Blain’s Morning Porridge May 20 2022 – The Crypto Bubble is Bursting – Open Your Eyes And Spot the Ugly Naked Truth
“Buttcoin is about the worst idea in 7 Millenia of a Financial Stupidity.”
This Morning – Crypto has fallen 30% through May. The headlines about scams, illegality, and outright theft obscure the key facts; its overly complex, vulnerable and doesn’t actually do anything we can’t already do better. It’s terribly clever, but a pointless, busted bubble.
It’s been an “interesting” and challenging week for markets. Thankfully, we have the light comic relief that is the Church of Crypto to distract us from real world pain.
I’ve been watching the Crypto narrative of stupidity, skulduggery, naivety and downright illegality develop for years. At first I was genuinely enthused and intrigued, but the excesses, the self-importance of players, and the utter nonsense spouted about its applications beggared my belief. I’ve thought about it long and hard, and concluded Crypto is utterly pointless. But… the mythos around it means it’s become an opportunity to make money – which is why Bitcoin uses as much electricity as a mid-size nation even though it contributes absolutely zip to the sum of human utility.
If there is one thing the market excesses of the Twenty-Teens has demonstrated it’s great ideas are not necessarily great businesses. For instance; the CEO of one of the largest Pizza companies was asked about food delivery start-ups: “We’ve been delivering Pizzas for 50 years. We make all our money from the ingredients and cooking them. We’ve lost money on every pizza we deliver. What do these guys know that we don’t?”
And, that neatly encapsulates Crypto. What’s the point?
Yet, the crypto sector just keeps delivering; getting ever more complex and more detached from reality. I’m not even sure I should even be writing about the crypto ecosystem – but since lots of institutional investors say they are interested.. they I suppose I must remind them of the rules of financial common sense…
If you can’t understand it… don’t invest. If it makes no sense… walk away.
If you bought the story Terra was an utterly reliable stable-coin backed by confidence in the upward price trajectory of Luna on its ever widening adoption, then more fool you when it crashed. If you can explain why a stable coin is better than a dollar – I am all ears. If you read the tale of an 18-year old mathematical misfit being able to overwrite and optimise code to very cleverly rip holders of a crypto index for millions – then explain why would you still invest in something so insecure? If you think crypto can do anything the financial world doesn’t already do, better… please elucidate us all…
The brutal reality is Crypto might be terribly clever, but it has little to do with the investment rationales of real financial markets. Maybe its genesis was in finding a problem for “blockchain” tech to solve… (still looking).. Maybe it was just an intellectual curiosity that got out of hand. Intellectual curiosity can be a dangerous thing…
Whatever, Crypto has now morphed from an interesting concept into a classic confidence scam: using complexity, jargon and fast-talk to create a marketable vision, exploiting the behaviours and fears of weak-minded greater-fools wanting to get rich through the power of FOMO (Fear of missing out) and FOBSAS (Fear of being shown-up as stupid).
Crypto is broadly down 30% through May. The papers are full of hard-luck stories; the Nigerian student who lost all his life savings and his dream of an education in Canada by betting on Luna. Sorry, but It’s hard to find much sympathy for those impacted by the immolation of crypto as the credibility of the sector unravels.
Clearly, I am not a fan of crypto. But it does make me giggle..
Earlier this week there was a very funny RyanAir tweet photo-shopping a “crypto-bro” from a private jet into the hell-on-earth that is Ireland’s contribution to air transport. On Monday the cryptosector was still worth over $1 trillion. I don’t know or particularly care what it’s worth this morning, but I do wonder where all the Greater Fools’ money has gone. Some folk have just made off with the loot from one of the most successful Ponzi schemes history – will we ever know who?
Beating up cryptotards is the financial equivalent of baby seal-clubbing. But, unlike cute furry sea puppies, cryptotards absolutely deserve it. Yep. Its cruel, but removing eejits from the financial gene-pool who can’t recognise a Ponzi will be a long-term benefit!
Harsh, but fair.
Let’s not make it too easy. If any cryptocurrencyologist can tell me even one single thing that Bitcoin can do, or enable, in a way that isn’t already done better, and is legal, then I shall tap dance round the office. Naked.. if it’s a particularly useful and good thing raising the level of human happiness.
No takers? Thought not.
It’s easy for me to gloat. I’ve been writing about just what b*llsh*t crypto is for years.. I regard myself as the small ignorant child who spotted years ago the Crypto Emperor in his fantabulous suit of multi-strand cloth only clever people could understand has been essentially naked since its inception.
