The next time I see Matt Damon, Larry David, and LeBron James instructing them to invest in cryptocurrencies or non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to “lucky favor the brave”, Please keep that in mind. The original NFT was a tulip, not a token.
Imagine yourself in Amsterdam in the 1630s. No bike cares along the canal and scares tourists like you. There is no marijuana smoke floating on the pedestrian bridge or no junkie lying on the street corner. Fascinating houseboats moored along the canal, recessed storefronts, town houses, and almost everywhere you see, people are exchanging tulips and tulip bulbs for merchandise in the form of currency. Since its arrival in the 1560s, tulips have settled in Dutch life, and Rembrandt, the greatest artist of the time, painted a viral equivalent to his wife’s paintings in the 17th century. Since then, it has been known as Rembrandt Tulip.
But tulip bulbs, do you ask? As a currency?
Of course you are informed, why? In fact, there is no such thing as identifiable intrinsic value. Things are worth the collective comfort we pay for. By the 1630s, speculation about the value of tulip bulbs had moved from rich entertainment to mainstream for-profit companies.
As Charles Mackay explains it in “Unusually Popular Delusions and Crowd Madness,” his 1844 classic “at first, like all these gambling enthusiasts, is the most confident. The high tide was reached and everyone got it. ” Demand for weird commodities was supported by scammers and advertisers who “guessed the rise and fall of tulip stocks, bought when prices went down, and made big profits by selling out when prices went up.” .. Tulip desks have been set up on the trading floors of the Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Leiden stock exchanges.
The whole society has taken food. “Aristocrats, citizens, peasants, mechanics, sailors, footmen, maids, even chimney sweeps … turned their property into cash and invested in flowers.”
When the fever peaked, someone gave “4,600 Florin, a new carriage, two gray horses, and a complete suit of harnesses” to one Semper Augustus tulip bulb (NFT, or non-substitutable tulip in slang at the time). Another NFT single bulb, a secondary tulip, can be exchanged for 4 fat cows, 8 fat pigs, 12 fat sheep, or 1,000 pounds of cheese. After all, what is it? Was it important? They were worth anything that could convince people to pay.
The exception is, well, it’s not. Eventually, when tulip capitalization penetrated the mainstream Dutch economy, McKay said, “I found that someone eventually needed to lose horribly.” They may not have been substitutable, but after all, they were still just tulips.
“A few months ago, hundreds of people who began to suspect that there was something like poverty in their land suddenly noticed some bulb owners that no one would buy … themselves. A few people who devised to enrich their wealth hid their wealth from the knowledge of their followers and invested it in English or other funds … ”
Fortunately, we have recently been constantly reminding us to “support brave people” in the marketing blitz of cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens. Matt Damon likens investing in cryptocurrencies to the risk-taking of the world’s greatest explorers, mountain scalers, and travelers to space. Larry David is disguised as an ignorant person who is not interested in telegraph, lamps and computers and doubts the feasibility of cryptocurrencies. LeBron James advises his young self to be brave in going to the NBA and likens that decision to investing in cryptocurrencies.
Good luck may sometimes prefer brave people. But it’s more often reckless and cruel. Think of George Custer as ordering to prosecute the invisible Sioux. Fateful Boys People sending children to the Crusades. Napoleon or Hitler invades Russia, or Russia’s current criminal misfortune in Ukraine.
Think of Bernie Madoff, Enron, or DeLorean investors. Indeed, all the brave people. And they are also broken.
None of the ads soaked in crypto celebrities try to explain what they are and why they are worth it. I don’t think that’s the reason. Try: Go to the internet and ask what you are buying when spending money on cryptocurrencies or NFTs. What do you get for your money? Get the percentage of non-fangible and anonymously recorded “coins” in blockchain registers that can enable transactions more quickly. truly?
The best answer you get is what Mark Cuban gave about buying Dogecoin for his son. it’s not. You essentially want this relentless marketing to convince others to buy, thereby increasing the “value” of the anonymous fraction of the abstract ledger entry.
I am convinced that there is a value proposition in encoding transactions in the blockchain ledger. This value is dangerously exaggerated, completely dependent on social media push marketing, subject to untraceable manipulation, and we, like Dot.com and the subprime mortgage bubble. If you don’t, I think it’s big enough to put your economic system at risk, don’t be careful.
Tulips also had a valid value proposition. It appears when speculation disappears and continues to this day. You can purchase the 7 Rembrandt Light Bulb Package from HollandBulb Farms. They charge a whopping $ 3.99.
John Farmer Jr. is the director of the Eagleton Institute of Political Science at Rutgers University. He is a former Assistant US Attorney, Advisor to the Governor of New Jersey, Secretary of Justice of New Jersey, Senior Advisor to the 9/11 Commission, Dean of the Rutgers Law School, and Vice President and Legal Advisor to Rutgers University.
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