Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?
A few days ago, I wrote a piece about bitcoin, bitcoin cash, bitcoin gold, and all the forks surrounding bitcoin.
I labeled the piece, "Will the real bitcoin please stand up"
It can be read here:
https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@jrcornel/will-the-real-bitcoin-please-stand-up
While this isn't really earth shattering or ground breaking information, it looks like my choice of a title was what another writer for Forbes.com thought was perfectly applicable as well.
Check it out:
As you can see, this was posted a few hours ago, while mine was posted about a week ago.
Actually, I'd like to take a moment here to reveal to the community that I am actually Peter Tchir and I am a contributor for Forbes.com.
Just kidding!
I'm really not. Just thought it was pretty interesting how similar our pieces/titles were.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?
That is probably true, but unfortunately for me, that is not exactly what is going on here.
While we mentioned some of the same concerns regarding bitcoin, the posts ultimately differ in many ways.
While mine focused primarily on bitcoin and bitcoin cash and how the money leaving bitcoin (at the time), was primarily moving into bitcoin cash and what that might mean going forward for the future of bitcoin.
His piece tends to focus more on the overall affect of all the different cryptocurrencies coming to market as well as all the different splits of bitcoin happening seemingly every couple of months, and what this all might mean for bitcoin going forward.
Same title, ultimately, slightly different directions we went with it.
Focusing on his concerns.
I think he is exactly right.
There is a glut of cryptocurrencies out there right now and many of them really are worthless and/or useless. The fear is that as these useless coins suck up investment dollars, eventually the entire space will become too fragmented making it all the more difficult for even the legitimate projects to get adequate funding.
Plus, when you factor in the number of ICOs coming on the market every single day, market saturation is a real concern.
Check out google trends for ICOs:
Right now it is up to investors to do their own homework and decide which projects are legitimate and which ones are just out for a quick ICO buck.
That perhaps might be too much to ask of many retail investors though, at least it has been in the past according to the SEC. For those reasons there is a very real chance the SEC starts to really crack down on these ICO projects moving forward.
We have already seen several countries ban them completely until they can properly regulate them. See China and South Korea as examples.
It will be interesting to see how all of this might affect steem and SMTs.
Looking forward to continued clarity on these things going forward and also to many more great writers having similar thoughts to me about the space. ;)
Stay informed my friends.
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Yo ,
Thanks for the great content
Good post Peter, er, I mean jrcornel. Your posts are always right on and informative, so it's not surprising Forbes is writing about the same thing, only a week or so later (probably after reading your blog first).
My thoughts exactly ;)
The crypto world is sort of like Steemit. You have to put up with some unsavory stuff, in order to have freedom and choice. Thank goodness there are people like yourself that stand up and tell it like it is. Thank you and best of luck.
Very interesting... I often wonder just how many stories we read in mainstream media are just "leveraged" from some Average Joe's blog a journalist happened to read... eerily similar, though.
I'm still trying to wrap myself around these Bitcoin forks and how the way they seem to create value basically "out of thin air" is really much different from governments printing fiat at will. I could understand there being a fork, and people having to choose A or B... but getting a full load of both? That's borderline shady... at least to me. What am I missing?
And you aren't missing anything. It is money printing. Just under a different name. A way for bitcoin holders to enrich themselves even fast that the price appreciation alone. Greed always kills in the end though...
I would imagine a lot of them are... Though when people are reporting news it is often pretty similar, no matter what source it comes from. Just with their own unique spin on it. :)
This proverbial expression dates from the early 19th century, although versions of it that paraphrased the same thought existed well before then.
The first of these alternate versions is found in a biography of Marcus Aurelius by Jeremy Collier and André Dacier, titled Emperor Marcus Antoninus his conversation with himself, 1708:
You should consider that Imitation is the most acceptable part of Worship, and that the Gods had much rather Mankind should Resemble, than Flatter them.
A nearer stab at the current version comes in a piece by the English writer Eustace Budgell in the newspaper The Spectator No. 605, October 1714:
Imitation is a kind of artless Flattery.
The full monty as far as this proverb is concerned was given by Charles Caleb Colton, in Lacon: or, Many things in few words, 1820:
Imitation is the sincerest of flattery.
Colton was expressing the same idea as Budgell, in that, to imitate is to flatter without necessarily being aware one is flattering. As such, that 'artless' appreciation has to be 'sincere'.
Yes ICOs now a days a like anything, u can get a new ICO launch almost everyday, and when u look for their details one hardly get enough details about them. So it's important to investors to do their proper homework to avoid loss of money and time that they invested.
I joined steem yesterday and did my intro post few hours back, if u have enough free time plz have a look there, any suggestions are appreciated ☺
A journal and your topic name are just same.. Feeling proud to be on steeming. Really some brilliant fellow stays here. Proud to follow you brother. keep steem & motive us. Thank you.... love from my heart
you are really nice with a great power of prediction thank you for posting this post I am started following you and I just uploaded my steemit experience can you please have a look at it
@jrcornel
The thing with the ICO's really bugs me out as well. Everyday I see a new coin that "Will revolutionize this or that".
And people jump like crazy on them because of FOMO( fear of missing out).
Can we call ICO crazy a bubble? Or something similar with Tulip Madness?
I like ur post vesy much brother....