Visa and Mastercard were applying this pressure in turn in response to special interests group Collective Shout asking them to do so. Therefore it was not the payment processors who wanted Steam content censored but they merely played the centralized intermediaries being leveraged as common middlemen to transactions on Steam. Steam could not afford to lose Visa and Mastercard payment processing and therefore complied with the demand for games to be dropped from their catalog.

This is a major concern that markets can be manipulated by applying social or political pressure against monopolies to enforce a specific groups’ desires. Not upholding a specific law but simply bowing to the demands of a vociferous minority. It remains to be seen whether this move will be reversed based on outcry from the gaming community, but that it was done at all paints a bleak picture for the future of free speech in the USA and anywhere else where it’s embraced if this kind of pressure from people who aren’t even direct stakeholders in a market can bend it to their will.

Crypto is a decentralized form of monetary exchange. No one entity can prohibit or promote its use in specific ways. If Valve already accepted crypto payments and the vast majority of Steam customers used that payment method, there would be no issue as nobody could pressure the likes of Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDC, or other widely used cryptos into pressuring Steam to do anything special for them.

Similar issues are seen with banking restrictions on funds being exchanged between certain countries. For example, in the US banking system there are several countries designated too risky to allow the exchange of funds to them, due to a higher presence of terrorist or other politically undesirable forces in those places. But imagine someone in the US trying to send funds to a family member in that place to help them escape, trying to directly support a local resistance group fighting against a dominant force of ill, or funding alternative media in that country to spread a counter to the local propaganda. Such causes are only a small fraction of good uses for monetary exchange and yet they are blocked by blanket restrictions made possible through centralization. Crypto does not suffer from such restrictions.

Banks can even slow down or stop normal domestic fund transfers that they deem unusual or suspicious based purely on account usage patterns of the individual. Whether higher amounts or higher frequencies than usual, these transactions are routinely flagged by risk assessment algorithms and put through manual review before being allowed. Such measures are not seen in the crypto space, as all transactions are cleared as promptly as possible without any arbitrary treatment of them. Sometimes there may be practical limitations of minimum or maximum supported amounts by certain platforms supporting crypto, but these are much broader than those seen in the traditional banking system.

So it’s not something that would happen overnight, but if more and more people embrace the use of crypto in their everyday life, we can move towards a society of more freedom of exchange, bypassing censorship, borders, and other constructs of control.

If you’d like to support me with donations you can do so through any of the following addresses:

ETH (Ethereum)

0xd648037E2ff2A2C83A3fe798a77b44AC49C02496

ATOM (Cosmos)

cosmos1y7hh4q7awe85ktgnqkkdsf4vm2k97feqhvtyq8

INJ (Injective)

inj16eyqxl30723vsw3lu7v2w76y43yuqfykqnlv2c

SOL (Solana)

D6Ni3o98XKnwyrNvWUMZePYJwTBbfehBNzK7DNNxsKYV

KAVA (Kava)

kava1fxa5p60qkuppzta37t4g9d5pqg74vr06h3vqf0

XTZ (Tezos)

tz1ZWmVNvMkgbL9ANxYhY2MZqS45cxiE47b6

ADA (Cardano)

addr1q84wg3ecqmuky8tvjjjh8s9mvckqswuyqnjrfsl777lj38h2u3rnsphevgwke999w0qtke3vpqacgp8yxnplaaal9z0qxdlw8a

MATIC (Polygon)

0xd648037E2ff2A2C83A3fe798a77b44AC49C02496

BTC (Bitcoin)

bc1qyrrv7s9hqt06f5sd0c0rlym3a7t9cq53cfzkq7

XRP (XRP)

rpQAh2Adot6bKrAX5a3VJisXBswwWtb9K9

BNB (BNB)

0xd648037E2ff2A2C83A3fe798a77b44AC49C02496

TRX (Tron)

TLu4pimQCcwgRDbBCsai2wdxFPYahx9Zvq

DOGE (Dogecoin)

D8HtTRLTBxmVxuHAgY7zEgQGvSDsz6eoEE

AVAX (Avalanche)

0xd648037E2ff2A2C83A3fe798a77b44AC49C02496

DOT (Polkadot)