But, and there is the big BUT! We need to understand why and how it garnered such a following.
It has been absolutely fascinating to watch how the idea, the concept, and the belief systems behind crypto emerged, insinuated and established themselves into financial orthodoxy. The church and reach of Crypto has developed, evolved, spread and embedded itself at extraordinary speed right across the entire economy. In a world with so many financial geniuses running funds, banks and in senior regulatory positions, how did Crypto ever thrive? (US readers – Sarcasm alert.) Probably, because no one asks the obvious questions… FOMO and FOBSAS mean people are afraid to ask the downright bleeding obvious.. Like… Please, explain what the point of crypto is?
I will get trolled for asking that very simple question. The trolls will call me stupid and say I don’t understand. They will say I haven’t done the work to understand. Nope. I am just asking the obvious question. Again: Please, explain what the point of crypto is… ? (And to counter Central Banking tyranny is not an acceptable answer.)
I’m a believer that markets and economics are largely about the behaviour of crowds. As we’ve seen right through the TwentyTeens markets are susceptible to “glamours” that make participants behave in extraordinary and improbable value myths – like Cathie Wood, SoftBank, Tesla and Crypto. My own financial belief systems are based in my definition of common sense, and that if it quacks it’s probably a duck. Simples and it works..
Crypto works because the more plausible a “get rich quick” scheme sounds, the more likely it will attract a strong following. You can enhance plausibility by spicing it with spurious complexity and jargon to boost credibility. It’s been fascinating to watch crypto evolve from complicated (but utterly nonsensical) mathematical proofs right the way down into nonsense that is DogeCoin… (originally a spoof to expose crypto). Each iteration is progressively dafter than the last… each attracting the next level of greater fools by appealing to a progressively a lower financial IQ threshold.
I’ve taken this quote from one of the articles cited below: Dogecoin creator Jackson Palmer concluded: “After years of studying it, I believe that cryptocurrency is an inherently right-wing, hyper-capitalistic technology built primarily to amplify the wealth of its proponents through a combination of tax avoidance, diminished regulatory oversight, and artificially enforced scarcity.”
There you go then…
Since I started in markets nearly 40 years ago I’ve watched dozens of unlikely corporate scams, from Enron, RBOS, Madoff, We-Work and Theranos and many others, unravel and tumble. Some were honest mistakes brought on by hubris, but many were plain and simple scams, given scale for multiple reasons. Like any Ponzi scam the key to crypto’s spread has been opening a quadratically expanding number of “marks”, the greater fools to be relieved of their pennies.
But I’ve never seen a scam of such proportions as Crypto. Its multiplied and thrived like an alien virus, spawning its own ecosystem of tokens, stable-coins, NFTs, digital assets. It’s fuelled a whole industry, community and belief system in crypto – and 99.9% of the participants don’t seem to get it, and just don’t know how completely they are being scammed.
The crypto-bubble is bursting. On Monday I met with a team to discuss a blockchain based carbon trading system. They laughed and told me never to mention blockchain again because its credibility has been utterly burnt by crypto. Blockchain is a 20 year old solution still in search of a problem – and there are far better, easier, more secure approaches to data than distributed ledgers.
Even if we could spray the weeds of crypto with financial paraquat, you can bet new crypto shysters and Libertarian eejits will swiftly emerge from the wreckage. We have to understand why it’s been such a successful scam. Like all great cons, Crypto has thrived because it contains the germ of a solid idea, a perceived problem to be solved and new technology to enable it.
- Is crypto money? No. You can’t transact in crypto – you exchange into money. You can’t store value in crypto because it’s too volatile.
- Is crypto freedom money – as the libertarians claim? No. It’s not money. It is simply a way to transact invisibly with one single USP: its ability to hide criminality and facilitate money laundering. The idea crypto will remove the evil of political or financial oversight is utterly flawed. (Some idiot will ask how…) Regulation could kill it tomorrow, but regulation would also give it credibility.
- Is crypto an inflation hedge? Patently not based on the recent price action.
- Is crypto green? No. The idea crypto mining will spur renewable energy is a Cathie Wood level of stupidity.
- Does crypto work? No. 10 transactions a second while PayPal manages billions?
The list of what crypto is not goes on, and on, and on. No one has ever demonstrated why we need crypto. Yet crypto has generated its own financial gravity, has sucked millions of not-completely-stupid people into its orbit.
