Wow. Now that's a dip.

I woke this morning thinking that the dip was over. It's not.

I'm not really that worried about the dip. By now you know how the market has reached another low since hitting highs in December. It's important to remember that this "dip" doesn't even come close to the baseline lows that most of the major coins were at early last year. But for those who bought at or near the top, ahem, these are "historic" lows.

I'm in this for the long run. I see this as the future. Governments around the world are taking notice and are building a regulatory framework so that cryptocurrency can keep going. Some governments see the value in it. Others well, not so much. South Korea just wants the exchanges to know their customer and to encourage people to pay their taxes. China says they're going to stomp it out, but I think that has more to do with the enormous sums of energy expended just to mine Bitcoin and Ethereum. India's government wants an outright ban. The US? It's hard to say, but I'd say that the US, particularly the Wall Street part of the US, wants crypto. They just don't know how to make sure that regular people can't make money off it so that they'll keep working 9-5.

I know, seems cynical. But it has been shown throughout history that when people get power, suddenly, they want more. Once one has power, then all self-dealing is justified.

I think that cryptocurrency offers us a chance to solve some serious problems that we have with the banking system. Cryptocurrency, properly designed, eliminates the self-dealing, or at least exposes it. Anyone can design an app to crawl the public blockchain to see where the money is going and where it came from. Government has learned how to read the blockchain and follow the money, from bank to Bitcoin address, to another address, to another bank. Because it's a public record, a public ledger, anyone can follow the money.

Many in the media have taken some glee in the recent downturn in the crypto markets. Some have noted that crypto was in a bubble and that it needed to be popped. I'm inclined to agree. Some were even prepared for the bubble and took note that this downturn in January is "seasonal". Imagine that. Doesn't the stock market rally every January? Sure seems like it. So I guess the crypto markets tank in January so that people can pay their taxes.

Whatever happens to crypto, its mostly a public policy decision. Public policy is that body of laws that we can call, "the rules". It's a system of laws, regulations, and court decisions that we have agreed to or maybe not so much, on how to get along with each other.

All of this talk of banning crypto, stamping it out, hindering it, well, so much of that is nonsense. Cryptocurrecy properly designed, is a network of money, and it routes around damage. The internet was designed to route around damage. So does crypto. Governments should know this by now. The genie is out of the bottle. There is no putting it back in. Why not?

Because the people who are leading the charge with cryptocurrency are millennials. You know, that young generation of people so often maligned as lazy, soft, easily deterred. Yeah, those people.

In the United States, those millennials are 83 million strong. They are the largest voting demographic. And if you're in public office, and you want to stay in public office, god help you if you offend the millennials. They are just now finding their feet. Pretty soon, they're going to find their arms while the old guard is dying off. They will have found their mouth when the old guard is dead. They will have seen the shambles left for them by the old guard and they are going to get serious about change. Bitcoin and all the other cryptocurrencies are about that change.

I read the Bitcoin whitepaper, among many other documents. I watched enough videos and have seen the evidence. Bitcoin and many of the other currencies are about removing the corruption of money. In Satoshi Nakamoto's whitepaper, he noted the response of the government to the collapse of the housing bubble. He noted how the banks were helped and the people were left to twist in the wind. So he (whoever he or they are) decided to create a public ledger, with high security and immutable transactions, that would prevent wealthy fools from being bailed out by government when they made huge mistakes.

Bitcoin isn't the only one. There are more than 1000 cryptocurrencies all competing for our commerce. Many of them have a noble cause. Many of them have applications running on their blockchains. Many of them are solving problems that were intractable before blockchain came along. Over time, with use, abuse and experience the coins that don't work will fail or will be abandoned. What remains will be a solid foundation upon which civilization can be built.

This dip we're in is not a referendum on the merits of cryptocurrency. It is temporary downturn. And like in any market, when prices are low, people will buy. It is somewhat unfortunate that the value of cryptocurrencies are measured in relation to the dollar. But it is early days yet. In a generation or two, that may pass.

We may live to see a day where cryptocurrencies solve the problem of trade imbalances due to currency manipulation. Crypto may be the ultimate tool for directing incentives to solve mankind's greatest problems. Crypto make make big money in politics impossible, or at the very least, really uncomfortable. We may live to see the day when a the value of a kilowatt hour is measured by Bitshares, Ethereum or Bitcoin Cash.

In the wild west days of the 1800's, there were more than 7,000 banks all issuing their own currency, backed by some deposit of gold, honoring a standard that was set by the government for the people. Eventually, a few won out and the rest faded away. Now we have the Federal Reserve and other central banks.

Are we ready for a decentralized and stable reserve currency that is not controlled by any government? How about more than one? I hope so. Because its coming whether we're ready or not. But I suspect that when it does come, we'll be ready. Imagine that.