16XyGQ4PZaU2LfXakEPF8xV12bxhtQTJdmRcjUY2gs68XYtM

LTC (Litecoin)

LX4B8Yah5BGnEum8vUDVB7iMytnncVkGT1

PEPE (Pepe)

0xd648037E2ff2A2C83A3fe798a77b44AC49C02496

AXL (Axelar)

axelar1y7hh4q7awe85ktgnqkkdsf4vm2k97feqnzavtx

LINK (Chainlink)

0xd648037E2ff2A2C83A3fe798a77b44AC49C02496

XLM (Stellar)

GCYGZUYRMZFXZ6NR4QQHB73VXSQLLOPIFN2JMEZ7FDJ247SHUGHDUCZE

SHIB (Shiba Inu)

0xd648037E2ff2A2C83A3fe798a77b44AC49C02496

BCH (Bitcoin Cash)

qpraqn435v3tx28mrr2lfe6kzn9wge9nfvnzgqdvp2

UNI (Uniswap)

0xd648037E2ff2A2C83A3fe798a77b44AC49C02496

AAVE (Aave)

0xd648037E2ff2A2C83A3fe798a77b44AC49C02496

ETC (Ethereum Classic)

0xDa62a8b38D1E2097452Ac55c306FD383006d06D2

QNT (Quant)

0xd648037E2ff2A2C83A3fe798a77b44AC49C02496

BONK (Bonk)

D6Ni3o98XKnwyrNvWUMZePYJwTBbfehBNzK7DNNxsKYV

When I was a kid, I often used physical money, bills and coins. I used to sort them by denominations, using them as a basis for understanding simple concepts of math. Then my parents got me a passbook savings account, in which I now could have money stored in a local bank account with paper records of my transactions and balances. Years later, after smartphones went mainstream, banks became primarily online, and while some big banks retain physical branches there are many banks or bank-like financial apps which lack any physical presence. Today I hardly ever carry or use cash, relying mostly on electronic funds transfers between bank accounts or through credit and debit cards.

Banks are a centralized implementation of financial infrastructure. This centralization lends itself to systems of control, vulnerabilities to hackers, and concentration of wealth and power in a relatively small number of corporations built solely around the business not merely of holding deposits but leveraging those deposits as collateral for issuing loans and betting on market derivatives. Such leveraging led to the housing bubble crisis of 2008 which sparked the Great Recession, and not much has changed since then.

Crypto came into the world with the launch of Bitcoin that same year. Bitcoin was decidedly different from the fiat currency systems around the world in that crypto is decentralized, using a distributed ledger shared across all nodes rather than managed by a central authority. Complex, math-driven processes of reaching consensus are used to validate transactions and issue more coins. Opening a crypto wallet, particular those which are self custody only, is quite easy and relies on no process of permission or establishment of identity. The vision was that people could start to transact Bitcoin in a fairly anonymous fashion much like how physical cash in anonymous, except Bitcoin could be transmitted between wallets across the internet throughout the world. Bypassing the traditional financial system often results in faster speeds and lower fees for transferring funds.

Then there’s another technology coming into attention in many governments around the world called CBDC - central bank digital currency. How it’s transacted is rather similar to crypto, but how it’s set up is totally different. Each CBDC relies on a digital ID, and often biometrics such as one’s hand print, iris scan, or face are used as the authentication, far from anonymous. Paired with governments’ direct visibility into all transactions under such a system, and tying this to other activities of the individual allows them unprecedented ability to monitor who is buying what when, and also ability to influence if not control this. For example, the government could program CBDC to expire after a certain amount of time, or to be unusable with certain companies or individuals. If recognized by public cameras such as those in China as a protester, seen to be speaking out against currently policies online, or determined by location tracking heuristics to be possibly conducting shady activities, funds could be frozen immediately, restricting one’s ability to participate in the economy.

Already in the US, it’s not hard for the government to impose on a bank the freezing of one’s funds, but typically some type of court order is required to get this done. Under a CBDC, consequences for perceived misbehavior could be swift, possibly even automated in some cases. Maybe you think you never do anything suspicious, but policy and focus of governments can change, especially in a country like the US where we have frequent elections.

