Finding a new community in crypto can be a really fun experience, and arguably one of the best parts about it, besides the making money part of course. You finished doing hours of research on a new project you found, as you should, and you decide to join the discord or telegram to chat with some community members. After being around a while, screen names start getting familiar, and you start to feel like part of the group.

I had this experience with a wonderful community that really helped grow my YouTube channel and Twitter. After making a decent amount of content about blockchain and related projects, I found myself with a small but respectable following from this community. Pretty much everyone was polite during livestreams, and comments on videos and Twitter were always civil. I grew to really appreciate and love this community overtime, which showed me how crypto really brings people together, unlike any other asset class. This was all great until I decided it was time to take a look at some other rival technologies. Of course, your favorite project may seem like everything is flawless, and the team has it all figured out. Nothing can out do this right?

Tech never stops moving

Well, the thing about tech is, it moves very fast, and especially in crypto. Look how many projects were around in 2018 that are completely dead because they couldn’t keep up. Specifically with blockchain, there are different levels of blockchain.

You have level 1 blockchains, the main example being Bitcoin, where the blockchain is a simple decentralized ledger for transactions. Everyone’s favorite Dogecoin is another example.

Level 2 is more sophisticated blockchains with more capabilities enabled by the use of smart contracts. Ethereum introduced smart contracts, which led to tons of new things like DAOs, DeFi and NFTs. I would also consider blockchains like Solana, Avalanche, and BNB in this group. They have much more utility and use cases than blockchain 1.0, but they all fall short in one aspect. Either there are security issues causing millions of dollars to get exploited and stolen, or scalability issues rising gas fees to a point where the usability of the blockchain drops dramatically for the users because of costs. Most of them also claiming to be decentralized, which they’re not, but that’s another conversation for a different day. This is because of the issue known as the Trilemma.

This is the concept of blockchain consisting of 3 main aspects:

— Decentralization

— Security

— Scalability

Years ago when I looked into the Trilemma, it was spoken of as something that hasn’t been figured out. It would be said that you can only pick 2, having all three would be the ultimate blockchain. Well, fast forward to today and you hear a much different tone.

This is because the new era of level 3 blockchains, have solved the Trilemma.

There are a handful of blockchains currently that are claiming to have figured out how to have all three of these key components. My personal favorite being Kadena. Now before you say, “great, he’s going to shill me this shit”, just hear me out because it will be relevant. Kadena uses not just one single chain, but 20 chains that are braided together to create a “chainweb”. These 20 chains can also be sharded into an “infinite” amount of chains to negate any potential of congestion that might cause high gas fees, solving the issue of scalability. They also use the tried and tested Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism to achieve decentralization and security of the network. For security, it also has its own smart contract language, Pact, which has a special feature called “formal verification” that actually checks and verifies the code to help catch any bugs that could lead to millions in losses. Now with all of that you might say, “well sounds like they got it all figured out”, which is exactly what I said. So I decided to enter the community referred to in the beginning. Obviously, as believers in the tech, they think this as well. This is what led me into what I will refer to as a “crypto purgatory”.

The effects of crypto tribalism

I entered this crypto purgatory when I found myself selling everything. Every other project I owned seemed to pale in comparison to Kadena because the more research I would do, the more I wanted to buy. The more founder interviews I watched, the more I fell into that conviction. So I purged everything and put the money into KDA. With only interacting in this community, I noticed I had no interest in looking into other projects at all. What was the point when nothing was going to outshine Kadena? It was very easy to make fun of other slow and outdated blockchains when you think yours is the best. Plus, why would I want my money invested in anything but the best?

I wasn’t conscious I was doing this until I decided one day to dig into some other 3.0 blockchains. It dawned on me. If Kadena had such amazing tech, there has to be other talented teams of developers striving to create the next best blockchain as well. After a lot of looking, I came across a project called Kaspa. I’ll save you the detailed of what it does, but it’s an impressive project in my opinion, so check it out. Once I really got involved in it, it reminded me of how I felt first, looking into Kadena. This was exciting, so I decided to make some video content covering the project. Now, because I already assumed there would be some uncertainty from my Kadena crowd, but I figured explaining that it’s completely okay to research and get involved with other competing technologies would do the trick in convincing them. After all, the main purpose of all of this is making money through investing in promising tech you believe in.

