These are some observations I’ve been making since I’ve co-founded HederaStarter and especially as I’ve become more entrenched in the social media landscape of the Hedera ecosystem. I have begun noticing certain trends and themes reappearing and I wanted to publish some of my opinions on them. – Co-Founder Conor
Idle Hands are the Devil’s Playthings
One of the biggest issues I sometimes, though not recently since I’ve gone full-time in crypto, have suffered from is becoming bored and or experiencing stagnation in my own personal development. We all go through periods of time when we’re extremely busy, lots of things are happening, days, weeks and months fly by before we’re really able to fully take in the events that have occurred and how we’ve changed as individuals to deal with these periods of time. Simultaneously, there are lengths of time when we stare at the clock on our wall, slowly watching time gradually tick by, waiting for something, anything to happen. In my own personal estimation I feel that quite a substantial amount of people suffer from the latter specifically within our industry and in regards to their portfolios and the tokens they hold.
The phrase ‘Wen Lambo’ is applicable to this phenomena purely because of the question of time, “When this?”, “When that?” and so on. I believe these phrases, when used in reference to token prices, like $HBAR, are especially dangerous to an investor, and someone active in a crypto community because it unintentionally robs them of their agency. They effectively relinquish their personal autonomy, their perceived ability to do something about their situation, by asking this question of “Wen?”. This mode of thinking causes the investor, the member of the community, to slide into a mode of passive participation and acceptance of the current status quo. Regardless of whether this person supports or opposes whatever is going on with the day to day price of their asset, by choosing to ask the question of “Wen?” they have made the choice to throw in the towel and severely reduced the likelihood that they are going to do anything material to try and affect the asset they’re complaining about.
Just as the title of this section states: Idle Hands are the Devil’s Playthings, this person is no longer actively participating in the community in a positive sense, their energy, their focus, is on the number on the screen and they react accordingly. These community members are reactive, not proactive; they aren’t trying to affect change. They generate energy that is based on price action and this spreads into all discourse they participate in, and should this assortment of people become large enough within the wider community the entire narrative will gradually shift towards being entirely contingent on the price, and I shouldn’t have to point out the obvious but this is a terrible spot to be in. I have begun to pick up on this within our community, in nearly every Telegram channel, across my Twitter feed, in the Hedera Youtube milieu, I see the comments and tweets here and there, nit-picking price. I see disproportionate amounts of energy being wasted generating discourse about the price of $HBAR when we all know this leads nowhere, we’d be better off speaking to a wall.
I have fallen into this trap as well, initially back in the beginning of my crypto journey in college, I constantly worried about the day-to-day of what’s happening price wise in the space but what helped me get over this hump was work and getting involved. That initial decision to work is coincidentally what brings me here today, helping lead HederaStarter, it all started back last year in April 2021 because I had some time on my hands and I decided to utilize my free time, and not let it be wasted worrying about things out of my control. I volunteered to become a community manager and from there I invested my time and energy and worked my way up to where I am today. I’m not trying to imply that everyone should become a community manager, as you’re really on the front lines of the crypto industry and arguably most susceptible to burnout, but what I am trying to say is that getting too focused on price and that being your only means of interaction with the community of the asset you’re invested in is not the best form of relationship. I wager that it is better for you as a member of the community to choose to invest your time trying to assist projects, teams, people and putting your skills and connections to use. I believe that if the vast majority of community members follow this path, we will create a community everyone will want to be a part of, ultimately expanding Hedera and growing its audience, but how does someone get involved?
Taking the Initiative
Getting involved may seem like a daunting task but I must be frank with all of you, it really isn’t, in fact, in most cases it boils down to simply asking: “What can I do to help you?”. This question really goes a long way to getting your foot in the door and potentially becoming a valuable asset for a project, for a team, for a struggling creator trying to move forward in the space. You can enhance this with a simple resume, with skills you have, people you know, whatever you think may be the most beneficial to whatever endeavor you’re trying to assist.
A disclaimer; not everyone is going to have luck getting involved with protocols, they may have enough developers, marketing staff, community managers, internal administration people etc, regardless there are limitless ways you can help the Hedera community whether you’re involved in a project or assisting a team. If you’re a developer and you can’t find work, you can focus on honing your skills with the Hedera smart contract service, learning and becoming a Subject Matter Expert on Hedera development and coding your own ideas and building a portfolio of projects. You could follow in the footsteps of Andre Cronje and utilize your skills to examine GitHubs of projects that have launched or are building on Hedera and critique protocols and examine the ins and outs of their code the list for developers goes on!
For non-technical people setting up a Youtube channel, a Medium, a blog or a twitter and, rather than falling into the pitfalls of talking about the price of $HBAR and TA, you could publish content about Hedera, projects on Hedera, the goings on of the Hedera community, generating buzz and attention for Hedera is valuable and is a net positive for the entire ecosystem, Hedera must grow its audience around the world! For those people writing on medium even if you are not immediately gifted in the writing department, trust me, you just need to put in the initial effort and get over that beginner’s hump and you’ll get better and better with each article, with each video, tweet, piece of code examined and so on. This entire paragraph to say; it is easier to focus on price, it is harder to take another step and involve yourself in the community, to invest your time and energy into improving your skills all of this will put the Hedera community on track to stand head and shoulders of its peers.
A Conscious Shift
I know that if we, the Hedera community embrace this mindset, we’re going to significantly diverge from the path that we’re on. Having a community of nearly 40,000 people all united in their desire to improve their skills in service of Hedera, the projects and teams building on the network, and everything in between will completely revitalize the narrative around Hedera. All of that, with just a mere 40,000 member strong community, chains like Avalanche, Solana, Fantom, Ethereum etc have significantly more people so we can only imagine what the impact of a 100,000 strong, 500,000 strong and beyond community looks like.
We as the Hedera community need to praise and put community members in the spotlight that are leading in this capacity, members of the community that are investing their personal time and energy into doing what they can to grow the Hedera ecosystem. We should focus on being positive, friendly, and encouraging to all members of our Hedera community and support everyone in their endeavor to become a better version of themselves because all of these individuals focused on growing themselves will all serve to create a community that is differentiated from the rest of the space.
The HBAR Foundation, Swirlds etc have worked to cultivate relationships with major companies, this already puts us on a separate level from our standard EVM peers, we have the enterprise support and are making headways in improving the physical world, and it is up to us, now as a community to pick up the slack so to say. Rather than nitpicking the state of the GC, the price, and other things we want to waste our time on, we can instead choose to focus on ourselves and developing our own skills that could be helpful to the Hedera ecosystem and moving the overall climate of the community towards one focused on building each other up. Generating positive energy, good vibes, being friendly and welcoming will go so much farther towards pushing Hedera to the top. So please friends, close CoinGecko, CoinMarketCap, and get to work improving your skills and learning new things, should the Hedera community focus on this we will truly transcend the industry. Be Well.
Co-Founder Conor
This is a sponsored article brought to you by HederaStarter.fi, all views, opinions and context are strictly those of the author.