It’s quite possible that in the future these two systems will be in conflict for dominance in society. Crypto standing for individual freedom and CBDCs standing for draconian economic control of us all. So consider which side of that conflict you want to be on, and if like me you favor the path of more individual freedom take steps to start embracing that path now:

• When you pay or loan money to friends, do it with crypto

• When you pay your kids’ allowance, do it with crypto

• When you’re looking for ways to pay for things online, do it with crypto

• When you’re deciding where to tuck away savings, do it with crypto (staked at a nice APY)

Systems of exchange benefit exponentially from the scale of network participants. That’s exactly why bank-agnostic P2P transfer apps like CashApp and Venmo have flourished. The same principle applies to crypto; the more people who use it, the more useful crypto itself becomes.

If you’d like to support me with donations you can do so through any of the following addresses:

ETH (Ethereum)

0xd648037E2ff2A2C83A3fe798a77b44AC49C02496

ATOM (Cosmos)

cosmos1y7hh4q7awe85ktgnqkkdsf4vm2k97feqhvtyq8

INJ (Injective)

inj16eyqxl30723vsw3lu7v2w76y43yuqfykqnlv2c

SOL (Solana)

D6Ni3o98XKnwyrNvWUMZePYJwTBbfehBNzK7DNNxsKYV

KAVA (Kava)

kava1fxa5p60qkuppzta37t4g9d5pqg74vr06h3vqf0

XTZ (Tezos)

tz1ZWmVNvMkgbL9ANxYhY2MZqS45cxiE47b6

ADA (Cardano)

addr1q84wg3ecqmuky8tvjjjh8s9mvckqswuyqnjrfsl777lj38h2u3rnsphevgwke999w0qtke3vpqacgp8yxnplaaal9z0qxdlw8a

MATIC (Polygon)

0xd648037E2ff2A2C83A3fe798a77b44AC49C02496

BTC (Bitcoin)

bc1qyrrv7s9hqt06f5sd0c0rlym3a7t9cq53cfzkq7

XRP (XRP)

rpQAh2Adot6bKrAX5a3VJisXBswwWtb9K9

BNB (BNB)

0xd648037E2ff2A2C83A3fe798a77b44AC49C02496

TRX (Tron)

TLu4pimQCcwgRDbBCsai2wdxFPYahx9Zvq

DOGE (Dogecoin)

D8HtTRLTBxmVxuHAgY7zEgQGvSDsz6eoEE

AVAX (Avalanche)

0xd648037E2ff2A2C83A3fe798a77b44AC49C02496

DOT (Polkadot)

16XyGQ4PZaU2LfXakEPF8xV12bxhtQTJdmRcjUY2gs68XYtM

LTC (Litecoin)

LX4B8Yah5BGnEum8vUDVB7iMytnncVkGT1

PEPE (Pepe)

0xd648037E2ff2A2C83A3fe798a77b44AC49C02496

AXL (Axelar)

axelar1y7hh4q7awe85ktgnqkkdsf4vm2k97feqnzavtx

LINK (Chainlink)

0xd648037E2ff2A2C83A3fe798a77b44AC49C02496

XLM (Stellar)

GCYGZUYRMZFXZ6NR4QQHB73VXSQLLOPIFN2JMEZ7FDJ247SHUGHDUCZE

SHIB (Shiba Inu)

0xd648037E2ff2A2C83A3fe798a77b44AC49C02496

BCH (Bitcoin Cash)

qpraqn435v3tx28mrr2lfe6kzn9wge9nfvnzgqdvp2

UNI (Uniswap)

0xd648037E2ff2A2C83A3fe798a77b44AC49C02496

AAVE (Aave)

0xd648037E2ff2A2C83A3fe798a77b44AC49C02496

ETC (Ethereum Classic)

0xDa62a8b38D1E2097452Ac55c306FD383006d06D2

QNT (Quant)

0xd648037E2ff2A2C83A3fe798a77b44AC49C02496

BONK (Bonk)

D6Ni3o98XKnwyrNvWUMZePYJwTBbfehBNzK7DNNxsKYV

HOW TO TRADE CRYPTO

There are many trading platforms which support crypto trading, the basic idea of which is to trade similar to trading stocks: buy at lower prices and sell at higher prices. I personally use Robinhood. I like it for its simplified interface which also retains enough features to be useful. But if you're not in the US or prefer to use another platform for trading, the same principles explained here will still apply.

