The crowd is abuzz with frenzied and frenetic excitement bordering on holy hysteria. Extraordinary claims of infinite growth and infinite prosperity converge on the only extraordinary proof we need, proffered to us by the unimpeachable soapbox crypto-prophets declaiming the inevitable on every street-corner:

‘Abandon all Doubt, Apprehension, or Fear! For Imminent Success herself is Here!

Lo, our God From The Machine is come to bring us weal, heal our woes, and fix our economic throes — Look for the signs all around you! Tokens like manna shall fall from the sky — The market is reaching an all time high! All hail the Initial Coin Offering: Ye Horn of Plenty! Ye Techno-Potosí! Ye Soaring South Sea Company! Ye Golden Goose of a Gift that Gives and Gives and Gives — to ME!’

“Abandon all doubt, apprehension, or fear!” — The prophet at work

Untold riches lie at the ends of the world — Invest in the South Sea company!

Need I say more? You’ve heard it before. The ultimate score behind door number four:

Sincere claims, repeated ad infinitum, unbridled in their rapacious and unabashed outward optimism; divorced from all reason, announcing the foregone conclusion of wealth beyond wildest imaginations without anyone having to deserve this wealth through proof and merit of honest work.

Yet no matter how inwardly doubtful such claims really are, they persist in so successfully stoking the unchecked wildfires of collective delusion. Take your pick:

Tulip mania: The discovery of a social phenomenon

Delirious hope in the spiralling value of bulbs at the height of the Tulip Bubble

Unstoppable waves of national pride on the eve of The Great War

Indomitable belief in The Great Bull Market on the eve of The Great Depression

Unshakeable trust in the Dot Com Boom at the height of the Dotdotdot Bubble

Unequivocal support of deregulatory policies on the eve of the Financial Cri…well, you get the point.

In scope, the subject matters differ. In hope, the song remains the same.

…and now, the ICO, with its promise of attainable realms of gold on the horizon of possibilities, rears its sleek and gleaming head. Every day a new offering, every hour a new cryptodarling. Opportunities multiply. Fortunes are made. Kings crowned. An epidemic of FOMO unleashed. One loses count of the sheer number opportunities as the hype train leaves the station. Records are broken. Kings beget speculators clothed in the ermine of kings. Airy empires spring up like mushrooms. Pumps are dumped and dumps are pumped. Volatility be damned — there is coin in them there crypts! Like a cyberpunk Sisyphus, the boulder we’ve pushed to the top of the hill’s got our wallet address, and unlike Indy, not all of us will leave the Temple of Doom in one piece.

How many times must the chain of events be set in motion for the truth of its imminent demise to be made manifest? How many times must we amble blindly into the same traps? If stone cold crazy is in fashion, and the whole world’s lost its mind, the question we’re all asking ourselves is: Where do I sign up? Does this cognitive leap of faith leading the many to join the March of Folly not vindicate there being an inherent limit to the individual’s perspective when dealing with complexity? Like the commuter’s inability to perceive the cause of traffic? Like our complacency before the looming spectre of climate catastrophe?

Unscrupulous opportunism is the coin of the crypto-realm, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.

The Bull Trap before the storm : Bubble overlay of BTC — http://www.marketwatch.com/story/if-this-chart-overlay-has-it-right-its-about-to-get-really-ugly-for-bitcoin-investors-2017–07–26

Look familiar? — https://ethereumprice.org/, Jul.22, 2017

But wait. Take a step back. Is there not also a perspective attainable beyond this limit?

If you know the straw is coming, then surely by now you’ve considered dismounting from the camel? Stepping outside? Seeing it for what it is? You’ve weathered the vertiginous rise, so why fiddle like the emperors of old while your tinderbox Rome awaits an errant (though by no means ill-intentioned) match? Like a skilful matador, the red cloth of your smart money has already drawn the bull, so why let the bull draw you?

Enough has been written about the crypto-bubble that no further exposition of facts and figures is necessary — and I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but by now I doubt that anything said here is either bad, or news, to you. Isn’t it simply the name of the game we’ve come to accept? The risk we’re all willing to take as prediction market guinea pigs trapped in the gilded cage, and gilded age, of our making?

I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions. Every decent and well-spoken individual affects and sways me more than is right. I ought to go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways. — Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

In the Blockchain space, what should matter is real work, long term vision, sustainable growth, achievable institutional change. And you know what? Blockchain, and the brilliant and far-thinking change makers permeating the industry are more than capable of this. This is nothing new. But the White Elephant in the room, a noxious jumble of sunk cost fallacy and group think, compounded by our collective action at the mercy of our collective delusion, decides what matters - and what matters at present is quick exits, short term gain, and wealth for wealth’s sake. A culture of conspicuous consumption has conquered the crypto space. Which brings us to the hard choice:

Go their way? Or go your own?