Crypt0 Bros - Are You Still Believers?
I remember reading all the posts here about stablecoins, yields, FREE MONEY, tokens, timewonderland whatever the fuck token..
and thinking to myself. Man this sounds DUMB AS FUCK.
now, crypto is down massively with numerous exchanges straight up refusing to let people withdraw their money.
Have these events changed your mind on crypto and the promises of free 20% yields by staking a memecoin? Not trying to kick a man while they’re down, just curious. To me, the whole point of bitcoin and crypto was to do illegal shit and/or avoid IRS, but now it’s super mainstream (who knows for how long), with no tangible benefit over using my sapphire card
People said the same thing after 2017-2018 boom and bust that topped around $20k BTC: “no intrinsic value,” “tulips,” “crypto is dead”. And then there was a three-year bear market, culminating with the COVID crash in March ‘21, where all the worthless scammy vapor products got wiped out. But during that time, the industry kept innovating, experimenting, and building. And we had another boom that peaked in November of last year around $70k, and now we’re in a bear market. Just like last time, the vapor like $LUNA gets wiped out, but the real quality projects stick around, innovate, and gear up for the next bull market.
Crypto is far from dead. This boom and bust cycle will continue to repeat itself ad infinitum, where speculative garbage is peddled at the top, and quality projects with real world use cases endure through cycles.
"quality projects with real world use cases endure through cycles"
Name some
I've no idea what the future holds for crypto currencies or, more accurately, blockchain technology - I try to avoid conflating the two. The latter has a lot of use cases, at least academically, that have yet to come to fruition in the real world. One of the nordic countries, for example, is basically creating a tokenized title repository and any house that you buy will go on the blockchain. That's pretty cool - and there are all sorts of derivative uses, banks experimenting with settlements to bond issuance in the muni space. Even some applications like tickets or music royalties show some promise as well - it's pretty slick to be able to have smart contracts pay out royalties and cut out the middle man... though good luck killing Ticketmaster overnight.
The rest of these 'coins' - many need, and should, go to 0. People need to learn their lesson that mindless speculation ends poorly. Algorithmic stable coins might be the most laughable thing I've seen in a long time - it's baffling how much money got tied up in that mess. The rest of those stable coins are just ultra short bond funds, at best, waiting for a liquidity issue should markets go entirely haywire. The big coins - bitcoin, etc. are far too volatile to be used as anything approximating currency. At best they are good for moving money out of third world countries or skirting currency controls - I doubt they are a 0, but I'm not convinced they need to be $1million a bitcoin. Same with Ethereum - I have no earthly idea what the 'fair price' is for these coins, if there even is one. They certainly aren't inflation hedges - that one is laughable.
All that said - isn't this exactly what crypto people want? No government overreach, wild west type markets and a de-centralized existence? Isn't this the libertarian dream to let the markets flush themselves out? Frauds are exposed, people lose money but over time things correct?