If you are invested into Hodlnaut, you may be keen to know that its General Chat channel on Discord awards chatty users $10 worth of USDC when they engage with one another and gain enough points from doing so. Chat liquidity - a term we regular users use to denote the level of active exchange - increases rather significantly whoever people talk about price movements of BTC and ETH. However, people do chat about other things, including their jobs, families, hobbies and challenges. It’s basically anything goes under the sun. 

I have been an active user since its launch this January, and recently, I have come to think of it fondly as a platform to hone my communication skills. Hodlnaut’s Discord channel is fascinating because it attracts people from a good spread of countries who are of different ages, risk appetites and stages in their lives. Hence, a few cross-cultural Insights inadvertently crop up now and then, which I reckon are one of the unexpected bonuses of this platform. 

Let me give you an example. Sometimes, the discussion gets heated because people advocate fervently for their position. There were times in which I felt that my American interlocutors might have taken things somewhat personally and hence, spoken in a more assertive tone than I was used to. In fact, there were times in which I spoke up to explain that Singaporeans were not used to such a direct way of communication, so what might have been typical for them would have come across as confrontational for me. It was so interesting for me to watch my American friends explain that they were not actually getting riled up. They were just putting across their ideas in the spirit of intellectual discourse.

So this was interesting for me: the disparity in communication styles. 

Aside from enhancing my cultural versatility, I found that a lot of things went through my mind before I typed in response to another user's sharing. Do I jump in with my own experiences and insights or do I probe deeper and get him to elaborate on his response? Would it be too insensitive of me if I prompted further, though? So it was a great exercise in empathy for me as I tried to determine the mood in which these words were written and decide my next step. Here, I think my training as a teacher helped tremendously because I would acknowledge what my partner was writing and try to echo his feelings by paraphrasing his words. Sometimes, I might share my own experience so as to cultivate a sense of camaraderie. Other times, I decided to play a more assertive role and get my friend to reframe things or stop ruminating so that he wouldn't get mired in negativity. 

I think that because I am so active on Discord, I get to make these spilt-second decisions multiple times every day. So, perhaps I would be able to transfer these soft skills over to real life and become a more empathetic individual. In any case, I hope my blog articles reflect a more introspective, contemplative and sensitive soul!