One of things going on in the (very far) background is the fact that I continue to using Brave as my main browser (sadly, Blogger no longer works well with Brave and - begrudgingly - I use Google there). And one of the "selling points", as you might recall, is that as part of that service, you earn cryptocurrency ("BAT") on a monthly basis as you view add notifications.
I had performed a cryptocurrency experiment that older readers may recall (Reflection, End) and at one point used some of my BAT to procure a $25 gift card for The Mother Of All Shopping Sites. And even I had "liquidated" my general holdings, I still continued to earn my BAT every month - and every month, I get a notification of earnings.
At the time I exercised that purchase, BAT was about $1.00 a token. It now sits at $0.07. What would have been well over $150 in value 5 years ago is now barely $12.
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If you do a quick search on Cryptocurrency, you find varying assessments on how it has performed.
For example, apparently Bitcoin (even I have heard of Bitcoin) is still a major contender, with around 50% of the total Cryptocurrency market. Certain assets - Solana, XRP - have done better than Bitcoin as an investment. The peak of cryptocurrency ownership was 2022 (33% of the U.S. Population), with 2026 showing 30% participation (I guess I am one of that "30%).
I also tend to observe how an industry is doing by its layoff pattern - and here, cryptocurrency suggests it is an industry in transition. My regular daily scan at Dailyjobcuts.com shows the same patterns as many other tech companies: layoffs and consolidations, with the notes of "greater efficiencies and use of Artificial Intelligence" being used as reasons for the changes.
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If there is a lesson here for me, it is that - once again - value is truly in the eye of the beholder, and all the wishing for things to be worth more does not make it so. Value is defined as what it is worth to the buyer, be it cryptocurrency or comic books or silver coins.)
(As a note, silver in the same time frame sold at $22.39 an ounce now currently "sells" at $63.58 - but that is the spot price; a seller will not get that.)
I do not intend to change anything I am doing in this regard of course: I continue to use Brave, the "accumulation" (a very large word for a very small amount per month; last month I earned $0.03) does me no harm, and who knows - maybe sometime I will still hit it big.
But it is occasionally a good reminder to me that sometimes, financially speaking, I get it right.
"Value is truly in the eye of the beholder." Exactly! I've argued with people who assert that things always hold their value, but if someone will only pay $100 for an object supposedly worth $1000, all the waiting in the world won't guarantee anyone will ever be willing to pay that $1000 for it again.
ReplyDeleteGoogle products only want to work with the google web browser. I struggled with that for years and use just use chromium for anything google. I used to use Brave, until I started having email problems with it. I also became frustrated with partitioned cookies. These are framed as being of great benefit to the user, but as someone who periodically likes to clear out cookie clutter, I discovered that these reinstall themselves after being deleted. Call me silly, but I don't think persistent data collecting is desirable. Interestingly, partitioned cookies is only a feature of chromium based browsers, of which Brave is one. So goodbye Brave.
Leigh, one of the lessons that was drilled into my head in my brief career in real estate is that things are worthy what someone will pay for them, not what you think they are worth. And yet, people struggle with this concept all the time.
DeleteI have had to adopt Google out of a need to continue to use Blogger; Brave will not work with it. That said, I still try to limit my use of Google to Blogger and particular programs (like my online learning) where Google just works "better"; for the rest I continue to use Brave.
Such sums TB and once again AI is lurking ever present. Don't spend it all in one spot sir! :)
ReplyDeleteNylon12, I am not smart enough to predict cryptocurrency and barely do stocks. I am a lazy investors and if my past is any indication, I cannot predict the market. Funds for me it is.
DeleteAlthough I don't have any crypto holdings, being an S&P 500 Index fund investor, I do own some crypo based companies.
ReplyDeleteSince 80% of all actively managed fund managers fail to match the S&P 500 in any given year and of those few that do beat it, 80% of those will fail to beat it over any five year interval, I have never been tempted to hold anything individual. I just "own it all" so to speak and it has served me very very well over the years.
Ed - I am very much like you now in this regard. The only individual stocks I own anymore are shares for company stock grants.
DeleteMy financial person has done very well for us, far better than I could have done on my own.