Identifying Tops and Bottoms in Crypto Through Indirect Observations

Since I can remember it has always been my hobby to observe and then decipher people. At first this might sound silly and pseudo-psych but there are some fundamental aspects of human nature that nobody can deny. I detest psychology because mostly because it tries to over-generalize anthropological facts into a mushy amalgamation of social engineering where "all narratives can be true". My quest for answers in regards to why humans do what they do has let me into profound discoveries in the world of anthropology and finance.

Part of my work, involves inspecting social media and identifying behavior from so-called "finance experts" in order to gauge whether the decisions or analysis is consistent and/or credible. I won't go into the most minute details of my craft but those who have known me over the years know that I called out scammers and fraudsters of Steemit (and not only) months or even years before they actually acted upon their true intentions. I used similar techniques to do so.

Our subject for today is a fellow that is kinda lovable in the crypto community. At first look, he seems like the guy who would be top of their class but also enjoying their casual video game, not over argumentative but still not confident enough to believe their own calls and rather tries to justify their opinion by retweeting others that agree with his comments. More or less, similar to padding yourself in the back. Tuur Demester is a self proclaimed economist that offers insights about the crypto world. Much like most of the folk in the ecosystem, his views are heavily biased and flawed. His expertise is similar to most of the people being loud in social media. They got in early and where wealthy enough from before to just leave that first investment untouched until it grew to a significant amount.

Over the last few days, a few people including Vitalik have broken down his criticism over Ethereum so I am not going to go over it as well. I am not very concerned with his technical projections about the future. I don't waste my time with unknown unknowns. What I am interested is what Tuur is made of. How his views shape his narratives. That aspect alone, can speak volumes. Not his economic and technical analysis brake down. After all, economics, are not exactly science but anthropology is very much so. We can't escape from who we are.

In the above tweet, Tuur expresses a classical myopic political view of the world. He agrees with the critique of the comedian Louis CK who has been accused of sexual misconduct. Rolling Stones, a classic liberal magazine doubles down on the Louis CK burn by noting that he is insensitive to the mass shooting survivors. The matter and fact is that most people that survived the shootings are not necessarily traumatized but they do use their experience to become famous on social media. That is a fact.

As you can see Rollings Stones and the guy who retweeted this is very emotional. The main point is that Tuur is also concerned with the emotional aspect of the event and not the factual critique of it based on reason and logic. This along with some other tweets of his constructs a profile of an over-emotional millennial who is shaken by market moves, trying to create narratives that involve his emotions rather than actual reasons. Overly emotional adults are not really adults. They are impulsive children. They lack the maturity to step back and judge something for what it is.

I called the BTC top and bottom last year (December 28th 2017) based on a similar analysis of some groups of people which I occasionally named. At first, I was laughed at and even ridiculed for my $3100 bottom call. It was about 56 people of the crypto community including everyone that made predictions for end of year prices. Surprisingly enough, the same people express polar opposite sentiment as we speak, indicating we are very close to the Ethereum bottom. Tuur's sentiment is part of the group of people who's emotions helped in the past for nailing market sentiment.

Throughout the years, I wrote a lot of pieces that offer hints and secrets about how I manage to do what I do. This piece is not financial advice but rather a demonstration for the unbelievers who rely on pseudo bullshit practices like Technical Analysis to brake down the market. You might get lucky with some classical charting but even Peter Brandt would tell you that this is probably not a good idea. I remember that when i made the call for 3100 bottom no chartist agreed because there was absolutely no reason for BTC to bottom at that level - well, not a TA reason at least which for the vast majority is the only lens they use to act upon the market.

My only piece of advice for those who are interested in doing something similar is to try and use your peripheral vision when it comes to market observation. CNBC shilling how to buy XRP won't necessarily help you as much as Novogratz being over-emotional with a Trump tweet. The real information about the market hides in places you would least expect it. Human Stupidity(or rather emotionalism) can be the greatest weapon in your arsenal