Although we fear what we don’t understand, we are also greedy. When we see implausible wealth being generated and we don’t understand how or why, that’s when the most important financial power in the Galaxy kicks in: FOMO.
We might not understand it… but if others are getting rich.. what’s to miss?
Five Things To Read and confuse yourself about…
Current Affairs – Why this Computer Scientist Says All Cryptocurrency Should “Die in a Fire:”
New Statesman – What the Terra crash means for the future of crypto
Fortune – Who is Do Kwon, the “lunatic” who created a $60 bln cryptocurrency that collapsed in days?
Bloomberg – The Math Prodigy Whose Hack Upended DeFi Won’t Give Back His Millions
NBC – Crypto crash stokes some financial crisis fears
Have a great weekend…
Bill Blain
Strategist – Shard Capital
24 Comments
Comments are closed.
Within moments of posting this comment I got this from a Cryptotard responding exactly as I expected:
From: Ephemeraize
Date: Friday, 20 May 2022 at 09:16
To: billblain
Subject: Re: Blain’s Morning Clickbait
Bill
How sad.
This really is a spectacularly ignorant piece of work
If you don’t understand something, don’t publish out of date dogma on the subject.
There is not a single valid point in your article
Please do your research and stop mis-sinforming people
DO YOUR HOMEWORK
You are doing people a disservice
Just admit you do not have the skills or go and get them.
If you can’t understand it… don’t write.
Be ashamed and kindly stop, Bill
This lazy clickbait is very poor work.
I asked him to respond with a single thing Crypto does markets don’t do better…
Ha ha ha…
And now he’s sent me a 4 hour video of an American cryto-proponent bleating on about how governments and financial systems are bleeding us dry…
Truth and Widsom… yawn..
. Richt at the I have been asking them the same questioning I get the same answer, nothing, or a new book (by the same people), or an invite to join them. The stupid thing is that they have probably made lots of Butt-mullah early on and traded it for real money, as the Lemmings piled in. Carry on Raving
Bruce
I have a bunI have a bunch of friends from my carer days (now 70) who jumped on the Buttcar early on. They have written, pronounced, given learned talks, and started funds, etc. In other words Big Time, on a Goal Scale.
I have asked them right from the outside to explain the underlying benefit, value etc. Just as you describe. I got from nothing to books to conference invites to asks for me to join their funds….Bupkes!!!! But they all say they made money….BIG money. If they did, I consider it fraudulent.
Bruce
Rave On!
I have some questions for you:
– Have you studied bitcoin in depth? If yes, do you understand it?
– Do you know how bitcoin performed vs other asset classes over the last 10 years?
– Did you participate? If yes, why? If not, why not?
Yes
Yes
Yes
And?
My conclusions..
Bitcoin is obsolete. Interesting idea and concept. Impractical for any real utility. It has now spawned a whole industry of technobabble bullshit as cryptoshills try to baffle and befuddle anyone trying to find the kernal of value. (Yes. I subscribe to crypto commentaries and they are utter arrant nonsense.)
Investment in the asset class is speculation, and entirely reliant on a greater fool being persauded its worth more.
My cryptowallet contains bitcoin, ethereum and cardano. I am happpy to lose it all for my ringside seat at the end of crypto.
BB
Some serious comments on Crypto investing by a real fund:
Cryptocurrencies are “portfolio kryptonite” and the recent collapse in their value shows they are a “poor choice for long-term investors”, PGIM has warned, adding “direct investment in cryptocurrencies offers little benefit to an institutional investor, while adding considerable volatility and risk”.
According to PGIM chief executive officer David Hunt, his firm’s three conditions for including an asset class in an investment portfolio are “the asset needs a clear regulatory framework, it needs to be an effective store of value, and it needs to have a predictable correlation with other asset classes”.
He says: “Cryptocurrency currently meets none of these three criteria. It’s much more of a speculation than an investment.”
PGIM says its research shows cryptocurrencies are “unreliable” portfolio diversifiers and an “inadequate safe-haven asset or inflation hedge”.
“Recent risk-adjusted returns are not much different than other asset classes but with more frequent and greater drawdowns,” according to the asset manager.
“Furthermore, the unsettled regulatory backdrop and the significant environmental, social and governance concerns pose significant additional headwinds for long-term investors.”
“Furthermore, with little evidence to support it as an effective inflation hedge or safe-haven asset, we see no reason for cryptocurrencies to be a part of institutional portfolios.”
