Let's get real. [Vitalik talks about this constantly]. The cryptocurrency/blockchain community has a cultural problem.Edit: Links here suck. I put quotes around them so you can spot them out. I did a lot of research for this post.Edit #2: Put square brackets around links. Now they should be clearly visible.TLDR: The ills Vitalik talks about are primarily about psychology. New scalable solutions can fix it partially, but we have to deal with people first.Before I dig deep into this post, I want to let you know what it's about. Yes, you'll see some emotional content. You'll see ideological ideas. However, this post ain't about ideologies. It's about something I deem as a real problem. Its about the corrupt mindsets that we have as community since the prices spiked early 2017. To advance forward, I want to analyze them, distill the problem into the most basic form possible, then point people into a direction I deem would be good for the cryptocurrency community. The format will go like this:My history with Crypto/Blockchain. Why I'm here in the first place.My analysis of the problem Vitalik talked aboutMy perceived solution to the problem.The steps I've already taken towards the problemWhy I'm HereTime travel back into pre-2017 and you'll see that the cryptocurrency/blockchain community was filled with hopeful young nerds that dreamed of making the world into a better place; A much more open, peaceful and freer place. I was going through a hard time with my life 2015-16 -- my twin died, I was on the verge of going homeless with nobody else to rely on, had to go unbanked in America, almost entirely dropped out of college and my first contracting business failed. I couldn't get my life right at all, and I didn't see any hope. The future was bleak to me. However, I found people here in the blockchain community actually trying their hardest to do things that would solve the world's problems, [even if that was mainly reporting the news for people and addressing people live in chat to create a community]. That drew me in well before the price of cryptocurrencies spiked; almost in a manic like way -- I read about it constantly, practiced solidity, talked to everyone I could that would have the capacity to understand cryptocurrencies and more.Even now, when I attend conferences, I meet good-hearted, sleep deprived developers, marketers, business owners and specialist that aim to solve the world's greatest problems in the best ways they can. Many are in small corners of the world helping each other out. Inside of this community I found hope and meaning. My depression lifted, my anxiety went away, my life got back on track, and that hope propels me though the field years since I joined this movement. I'm now more confident than ever knowing that collectively this industry will possibly be the epicenter of change for not only money, but for everything. We'll [eliminate poverty], [solve global warming], [prevent hyper-inflation like we've seen with Venezuela], [improve supply chains] around the world, improve healthcare, and solve the [social ills of the world like corruption]. That's just the tip of the iceberg. I believe intensely in the vision set for crypto.The community is filled with brilliant people that will make a difference. That excites me.I'm for freedom, boosting happiness of individuals, increasing health, making life more fun and less stressful for the common person, open discussions to progress everyone forward, and a more livable planet. I'm thinking of all people and I'm not against any group. However, I'm not for FUD, greed while abusing others, bigotry, trolling, hatred, racism, evil acts and stealing. Those are against my values. I think that's against the values of many of the cryptocurrency community's foundational members.A problem we can't ignoreIn 2017, as the prices exploded and the returns grew in for the average person, I noticed the community was starting to get tainted. People were no longer focusing on technology, freedom and community. No longer focusing on creating better lives for people in their communities around the world. We were missing the altruism I originally felt in the community. [If I were in Vitalik shoes, where I'd invest 80-100 hours a week into a vision, I'd feel extreme frustration too]. People are instead focusing on [needless politics], searching for the next big price pump, the next big score. Instead of people figuring out about how to use blockchain and crypto for making people's lives better, I've heard people say HODL and scam more than I ever have in the history of the community. This saddens me and frustrates me at the same time. On one end I see great potential and beauty in the community, and at the same time I see the beast within us come out that hasn't been even thought about deeply enough to be accurately tamed. Trolls, profiteers running away with ICO money, market manipulators and scam artist ruining the reputation and progress of the community.While I could complain about what I see, I decided to instead dissect it in this post. I wanted to know what's causing this on a larger scale. See, by training I'm a psychologist, social scientist and computer scientist. I've been transitioning over to economics and data science because I feel it's a solid cornerstone of the industry. My perspective will be coming from those first. Allow me to explain. If our community is going to "grow up and actually solve problems", the corruption of minds because of money needs to be fully explored first.Only by understanding the problem thoroughly can we solve it.Explicitly stating the problem: Its the extreme predatory, egotistical, harsh