7 Thoughts After 7 Years 24/7 Crypto
On June 29, 2017, on a conference call I held involving ICOs, I saw the crypto light.
I became of the belief that crypto was going to be the biggest thing to happen in the history of humanity, and I’ve been crypto 24/7 ever since. It’s been an awesome seven years traveling the world, spending time with the some of the greatest people on Earth, and writing 400+ crypto-related blog posts.
Below are my seven most relevant thoughts as I reflect over the seven years of my crypto journey:
1. We’re in a “Fucking War” For The Suol Of The Metaverse
In January, 2017, I wrote my first post on FAMGA (Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Google & Amazon), highlighting that their growing share of tech market cap was great for their shareholders and horrific for the rest of the planet. Since that time, Nvidia has emerged as a sixth dominant company.
At the end of 2016, FAMGAN’s share of the NASDAQ 100 market cap stood at 40%. Now, 7 1/2 years later, the market cap share of the six dominant companies has soared to over 60%:
This means that FAMGAN has captured 68%+ of all tech market cap created by the NASDAQ 1000 over the last 10 years. It turns out, the U.S. is a land of monopolies, and its getting worse by the day.
Monopolies stifle competition and dominate new markets:
I contnue to beleive that the macro event driving tech forward is the metaverse, which will be powered by crypto. That’s why Facebook rebranded to Meta. And we’re in a fucking war for the sole of the metaverse between FAMGAN and the broader tech community (e.g who will own our identity in the metaverse?). And it feels epically like Star Wars. FAMGAN is the Death Star, and the broader open source crypto community is the Alliance. It’s awesome to be a part of the Alliance, other than the fact that the Death Star generally wins. But I’m up for good fight. IMHO, FAMGAN is a far bigger threat to crypto than governments.
2. It’s All About Community
I define community as an ecosystem that, when it works, everyone gets more out of it than they give.
I define crypto/Web3 as a series of technologies (blockchain, cryptocurrnecy, smart contracts, …) that together, enable decentralization, that is powered by community.
Web2 was all about how much money can you make from your customer. How much margin can you make off your customer. Web3 is all about how much utility you can give your community members.
We still need to better tools for token economics, and governance & consensus, for decentralization to truly scale. But I remain encouraged by the facts that a lot of really smart people are working on it, and that the centralized bar were competing against is so low.
3. It’s A Bitcoin World
In addition to memecoins (see #4 below), the primary driver of the surging interest in crypto markets this year has been Bitcoin, driven by the launch of BTC ETF s in the U.S.. Even though the number of cryptocurrencies is up 5X since 2021, to over 20,000, Bitcoin’s dominance (i.e. it’s share of total crypto market cap) is up more than 11% during that time:
With 54% of all market cap in crypto today, Bitcoin remains the dominant ecosystem in crypto as it’s proven to be the most secure digital system as well as the most reliable monetary system in human history. And Bitcoin is just beginning.
I beleive that Bitcoin L2 is the biggest story so far in 2024. 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:
I published a 10 year Million Dollar Price Target on Bitcoin in January 2021. So I’m all in.
4. It’s Also A Degen World
I went to Solana Brakpoint in 2021. But I didn’t appreciate Solana until 2024 when I posted “It’s A Degen World And Solana Is King Of The Degens”.
Nothing is more degen than memecoins, which have seen a 4X increase in market cap the last eight months:
As Galaxy eloquently wrote in their recent post “The Evolution of Memes and Their Place on Blockchains”, … “While memecoins are seen by many as nihilistic and inherently useless, their existence builds upon generations of viral storytelling, and their activity continues to drive blockchain adoption.”
I’m looking forward to attending Breakpoint 2024 later this year.
5. Stablecoins Are Crypto’s First Mass Market Product, And It’s Still Early.
I’m interested in whatever is going up and to the right. So I did 26 episodes of “Stablecoins Are Killing It” in 2020. Since bottoming at $124B in market cap during crypto winter in September 2023, total stablecoin supply has grown 30% to $160B+:
And we’re seeing tons of innovation in the space, particularly in interest bearing stablecoins. Ethena has a $1B+ market cap for it’s interest bearing (17%!) stablecoin that generates interest from staked ETH and a hedging strategy that exploits the funding and basis spread available in perpetual and futures markets. Mountain Protocol, recently raised an $8 million Series A for its yield bearing stablecoin.
And while noise around CBDCs has quieted down, there are 36 pilots going on, including inn 11 of the G20 countries (Brazil, Japan, India, Australia, South Korea, South Africa, Russia, and Turkey), in addition to three CBDCs that are launched and in the wild (Nigeria, Jamaica, and The Bahamas)
As opposed to some who denegrate CBDCs because of the dystopian risk, I think we’re largely already in a dystopian state, and anything that has the potential to onboard 1B people to crypto is worth the risk.
6. The Intersection of Crypto & AI Is A Big Thing
I went first down the AI rabbit hole in July 2020 with the release of GPT-3. I penned “OpenAI’s GPT-3 Is The Future We’ve Been Waiting For.
Like the rest of the world, I was blown away by GPT-4.
I started the Collective’s AI Web3 Accelerator with Eric Bravick (a 35 yr AI vet) in April to work with projects trying to solve these seven problems:
Projects that solve any one of the problems above are going to make some serious coin.
Via Eric, I’m on my way down the Morpheus (decentralzied AI network) rabbit hole. Morpheus Day was my Consensus highlight earlier this month.
The Demo Day for our AI Web3 Accelerator is June 26th, from 12pm-2pm EST. You can register on our Demo Day on Zoom by clicking here.
7. Crypto Is Happening Much More Outside The U.S. Than Inside
It’s a big world, and much of it is far friendlier to crypto than the U.S.. In September, go to Singapore for Token2049, it’s one of “The 3 Best Crypto Conferences On The Planet”. Go to Dubai in October for the Future Blockchain Summit, then you’ll understand why “I’m Moving To Dubai”. I can’t wait for Devcon in Thailand in November! Paris Blockchain Week is a highlight in April because of it’s amazing crypto community, in addition to it’s booming AI ecosystem. Tel Aviv, Lisbon, Zurich, Vilnius, and Saigon are other highlights of my crypto travels. This year’s plans also include Korea Blockchain Week in September, and time in Hong Kong, China’s new crypto capital.
Next up, in July, is ETHcc in Brussels :-). See you there!
Click here to subscribe to our newsletter. Follow me on Twitter.
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.
