The Blockchain Needs Real-World Connections

The recent crash reinforced what many of us already know:

Nobody can predict what’s going to happen in crypto. Not a single influencer or analyst saw this coming.

Though, it is possible that the Simpsons saw it coming. The majority of price predictions fail, and the ones who get it right were likely very lucky.

It reminds me of a certain game. Players would flip a coin and call heads or tails. In the end, between 100 contestants, there would be one winner who guessed right every time. This outcome was inevitable. Someone was bound to win. Someone was guaranteed to reach the end. And yet, the winner made all sorts of claims about intuition and statistics.

Similarly, many influencers have hundreds of coins, and their hundreds of predictions and analyses of why they were right can be compared to this game.

Others who guessed correctly may have gotten their clues from traditional markets. The traditional market analysis doesn’t work on such a nascent industry, but the traditional markets do have an impact on crypto. When the world feared the Evergrande would default, institutional investors, liquified their assets — including their crypto.

Sadly, crypto is currently just another asset for large funds to diversify their portfolios. There is a ton of innovation, utility, and progress that we can thank blockchain applications for. Many lives have improved, and many more improved lives are on the horizon. But an uncomfortably large chunk of our industry is yet another tool for the rich.

That is primarily because the entire value of each coin is based on how many people buy the coin. They’re assets. And there’s nothing wrong with a strong asset. Every investor, in fact, every human, should own appreciating assets to enjoy the benefits of economic growth. But if crypto can’t become something more than this, the market will always be tied to the ups and downs of hype, social sentiment, and FUD.

Most blockchain projects address some problems in blockchain or help create a strong infrastructure within our industry. And now, many of those roles are filled. Wallets, oracles, exchanges, and other similar protocols are all incredible and work very well. But what we need now is to pump real-world value into the ecosystem to add fuel to this fire.

A project like SHOPX is a funnel that can divert value and growth away from the traditional markets and into cryptocurrency. For example, Chainlink is an amazing project, but it only thrives when crypto is thriving. The Link Army is particularly hurting right now.

On the other hand, people will always be buying and selling physical goods. Especially during the holidays. When everyone sells their crypto for cash to buy presents for their families, our token price may not dip much at all. It may rise in investor anticipation of a large buying spree.

As the economy grows, SHOPX will grow. As crypto grows, SHOPX will grow.

My goal in writing this is not just to promote SHOPX, but to help bring awareness to this concept. SHOPX may have a long way to go before we set an example. Hopefully, the community will come to this realization before then. But one day, we will demonstrate the power of real-world utility and inspire more unique use cases that drive profits away from the greedy so that WAGMI.