behavior we as a community have adopted.The Psychology And Behavioral Science Of FinanceLet's start with the biggest premise. Money is an idea. It exist because people communicate, produce, share, trade, have scarcity for goods and have needs. Money is an ideological binding agent for people.It helps us exchange two irrelevant things with a mediumHelps us do more things in knowing the value we hold will help us improve productivity in the futureHelps us determine value in an abstract wayHelps us navigate the world.Money is about as social and psychological as anything in the world can get outside of direct human interactions. Coincidentally, this psychological/social aspect isn't talked about very much inside of the cryptocurrency landscape. However, it's the foundation of everything we have here today. If we can't talk about how money is connected to the mind, we can't solve the maturity problem Vitalik was talking about. My intent is to explore that deeply so a firm direction can be at least set.Money and the MindOur mind is complex. Beyond the usual processing of information people have (our 11 senses), we people have 2 primary centers for decision making and control.Limbic SystemThe first one is the limbic system. It has gone by the nickname of "the lizard brain" in recent history. It's responsible for storing memories, handling stress responses, attention and emotional processing. In a sense, it controls all of intuition and fast heuristic choices you make.https://ift.tt/2v0Gfyu CortexThe second system is known as the prefrontal cortex. It controls higher order functions such as planning, reasoning, serial processing and how we think about emotions.https://ift.tt/2NXyHDP two centers are not mutually exclusive. You brain has circuits to make decisions about everything. The two parts talk to each other to do so. Any dysfunction in behavior is usually due to a lack of communication between these two decision centers, rather than a lack of communication between the centers of your brain. This is heavily seen in mental disorders. According to the book [Upward Spiral ], a book that looks at mental disorders from a neuroscientific view and explains how to reverse the ill effects of them, here's now some disorders can play out inside of our heads:Depression -- A poor link between the Anterior Cingular Cortex and PFC. It means you will notice more negative and therefore act on negative impulses and thoughts.Dissociation -- A poor link between the Anterior Cingular Cortex and Anterior Insular makes it so your attention can't be accurately directed towards yourself. There will likely be a poor understanding of pain and out of body experiences. It can be reversed with meditation and yoga.How Crypto FitsThis should hopefully be the first question we have. It's easy to only pay attention to the ill behaviors of the more recent cryptocurrency industry and say "shame on you!". But what if people had a hard time actually controlling themselves? Inside of the book Upward Spiral, Alex Korb, the neuroscientist that wrote it explored that people with depression and anxiety had a hard time not being depressed and anxious by choice. Because the depressed person's circuitry is skewed, they act on it subconsciously in a forever perpetuating loop. In fact, the only way to reverse depression is to reverse the circuitry that holds it together.Part of what makes anti-depressants more effective is that the serotonin improves sleep and makes a person's brain more susceptible to positive changes. That would be doing things like doing gratitude journals everyday to make your anterior cingular cortices notice more positive events, being around people who love you to boost your serotonin and cut down stress hormones, or getting a little exercise everyday to send oxygen to your brain.So that leads us back to the original question. What if people didn't have a fully conscious control over how they acted about money and crypto? I did some research between many different articles and found that this was absolutely the case. People don't have much control. They tend to be on extremes of some end all the time.How Does Finance Play With The Brain?Of the many ways, there's one key way it does. Money plays with people through the the hypothalamus stress response. It charges people into fight or flight mode, and can literally destabilize the homeostatic systems. This can do all sorts of things. It can make the anterior cingulate weaker in strength (known to help us control emotions and learn), and therefore reduce the power of our prefrontal cortex. When people are stressed about finance, or even excited about it, it will put people into extreme states. [Meaning the lizard brain takes the show]. That can make people easily make haphazard decisions.Of course, there's other things that happen with the introduction of more money, but that IS the most intense thing to take note of.If we want to solve the problem of relinquishing poor community, like Vitalik continuously makes comments about, we need to look at the problem in this way. If we don't see it this way, we're screwed. The problem wont be solved, companies like Microsoft will continuously kill off their implementations due to price fluctuations, the cryptocurrency community wont pass go and wont make a huge impact. Instead we'll blame, shout at each other, and create another Wall Street 2.0. In fact, we'll become worse than them. We will have more leverage over resources than any other group in history and the corruption will be strong.Money affects decisions, period.Solving the Cultural problemI'm nervous. As I type this response, I