alt belief
The first chart check is always the total. Today >287 Billion in crypto, with Bitcoin taking >162 Billion. From the alts only ETH (>28) and XRP (>18) jump over the 10 Billion hurdle. In total 17 coins top the Billion mark and only 27 the half billion mark.
Bitcoin is impressive, but dwarfed by gold, that has a marketcap of over 7 trillion. That means that Bitcoin is a long way from strategic for the really rich. With crypto we are still in a small market. That is something to keep in mind at any time. When people enthusiastically proclaim Bitcoin is the digital gold, that is projection - not reality.
The same goes for crypto as means to settle payments. What is settled in crypto between people on a daily basis is dwarfed by what is settled in fiat currencies. The reason authorities seem to panic (in our opinion more show than real) is not about what crypto is, but what it can potentially become.
Bitcoin compares to gold in the way it is rather used to hold (store) or trade than to actually settle payments. It is not accurate to call it the reserve currency of crypto, but there seems to be consensus that Bitcoin is not the best crypto way to transact. The network is slow and fees are high - compared to other crypto. That was a motivation for Bitcoin Cash to start. Indeed this works much better from a transaction point of view. However: it is hardly used in real life. It marketcaps on a mere 7 Billion and that is not a substantial amount when you look at money changing hands on a daily basis.
Still it is what we want to achieve: P2P crypto payments instead of putting payments trough banks and fiat currency. The main reason it never really took of is crypto volatility. That is not a problem for people that are used to trade. Currency risk can be hedged and normally is. But it constitutes a barrier for consumers and most small businesses. So far stable coins are not a game changer - very few people settle P2P in stable coins. Another big issue of course is that you pay rent, taxes and utilities in fiat currency. Legal tender.
No reason to be depressed by this. For now at least the crypto space is growing and getting better. The first bridges to mass adoption are built and what is a really good phenomenon for crypto: once in you stay in. Simply because it saves you time and money. Compare our present situation with the first years telephones or fax machines were on the market. Only few people had it. It took consumers time to adopt. That is not any different for crypto.
We do not need all the answers today. Creating a space is already something. We can build from there. There are many good projects, but a lot of them are simply too complicated for the users and a substantial part is not well designed from a marketing- and business perspective. The ICO times were wild west. In that sense you can compare it with the dot.com bubble. FOMO made people blind. That happened the same in blockchain. That brought a lot of scammers to the market. A whitepaper and some profiles on social media and voila: the money poured in. Thank the God of Stupidity. That is still going on. In that it follows a good IT tradition: mystify the customer, make him think all is high tech and you need to find some nerd somewhere to join the ride. It's human - making money. A lot of people are ethical, but most are not. Don't invest in things you do not understand... That piece of good advice is one of the most neglected advises ever. A lot of crypto start ups are very good at creating FOMO and misrepresenting market data. They want to make you horny for endless market potential without explaining why their venture would be accepted in that market and play any meaningful role in it.
We want crypto and token economy to succeed. Despite the scams and ill conceived businesses financed by half witted buyers. There are some businesses that make it work for people without going to cowboy alley. The recent best is without doubt Celsius.network. They pay interest on deposits. That is exactly what people want. Trading is not for everybody and getting >8% under all circumstances is a good deal. Alex Mashinsky, CEO of Celsius does not do this out of charity. It works for him. He is happy to give 8% to have access to capital with which he knows how to make more than this... Sounds familiair? It is. It is good business sense. In fact it is free market. The reason it beats banks is that banks are not free market but monopoly holders. They do not have to give you sh*t. I have seldom seen people as honest as Mashinsky. No BS. When a normal person has a 100$ he does not know and does not have access to make that 100$ work for him. Mashinsky does. He gives you 8% to use it for his business. That is 8% more than you are able to get yourself. That is a great deal. A very fair deal. A very clever deal. Indeed: a deal that really helps the unbanked, since with 10$ you're already in! No strings attached.
We titled this post ALT BELIEF for a reason. It will be very hard for most alts to create business cases. We have bias against ETH, we think that is the Nr. 1 shitcoin. But we can be proved wrong. We don do TRON or EOS because it simply only works in theory and has very little real use case. That's why they tweet about their tps all the time. Doesn't mean a thing. If their DAPPS don't hype it is completely meaningless. Justin Sun, the father of TRON is hyping without end and followed (paid) BY A HUGE CROWD. But he doesn't have much more to offer that the future. He is the modern guru of hype marketing. A lot of people in crypto are all about hype and strong language. Very big ego's, from Charlie Lee trough Craig Wright to Roger Ver: they're pissing in the wind. There is a good reason for this: there is no real content but they need the money. They analyzed well: the crypto crowd is hungry for just this type of person and willing to throw money out of adoration.
Most alts are dead ends. They are more a matter of belief than of any content. There will be a winner (or a few winners) among the alts. It may not even exist yet. If BTC will survive is an interesting question. We believe BTC is manipulated and owned by a very small group that has a cash out strategy. That may be delayed by adoption. That will prolong the game. it' s just the bonus of being first and be an anchor. The new people going massively into crypto do not want bitcoin long term. They will take a ride to buy time, that's all. Our guess is that the handful of people manipulating the markets will set their exit point as high as possible and 20/25K might be it. Not much more. That exit will come is clear as hell. It is not a market - it is a group of well-connected individuals deciding that. The other side - the institutional adopters - join them in exit strategy. They take the ride only to develop an alternative they own. The crypto guru's of the first hours already are beggars at their porch. They are willing to play KYC and AML. There is very little left of the ideas that started crypto in the first place. Maybe the German stockmarket guru Dirk Müller is right after all: the "space" was launched as an experiment of the people that already own everything. There never was new money. There was old money putting up a few billion to test how stupid people really are. They are just happy with the result. They keep control.
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