First you'll want to choose which cryptocurrencies you'll hold in your portfolio. You may want to stick with just the most mainstream options like BTC (Bitcoin) and ETH (Ethereum). You may wish to play with the very low priced meme coins like PEPE (Pepe) and SHIB (Shiba Inu). Maybe you'll include them all, or a mix, or even just concentrate on one. Generally it's best to diversify to spread the chances of both risk and reward across multiple options instead of focusing narrowly on just a few. But if you're starting with very few funds that may seem challenging.

Let's say you start with just $100. Begin by buying just $1 of each crypto you want to include in your portfolio. Now you'll have an average price for the amount you bought, which you'll get progressively lower by continuing to buy at lower prices. Consider the increments at which you'd like to average down. If 5%, take out your calculator and multiply your average price by 0.95. If 10%, multiply by 0.9. Then set a price alert for when the price goes below the result. Each time you buy more (whether responding to your price alert or acting before it's triggered), recalculate and adjust your alert price based on your target percentage increment.

It will be necessary to buy more each time to effectively average down the cost. If your first trade was $1, your second trade could be another $1, and your third be $2, and your fourth $4. Alternatively with more funds available you could start with $1, then $10, then $100, then $1,000. It all depends on your total funds available and should stick with a principle of never concentrating too much in any one crypto while neglecting others. Otherwise the concentration of chances for risk or reward are in few rather than many options.

Then you profit when you sell at higher prices. You can decide the increments of increase you want to target, whether 10%, 20%, or 100%, or whatever else. The math for setting alerts for those given percentages would be x1.1, x1.2, or x2, and you set another alert for when the price goes above the result. You can sell as much or as little as you wish, keeping in mind that the short term gains take away risk of staying invested in exchange for immediate gains realized, while long term gains retain the risk of prices falling in exchange for the potential of selling at much higher prices later.

The most intense story of missing out I have for this is Bitcoin. I remember back when 1 BTC could be bought for less than $1, and at the time of this writing 1 BTC is worth over $100,000. It's plausible that someday years or even decades from now 1 BTC might even be worth $1,000,000. But there's no guarantee that holding with the hope of reaching that impressive milestone will actually pay off. This leads me into another reason to hold cryptos long term.

HOW TO STAKE CRYPTO

Some cryptos offer the option to commit them to transaction validators on their associated blockchain in exchange for higher interest gains than can be found with banks in the traditional financial system. At the time of this writing I can only mostly find around 4% APY as the high end for online savings options in the traditional financial system. But some of the crytos I stake have double digit APYs.

Robinhood doesn't support crypto staking, so I use another platform - Exodus - mainly for this. Just as for crypto trading, there are plenty of alternative options of platforms which support staking, and you're free to use whichever one you like best.

You could buy cryptos directly through an exchange supported through the staking platform, or send cryptos from other platform wallets onto that platform. In my case, when I want to send more funds to Exodus, I buy USDC (a stablecoin pegged at the value of $1 and with very widespread support) in Robinhood and then send it to my Exodus wallet address for USDC. Then I swap USDC for whichever stakable crypto I want. Once the swap processes fully, I go through the menus to stake that crypto and just sit back to watch the staking rewards periodically flow in. Enabling autostaking, which reinvests staking rewards to buy and stake more of the same crypto, allows your reward amounts to grow over time, compounding value gains.

One thing to watch out for is those APYs changing. They sometimes fluctuate for better or worse based on what's going on with that particular associated blockchain. I've even had a few of the cryptos I used to stake on Exodus lose staking support, so I had to swap them for others I still could stake. You also need to keep in mind that the price value of your cryptos themselves may change over time, and the rise and fall of prices is to be expected somewhat. So staking is best for those willing to take on long term risk in exchange for long term reward. Also keep in mind that staked cryptos are locked from being immediately sold or transferred to another wallet. You'll need to unstake, which may take several days, before you can sell or transfer a staked crypto.