know that by revealing my idea to the public I could be condemned by the community for "shilling", and even worse, somebody else can pick it up and run with it. That is the most nerve wreaking thing I could ever consider. Months of 80 hour weeks and extreme sacrifices to bring out a vision because I didn't see much of a choice. If we don't remove what limits us soon as a community we will get engulfed by outsiders that don't want to create virtuous society.My solution: Algorithmic TradingNow, before you tell me that the market is entirely unpredictable, I'd like to be one to say that the notion is false. We see everywhere that people using AI and more complex forms of math to be able to make reasonable gains in the financial world. Companies like Bridgewater predicted the financial crash of 2008 with reasonable accuracy, and other people like [mathematicians are able to do the same]. Realistically, the market has some degree of predictability. However, much of the access to that is limited.Even beyond that, the financial industry is one of the only social fields that is highly transparent to many actors, through the news and price information, and reflects ideas and beliefs through the markets. If we can better analyze markets, we could discover all sorts of social phenomenon that previously made no sense. With algorithmic trading we're heavily incentivized to learn, as that will produce a direct outcome of earning money.We could better solve the social ills of the world quickly and efficiently over time. On top of that, we will be able to stabilize the market and protect against bad agents if algorithmic trading becomes coordinated and effective enough throughout the industry.Again, How Does it Fit With Cryptocurrency?Bitconnect could answer how automated trading fits.Before I continue, let me be clear. People lost their money through that scam. It was awful. I know some people that had a lot of money taken from them. Many of them are now fearful of cryptocurrency.However, I don't think Bitconnect was 100% wrong with their idea. Yes they were a ponzi scheme, yet realistically many of the people I met that fell for it felt as though the crypto markets were already complex. They were losing money while HODLing, making rash decisions and trading.Bitcoin and the entire industry carries too much of a cognitive burden for a person to keep track of beyond their normal everyday life. News, prices, scams, hacks and technical information. That's a lot to keep track of if you have 3-4 part-time jobs as a single mom or dad while raising 2 kids. That's a lot to keep track of if you're old and don't have the technical capacity to read into the crypto markets all day everyday.Therefore, even while people were making less money from investing into Bitconnect, on paper it required less thinking and they were still getting benefits that they cared about. They could share with friends because they thought that there money would not shrink in value heavily due to a random market crash. As a consumer, it isn't wrong to believe that you can be apart of something big without having to work an extra 5 hours everyday reading blogs and watching youtube videos just to keep up with the happenings of the industry.It doesn't require us to be judging people for falling into a ponzi scheme. It requires a bit of caring and empathy to see people's main intentions. They want a better life compared to the one that has been crushing them with student debt and poor job prospects. People want to have a better life without being as stressed beyond belief like they currently are.And for the everyday trader, giving them the incentive they seek, while giving them the capacity to do some research for themselves is important. Choice matters a lot for some people.Steps I've taken towards this:Here comes the shill part you've been waiting for. Over the last year I've been building an application that would help us solve the problems we face today as a community. It I'll reduce the stress response of people worrying more about money, with technology like it getting standardized throughout the entire industry, it'll make things a lot more stable. It's an automated AI-based trading platform that aims to make reduce the cognitive load and worry about holding your funds in crypto. The aim of it is to dynamically trade for people while also letting them have 100% control over their funds. For now, that's by using exchange API keys. Though in the future, that can be through decentralized exchanges, meaning no middle man.My product's name: It's [Funguana.com]. [Internally meaning the interconnection of all Dhrama in the Huayan Buddhist religion].I've already received controversial reviews, and feel crazy for putting it back out there. However, I'm now confident I can follow through, and maybe by explaining my reasoning behind why I built it the community will respond differently this time.To make it more trust-able, 4 months after public release, if my resources allow me to, I plan to open source the infrastructure code so people can implement their own platform within a matter of weeks, then systemically open many of the algorithms so they can appropriate powerful algorithms together over time (many not based on AI). I have to be strategic though. If I open it too soon, too many bad actors can enter the space and cause havoc early, without much chance to keep them in check.Edit: I made changes to the page to make the links more obvious. Now they're in bold and italicEdit 2: Adding quotes to make links more obvious again.
Submitted July 31, 2018 at 01:48PM
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