DECENTRALIZED FINANCE

The Future of Bullshit Jobs Is Kind Of Adorable

No matter where you are reading this from in the world right now, you can already earn better than American minimum wage by playing crypto-powered video games

By Jesse J Rogers, aka Hogefather

New to crypto and want to know where to get started? Click here.

If you think about it, a large amount of human labor is already somewhat extraneous.

With self-checkout, we don’t need cashiers. With autonomous driving, we won’t need truckdrivers. We never needed Walmart greeters. On and on it goes. It isn’t simply that technological advance will make our jobs obsolete. The issue is that so many of these made-up jobs weren’t really needed to begin with.

That’s a bitter pill to swallow if you gain a sense of pride from the work you do. But if you hated working to begin with because it feels so meaningless, then maybe it will come as a relief to know that you’re neither lazy nor crazy.

Either way, the famous anthropologist David Graeber discusses the commonplace nature of pointless work at length in his 2019 book Bullshit Jobs. Read it later if you want, but for now just catch the TLDR from this video before we continue our conversation.

Given how unproductive and inefficient most service jobs are from the outset, the impact of millions of people leaving their jobs to make money playing video games hopefully doesn’t terrify you. Hey, it’s better than sending massive numbers of unnecessary workers to die in war, right? After all, that’s how economic dysfunction was resolved by the generations that endured the global misery and death of the 1940s.

I promise you my friends, this time there’s a much, much better way of dealing with the problem of excess labor supply than murdering each other over nationalistic delusions.

We can be a far happier, wealthier, safer, and friendlier global society by letting our Pokémon-like digital pets fight it out on the blockchain instead. Spread Small Love Potions (SLP), not hate.

If what I’m saying sounds naïve or utopian, let’s look at the numbers and fundamentals, shall we?

According to an article on Cointelegraph, “Axie Infinity raked in over $84 million in fees in the previous 30 days, more than Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum made in protocol revenue and more than all the top decentralized finance apps, including PancakeSwap, MetaMask, MakerDAO, Synthetix and others.”

$84 MILLION. In 30 days.

I don’t think I have to explain how shocking and profound that fact is, do I? This one single cute little project has outstripped the combined revenue generation of the entire decentralized finance (DeFi) industry that I’ve been unable to stop talking about since February.

I’m in good company by paying attention to Axie. To go ahead and name drop a little bit for my fellow Shark Tank fans, billionaire Mark Cuban has been talking about DeFi for a while — and is also in fact an investor in Axie Infinity.

Billionaire interest might make you wonder, who is that revenue going to? Tech bros? The wealthy? No. This is the best part. Mostly, revenue goes to PLAYERS. Overwhelmingly, the beneficiaries are those regular folks who play the game. This video gives a nice breakdown of how it works.

So how much can people earn? The article continues.

By doing so, dedicated players can make between 100 to 200 SLP tokens a day on average. That roughly equals $77.8 to $155.6 a day, per the current exchange rate of $0.77 per token.

I’m not qualified to give financial advice, but if this excites you so much that you’re ready to quit your job, let me tap the breaks one time here. Keep in mind that this price and earning amount will fluctuate significantly. After all, we’re talking about crypto here. The price on July 19th is not going to be the same as what it is when you read this article. The track record on this revenue stream isn’t steady and predictable yet.

Nevertheless, this game is already changing lives and opening opportunities for more and more people, especially Filipinos. The article below shares some first-hand experience about the phenomenon, and is well worth the read.

We can be a far happier, wealthier, and friendlier global society by letting our Pokémon-like digital pets fight it out on the blockchain instead.

As for me, I’m writing this article — and I’ll be using Google to translate it into every language that I can — because I hope that it isn’t just Filipinos that take advantage of this opportunity. It breaks my heart when I think about people in Latin America who leave their families and homelands to make a dangerous and costly trip to America in the hopes of earning low wages in the underground economy.

It puts a lump in the back of my throat when I think of how many children around the globe, particularly in Africa, are given too little education to compete in global markets because their families need to use their unskilled labor right now just to survive.

There’s got to be a better way.

I believe projects like Axie Infinity are using cutting edge blockchain technology to (very profitably!) lead humanity towards that better future. There’s market volatility, yes. There’s a learning curve. There are access problems because many of those who would benefit most from Play-to-Earn games can’t afford the technology or internet connection. Still, by creatively utilizing and incentivizing existing technologies, the challenge of giving everyone on earth a real shot at self-sufficiency is looking more and more solvable.

By the way, I almost managed to get this article out before Coin Bureau dropped his video about Axie (only 22 minutes ago, doh!). I’ll beat you to the punch one of these days, Guy.

Not financial advice. DYOR. For disclosure, I do not yet have any holdings of tokens or NFTs in the Axie Infinity ecosystem, but I do certainly do plan on exploring this investment further now that I’ve learned about it.