10 Thoughts On Crypto After The First Four Months Of 2024
Having recently attended ETHDenver, NFT NYC, Paris Blockchain Week, CryptoMondays Zurich, and Token2049 Dubai, it’s a good time to take a breather, reflect on recent events, and collect my thoughts. Here are my most notable reflections after the first four months of 2024:
#1 It’s a GREAT Time To Be In Crypto
In January, 2021, I published a $1M 10 year price target on Bitcoin. I’m all in. To some degree, I spend 60% of my time traveling the world to see if there’s a reason to alter my bullish outlook, because there’s nothing constant but change.
But so far, all the change I’ve seen has been bullish for crypto. The money printing in the U.S. continues to accelerate, as divisiveness in D.C., academic institutions, and the border, engulfs the nation.
But wherever I travel the world for crypto, I’m surrounded by the smartest people in the world working to make crypto go mainstream, while making the world a better place. I’ve never been as bullish on crypto as I am today.
#2 — Bitcoin L2 Is The Biggest Story Of 2024 To Date
With over 53% of all market cap in crypto, Bitcoin remains the dominant ecosystem in crypto. Bitcoin has proven itself to be the most secure digital system as well as the most reliable monetary system in human history. So the thought of a vibrant L2 ecosystem on top of Bitcoin is mind blowing to many, including me, and a growing percentage of Bitcoin devs:
Of course, it’s early days. And massive challenges remain. Not the least of which is the broad acceptance by the Bitcoin developer community that’s needed to enable the network upgrades required for scalable and cost efficient Bitcoin L2s. But the massive potential is evident. And progress is being made.
#3 — Memecoins Are A Thing, And Will Only Get Bigger
There have already been lots of great missives on this including, my favorite, by Joe McCann (Asymmetric) .
I’ll just add that I’m here for the community. And I think there’s a huge future for truly community owned memecoins. I see Doge as the poster boy for how the most successful memecoins evolve from the founders original idea, as they truly go where the community wants to go. How can that not be a thing?
#4 — Palo Alto Remains The Center Of Tech/AI/Crypto Innovation And Wealth Creation
I’m spending ~20% of my time in Palo Alto this year because it’s so clearly the center of the tech innovation that consumes me. If Sam Altman / OpenAI was the only thing happening in the Valley, it would still be the center of the AI universe. ChatGPT4 is the fastest growing thing in the history of tech.
But as we all know, Open AI is only the of the AI innoviation happening in Silicon Valley. The most deep pocketed AI competitors, including Google, Facebook, Apple, and Elon, are all in the bay area. Many of the most well funded AI startups, like Anthropic and Inflection, are also ocated in the Bay Area, because the smaller players all have alumni from the deep pocketed players, because, who else is there?
Check out the Stanford Blockchain Accelerator, or #9 below, if you have any doubts of Palo Alto’s supremacy in Web3.
#4 Dubai Continues To Rise As A Crypto Ecosystem
Getting to Dubai for TOKEN2049 during the biggest storm in (the 75 years of) recorded history, was massive shit show. But it was worth it. It felt like the show had 25% of the massive floor space of it’s sister show, TOKEN2049 Singapore. But the side events we’re epic. I’m pretty sure it was the first crypto party I’d been to at a polo game.
Tons of the movers and shakers in the industry came to Dubai because, well, it’s Dubai, so they knew lots of other OGs would be there as well. To be clear, I’m super impressed by the miles of 80, 90, and 100 story buildings. Not to mention many of the most beautiful hotels in the world:
But, on my third trip to Dubai in the last year, what continues to be the most impressive thing about Dubai is the people living and moving there. The best and the brightest from Russia, India, and many other countries are moving to Dubai because there is simply more opportunity there than anywhere else in the world. My 2nd most read post last year was the click bait titled “Why I’m Moving To Dubai” after my second trip.
While the regulatory environment in Dubai is going through a rough patch, the long term outlook remains very positive.
#5 Paris Blockchain Week (“PBW”) Remains One Of The Three Best Crypto Conferences In The World
Following last year’s PBW I wrote the blog post “Why Paris Blockchain Week Ranks As One Of The 3 Best Crypto Conferences On The Planet”. And this years event didn’t disappoint. PBW just keeps on getting better and better. Most notably, this year, the week started with Raise Summit, which attracted leading AI thought leaders from around the world.
