Bitcoin Dives! Why I Remain Bullish + Tron Rant
Bitcoin has taken a dive, dipped its toe at $14k and is still treading around $15k at the time of writing this. Many of you have sent me messages and left comments asking if I still see Bitcoin at $23,000 in the cards. While I don't pretend to know what will happen next, the thesis is still in tact for Bitcoin to go on a nice bull stretch as the dominance figure is still in the 30% area.
I still suspect this will increase to 45 - 50% as we see the end of the altcoin cycle. Coindesk had a great article (https://www.coindesk.com/weathering-altcoin-shitstorm-investing-next-one/) which discussed these cycles and how the cryptocurrency market has become a big penny stock casino.
Many people tout that smaller altcoins are better investments than Bitcoin or Ethereum because return potential is far higher, but they almost always disregard risk and probabilities (generally falliciously arguing that the worst that can happen is that your investment goes to $0, but could go to infinity too which completely ignores probability).
Right now, the market is pumping assets indiscriminantly as we see everyone trying to jump into the next spike. Tron is a perfect example of a cryptocurrency that is extremely overvalued and overhyped. Everyone invests because of Justin Sun, who is as silver-tongued as they come. The white paper is obtuse (meaning it struggles to communicate what Tron actually does) and fanatics point out that Tron has a long-term plan, when more realistically it just sounds like they have no product and won't for a long time. How can it fight for the users when it has none? Most of the price is built around hype on a potential partnership with Alibaba because Justin Sun was a "protege" of Jack Ma and poached some talent from the behemoth (likely other greedy individuals who see how wealthy crypto can make them). Take my money!
Don't like what you hear? Well unfortunately this is the case for a lot of cryptocurrencies. This is the time to be selective and find cryptocurrencies which actually have a use-case that is suitable for blockchain (or DAGs), because in the event that the altcoin cycle ends, we'll see "higher quality" altcoins fare better than their hyped brethren.
While I will be the first to tell you Bitcoin is overhyped as well and reality is far from where expectations are now, at least it has substantial community and developer support along with a long, battle-tested history which almost no other cryptocurrency can claim. Perhaps even more importantly, average Joe actually knows what Bitcoin is while most of the general public hasn't even heard the word "cryptocurrency."
All in all, the altcoin cycle will come to an end as it always does. We don't know when that is, but don't be fooled by the idea that superior tech wins. I could rattle off a dozen examples ... Betamax, Dvorak keyboards, Atari, etc. There are many other factors that go into play and Bitcoin has many of those on its side: Expect a video on that in the future.
For now, the important part is that if you want exposure in this market, Bitcoin is the place to be. Oh and a super brief update on Ethereum: I converted more into Bitcoin as we (very) rapidly hit my price target of 0.075 - 0.08 BTC. The rest I will hodl - no further price targets. Thank you for watching and let me know your thoughts in the comments.
I'd love it if you would start uploading to D.Tube
It'd be good since d.tube has 1m SP to give away subsidies to kickstart content creators on it.
I'm usually not a fan of subsidies but if anyone deserve a chunk of it, it's definitely @cryptovestor
Explanation for high upvote
I've thought about it - Unfortunately I can't even view D.Tube on this computer because it is running Windows XP (yes, still in the stone ages) and browser support has died off. I've tried Firefox and Chrome with no luck, although I haven't really made any serious attempts to make the website work as it works fine on my laptop. This is my workstation though. We'll see though. If I do, I won't be posting my YouTube link here on Steemit as well since it feels spammy. I think there might be some people stuck with same issue as I have (last I checked, quite a few people still use XP amazingly), but not ruling it out for future.
Be careful on xp, windows have not released security patches for quite a long time, windows already unsafe as it is. Keep up the great content tho.
My XP updated to Windows 10. I haaaaate Windows 10. I'm so jealous.
I agree, certainly worth testing out.
Tron (Trx) next Jetplane will land over 0.0002000btc $ 1.50
What if BTC might not get back its market dominance? What if the swing cycle bitcoin – altcoins will not repeat any more? Is this possible?
Yahoo used once to totally dominate internet search market. Sergey Brin and Larry Page had offered to sell Google with it's new search algorithms at 5mln$, correct me if I'm wrong with this number. Where is Yahoo now? There are a lot of examples when once totally dominating company lost its position or even went bankrupt. Why this happens? A) The company fails to evolve and improve as per needs of its customers. B) A superior technology or more effective strategy of a competitor.
