, Internet Computer Protocol has the best solution in the world to both of these problems.
Bitcoin solved the money problem, but not the everyday one
Right now, Bitcoin is something that, if you'd bought it at almost any point in history, is worth more than it was before. That's the outstanding solution to constantly inflating, centralized currencies. The issue with Bitcoin now, though, is that you can't really use it in a practical way on a day-to-day basis. This is really important if you're investing in crypto: you need to understand what the foundational, real value of crypto to the world actually is, because so much of crypto is just hype and speculation and "number go up."
When I got into crypto, it wasn't because of hype and speculation and number go up. It was because I saw that we could build a world that would give all of us individually more power and more transparency about how things are working.
Why I love the transparency of Internet Computer
What I love about Internet Computer Protocol is the transparency. Yes, the critics have said there are centralized points of failure, and that's true. But let me give you a comparison to the rest of crypto. If you go to the launchpad on Internet Computer and you invest in one of these coins, and then they just dump all the treasury for no good reason and don't produce anything, that's all very transparent. You could see that happening on the blockchain. Whereas on these other launchpads in crypto, you have no idea what's going on behind the scenes with the money that was invested.
On ICP, when you invest in a project on the SNS and they actually have it on chain, you can have real ownership. Your tokens, when you vote on things, can have real results. When you go to vote on a proposal, it makes a real difference as to what gets executed. That's so much more power. Imagine every Amazon stockholder being able to easily look at a voting interface like this. When you're holding Internet Computer, you get to make decisions on the state of the network. Now imagine if you could do that with something like Amazon, voting on things like that if you held the stock.
Right now, people globally are in a position where power is extremely centralized and the actions being taken are not transparent. With ICP you can use the tech and also look at who else is using it on a dashboard, the network nervous system. To me, that's a real value to the world. The world needs a way to help distribute ownership and to make owning something worthwhile.
Most of crypto has lost the plot
Meanwhile, most of what's happening in crypto today is actually keeping people suppressed. It's tricking people into putting their time and energy into all these coins and into self-centered thinking about how to make myself money, instead of how do we create a world that works better for all of us. Ironically, the value proposition of crypto has mostly been lost outside of Internet Computer today. Yes, some of these coins have gone up over time, which is certainly better than US dollars. But now you're seeing all these meme coins. Even Trump launched a meme coin, which is down 54% from its all-time high in just a few days. And around 80% of tokens are still going to get dumped over the next few years. So most of crypto has turned into people losing money on meme coins and investing in stuff they don't understand. What's been lost, in my opinion, is the question of what the real value of your crypto is to the world.
Bitcoin was the first to offer that value: hey, what if we had a form of money that cut out the middleman, a ledger that was transparent? Bitcoin, in the simplest terms, is just a spreadsheet. That's Bitcoin. And all Bitcoin mining does is control who gets to add the next entry on the spreadsheet. That's it. You could fairly ask, well, why wouldn't you just keep a spreadsheet on Google Cloud and use Google Sheets? Because then Google could alter everybody's transactions. Someone at Google, who you'd have no transparency into, would have the ability to modify the data on the spreadsheet, and then you couldn't trust it.
The hidden problems with our existing financial system
That's our existing financial system right now. There are people all over the world who have the ability to modify the transactions. When you put your money in the bank, you have no idea what they're doing with it. They don't even have your money. This is called fractional reserve banking. When you put money in the bank, the banks often immediately do things like use that money to borrow money themselves. There's very little transparency, even with these publicly owned banks, as to what they're doing with all the customer deposits. This is why some of the banks failed: they were taking customer deposits and doing all kinds of risky stuff, trying to make themselves as much money as possible.
The value of crypto is that we can make a better world together. And by better, I mean a world where wealth is distributed more evenly. The fact is, we have enough materials, food, and water to feed and comfortably house and clothe everyone on the planet today. That is a material fact. We have plenty of food. In fact, livestock and animals alone eat enough food to feed every person on this planet. And yet one out of nine people on this planet are starving, and there are tens of thousands of people every day who die from starvation.
One reason for that is the money. People are being exploited through the financial system and through the constant devaluing of money via inflation. People are being controlled and manipulated constantly by those who hide behind veils of secrecy and corporate infrastructures, who control huge parts of the internet and resources around the world and seem to be quietly extracting a whole bunch of value from all of us, so that they can live miserably in a palace, drive a bunch of cars they don't even appreciate, and then be stressed out because they have so much to do.
Why I believe ICP can make this vision real
The bottom-line value proposition of crypto is that we can make a world that's more fair, more transparent, and where ownership is shared. And the fact is, I believe Internet Computer Protocol is the only technology today that could actually make this vision a reality, not just speculatively, but right now.
My website is on ICP. I've got an OpenChat where I'm doing giveaways on Twitch while filming this live. In my experience this is a far superior way to build a social network and community compared to Discord, Telegram, Facebook, and Instagram. It's so much better. That's why I deleted Facebook, deleted Telegram, deleted Discord, and deleted Instagram. This is where I hang out and spend my time now. And when I'm sitting on 11,000 OpenChat and I go to vote on a proposal, my vote, with the proposals from the people following me, actually moves things by about 2%. I have real ownership. On top of that, I have a currency that has gone up since I bought it. This is why we invest in crypto, and if you want to go deeper, you can follow along with my ICP Crypto playlist. You really need to remember why you're here.