Originally published November 22, 2020 on substack. I’m transitioning over all my old substack writings to live on Mirror and solely linking to the substack for context of the publish date.

A blanket wish that this time around, the community has learned the same lessons that took me too long to reconcile, so that we can actually go to the moon this time.

Crypto is all about building in public. As ether crosses $500, I’m reflecting back at the last time it hit this milestone, which forever stays ingrained not only in my mind, but also on this bottle of scotch (that I still have yet to finish.) 

The personal significance to #eth hitting $500 - commuting back from my marketing job at Pepsi (see: carbonated bubbles) in upstate NY to Manhattan, I saw a special deal in Grand Central Station’s Market for engraved Johnnie Walker bottles. Never the whiskey guy myself, but recognizing the ability to commemorate the moment in true CPG fashion, **I had to pull trigger on the meme. **I also decided at that moment it was time to fall down the rabbit hole, professionally - crypto was calling.

It sure did feel like a bubble - but I was already in the bubbles business, literally, and as I saw it, $500 eth proved something to the external world that had proved us ‘contrarians’ right…

• bitcoin was the future of money 
• smart contracts were going to change the world
• we were all going to have lambo’s on the moon (ok, i didn’t really believe that, but there was literally an eth-to-lambo website converter, and gosh, i definitely checked it more than once.)

Let me start by saying I was wrong. So. Fucking. Wrong. Technological change alone does not evolve the world, people who harness its capabilities do. And despite a ‘new paradigm’ - the truth was we were just scratching the surface. We were early.

If there’s a picture that could summarize everything going on at this time, it has to be fleeing the states with some crypto friends to Nicaragua, where we recognized we were in over our heads and didn’t know WTF was truly happening. I mean, the juxtaposition of the charts, the infinity pool… we were in over our heads.

We wanted to ‘bank the unbanked’ and not a single person in the country we talked to recognized that little orange symbol. In hindsight, everything about who we were and where we were was an absolute sell signal, and as much reflective of ‘the top’ for me personally as that NYTimes article has been for so many others.

So, what’s the point? 

• The herd is actually here this time. I guess we have made it now?! Those who have stuck around, for the memes, for the critical infrastructure, for building genuinely interesting products and services - y’all deserve a victory lap. 
• The fascinating aspect of this ‘industry’ ‘space’ ‘community’ or whatever we can label us is not in price inherently, but behind what the price denotes. Celebrating prices over users, utility, and adoption gives a false sense of security. Recognize that prices bring more interest and awareness, but not sustainability - which comes from building superior systems compared to that which exists today.
• Crypto-economic ideals = changing incentives of the status quo that are flawed. As the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed, there is so much work to be done. Stay weird, stay happy, stay healthy - but remember inequality runs rampant, and if we cannot help solve for it in the crypto world, we fall flat on our ideals.

As Thanksgiving comes around, let us remember the values Satoshi had set not through their actions, but through the lack thereof. 

In the next leg up, let’s show the world how we, the community, matured. That way, we can have a proper and deserving seat at the table, instead of being the crazy uncle.