I read a very interesting post today and although I Resteemed it, it’s rather long and I think you need some motivation to tackle it.

The post starts off discussing the apparent unequal distribution of wealth in the world, which is a familiar tune to people involved in cryptocurrency, but the post slowly and methodically introduces interesting ideas about banks, fractional reserves, fiat manipulation and ideas about who really has control over your currency and thus to a great extent your financial freedom, which is essentially your personal freedom because when your financially dependent on someone you aren’t free, you are actually the opposite of free. 🤔->😕

Anyway, this article then goes on to discus how even the rich may not have liquid assets and they are still restricted by banks and limitations of the fiat system.

As I got to the end of the article I began to realize it was helping me organize thoughts my brain had been collecting from various articles I had been reading over the last nine months after I first became interested in cryptocurrency.

I came into cryptocurrency to make money, but my true “aha” moment came when I realized the purpose of cryptocurrency was to replace money. 🤔💡😊

We are all paid in a currency, no matter where we live and no matter what form of government we live under and we trade that currency for food, housing and goods.

The problem is that fiat currency’s value is constantly being eroded by inflation, which makes the price of everything go up every year, so we need an increase in pay every year just to be able to buy the same amount of food, clothing and housing. But if we don’t get raises we have to work longer hours just to be able to buy the same amount of food, clothing and housing as last year. Every year we spend more time working, less time time living and we have very little time to figure out how to get out of this cycle.

The solution we are told is to invest in assets.
Things whose value isn’t eroded by inflation.
The idea is to invest 100 of today’s dollars in an asset that will be worth 110 of next years dollars.
So we can buy the same amount of stuff next year for 110 dollars, that 100 dollars buys today. If your lucky the assets gain a lot of value and produce income that helps replace income earned by labor. This gives you back time to actually live and enjoy life. Those type of investments can make you more successful financially. Financial success can bring freedom.

It sounds simple, buy assets. But it’s not simple.
What assets do you buy?
Assets like real estate, gold and diamonds are the traditional things we think of when we discus assets.
How do you buy?
The process of buying real estate is very complicated in most places and requires a lot of money.
What if the fees the banks, government or asset merchants charge you reduce the size of your investment to 80 dollars. And next year your asset is only worth 88 dollars? Now instead of 100 dollars of last years money you have 88 dollars and can’t even buy as much with your asset as the currency which you used to buy it.

Plus the amount of time you have to hold those types of assets for them to increase in value is frequently to long for people to wait when they need their money to feed, clothe and house their family.

The problem is that these assets are one solution to the main problem of currency, it loses its value quickly over time, while traditional assets are good stores of value they gain value slowly and they are not “liquid” it’s takes a long time to get the money you invested in real estate back out to buy every day things like food, water and pay rent.

That’s why people tend to keep their money as currency because it’s liquid. But the problem with currency constantly losing its value remain and there are other issues with banks and government rules about when you can get your money, how much you can get and other limits on your access to your money and what you can do with your money.

Now consider, if there was a something which retained its value like an asset, which was liquid like currency and which you had better control over it then banks give you over your own money. That would help solve the issues working people have every day. What if this something has a chance to not only keep up with inflation , but potentially produce income to replace what you earn from labor. This would give you more free time to enjoy life. Freedom. That something is called cryptocurrency.

Let’s pause for a moment and think. We are in a bear market right now, so cryptocurrency isn’t the first thing people think of when they think of something which increases in value.

But consider that the people who paid 25 cents for Bitcoin 3 years ago still think of Bitcoin as a good store of value. And Bitcoin is liquid. You can exchange a little for dollars today and buy food, water and pay your rent.

Consider, that the people who bought Steem for pennies still think of it as a good store of value at 28 cents. Consider the meme below:

I think we should all study cryptocurrency and figure out the safest way to exchange our fiat currency for cryptocurrency to protect our buying power in an asset which acts as a store of value. Something we have more control over then currency we save in banks. And something more liquid then traditional assets like real estate, so we can easily exchange it for currency when we need currency for goods and services.

Bitcoins expensive right now and the fees are pretty high. But there are other established cryptocurrencies out there for your consideration including the rare ones like Steemit where you can earn the cryptocurrency, doing what you may already be doing for free on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

That’s why I stay in cryptocurrency now.
That’s why most of my disposable income isn’t in fast cars, nice clothes and expensive designer products. It’s in cryptocurrency.

Cryptocurrency is what freedom looks like and I want to be free.

🚂 Steem On 💪

@shortsegments

The Post

https://steemit.com/steem/@tarazkp/thoughts-on-the-most-steem-control-and-economic-protection#@shortsegments/re-tarazkp-thoughts-on-the-most-steem-control-and-economic-protection-20190113t174511875z