Some seen the parallels in the two blockchains and started talking about it, which led to comparisons, which led to competition. There was arguing over which is superior with some civil, constructive discussions, but most led to straight up shit talking. Seeing some of the community not only internally fight with each other just because someone was holding coins of another blockchain, but also to harass community members of the other blockchain, was very disappointing to me. Now I want to be very clear this is not a representation of the whole Kadena community, only some individuals. I also want to make it clear this isn’t an attack on any project or community, as that would be pretty hypocritical. Nevertheless, it was enough to concern me and inspire this article. This tribalistic “Us vs Them” mentality is something that plagues most of the crypto space unfortunately.

It’s easy to find yourself forgetting about the money aspect because you’re so deeply emotionally invested in it. This will cause you to make biased decisions and overlook potential issues in the protocol. Ive had first hand experience of doing this, and it’s really hard to notice if you aren’t somewhat self aware. Suddenly every bad thing someone says about it is instantly written off as FUD. This is where you run into the potential of seriously losing money because when you’re in this phase, most people will go down with the ship instead of admitting they were wrong and just taking a smaller loss.

Missing out on amazing opportunities

The biggest issue comes down to having tunnel vision when researching projects. There are a ton of benefits to researching with an open mind, because you never know what you might come across in the wild world of crypto. There are many new projects popping up every day that have great qualified teams building groundbreaking technology. Some are blue chips hidden in a sea of scams and abandoned projects. Projects that buying now and holding long term (5–10+ years), could generate you massive wealth. You could miss this because you feel so committed to the tribe and wouldn’t want to “betray” them. This is a mindset that WILL FAIL.

Everyone has their reasons for getting involved in the crypto space. That might be for sovereign finances, trading, NFT collecting, or just simply to make money. I would put my bet on most people are here to make money. One of the best ways to make money is to not only invest, but diversify. Having “all your eggs in one basket” is truly not a good idea when it comes to higher risk assets.

In my specific case, I research and invest in layer 1 blockchains, and more specifically, current level 3 blockchains as I was discussing earlier. Many of the issues projects are trying to solve now are open-ended questions, meaning there’s more than one right answer. This can go for NFT projects, DeFi projects, and roll-ups. Our current use of NFTs is very basic, but through innovation and creativity, who knows what they might do in the future? Development teams are constantly innovating in these spaces, so the tech is always moving forward. This is where staying up to date with these new evolving projects will maximize your opportunities for finding those blue chips.

What is the solution?

This is a problem that requires everyone to do their part as a individual for the good of the macro crypto community. I also think interoperability between blockchains would help this, but thats a topic for another article..

My advice is, it’s perfectly fine to find a project with a community you love and get involved. That’s one of the best things about crypto. It might help though, to keep a lookout in your behavior for tribalistic traits. When you start to notice that you think the project you like is the best and only option, that’s a red flag. If you feel a need to constantly talk negatively about a rival project to validate your opinions, take a step back.

These are the exact things that will not only create a toxic environment in the crypto space for everyone, but ultimately stop you from you finding those hidden gems that could change your life.

Sources

https://www.theatlantic.com/membership/archive/2018/10/trouble-tribalism/573307/

https://www.coindesk.com/layer2/2022/09/08/its-time-to-end-maximalism-in-crypto/

https://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-tribalism-and-cultism/#:~:text=The%20key%20difference%20between%20tribalism,are%20individualistic%2C%20secret%20or%20mystical

https://originstamp.com/blog/blockchain-1-vs-2-vs-3-whats-the-difference/

https://www.ledger.com/academy/what-is-the-blockchain-trilemma