The main problem of BTC is not slow transactions, high fees or whatever technical flaw there might be. It can be fixed. The problem is difficulty to reach a consensus to improve the tech. All the separate BTC mining pools might be shortsighted in pursuit of today’s profits. They might lack a strategic vision which their rivals do possess. We see quite intensive boiling in the BTC camp. One example is Bitcoin – Bitcoin Cash discussion. This doesn’t add any competitive advantage to BTC.
If other platform will prove to perform better and deliver a better solution for crypto currency, BTC might lose its crown. The significat advantages I see now in BTC are as follows: brand recognition and market share. That’s it.
Being first on a new market is a big deal indeed, but a company must not just passively enjoy it’s market dominance. It’s not forever. We all know prominent BTC advocates who actually do a pretty good job convincing the public that there is only BTC, that it will better than gold and in several years it will cost a billion $. Many people bought this story.
I don’t believe a narrative about $500K or $1 mln per BTC just because it’s # 1 brand, because it’s not inflationary, rare and hard to mine. The whole mining scheme is already obsolete. It’s not necessary at all to spend such enormous amount of energy to provide high level of network security. Proof-of-stake protocol will dominate in crypto in the future. It’s pretty much the same thing as Proof-of-Stake but without wasting of energy. In P-o-W investment is made in hardware in P-o-S investment is made in coins. Both protocols share the same idea that the bigger is your investment (stake) the bigger share in coin harvesting and voting power.
Bankers and institutional investors should prefer to be the trendsetter rather than to go where the crowd leads. They would prefer to invest in a platform from scratch and make it dominant. They have all the fiat money for this. In this case they will benefit much more than just diving into BTC which is currently «ruled» by several Chinese mining cartels.
There is another problem related to BTC growth. New investors know how cheap BTC used to be and they might tend to believe that they are late for BTC and must find other «cheap» coins which have a room to grow to the sky.
The difficulty to realize consensus is the result of being decentralized. I've finished an article now that addresses this and it will result in Bitcoin struggling for the next 2 decades or so likely, but keep in mind that Bitcoin really isn't going to be superior to what exists out there already today. Do you know how many millions of hours Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, Square, and all the banks have put into the existing infrastructure today? Do you know how many more millions of hours they will put in if they feel even REMOTELY threatened? They crush all cryptocurrencies in terms of capital, resources and influence. The ONLY real advantage that cryptocurrencies have is that they are:
You get the point. For the record, open-source development is generally going to be slower due to disagreements over how to proceed. The vision of Bitcoin is that it isn't any single person's vision. I also discuss in my upcoming article that Proof of Work is undoubtedly a problem, but Proof of Stake isn't perfect either. You can combine the two and there are obviously many other consensus algorithms, but here is one area where I think Bitcoin might be screwed as a change to existing consensus algorithm would destroy over a billion dollars worth of mining equipment so... That would DEFINITELY require a user activated fork. User activated forks is Bitcoin's defense against miner dominance.
There is no guarantee that Bitcoin regains its dominance, but altcoins have so many issues right now that it is very likely. Many of them don't have products, some don't even have prototypes and a lot of them are copies of Bitcoin's code with some modifications. These copies of Bitcoin will face issues as well if they ever hit scale and obviously Bitcoin could make these changes too given it's the same code with different inputs. Will it happen? That's a worthwhile question, but it's too soon yet to be certain. I think we are taking a "wait and see" approach.
"The vision of Bitcoin is that it isn't any single person's vision" - that is the real problem with Bitcoin, which is why we have so many forks. Open-source development can be sometimes faster given there is a strong, and intelligent leadership that encourages innovation and cares about users. Forks do happen in open-source software development, but not that many. Linux is innovative and fast moving, it has been only growing in popularity and there is only a single popular fork - Android.
Bitcoin is a joke compared to the alternatives. The sooner its end comes the better for this industry
BetaMax was far better than VHS. It's about adoption, not about the better tech. How are you going to convince people that a $14 coin is better than a $14,000 coin? So things like the lightning network are created.
”It’s pretty much the same thing as Proof-of-Stake”...or Proof-of-Work!?
Great video! I completely agree with you and already started to shift liquidity into BTC and some very selected altcoins. The reason is the correlation of BTC to the whole cryptomarket and the channel of exiting alts through BTC.
When thinking about what can happen there are some scenarios:
The whole cryptoworld sees a huge correction: People are fleeing their alts (because at the end 90% of coin holder actually are in for the money and believe those are shitcoins anyway) into BTC. BTC will tank but alts will bleed like crazy.
