Boring First

This is a guest post by crypto writer and researcher @TheHeathen22. Despite not knowing his name, I respect the hell out of his hustle. Enjoy.

When you envision the future of crypto, what do you see?

Some of you probably envision living in a metaverse a la Ready Player One.

Others foresee a world in which crypto has overthrown and replaced fiat currencies.

Some others see a world in which NFTs, wallets, and Soulbound Tokens have revolutionized how we identify ourselves online.

Many really couldn’t care less, and are just here to make as much money as they can — and there’s nothing wrong with that!

Some, none, or all of these could become true one day. But before we get to the spicy stuff, we need to go through the boring stuff first.

It’s the ‘boring’ things that will drive us to new heights.

Rome Wasn’t Built In a Day…

Most of us know the saying “Rome wasn’t built in a day”. Like most aphorisms, it makes sense and has a hint of truth, but ultimately it doesn’t really make us think about our lives. Rome took a while to build. Who cares?

Well, the saying is a lot more profound when you add in the forgotten second half: “but they were laying bricks every hour”.

Now, there is something to learn from the saying. A city like Rome doesn’t just pop up from a burst of sudden inspiration or short bursts of work.

Instead, it was the product of centuries of steady building. One brick became two, which became four, and on and on it went until the city that ruled the classical world was fully developed.

To build something great, you have to continuously punch the clock.

Laying Crypto Bricks

Crypto’s thinkers are some of the smartest and most ambitious people in the world today — many have grand visions of a better future powered by crypto, and are willing to put in the work to get there.

I too harbor these dreams, and fully believe that crypto is a revolution that will change the world for the better. But, the good vibes and ridiculously easy money from the last two years caused many in the space to think the revolution is already nearing victory.

Massive metaverse land sales. 1000% APR yield farms. Celebrity NFT projects. The Crypto Bowl. Nation-states adopting Bitcoin. Facebook becoming Meta.

Things were happening, and happening fast.

But if this bear market has made anything clear to me, it is that we are still a ways off from reaching our full potential.

This can be seen as a negative, as a lot of us have lost a good bit of money, and vibes are pretty bad around crypto Twitter at the moment.

But this bear market can also be seen as a positive. A chance to refocus us toward the ultimate goal. A chance for us to hunker down and lay some bricks.

It’s easy for us to get lost in the sexy things. It’s only human nature. But, it’s laying bricks in the ‘boring’ areas that will get us to the next level.

Easy lending and borrowing. Fiat on-ramps. Safe wallets. Sustainable yield. These aren’t the sexy things, but they are the things that will attract people to join web3.

A safe and sustainable 10% yield doesn’t sound all that interesting to us crypto degens, but it sounds extremely appealing to someone in a developing country whose money is constantly being diluted. The same for crypto borrowing.

This is how we attract the general populace and the skeptics.

Boring First

Only after building this foundational layer of ‘boring’ stuff can we begin to think about graduating to the sexy stuff.

We needed to master simple texting and calling before we could have Facetime and Clash Royale. There’d be no Avengers or Avatar without black & white movies.

Before we start fantasizing about changing finance and starting a revolution, let’s just focus on not losing millions of dollars to hacks every week.

This is the stuff that will really make a difference in the long haul.

It’s boring now, but pays off later.