Before we talk about People Powered and why #TheTimeIsNow for change, you need to know why crypto became a mainstream thing over the past 3-4 years. If you’re a seasoned finance person, or economist, you know exactly why crypto went mainstream the past 3-4 years, but you only know the first half of the story.

The first half of the story, in a nutshell.

Skip to the second half of the story if you don’t like boring financey stuff.

Bitcoin halved its mining rewards, reducing supply output by 1/2, (making it scarce) and governments around the world printed trillions of dollars increasing the supply, of it’s currencies (making it plentiful, and not scarce). While at the same time slashing yields for holders of it’s currencies and bonds, to 0%. Folks with billions of dollars to invest and the need for a safe harbor asset to invest those billions in, were not going to invest in USD or fiat currencies of any kind. All they’d get in return is the same sort of interest (yield) you got on a savings account when you were 18. Boring. So money flocked to Bitcoin, and other crypto assets. When money is this inexpensive to borrow from central banks (0% to borrow, imagine if these were 0% credit cards) a lot of money goes risk-on. Into risky conceptual investments such as tech, and crypto hit 2 different g-spots for investors. It was tech. And it was also a hedge against the excessive printing of fiat currencies, and rising inflation, which was coming.

And everyone knew it in 2020.

At the same time, in 2020, something seemingly unrelated to crypto at the time began to happen, covid led to the “Great Resignation” where something like 14% of the population (not only in the US but abroad) quit their jobs and turned to stock trading apps like Robinhood (and others), which became a tool for many to make money while in isolated lockdown. This influx birthed an entire generation of stock traders who, remembering the massive market-dips globally during the 2009 recession, put everything they had into the stock market and rode the rebound-wave upward to the moon, laughing at Warren Buffet along the way. It was indeed, one, big f*ck you to the old guard in finance. And when lockdowns ended, many, having made a fortune, never returned to work. It’s what’s been called “The Great Resignation” – no, folks aren’t still living off of $2000 stimulus checks they once received years back.

All of this culminated in a stock-trading frenzy amongst our newly minted generation of finance professionals that peaked in January 2021, with the birth of the “memestock”

Gamestop and AMC were the first to explode upward.

Which lead to institutional stock trading app corruption that created an anti-hero narrative and technical issues (the apps didn’t work) and ultimately to mistrust of stock trading apps at a foundational level — creating a retail exodus from stock trading and a newfound interest in crypto.

And with the $2 trillion+ dollar boost that came shortly after, in the form of the last round of covid-era stimulus payments from a variety of governments, the crypto market became a doubly liquid playground for those who’d dabbled in stocks during covid. All of this led to a monster rise in popularity for blockchain technology and anything in the ‘crypto’ space.

But this is only the first half of the story.

Here’s the second half of the story…

And it played out over the same time frame. To understand this part of the story you only have to understand 2 concepts, collective action, and the need to belong and be in on a collective action. You also need to understand the 2 terms, “WAGMI” and “FOMO”.

Collective action is the theme that underpins not only my generation, but a cohort of Gen Xers and the majority of Gen Z. It’s the feeling that We’re All Gonna Make It – together. Or, WAGMI as it’s known amongst cryptonauts. It’s, the 99% vs the 1%, David vs Goliath. It’s the story of heroes, or heroines, a story where – collectively – we are greater than ourselves. And in this, we can team up and change all-the-things we don’t like – and win.

My generation has been living this story for well over a decade since Occupy Wall St. And it starts with the need to feel we belong to something collectively greater than ourselves, with a universally shared mission that is to our benefit, and to the benefit of everyone collectively at the same time. Yes, we really feel this way. We are mission driven. Not money driven. At least the great majority of us. And when something comes along, with a mission that we all relate to, (and I don’t mean your currently well-funded garden-variety of niche activism actions) and it catches on, we get instant FOMO, or “Fear of Missing Out”.

So naturally, because we are a mission driven generation (or cohort of generations) it wasn’t long until we used the tools, or apps we picked up in isolation to make money – and keep from being bored, apps like Robinhood – to continue our generations’ collective David vs Goliath story, in some way. And this culminated in the January 2021 runup in the stock prices of things we loved as kids: Gamestop. AMC. Nokia. Pink-Sheet stocks of completely defunct companies like Blockbuster Video. These weren’t logical investments. This was a pissed off generation completely destroying the massive hedge funds that tried to destroy the things we collectively loved, and still love.

Our cohort of generations were simply doing what we do. Bringing down whatever we determined was evil, together, simply because we can, collectively. When these tools no longer worked to serve that purpose, or when stock trading apps attempted to stifle our generations’ collective actions, we simply dropped them entirely, and we moved into crypto.

Where there was no shortage of savvy devs and marketing folks waiting for us, folks who knew exactly who they were selling to. They were (and still are) selling to a generation that needs to express itself through collective action, a generation who gets instant FOMO, whenever something pops off.