In particular, PGIM highlights that cryptos “clash with ESG objectives” and do not provide an effective hedge against inflation.
Last week the UK regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, reminded local consumers of the risks associated with investing in cryptocurrencies, warning that “if you buy crypto assets you should be prepared to lose all the money you invest”.
I will push back on parts of your argument since I don’t entirely disagree with you – there are definitely parts (the majority of individual projects) of the cryptocurrency universe that are solutions looking for problems or just outright scams/unviable, but I don’t agree that there is nothing of value in it.
– Do you see no value in individuals being able to have direct control over their assets (ignoring how useless you see those assets being), I am unsure if you have used any blockchain to transact but the speed and control of transactions impacting my own assets is something I enjoy substantially more than interacting with traditional finance institutions.
– I agree the current iteration of NFT’s is mostly garbage and if it isn’t garbage it is wildly overvalued, but if you are of the opinion that the world we work and spend time in is going to become increasingly digitised then I can see the value of digital ownership. The reason I see NFT’s as fulfilling this better than traditional state supported ownership is that as we have seen with something like digital companies and tax, the idea of state borders doesn’t work too well with the digital world. I am not sure if you are going to say that you can just copy paste any NFT, but if you are that is the very problem that NFT’s address. If I went to the British government with a deed to your house but my name on it I would be presumably laughed out of the building. With no concept of digital ownership there is no way of tracking this currently with digital assets. Is this going to replace our current system now? Probably not. Is this something that will be worthwhile in the future? I think it could be.
– DAO’s. Similar argument to NFT’s in my opinion, in a digital world how can you organise/collaborate/debate/work with the current system? You could argue that the present system of companies and the like works well enough, but I would argue that the restrictions state imposed borders and regulations make this a worse option. For these to reach their full potential they are of course going to require significant regulation themselves and perhaps what this regulation ends up looking like will make them worse or the same as the current system. But I would say that the multitudes of people that have chosen to work only through DAO’s or have chosen to organise themselves using them puts a strong argument forward for their to be value in them.
– Terra/UST. Not really much to say, the market found a vulnerability and it punished it, should the market have pushed it a lot earlier and not allowed it to reach a market cap of $18 billion, 100%. But at least it found it and something that was a bad idea was appropriately valued eventually. All I will add that it was effectively a bank run and a currency losing its peg, hardly a new concept or unique to cryptocurrencies.
– Environmental impact. I agree that the current energy costs of Ethereum/Bitcoin is egregious and while at least later this year Ethereum will use no more energy than the electricity of its users computers (~95% reduction), Bitcoin is going to continue to use the amount it uses. I can understand this being a deal breaker and it one of the main reasons I am not a fan of Bitcoin and don’t use it, but this will change as our global energy grid goes renewable and if the urgency of the recent climate reporting is to be believed I don’t think a 0.5% cut to our global energy use is going to really help much in isolation.
– “If you can’t understand it… don’t invest.” By this you do you mean the return on capital aspect of cryptocurrencies, because if you asked the average Apple investor or iPhone user how their phones/apps/encryption/wifi/apple pay work I doubt you’d get a much better result than if you’d asked them how a blockchain works.
– Blockchain carbon emissions. This is a more of a question than a push back considering your job, is there a better solution to tracking and trading carbon emissions that solves the issue of transparency and double counting that I have heard the carbon trading industry is susceptible to? I can only think of a comprehensive multi country regulatory agreement where every government is fully committed to enforcing it. I only have a layman’s understanding of the industry however,
I am sure the market will eventually prove one side of this argument correct, but as a final point I am sure there were similar arguments made in March 2018 and I assume in March 2000.
I have now spent way too long writing this and I look forward to you tearing my arguments to shreds if you bother reading it all, but I am have been meaning to write up some of my thoughts on it for a while so I hope you don’t mind me using your comment section for an opportunity to do so.
Always enjoy reading your writings,
Cheers
Thanks Doug
Perversely I agree with many of your comments. Some stuff from the Crypto age will ultimately evolve and become standard – digital wealth, digital wealth management and the metaverse will all become real investible assets and will do so with or without crypto.
On our carbon trading platform – blockchain is obsolete for what we want to do.
On can’t understand it – no, I don’t mean deep diving every line of code and the theory (but that is where the weaknesses lie), but getting the concept. As to the value… Hah!
As to using crypto – nope I don’t. THere is nothing I would need it for. Spending my time twixt Europe and Middle East I find Revolut excellent for all my international transfers.
Bill, this is the best article every written on Buttcon. Bravo.
