By QueenB.Divine
Notice this. Have you ever been manipulated? Before you answer no, let me ask it another way. Have you ever bought a coin because everybody suddenly seemed to be talking about it? Have you ever stared at a green candle and thought, Oh shit, I’m missing it, then bought something you knew almost nothing about because apparently the entire financial future of humanity was happening Tuesday afternoon without you? Yeah. Welcome to crypto.
Manipulation is a big word. It sounds sinister, like somebody is sitting in a dark room wearing a hoodie with six computer screens and a cat on their lap plotting how to get your $43. But manipulation doesn’t always look like that. Sometimes it looks exciting. Sometimes it looks like opportunity. Sometimes it looks like a confident person on social media telling you this is your “last chance.” Sometimes it looks like 147 rocket emojis under a coin you had never heard of twelve minutes ago. And sometimes the person manipulating your decision isn’t even another person. Sometimes it’s your own fear of being left behind.
I started thinking about this the other day because I went to the butcher. Yes, we’re talking crypto and somehow we’ve already arrived at steak. Welcome to my brain. I had gotten my tax return and decided to treat myself to some T-bone steaks. Nothing ridiculous. I’m not out here buying Wagyu with Bitcoin profits I don’t have. Just a nice steak. But those damn steaks were huge, so I asked the butcher to cut them in half. Money needs to stretch. A whole T-bone is beautiful, but half a T-bone is still a beautiful dinner We had a great dinner
When I got to the cash register, the woman looked at the package, looked at the label and then looked back at the meat. The label said T-bone, but what she was seeing didn’t look like the T-bone steak stored in her brain. It was too thin. She looked genuinely confused. She opened the package a little and finally asked, “Did you have a T-bone cut in half?” Yep. Suddenly everything made sense.
I loved that moment because I was watching somebody think. Something didn’t match what she knew, so she didn’t just accept the label because the label told her what it was. She stopped. She looked. She questioned. She checked. Then she came to her own conclusion. Now tell me the crypto community couldn’t use a little more of that shit.
Imagine if we treated crypto like that T-bone. The label says “revolutionary.” Okay, but what’s inside the package? The post says “100X potential.” Based on what? Somebody says the project is going to change finance forever. Wonderful. How? Somebody tells you everybody is buying. Who the hell is everybody? Because somehow I’m always hearing about “everybody” and I’ve never met the person.
That is where manipulation gets interesting. My definition of manipulation is when someone arranges the landscape in a way that helps lead you toward the conclusion they want you to reach, rather than giving you room to reach your own. In crypto that can happen through hype, urgency, fear, selective information, influencer excitement, community pressure and that beautiful little emotional grenade called FOMO.
FOMO is one hell of a middleman. It gets between you and your ability to think. Suddenly you’re not asking whether something makes sense. You’re asking whether you’re going to miss it. Those are two completely different questions. One is research. The other is anxiety wearing a financial hat.
And crypto is almost perfectly designed to mess with that part of us because it never really shuts up. There’s always another chart. Another prediction. Another post. Another token. Another person saying Bitcoin is going here, Ethereum is going there, this altcoin is about to explode and something you’ve never heard of is apparently going to buy everybody a house by Thursday. Meanwhile, you’re sitting there refreshing the screen like the market has been waiting personally for you to check.
I’m not against crypto. Quite the opposite. I find the whole damn thing fascinating. But liking something doesn’t mean handing it your common sense. If anything, the more excited you are about something, the more important it becomes to protect your ability to think independently.
That means sometimes putting the phone down. It means asking yourself why you want to buy before pressing BUY. Did something fundamentally change, or did you just watch somebody with excellent lighting explain why you’re an idiot if you don’t own it? Are you making a decision, or are you reacting? Are you researching the investment, or researching reasons to justify the decision you already emotionally made?
There’s another side to manipulation that we don’t talk about enough either: kindness. I noticed this recently at the grocery store with my husband. The cashier started joking with us, talking, laughing and building this little friendly connection. Then came the fundraiser story. Good cause. Emotional story. Friendly conversation. And finally the ask: would we like to donate a couple of dollars? Now, asking for a charitable donation isn’t automatically manipulation. People raise money for good causes every day. But I noticed the sequence. Connection first. Ask second. And suddenly saying no can feel slightly different because now you’re not declining a transaction; you feel like you’re declining your new buddy.
My husband listened, smiled and simply said, “No, I’m good.” And off we went.
That tiny moment matters in crypto too. Community is powerful. Community can teach you things. It can introduce you to ideas you never would have discovered alone. But belonging to a community can also make disagreement uncomfortable. If everybody in your group believes something is going to the moon, questioning it can suddenly feel like betrayal. That’s dangerous. Your money doesn’t know what community you belong to. Your bank account does not care how many rocket emojis were in the group chat.
You are allowed to say no. You are allowed to wait. You are allowed to miss an opportunity. Read that one again because crypto makes people forget it. You are allowed to miss an opportunity. There will be another damn opportunity. Maybe not the exact same one, but life is not going to close the financial buffet because you didn’t buy something at 2:17 p.m. on Wednesday.
Sometimes protecting yourself financially means doing nothing until your emotions stop driving the car.
And this goes beyond buying. Fear can manipulate you into selling just as easily as excitement can manipulate you into buying. One red candle becomes two, social media starts screaming, somebody posts “IT’S OVER,” and suddenly you’re making a long-term decision because your nervous system had a bad fifteen minutes.
That’s why I keep coming back to that woman and my half T-bone steak. She didn’t panic. She didn’t blindly trust the label. She didn’t throw the steak across the store screaming, “THE T-BONE HAS COLLAPSED!” She just stopped and figured out why what she was seeing didn’t match what she expected.
Sometimes that’s all we need to do.
Stop.
Look.
Question.
Think.
And maybe that is becoming one of the most valuable skills we have, not just in crypto but in life. Technology can give us information faster than any generation before us could have imagined, but information and thinking are not the same thing. A thousand opinions arriving on your phone in three seconds does not automatically equal wisdom. Sometimes it just means you now have a thousand opinions to sort through.
So the next time somebody tells you that you need to buy something right now, that everybody is getting in, that you’ll regret missing it, that this is guaranteed, that this is your last chance, or that you simply “don’t understand” because you’re asking questions, remember the steak.
Open the damn package.
Look at what’s actually there.
Because your crypto wallet may be digital, but your ability to think for yourself is still one of the most valuable assets you own.
And unlike crypto, I hope that one never becomes decentralized.
Notice this,” come find me on YouTube at @selflovedailychannel — Canada’s SelfLove Daily Channel.
The cure is conversation. Self-love and self-care will get you there.
— QueenB.Divine
This is personal commentary based on my experiences and observations. It is not individualized financial or investment advice.
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