DAA Manager Insights: Aljoscha Frick
Have you noticed that some countries are just not on the ICO map? Germany is one of them, and our DAA manager Aljoscha Frick offers an interesting explanation.
Germany is known as one of the major driving forces in the European Union. Is this also the case when it comes to blockchain and its development? Are there many ICO projects?
We wish it was, but sadly it isn’t. Germany has big established industries like the car, chemistry, and mechanical engineering industries but lacks progress in the blockchain sector. Those big companies are all diving into the blockchain space, and most of them are already members of the EEA, but there are almost no big ICO projects. The problem here is that until late 2017 there was no legal framework for “how to do an ICO” at all, so you basically had to ask the Federal Agency for Financial Market Supervision (BaFin) how to do it. That scared most people off because it could take months or even years and thousands of dollars to get approved. Germany is on the edge of overlooking the blockchain trend, but it isn’t too late to turn the tide and catch up to other countries.
You have a lot of experience in the traditional financial sector as well as in the new economy of digital assets. What was the biggest mistake you made as a trader, and what have you learned from it?
We think there are a lot of mistakes that can only be fixed by experience and by actually getting punished by the market. “Falling in love with a position” is one of those mistakes that a lot of people make. You take a position based on certain factors, but then you get blinded and refuse to accept sentiment shifts in the market that go against your bias and keep holding onto a losing one.
Another mistake is “not taking profits and being greedy,” something that we think a lot of crypto traders can identify with.
You just sit back and watch your position make new high after new high while bullish sentiment is all over the market. This is often a time when one should secure some profits in order to adjust risk.
We believe the market is the best teacher, and sometimes the money you lose while making a mistake will lead to many good things. We see it as paying a tuition cost in order to prevent the same mistake from happening again.
Recently, bitcoin has been extremely dynamic. Despite the bitcoin “gold rush,” you haven’t changed your DAA structure, and bitcoin is still weighted at 10 percent. What is your view on recent events and bitcoin price spikes/drops?
The bitcoin “gold rush” in mid to late 2017 was astonishing. We’ve seen a massive spike in price as new people rushed into it, just to see a massive correction right afterward. And there is still some uncertainty in the bitcoin market. Therefore, we think that at the moment there is a bigger upside for altcoins than for bitcoin and have chosen to stick to a more altcoin-heavy strategy. This can change at any time. When sentiment shifts, we will adapt accordingly.
Currently, 0x (ZRX) represents one of the biggest positions in your DAA. Can you explain why you have so much confidence in this particular project and where you see it going in one year’s time?
At FCI, we are very bullish on infrastructure plays. From the beginning, 0x has proven that it has a lot of industry support and will play a vital role in the growth of Ethereum and Ethereum-based projects in the near future. By the sheer number of projects building on 0x, we believe that it will experience tremendous growth during this coming year and that it is currently the best “bet” on the future success of the Ethereum network. As more and more 0x-based exchanges launch, we will see the network effects in play at the same time as other projects leverage their products while using the 0x network.
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