To be exact, at Ether's current price, only 17% of ETH stakers are at a gain (as of July 2, 2022).  The majority of stakers bought in between $2500-$3000 per ETH; on average, at Ethereum's current price, that would put the 80% of stakers at -60% yield, on average.

    What's it like to be left holding the bag???

   That's a term we've been hearing more and more of lately, as retail investors who were pumped up on schilling and hopium now hold wallets full of tokens with the liquidity drained out of them. How do you think the ETH stakers are feeling about crypto right now?

  Although "left holding the bag" has its own negative connotations, is it really that bad to be a bag holder? Sorry, I don't have any hopium or copium for the masses; hell, in this climate, I won't even be caught telling anyone to hodl it. That's for every investor to decide for themselves. I will, however, encourage you to drop any mindset of thinking your tokens returning to their all time highs. 

 "Which token will moon?" "Which token should I buy today?"

  All of these ridiculous Tweets around the cryptospace build digital assets into more of speculative assets than they need to be. Influencers literally make a living in USD by guaranteeing that crypto sentiment is based in speculation, and not utility. If we look at ETH as gas and native currency to run the network, why would we want the price to skyrocket? That's like hoping the price of oil goes up because you have perpetuals on it's price; only to lose your earnings to overprices gasoline at the pump.

  The point? Who's going to adopt and start using ETH as a network for projects when the asset and gas price are too expensive for the layman? The same goes for every crypto project. Rapid price increases leaves crypto "adoption" in the hands of CEX's, VCs, and swing traders; that adoption is nothing more than USD hunters buying and holding until they've reached their profit mark.

  Is Amazon's success marked by their stock price or by their gross income year over year?

 So what's my tip? Learn how to use Ethereum. Have fun- let the speculation that crypto will continue with mass adoption motivate you to learn how to use digital assets, rather than blowing stacks hoping for a double. You won't be able to beat the shark traders in this space. 

  If you were left holding the bag, understand that holding the bag is being the bag holder. Now that you're holding the bag, what will you do with it?

 Thanks for reading, and don't forget to follow me on Twitter @cryptopotestas