Awesome speakers, a beautiful venue, and endless side events are table stakes for any great crypto conference. And PBW has those in spades. But nothing touches the PBW VIP dinner, where 300 lucky people get to have dinner in the Louvre and have the entire museum all to themselves!
#7 — The Intersection Of Crypto & AI Is Going To Be Huge
In January, Vitalik wrote a post, “The promise and challenges of crypto + AI applications”, where he highlighted many of the potential synergies between “… the two main deep (software) technology trends of the past decade.”
In February, our decentralized web3 advisory service, the CryptoOracle Collective, announced the April launch of our AI Web3 Accelerator. In April we announced the 10 projects accepted in to Cohort #1.
We’ve had 14 classes to date, each featuring a Guest Lecturer. Class #12 last week featured Avery Ching, Co-Founder of Aptos. I started the accelerator because of my bullishness about the problems that can only be solved by the intersection of AI and Web3. As we reach the halfway point of the Accelerator, class by class, I’ve only become more bullish. You can check out all the classes on our YouTube channel.
#8 — Crypto Is a Degen World & Solana Is King Of The Degens,
I went to the first Solana Breakpoint in Lisbon in November 2021, at the peak of the last bubble. I wanted to get a visceral feel for the community that had grown to $70B+ in market cap far faster than anything ever before. Given the massive wealth creation, it wasn’t surprising that it was a big PARTY! I had an awesome time. But I didn’t see Solana for what it was. It wasn’t until earlier this year I came to the realization that “It’s A Degen World And Solana Is King Of The Degens.”
#9 — Aptos Is Breakout Layer One Protocol Of 2024
Aptos is effectively a spin out from Meta, where the open source Move programming language was largely developed, as part of the Diem project. Aptos Co-Founders Avery Ching and Mo Shaikh we’re part of the Diem team that developed Move to provide a massively scalable blockchain. Aptos launched in October 2022, and today, the layer-1 protocol is scaling rapidly across multiple dimensions:
Aptos has also proven very adept at forging partnership with large corporations. Aptos Ascend, for example, was developed with Microsoft, SK Telecom, Brevan Howard, and BCG. It’s a a permissioned network for financial institutions, enabling over 2B transactions daily. In late November Aptos partnered with Alibaba Cloud to accelerate the growth of Web3 developers in the APAC region, including the launch a Move developer community in Asia. It also includes co-hosting a series of hackathons and other events.
#10 The U.S. Government’s Crypto Regulatory Policies Continue To Be An Embarrassment
I believe any reasonable person looking at the actions of the U.S. government would assume the goal is to kill the crypto industry because the people in power, like Elizabeth Warren and Gary Gensler, are conspiring to cripple the industry in the name of “consumer protection”.
All new technologies are double edged swords, having both positives and negatives. But the long arc of history has shown that the Luddites were wrong, and technology has had a massive positive effect on humanity. So those in power who stand in the way of progress, and claim the negatives outwiegh the positives in crypto, are simply ignorant, or they’re motivated by factors other than progress for thier citizens.
The case against Tornado Cash founders is an embarrassment in so many ways. It’s an embarrassment against our right to privacy. It’s an embarrassment against our right to write code protected under our freedom of speech. If the concern was really money laundering, solutions that KYC users of mixers (e.g. Privacy Pools) would be embraced instead of ignored.
The case against Uniswap is an embarrassment. The case against Coinbase is an embarrassment. The SEC used to bring cases it knew it would win. Now the SEC is losing cases all the time. It pursues losing cases because it’s not about being right anymore, it simply about impeding the industry’s progress. And tha’s a national embarassment. As I wrote in April, 2023, “The Way To Get Better U.S. Crypto Regulations Is To Leave The U.S.”.
If you got at least 0.00000001 bitcoin worth of value from this post please “Clap” below (up to 50 times), so others will see the post. Thanks!!
This content is for educational purposes only. It does not constitute trading advice. The author of this article may hold assets mentioned in the piece.
