Cryptocurrencies Part III - We ran as if to meet the Moon

[Toothless Legend]

I'm ready to break even, sell it, and toss it into the S&P 500. Set it and forget it. Crypto is a dream. More likely than not it's just a way for crooks and governments to move money around in a volatile environment. I'm done.

Bad time to exit. Post-Gensler world is going to bring in a lot of activity into the space; some good, some bad, but it'll be a high tide for most boats IMO.

 

[x Tame Impala]

Bad time to exit. Post-Gensler world is going to bring in a lot of activity into the space; some good, some bad, but it'll be a high tide for most boats IMO.

Where's all the investment going to come from? The market cap for BTC is already at $1.92 Trillion and ETH is $328 Billion. The world is aware of bitcoin, it's seen what it has to offer so I don't know what the world is waiting for. Maybe some showing of intrinsic value would be nice. Despite the 1,000's of hours of podcasts and essays, the world is still waiting. Crypto is merely a (currently) worthwhile gamble for common folk investors.

 

[Toothless Legend]

Where's all the investment going to come from? The market cap for BTC is already at $1.92 Trillion and ETH is $328 Billion. The world is aware of bitcoin, it's seen what it has to offer so I don't know what the world is waiting for. Maybe some showing of intrinsic value would be nice. Despite the 1,000's of hours of podcasts and essays, the world is still waiting. Crypto is merely a (currently) worthwhile gamble for common folk investors.

You've gotta think much broader than just the casino-goers and the boomers looking at tokens like stocks, and certainly need to expand your mindset beyond just BTC (which will continue to remain a top store of value) and ETH (which will continue to flourish as an entry point to a broader ecosystem). Now that the anti-crypto legislators with their pithy, superficial criticisms of crypto being nothing more than Ponzi schemes and money laundering outfits have been shunned by the electorate, the industry finally has regulatory certainty--which is likely the norm going forward. Heck, even during Gensler's reign of terror, we STILL saw institutional investors via ETFs and other means become major players.

Plenty of interesting use-cases have been quietly been worked on in the shadows during Gary's attempt to kill the technology (Polymarket's here to stay, speaking of a more direct form of gambling), but now some of the more appealing use-cases can be funded without fear of being deemed illegal or forced offshore. VC/PE capital has been waiting patiently for this to pull plenty of projects out of white paper purgatory. IMO stablecoins are going to lead the way and hit next level usage, and right behind it a lot of web3 concepts will their stride. Just like startups, a lot of these projects will fail, but I wouldn't be surprised to see something similar to the ICO bubble with less risk, most transparency, and better commercial mechanisms to allocate tokens/ownership now that the industry has grown up quite a bit.

 

[McGarnagle]

As a long term holder, I appreciate a bear case every now and then to keep our expectations in check, but the whole "it's gambling and just for drug dealers!" thing has been thoroughly proven false by now.

With the caveat that when I talk about crypto, I mean Bitcoin and ETH (and other legit stable coins that I admittedly don't know enough about or invest in). The whole other ecosystem of Shitcoins and memecoins should be dismissed as such.

 

[Primary Assist]

Where's all the investment going to come from? The market cap for BTC is already at $1.92 Trillion and ETH is $328 Billion. The world is aware of bitcoin, it's seen what it has to offer so I don't know what the world is waiting for. Maybe some showing of intrinsic value would be nice. Despite the 1,000's of hours of podcasts and essays, the world is still waiting. Crypto is merely a (currently) worthwhile gamble for common folk investors.

I certainly appreciate the skeptic's point of view, which is something I think is really necessary in all talks about such a speculative asset.

There is a HUGE amount of dry powder that's been largely unable to touch crypto in the United States. The federal gov't itself may enter the space with a strategic reserve. Up until now its only Bitcoin holdings have been what the Marshals and other LEOs have seized (to my knowledge).

The needle is also pointing to more forgiving regulations in the US, meaning banks would be able to stockpile crypto, open their own OTC or prop desks, and sell it to their private clients.

Tokenization could also be huge as real world assets migrate to the blockchain. The underlying networks will see a ton of traffic, and there will be demand to buy into these networks - especially the Proof of Stake ones.

Lastly we saw huge buying pressure with the launch of spot BTC and ETH ETFs. Some of that was due to "vibes" as people understood the SEC was finally starting to cave on certain digital assets, some was due to the pure mechanics of the ETF issuers having to buy the assets to hold on their balance sheet. If spot ETFs get approved for other digital assets, or baskets of assets, large asset allocators (and even mom and pop 401k investors) could start buying a slew of more assets, further driving up price.

The tl;dr is that the crypto asset is certainly maturing quickly, but it's not fully mature yet. There is still ample room to grow

 

[TheDoldrums]

Where's all the investment going to come from? The market cap for BTC is already at $1.92 Trillion and ETH is $328 Billion. The world is aware of bitcoin, it's seen what it has to offer so I don't know what the world is waiting for. Maybe some showing of intrinsic value would be nice. Despite the 1,000's of hours of podcasts and essays, the world is still waiting. Crypto is merely a (currently) worthwhile gamble for common folk investors.

Gold market cap is over $19 trillion. If Bitcoin replaces it as the modern store of value, lots of runway left.