The cryptocurrency landscape is a frighteningly sexy social experiment, many times with mind numbing extremes attached to it. On most counts, nothing within in it or about it is normal. And luckily, it cannot be if it has any hope of succeeding.

It would be safe to wager that every person around the planet who is, has, or will be putting money into crypto has done so with the hopes of a positive return of some kind. Anyone who states differently is lying. What type of return, though, can vary by person.

A ‘positive return’ is not monopolized by the ideal of financial gains. It can also include social and specific ideological gains. But that is not how many view crypto at the moment. Because currencies are a vehicle for the financial layer of society, it is only natural that we see cryptocurrencies in the same manner.

I started out focused almost solely on making money when I entered into crypto, but over time and through educating myself, I realized the tech behind it didn’t really need my monetary aspirations to succeed. The moment the first block was mined, that was the moment we could most equate its beginning to a ‘big bang’ type of inception. And just like how many scientists believe is the case with our universe, the blockchain will continually expand as though it was always meant to be in harmonious tandem with human history’s inception as well.

The blockchain is a beautiful construct of a trustless system fully bent on trusting that those who can participate in validating it, actually will. This construct, which at face value may seem ironic and easily available to failure, has survived through even the most contentious of government and corporate interference. But how is that possible?

The motivation to right a wrong, feed a starving nation, take back what is ours, and embrace a freedom lost centuries ago has stirred within the loins of society and only grow as our planet becomes an increasingly smaller community of like-minded individuals. Tied together through the ability to communicate and commiserate via the internet, the combination of ‘say’ and ‘do’ through a decentralized means is upon us, and has provided us with the current recipe for potential social change.

In many ways we are the world’s distributed ledger, even though we are programmed to be tricked into thinking otherwise. So just as the nodes of a distributed ledger have the ability to show their desires, the world is arriving to the consensus that indeed, a hard fork of our currently outdated financial and societal algorithm must be altered.

The price of the coins or projects I invest in will change, as will my emotions with price fluctuations from time to time, because I have involved money into the equation. I will never pretend not to care where those prices are at. But it has no longer become the driving force behind my desire to see this beautiful manifestation of a global movement towards something better occur.

I witness the potential for cryptocurrency’s capitulation die a slow and painful death every day when I see middle-aged mothers starting websites to educate people on Bitcoin, or newly made friends in other countries send each other Litecoin to help pay a bill the receiver may otherwise not be able to make on their own.

There is an excitement among the few that will continue to infiltrate into the waiting ears of the many, and I will be a part of that change. This is why I am no longer a retail investor in cryptocurrencies. I am a change investor.