Obviously, staking is more impactful when you have a lot of funds with which to get cryptos to stake. If starting from that initial $100 mentioned earlier, trading as described in the first section is likely to grow small amounts of worth into larger ones quicker than is staking, so long as you put in the focus and work to make it happen. Staking is low effort and gradual reward while trading is high effort and more short term reward, or at least more controllable by you when and at what levels you want to take your profits.

If you’d like to support me with donations you can do so through any of the following addresses:

ETH (Ethereum)

0xd648037E2ff2A2C83A3fe798a77b44AC49C02496

ATOM (Cosmos)

cosmos1y7hh4q7awe85ktgnqkkdsf4vm2k97feqhvtyq8

INJ (Injective)

inj16eyqxl30723vsw3lu7v2w76y43yuqfykqnlv2c

SOL (Solana)

D6Ni3o98XKnwyrNvWUMZePYJwTBbfehBNzK7DNNxsKYV

KAVA (Kava)

kava1fxa5p60qkuppzta37t4g9d5pqg74vr06h3vqf0

XTZ (Tezos)

tz1ZWmVNvMkgbL9ANxYhY2MZqS45cxiE47b6

ADA (Cardano)

addr1q84wg3ecqmuky8tvjjjh8s9mvckqswuyqnjrfsl777lj38h2u3rnsphevgwke999w0qtke3vpqacgp8yxnplaaal9z0qxdlw8a

MATIC (Polygon)

0xd648037E2ff2A2C83A3fe798a77b44AC49C02496

BTC (Bitcoin)

bc1qyrrv7s9hqt06f5sd0c0rlym3a7t9cq53cfzkq7

XRP (XRP)

rpQAh2Adot6bKrAX5a3VJisXBswwWtb9K9

BNB (BNB)

0xd648037E2ff2A2C83A3fe798a77b44AC49C02496

TRX (Tron)

TLu4pimQCcwgRDbBCsai2wdxFPYahx9Zvq

DOGE (Dogecoin)

D8HtTRLTBxmVxuHAgY7zEgQGvSDsz6eoEE

AVAX (Avalanche)

0xd648037E2ff2A2C83A3fe798a77b44AC49C02496

DOT (Polkadot)

16XyGQ4PZaU2LfXakEPF8xV12bxhtQTJdmRcjUY2gs68XYtM

LTC (Litecoin)

LX4B8Yah5BGnEum8vUDVB7iMytnncVkGT1

PEPE (Pepe)

0xd648037E2ff2A2C83A3fe798a77b44AC49C02496

AXL (Axelar)

axelar1y7hh4q7awe85ktgnqkkdsf4vm2k97feqnzavtx

LINK (Chainlink)

0xd648037E2ff2A2C83A3fe798a77b44AC49C02496

XLM (Stellar)

GCYGZUYRMZFXZ6NR4QQHB73VXSQLLOPIFN2JMEZ7FDJ247SHUGHDUCZE

SHIB (Shiba Inu)

0xd648037E2ff2A2C83A3fe798a77b44AC49C02496

BCH (Bitcoin Cash)

qpraqn435v3tx28mrr2lfe6kzn9wge9nfvnzgqdvp2

UNI (Uniswap)

0xd648037E2ff2A2C83A3fe798a77b44AC49C02496

AAVE (Aave)

0xd648037E2ff2A2C83A3fe798a77b44AC49C02496

ETC (Ethereum Classic)

0xDa62a8b38D1E2097452Ac55c306FD383006d06D2

QNT (Quant)

0xd648037E2ff2A2C83A3fe798a77b44AC49C02496

BONK (Bonk)

D6Ni3o98XKnwyrNvWUMZePYJwTBbfehBNzK7DNNxsKYV

I enrolled in college in 2001 and within a few years heard about Ubuntu, a different kind of operating system than I’d ever known. I fell in love with Linux and free open source software in general. Then a few days later I heard about Bitcoin, a new type of digital currency. Eager to dabble, I promptly set up a mining program on my personal computer and ran it during any idle times when I wasn’t actively using it myself. I managed to mine over a dozen bitcoins, but sadly lost them with the passage of time and lack of recognizing their potential future value.

