Reflections for a newcomer

The crypto life was a lot simpler when I bought my first XRP.  Back then in August of 2019,  Bitcoin was burning as much energy as the whole country of Ireland.  Ethereum was at the first stages of gathering momentum, A few thousand altcoin projects had launched with ICO’s and already attracted regulatory wrath. 

With my naive understanding I had been staying far from crypto. Until one day my good friend Don told me of a crypto token reducing cross border settlement time from many days to literally a few seconds – at a cost of less than a penny per transaction.

If you’re a newcomer, stop here for a moment – this is the promise of crypto – massive leaps forward for existing technology, efficiency, infrastructure – as well as – transformative innovation into yet unimagined new applications. On that day Don told me about XRP – I caught the vision and the possibility.

But…with time, I also became aware of the many barriers – technological challenges, corporate roadblocks, developer greed and outright scams, institutional inertia, governmental ineffectiveness, regulatory agency malfeasance, and the general caution of culture adopting new paradigms.

I used to talk about crypto with friends.  I no longer discuss crypto with new people.. To be honest, for the reasons stated above, I feel it’s become too messy to talk about in an introductory manner. The promise has grown, but also the risks and the complexity have compounded. Yet for those who do enter the conversation, the world of crypto becomes more and more fascinating: Payments, Smart Contracts, DeFi, Interoperability, SideChains, NFT’s, Flare, Metaverse, FutureVerse, NSA’s, politics, regulations, global implications, personal strategies, bears, and bulls.

I think it can be said we will act according to what we trust.  I understand that for very good reasons this field of crypto can be easy to mistrust. But also for very good reasons, this field can capture both our imagination and our faith.  For me, right or wrong, I trust the crypto future, and it has captured my imagination. To conclude, a bit of token talk, and a small sharing of my perspective.

The token Don told me about was XRP.  The major company building on it was Ripple.  Their partners were Amazon, Bank of America, and hundreds of others.  All of this you can learn if you dive in. Mickey B. Fresh helped me learn a lot of these things, as did other YouTube content providers.

I bought my first XRP in 2019 and I’ve really never looked back. The crypto field can be intoxicating, and perhaps for that reason I’ve tried to stay very sober, to the degree that XRP, for the longest time, was the only token I ever purchased. To date, my confidence has only grown in the utility of the XRP ledger, the breadth and depth of partnerships, and the integrity and vision of the Ripple Corporation that is building out use cases for XRP.

And then, to even a sober cautious soul like myself, came a surprise, the Flare Network.  As an XRP holder, I have already received Songbird tokens for Flare’s Canary Network. Soon I will receive Flare tokens as well.. I have grown to feel a similar confidence in the Flare Network; the utility of their project, the breadth of their partnerships, and the integrity and vision of their leadership.

With my self-limiting perspective, I know I’ve missed both enormous opportunities and also huge pitfalls.  Still, even with these constraints, I feel I’ve landed in a whole new, and very exciting place that is destined to reshape the world we live in.   I plan to keep my attention focused on the XRP Ledger and the Flare Network. It is enough for me, probably for a long long time.. What’s being developed on these two foundations will be more than I can keep up with.

If you’re reading this, you’re likely on the website of Mickey B. Fresh. I was fortunate to help Mickey a bit as he started his YouTube channel and Patreon. Mickey and his community remain my core source of information and perspective for journeying forward with the XRP Ledger and the Flare Network.  The quality of information is excellent.  The confidence I gain from being in this conversation is invaluable.

Whether you’re a newcomer to crypto – or whether you’ve already been on the rollercoaster for many spins,

with gratitude for the journey,

and good wishes, Lars Clausen