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What a day. 

It started with a three hour yearly development discussion with my supervisor, which was actually a lot more fun than it sounds as we have a decent relationship and tend to go off on tangents. While fun, it was still a work conversation and three hours straight through with an empty coffee cup is a long time. We of course covered all of the things that we needed to cover and pretty much the only thing that I really need to work on is ironically, *transparency.* 

lols.

I do understand the comment though as for the last 16 years I have been working largely on my own with individual within companies, meaning our conversations are very private. On top of that, I have had to be self-reliant when it comes to my own needs and development and there was never a need to tell anyone where I was or what I was up to at any particular time. Working with a team is of course different and while I am very transparent in my work tasks, I also spend time out of the office running my own business, something that doesn't really come to the mind of others. Because of this, I should communicate more to the team in order for everyone to be on the same page. Fair enough. 

![LRM_EXPORT_435742468490735_20191021_195102618.jpeg](https://files.steempeak.com/file/steempeak/tarazkp/MYOAPPRm-LRM_EXPORT_435742468490735_20191021_195102618.jpeg)

But, the development discussion wasn't what made it such a big day, this fell to another thing entirely while I was in that meeting. 

My wife was with another man and, another couple on top of that, as well as her best friend. The other day we entered into negotiations on the house we have had our eye on and after a little sparring, we settled on a price a night ago. The man was an independent inspector hired to look into the house and identify any major problems that could influence our decision to buy. 

Since it was on such short notice and I had this work discussion, my wife took her knowledgeable friend with her to follow the inspector. Thankfully, other than a few minor and non-urgent points, it looks like we are buying a house that we do not have enough money to renovate. 

I am pretty excited. 

Yes, it is going to be a great deal of work, take years of work and absorb pretty much every bit of money we have - but, it has the potential to be a gorgeous home that we love that is worth significantly more than what we will have paid for it. For most and for myself up until this point, this is the single largest investment I have made, and it is far from finished consuming and even further from an ROI. I was thinking though, how does one calculate the largest investment. Is it money in, or the return on the money in? 

Just thinking that if it is "money in", this house is likely to be my largest investment ever, but if it is "money out", perhaps if things go well my investment into crypto and the Steem blockchain will be the largest. Of course, the sunk cost is the most important factor in the immediate investment, but it is the outcome that matters, and with such a asymmetrical potential return on crypto investments, the outcome could be several magnitudes lager than the input. 

When it comes to our new house, this is not the case as even if things go very well, the most gain in value we can really hope for in the next ten years would be around a 50% gain and that would then have to be adjusted for inflation and interest on the mortgage. By the way, mortgage literally means "dead pledge" - *engaged til death.*

But, that same potential percentage gain in crypto could happen tonight, and when it comes to my total holdings, the price wouldn't have to increase enormously to outperform the house investment. Not only that, a lot of the crypto value I hold has been gained through a great deal of sweat equity and while I really have spent a lot of time and energy on it, I am about to embark on doing the same into a house and sinking a lot more value into it, even though the ceiling increase isn't very high, relatively. 

Which do you think is the better investment?

Of course, the difference with a house is it is something physical and something we actually need in some way, shape or form since you know, *shelter.* We could buy a smaller place, we could buy an already renovated place, we could rent a place or, we could stay where we are, but a place is required and whatever place we have will be attached to a cost with pros and cons of different types. As I see it, even if we are able to add value to the home, we are going to be there for years most likely and what we add will be insignificant over time, but it will essentially *store our value* petty decently under average and expected conditions. 

But crypto with an unknown upside and all the volatility could be much more than a store of value as it has the potential to increase in price significantly and far outweigh *any investments* made, including the time and effort put into it. For nearly three years I have put into Steem a full-time job's worth plus weekends for very little fiat value, but I believe the future value of my holdings are worth much more than that. Yes, I could have just bought at the lows and have about the same amount, but the wallet doesn't speak anything of journey.

Buying this house is a conscious lifestyle change for my family and what that means is that we are changing the course of our life journey and as they say, it isn't the destination, it is how you get there. I believe it is the same for Steem and while people may not remember the past of others, their own journey on the Steem blockchain is personal and unique. 

Someone can buy 78,617 STEEM for under 16,000 dollars, they can never by the experience I have had on my way to holding that much. For me, my experience has money, but the Steem in my wallet is fungible and holds no memory of my journey - my posts, comments, votes and all the ideas I have put out into the world to build the relationships I have, are there on the chain forever and immutable. I can sell all of my STEEM and my journey persists.

A house is fungible in regards to the journey of the family it shelters, but the experiences of that family within that house will be impressed upon them forever as memories of laughter, tears and all the life between. On Steem, it is our experience here that has the real value and it is the experience of users that need to be developed. 

Unlike the real world, no one on Steem has a mortgage, no one owes *to the blockchain* that houses their experience, their memories, their lives of laughter and tears. A house can change hands like STEEM, the experience with the house and with STEEM is non-fungible and unique.

As I see it, investing into a house as we have done or investing into the community on Steem is about investing into a journey. And while you can buy a house and you can buy STEEM - 

*you have to build a home.*

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]

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