Enter the memecoin craze. Pairing 2 things well, the Finance we all learned in isolation, and our Fomo for collective-good style action. If everyone buys, prices go up. Alongside memecoins came the NFT craze, buy an NFT, and be part of a community where you belong. A community where we buy memecoins, and if we all buy together, we all make money. Crypto roared, in all its forms. It was the best of both worlds, the desire for collective-good style group action and the inherent need of a generation to ‘belong’ were replaced with phrases like WAGMI and FOMO. And it was exactly what we all needed.

Until it wasn’t.

In reality almost everything in the crypto space is a hollowed out and cheapened version of what it is we’re all really after. It’s like having an AI robot for a girlfriend. It might appear to be real, it just isn’t. And everyone’s tired of it as they should be. For proof of this, just look at the decline in crypto prices during the recent resurgence of Gamestop which led to a selloff in crypto. That’s the sound of this cohort of generations leaving to take part in a small collective action — elsewhere.

What remains of crypto is a generation of vastly bored apes, a combined generation whom, alongside the general public as a whole, do not trust the crypto space. Like we didn’t trust the brokerage apps. In truth we have an even deeper mistrust of all financial institutions — such as banks. As we should. And while it may be far too late for banks (in more ways than one), crypto still has a chance to turn it all around. Only if, it turns itself around right now.

Why #TheTimeIsNow for change in the crypto, web3 & blockchain spaces.

And how you can help bring about that change.

Memecoins as a fomo driven collective action no longer work, and they never really did, they only benefit the 1%. The rugpulling developers and their shrewd marketers. Or teams like Safemoon’s who raked in $200 million dollars for themselves, and built tools that (and I speak as a developer) that I might have built for a grand total of about $350,000. As a cohort of generations, we can no longer take part in the sheer uselessness of projects such as these. At every step they should be hounded and called out for their sheer lack of clear mission. These are what we also call “shitcoins”.

NFT’s as a community building tool where communities are based around more of the same shitcoin pumping schemes no longer work, they only benefit the 1% mentioned above. We will no longer take part in it. If you see these types of projects I encourage you to openly denounce them for what they are.

Blockchains that pander to this should also be denounced. If your chain’s marketing tactics include funding shitcoins, and NFT projects that serve as community broadcast channels for pumping shitcoins, your blockchain is garbage. I encourage everyone to call this out, whenever and wherever they see it. Including the chain’s founders and lead developers for pandering to it.

Influencers that consistently promote (for payoffs) any of the above. Call them out too, they are a massive part of the problem plaguing this space. It’s time for them to help lead the change, and if not, it’s time to chase them off. Call them out every time they promote the next big scamcoin/nft project that does nothing but embarrass the entire crypto space. This goes for aimless free coin/nft projects as well. The ones with no mission, and no artist. They’re no different than the bot accounts on Twitter/X that build their following by mass following random people over time ultimately converting into a marketing botnet. You know these Twitter/X accounts when you see them, @mike835420988234 with 11 followers, and it’s a pretty Japanese woman in the profile pic. These free coin/nft projects with no mission and doxxed team, the aimless ones, are no different. They may appear to be without a mission, but there is a purpose behind them. And it’s to create a botnet of shill communities, to launch an endless barrage of scammy shitcoins from – and they’re a plague. Slam them. Denounce them. And chase them out of the space before they do even more damage.

The time to take action isn’t later, it’s now. We’re on the verge of a recession that can’t be written off anymore as ‘not-a-recession’. Interest rates are going to come down globally, alongside inflation and money will come off the sidelines, out of fiats, and back into tech, while common folks are sidelined from the space financially with the most hyped low-cost entries into the space being the same old piles of trash: shitcoins and NFT projects from the same crowd of cartoon developers and teams as the last cycle. And as a result, this space will end up with a pile of blockchain’s that funded infrastructure and pixelated games that no one plays, led by the same rugpulling shitcoin and nft brigades – and it is going to be regulated to the hilt, banned in other places, and written off as a fringe space rife with scams and garbage –  as it should be – if we don’t begin to collectively change it as a sector, right now.

What does change look like?

Well, here’s a challenge – lets ask people. To change a problem we first have to accept – as an industry and sector – that there is indeed a problem. If you’re an influencer and you have a following. Here’s a challenge for you, go out onto the street, and ask random people what they think of ‘crypto’. Chances are, they don’t think too highly of it anymore, and when you get this sort of response, which you will, ask them, what would change their mind? What do they want to see, in the crypto space. Film it, and share your videos using the hashtag #TheTimeIsNow for change in #Crypto

How People Powered is utilizing blockchain tech.

Our website is a living whitepaper which covers everything we seek to do here at People Powered, when you get some time we encourage you to have a look over everything!

What other developers can do to be part of the widely needed change within the crypto and blockchain space.

The next time you’re hired to build out a garbage project, or if you’re thinking of launching garbage, just don’t. Ask yourself instead, what’s my dream, and how does blockchain enable that for me, and others. And then build that, because the time to be that change, is right now.