I didn’t do much with cryptocurrency even as the space evolved until 2018, when Robinhood introduced Dogecoin trading. Through careful and patient trading I multiplied a few hundred dollars of value into a few thousand dollars, which I used to help out my parents who were struggling to pay some outstanding debts.

Since then I’ve continued to trade cryptos for short term gains, as well as holding some of them for long term staking investments with higher yields than I can find with fiat banks. I’ve learned about the utility blockchains offer to society, which is allowing math driven communal consensus to govern record keeping rather than a central authority like a bank whose records could be abstracted or even falsified by those few with direct access, or through government interventions. I’ve learned about web3 and how it could transform the online landscape in which we live the digital aspects of our lives giving us validated ownership of the content we create rather than living it in the hands of centralized social media platforms.

Today I finally took a first step of registering my first ENS name (curioushuman.eth) and while I’m not yet fully leveraging it for useful functions as of the writing of this post, I aim to learn and do more as I explore more web3 applications (such as mirror.xyz on which I’m writing this post). Awhile back I found this series of informative posts which I saved to my bookmarks but delayed acting on until today.

https://www.gillesdc.com/web3/intro

Occasionally I get ideas of how some popular web2 platforms could function in a web3 equivalent, such as a decentralized version of Reddit driven instead of by gaining karma through upvotes, allowing users to easily transfer small amounts of crypto directly between each other in appreciation of valued pieces of content. Such direct rewards leaving out unnecessary intermediaries could eliminate the potential for censorship and be a stronger incentive allowing even those just starting out to benefit from day one, instead of needing to adhere to the arbitrary structures of incentive formed by a central owner relying on advertising and membership fees for their profitability and sharing a pittance of those profits with those creating the content.

But I’d need to become a lot more skilled in programming to take on the building of such visions, plus I think it’s more likely that if I searched enough I might find something similar already deployed in the dApps ecosystem.

If you’d like to support me with donations you can do so through any of the following addresses:

ETH (Ethereum)

0xd648037E2ff2A2C83A3fe798a77b44AC49C02496

ATOM (Cosmos)

cosmos1y7hh4q7awe85ktgnqkkdsf4vm2k97feqhvtyq8

INJ (Injective)

inj16eyqxl30723vsw3lu7v2w76y43yuqfykqnlv2c

SOL (Solana)

D6Ni3o98XKnwyrNvWUMZePYJwTBbfehBNzK7DNNxsKYV

KAVA (Kava)

kava1fxa5p60qkuppzta37t4g9d5pqg74vr06h3vqf0

XTZ (Tezos)

tz1ZWmVNvMkgbL9ANxYhY2MZqS45cxiE47b6

ADA (Cardano)

addr1q84wg3ecqmuky8tvjjjh8s9mvckqswuyqnjrfsl777lj38h2u3rnsphevgwke999w0qtke3vpqacgp8yxnplaaal9z0qxdlw8a

MATIC (Polygon)

0xd648037E2ff2A2C83A3fe798a77b44AC49C02496

BTC (Bitcoin)

bc1qyrrv7s9hqt06f5sd0c0rlym3a7t9cq53cfzkq7

XRP (XRP)

rpQAh2Adot6bKrAX5a3VJisXBswwWtb9K9

BNB (BNB)

0xd648037E2ff2A2C83A3fe798a77b44AC49C02496

TRX (Tron)

TLu4pimQCcwgRDbBCsai2wdxFPYahx9Zvq

DOGE (Dogecoin)

D8HtTRLTBxmVxuHAgY7zEgQGvSDsz6eoEE

AVAX (Avalanche)

0xd648037E2ff2A2C83A3fe798a77b44AC49C02496

DOT (Polkadot)

16XyGQ4PZaU2LfXakEPF8xV12bxhtQTJdmRcjUY2gs68XYtM

LTC (Litecoin)

LX4B8Yah5BGnEum8vUDVB7iMytnncVkGT1

PEPE (Pepe)

0xd648037E2ff2A2C83A3fe798a77b44AC49C02496