1 Year of Working in Crypto: Reflections & Predictions
By Curtis Oh on ALTCOIN MAGAZINE
In an eerily coincidental series of events, flagship crypto conference Consensus, the end of GoT “winter,” the (seemingly) end of the 2018 crypto winter, AND my one year anniversary working in this industry occurred roughly within one week of each other. I’ve had many thoughts along the way so in an attempt to organize what will inevitably be a series of rambling, here goes nothing.
Early Struggles
Some say that taking a leap of faith to pursue a passion or (more accurately in my case) follow something you believe in will make you happier. It should lift the long-held burden of doing something you don’t enjoy and replace it with constant vigor and enthusiasm. But that wasn’t always the case. There were many times even early on when I was unhappy and anxious, emotionally drained and frustrated. Bezos famously said,
“if you’re going to do anything new or innovative, you have to be willing to be misunderstood.”
I think I largely underestimated how difficult it is to be misunderstood. Not just from peers outside of the industry, but also among industry participants — a symptom of being in a space that lacks structure, precedent, and maturity.
I also battled an internal conflict that constantly caused me to question what I believed in. On one hand, I welcomed a sort of ‘cleansing’ of the industry, where get-rich-quick and Lambo/moon narratives would disappear and shed more light to important things like fundamentals, technology, and impact. On the other hand, I understood the mass adoption of cryptos requires a mass appeal, and there is no simpler way to attract newcomers than the appeal of money. There’s no question that price outpaced development in 2017, but it was also crucial for garnering interest. Last week I remember meeting an MBA student from UNC who said there was a popular blockchain course being offered with over 200 students applying for 50 spots. 2 years ago during the all-time-high of crypto, that number was 500. As complex beings as we are, it seems humans can be very simple — we’re drawn to signals that are immediately exciting or easy to understand.
Finally, the last pill that I struggled to swallow was all the unforeseen delays. Whether it was the long-awaited Ethereum 2.0, or VanEck’s ETF, institutional grade custody solutions, the launch of Bakkt, or even any signs of regulatory clarity from the US government, it felt as though nothing was coming together as expected. That said, we soon learned that patience is the name of the game. I think we’d all agree that there’s been a tremendous amount of progress made on all of those fronts.
State Of The Union
First thing I’ll comment on is the drastic difference in the maturity of conferences, especially between Consensus 2018 and 2019. Generally speaking, it was a lot less riff-raff. 2018 was exciting because attendance was way oversubscribed and interest was soaring, but it was very shallow. There was more marketing than business development; more handouts and giveaways than conversations; more talks about price than technology; more predictions than substantial arguments; more dumb money than astute investing. In 2019 it was a completely different atmosphere, and even with fewer attendees, the conference felt more substantial. The cleansing worked! Also a lot more lawyers this year… they must smell the money 😆.
I think it’s also worth highlighting some of the positive developments you don’t always hear about on the front page. Standalone these are small, but significant when you piece them together:
1/29 — Italian government pushes for blockchain
1/31 — Crypto fund formation outpaces hedgefund formation
2/11 — Argentina allows people to top up their subway card using BTC
2/13 — Zebpay open in 130 countries. Gibraltar exchange launching a USD, EUR & GBP market; Abra offering single stock & ETF exposure for your crypto; Kraken offers FCA approved crypto futures through their “nine-figure” acquisition; Union Bank offers the first crypto ATM into the Philippines and you’ll soon be able to tip tweets via Lightning network as they join payments co Square in their pledge to commit to the scalability solution.
2/14 — Nasdaq to add bitcoin and eth indices to global data service
2/14 — Mitsubishi planning to launch blockchain payments
2/14 — JP Morgan announces its own cryptocurrency
2/14 — Seoul announces first government usage of public blockchain ICON
3/5 — Facebook announces the development of own coin
3/29 — Japan announces accepting crypto for railway
4/4 — Two new BTC bills introduced by Congress
4/5 — Binance announces Singapore branch
4/5 — Thai, Myanmar Central Bank Governors endorse blockchain remittance service
4/15 IMF and World Bank Launch Educational Blockchain Token
4/18 — US Govt Blockchain Spending to increase 1000% between 2017–2022
4/22 — You can shop with BTC on Amazon using lightning
4/24 — Samsung announces coin
4/29 — Etrade announced bitcoin and ether trading
5/23 — AT&T accepting bitcoin as payment
If you haven’t already noticed, some of the biggest names are making a serious push into crypto. Just try googling these names with “crypto”:
Facebook, Fidelity, Samsung, JP Morgan, NYSE, NASDAQ, State Street, Rakuten, Western Union, Starbucks, Microsoft.
You may also notice that institutional money is slowly but surely coming into space. As Novogratz claimed a while ago, ‘the herd is coming’:
- 769 cryptocurrency funds worldwide
- 360 crypto hedgefunds
- 382 crypto VCs
- Harvard, Yale + 94% of university endowments have exposure to crypto
- Andressen Horowitz; Kleiner Perkins; Sequoia; Union Square Ventures; Placeholder
- Coinbase custody exceeds $1bn+
- Grayscale AUM exceeds $1bn+
I know some of you ‘maximalists’ and true ‘decentralists’ out there don’t like major corporations meddling with cryptos. But I think every dollar into the ecosystem, every person switching over, expands our boundaries. We need all the manpower and resources we can get because we can’t do this alone (another GoT analogy)?
Oh, and did you notice a lot of these companies are JUST in the US? Where businesses are looking to avoid because rules and regulations are not as friendly to crypto? Imagine what’s happening in Singapore, Switzerland, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, Malta, UK, Estonia, Bermuda… the list goes on
To the haters of crypto…. are you still willing to bet against this wave?
Predictions For 2019–2021
- The focus will continue to be on regulation and building out the plumbing infrastructure for institutions to participate. I think we can all agree that the CFTC, FinCEN, SEC and FINRA are all actively thinking about how to regulate this arena. They recognize the potential, and just need some time to create a thriving but safe environment. I hope they can act fast enough to keep businesses at home. We’re lucky to have people like SEC commissioner Hester Pierce aka CryptoMom on our side!
- We probably won’t see any meaningful adoption or legacy apps/systems being replaced in the short term. I do think we will see base layer protocols achieving milestones in scaling and development but I don’t believe we will deliver dapps used by end users in any meaningful fashion just yet. At least in the US, where things work pretty darn well already.
- Institutions will continue to get more involved. Initiatives like BTC futures through a reputable entity like Bakkt, or Bitcoin ETF’s, and better custody will draw more investors. For example, a regulated, highly liquid futures market will in theory stabilize volatility, which should make regulators more comfortable with the idea of a BTC ETF getting approved. This will likely lead to another wave of price outpacing adoption unless all the investments are in BTC as a store of value.
- STOs are a hot topic today, particularly because of the bad taste ICOs have left in everyone’s mouth, but there is very little buy-side demand for these tokens. I believe the focus will shift from issuers creating STOs to more broker-dealers and crowdfunders and funds showing demand for STO investment opportunities.
Final Thoughts
It’s an over said phrase but for good reason: each passing day I’m more optimistic than ever. I think there are enough brilliant leaders to follow and a tremendous willingness to collaborate/try new ideas throughout the industry. I think we will learn to be critical and self-governing while subduing some of the nastiness on social media. I think people will continue to take an interest in the industry. I think people that came for the $$$ will stay for technology, innovation, and impact.
Oh and, fuck it. Here’s a price prediction: BTC $12,000 ETH $600 by 2020 😝
