The ease in which we can share information, every opinion whether fact or fiction gets the same air time. This article included. This opinion piece is my commentary on overly positive crypto currency hype articles.
If you have ever browsed Reddit, Medium, CCN or any other syndication site that has self or paid published articles. You have probably noticed just as many hype (overly positive) articles as you do FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) articles. In many cases, even more hype articles than FUD. And to me, this is just as scary FUD articles. They are typically nothing more than opinion pieces costumed as unbiased technical articles with little meat. They are purely written to try and hype something with very little understanding of the topic or the industry as a whole.
I have 3 main gripes with these hype articles. The authors, their short memory spans, and very little substance.
The Authors
The authors of many of these hype articles are never written before, they are not accredited in the field, they are not formerly trained journalists, nor do they typically have the experience required to provide true insight into what they are writing about. In fact, most end with some sort of generic ‘I’m not an accredited investor…” tag which they add as a basic CYOA (cover your own ass) statement.
When you step back and read between the lines, I get the feeling that most of the hype articles are written by nothing more than fan boys who bought in and are trying to stoke the fire without understanding the big picture. Just because they purchased 1 BTC at $4k and it doubled in value, doesn’t make you an expert BTC tech insider or trader. Sorry.
I totally understand that I somewhat fall into this category. I’m a tech professional who survived the dot-com run and have turned many ideas into multi-million dollar profit generating products, but I am not a journalist nor have I ever trained to be one.
Short Memory Spans
I’m sure I’ll take heat for this, but crypto is a ‘young persons’ game just like the dot com game was. I sit on the edge of this. But it appears most of the people writing these articles likely do not recall or did not participate in the early 2000’s dot-com run. Those of us that do remember, every website was new, exotic and was going to change the world. How many really did? Not many. How many buzz words were flying around that didn’t stick? A lot. In actuality the only thing that really stuck around was the underlying technology that was birthed. In our case, it would be the block chain, not the individual coin. Case and point, if you were in the tech industry in the late 90s and early 2000s, think about how many search engines there were. Today we can strongly argue we have 2. Google and Bing (nice try yahoo.)
Which brings me to another point. In the dot-com day people were investing in websites that didn’t actually have a business. They were projects, nothing more than ideas people hoped would work and form into a true profit generating business. Some did. Most did not. And that is what I think a lot of the authors do not get. They are writing as if they are reviewing a stable business with strong fundamentals. They are not. These are nothing more than projects with a few fancy white papers that may or may not succeed. The latter, being more likely.
Little Substance
A lot of the articles do not add to the conversation. In fact, most are little more than a regurgitation of the projects homepage. Most do not seem to go deeper than the project’s advertised roadmap. I rarely read one that thinks big picture or contrasts like technology. Those that do contrast are again just regurgitation of the homepages and try to do nothing more than AB contrasts of key points. And even more rarely do I read one that appears actually has read and understood the white paper.
This piece is not intended to bash writers trying to add to the community. I write myself. But, I hope it provides a bit of buyer beware when you are reading the next article that pops up in your feed with the title of “3 next big coins to watch for in 2018!”