Butcon is a scam. It’s a cult who’s very few higher IQ cult “leaders” aim to fleece the majority of it’s lower IQ buyers. It does it very cleverly by looking legit (to lower IQ people) and preying on their desperate hopes of financial riches and independence.
Thanks for exposing it. I’m going to share this article with my 16,000 LinkedIn followers. Hopefully a few eyes will be opened and the scam further exposed.
Thnks Tim
Time for some brutal honesty…
Bill – huge fan and I’ve been a reader of the MP everyday (minus your terrible train rides & vacation days) for the past 7 years. As someone who moved from the trading floor into the digital asset space two years ago, I understand where you’re coming from on the Bitcoin side (I obviously don’t agree but respect your concerns), but I’d urge you to take some of your ETH , create a Metamask wallet and actually get your hands dirty for a few hours within the DeFi arena. I think you’d appreciate the fast finality and permission-less nature of financial services offered. The lending and trading protocols almost certainly address everything you’ve complained about for years re: HSBC. While it’s still nascent and evolving everyday, you’d be quite impressed with the level of talent and driven individuals who have left the traditional finance and FANG life to dedicate time developing a more inclusive financial system. Come join us at a conference for a few days. It’s by no means perfect at the moment, but has come a long way since the first protocols came under heavy use during the summer of 2020. All of the energy and scalability concerns you cite are being worked on as we speak (sans Bitcoin – that’s another story). Cheers,
Drew
Thanks Drew
I’m still looking for that one thing Crypto can do or enable that’s legal and we can’t already do…
BB
I have a small amount of BTC and ETH. I finally put in on a cold wallet. I am an engineer and I have finally researched most of the major functional operations of Bitcoin and Ether. Crypto really is inconvenient, at least for me, it is more difficult and more expensive to conduct transactions. If you lose your wallet and your 24 word seed phrase (or if someone else sees and copies your 24 word seed phrase) all of your crypto is gone forever. I am struggling to come up with a solution to making my seed phrase available to my heirs when I die but not available to anyone else before I die (i.e. no one can even see it because if they do they can recreate my wallet and take my crypto). Eventually I believe that ALL crypto will be lost (i.e. wallets irretrievably lost) because the rate that seed phrases are lost exceed the rate at which they are found (zero/eternity).
The best use case for crypto which makes sense to me was just written by crypto supporter (but not fanatic) Lyn Alden where she writes “But for the majority of people in the world with restrictive monetary regimes and persistently high inflation (over half the world lives in an environment of authoritarianism and/or recurring double-digit inflation), the lack of alternatives has been restrictive. For developed market journalists and academics and analysts to not realize this, is a form of privilege that many of them are unaware of.” Although here argument makes sense, the value in her use case is a tiny percentage of the total value of Bitcoin. See this article for more if you are interested https://seekingalpha.com/article/4512842-digital-alchemy-terra-bitcoin-crypto-crash.
Disclaimer: I am not a “Cryptotard” or crypto-proponent. I own some, but very little as a way to understand how it works.
Comment: I want to keep this simple, because the benefits of a non-centralized on a ledger currency are, though, as you can imagine, the creation of one might not be. The access to this type of currency is critical to, and saving the lives of families and individuals who are living in countries with unstable financial systems, corruption, and war. (yes, there is some wrongdoing within cryptocurrency, but people were already doing corrupt things with cash…wherever there is value there will be corruption.)
Unstable countries means unstable banks and access to cash, but a decentralized coin can relieve this for those living there. Corrupt economies suddenly become held accountable on cryptocurrenies, because every transaction is accounted for. Finally, in war-stricken places, independent access to life-saving currency is something we should be rooting for, not questioning.
Bitcoin and others authentic to the intention of cryptocurrency were not created and do not exist for the traditional financial sector, but for the benefits listed above, so it’s not surprising that it doesn’t quite fit. I recommend considering it as something new, for something else.
Nope. Sorry. Don’t accept that bitcoin is a solution for those trapped in warzones, kleptocracies or autocracies – it simply makes them even more vulnerable to being ripped off by the crypro-sharks. As we are seeing, crypto is not a store of value. Dollars are. And if you can hold dollars in a bank account – much better than notional coin..
Bill,
The most important question you asked was “Why? – we need to understand why”. Well it’s like this…
Once upon a time, us boomers would tread the same path as our forbears, investing in assets, settling down, starting a family and preparing to rinse and repeat. The “pools” offered us the hope of a windfall to get us out of our rut.
If you are between the ages of 16 and 35 now, those options are not open to many – assets are unaffordable and somehow their boomer bosses have managed to reduce the value of take-home pay.
Us boomers did invent the internet (good thing) then social media came long (bad thing). Gen(whatever-they-are-now) look at their parents and see sad people trapped in a never-ending loop of debt, working all the hours available just to stay afloat.
Unlike us boomers, this is not the happy pattern we saw in our parents and could build upon – often starting where they had left off. Youngsters know they have to to play a different game – a game that does not rely on parents or state for any help. They will look for any escape from the prospect of a down-trending future – especially if it promises to bypass the state and “authority”.
That social media thing gives them the hope that there is a way. At the other end of that hope are dreamers, fantasists and shysters. So crypto is borne.
If crypto rises from their current ashes, it will become great again; there is nothing else out there which promises youngsters freedom from the shackles of a serf-like existence. (Capitalism’s current “We own you, but we don’t owe you” culture.)
If we treat our youngsters like this, sooner or later they will take to the streets – and socal meida has provided the tools to make that very effective.
If you have kids, do have a good heart-to-heart on this topic, and just listen.
Dave Francis
“it will become great again… nothing else promises youngsters freedom”… How?
promised are not always delivered, and again, how will crypto make them rich except redistributing someone elses dollars, because try as you might, thats what stuff is priced in..
My kids are smart enought to know what will make them comfortable and feeling good in life is working hard on something they like, being good people and not ripping off others in the dog-eat-dog greater fool ponzi of crypto (yes. you can only get rich when others get poor), and they aren’t wasting their time and passion on crypto.
But Bill your kids are your kids. They had you to teach them. It’s all the other kids I’m talking about. The “sytem” and money does not work for them – it works against them. Crypro is almost a religious belief with them – it’s the only thing that brings them hope. Your kids are anchored by the Blain doctrine, but I bet they have friends who are not! Ask and listen 🙂
Wow Bill Blain! Did you indicate a wasp nest with a stick and the wasps don’t like pointing and sticks? Cheers mate
An excellent article Bill. Thank you. I have tried to tempt myself into a crypto portfolio many times but thankfully always failed. So many people I consulted with about gold preferred crypto. An observation. Gold tanked today in $. Way off it’s high. In £ it is holding at almost its all time high. Reason. £ has weakened against the $. Gold remains king 👑 🔥. While absolutely everything has fallen, gold has held steady.
I would like an opportunity to meet with you for a discussion around the business opportunities in gold. Let me know your thoughts.
Kind regards
Michael
Hi Michael – drop me a line on billblain@morningporridge.com and we can chat in London..
BB
For the last few years, I have asked multiple crypto enthusiast friends one question. Where is my/do I have any money in the event of an electrical grid catastrophe, or worse, a Kim Jong Un or Mad Mullahs EMP caper, with wallets (phones, laptops) and ledgers (phones, laptops, servers) metamorphosed into masses of melted silicon and metal? The question is usually followed by funny looks and a change of topic. And by the way, I am well aware that this question affects, to greater and lesser extents. all asset class ledgers in the modern economy.
I am hoping that your readers who are users of, and fans of Crypto Currency have an answer to my question. The courtesy of their reply would be most welcome.
Thank you Bill – I really enjoy reading your crypto views since they align with mine, but you say it with more confidence and more publicly! (Of course, I am aware this is “echo chamber” thinking).
You recommended JK Galbraith’s “The Great Crash 1929” recently, and this line from the book could be applicable now re Crypto: “However, the time had come, as in all periods of speculation, when men sought not to be persuaded of the reality of things but to find excuses for escaping into the new world of fantasy.”
As the crypto “bubble bursts” I feel happy to have been “right” but then again… BTC still is up 5-10x since 2020 … ETH is up 10-20x in that period. The total value of tokens is barely off the highs, really (I don’t think of 50% -60% off as being very significant in context of the run-up). So up to this point I have still been mostly wrong, and often stopped out on my shorts …
I expect crypto enthusiasts will see this sell-off as a healthy correction … shaking out some weak holders … killing off some weak projects … good for the survivors. Perhaps they will be proved correct, and I don’t doubt there is some value somewhere amongst the proliferation of tokens, but I obviously think this will be seen as the beginning of a proper reckoning: BTC to zero, and other tokens down huge % from here to levels that make sense for their particular usage and purpose (so – in most cases – also zero).