Strategy: Be in BTC and fiat.
BTC as Big Daddy wakes up (maybe due to a catalyst such as a big financial instrument (such as ETF) and will go crazy. Altcoins will bleed (at least in BTC-value). Its similar to the month of Octobre 2017.
Strategy: Be in BTC.
Bitcoin will stay in a limited interval but not crash or pump. Altcoins will continue to outperform BTC.
Strategy: Be in altcoins.
That is what is happening since December. However, regarding some ridiculous market caps of complete shitcoins, I suspect that the bubble pops very soon. It will be either through scenario 1 or 2.
In order to position yourself well for the upcoming time you should form an expectancy about the probabilities of the different scenarios. And in that sense scenario 1 + 2 heavily outweigh scenario 3.
Therefore I decided to slowly use some pumps on various alts to shift most most of the funds into BTC (and LTC*) to be positioned for scenario 2 and some funds into Fiat to be prepared for scenario 1. However, I will leave some little exposure to various altcoins I believe in.
It is refreshing to find an individual who has the same opinion about the current market.
*Why LTC? Because LTC correlates with BTC (corr=0.93 in 2017) while actually outperforming it. Also I believe that catalyst such as Lightning will first happen on LTC. However, most funds will still be in BTC.
Thank you for your thoughts salty, best of luck with your investing! No need to respond if you didn't calculate yourself, but for the correlation between BTC & LTC in 2017, what is the frequency you used for the returns (e.g: Daily, Weekly)?
I used daily correlations
If I remember correctly @criptovestor already mentioned the 1st scenario some time ago in fall 2017. But the time is indefinite. Some speculators are saying that it's gonna happen around June 2018, on the basis of the altcoin roadmaps, which a lot of them have deadlines a little before than, if I understood correctly.
And may I ask did you do any calculation of probability on either scenarios? If yes is that how you redesigned your portfolio?
And on an completely different note: I also like Crypto Investors videos a lot, but sometimes I'm just feeling this because of the psychology of people, which is basically: We like (and trust!) people with like opinions.
It is very true that tech doesn't win every battle, and for that reason I don't discount BTC in the long run. I like what Andreas Antonopoulos said about Bitcoin, he was asked about BTC versus ETH, and the question posed that ETH was like a lego kit with a multiplicity of tools for devs to use, and the question posed BTC as a basic lego plain block.
The question was more a comment but Antonopoulos responded rigthly by saying that master lego builders use basic blocks to build even the most complicated structures but on a larger scale, because at a higher resolution it will work.
The analogy meaning that BTC can fit some major needs, and will not die off because 2nd or 3rd gen cryptos are also good. Tech doesnt by itself win the market.
The real truth of the matter is that most of these major altcoins aren't even bringing anything new to the table, they look at bitcoin and say "we can do all of that BUT BETTER" and come up with some mediocre use case (most of which don't even need blockchain or decentralization) and 200bil coins not backed by any proof model and sell them to people who think they're going to get Lamborghinis.
They think they can be Bitcoin 2.0, but in reality, bitcoin is the only one that's been in the fire long enough to have developed real resiliency, and what these crapcoins don't understand is that they will, one day, run into the same scalability issues, that bitcoin is already 2 steps ahead on and actively working to fix.
Privacy, smart contracts, viable scaling... all of these are things that bitcoin will eventually be able to do and then everyone else is left wondering what the point in using those other currencies is. Sure, right now, the fees are inconvenient and the transaction time is slow and that's frustrating and annoying, but if anything, the bottle neck drives up price volatility and makes it an even more attractive speculative asset.
Half of this speculative cash being tossed around wouldn't even exist if it weren't for bitcoins battle scars.
I agree. Also I would add that what you say is why I argue against investing in a wide range of "currency" crypto coins. We do not need 10 coins that transact value as their primary use case, let alone 500 which is closer to the mark today. Just like we dont need 300 decentralized platform coins, but we have 'em anyways.
Point being, 90-95% of all coins will disappear one day, and likely the first to go will be those that clearly offer nothing but a promise of future development.
This is why I primarily invest in crypto that has a use case today, and preferrably a revenue stream to support their growth.
Some of my favourites are TenX, because I see them as a leader in making crypto spendable, and there is a market for that. More than 100,000 users in Europe so far have signed up and are spending millions of crypto already, generating fees which the company can sustain its growth upon.
There are others, like Steem, and the value it gains by the increasing appeal of Steemit.
Or Ethereum or Neo which already have many apps coming out for their platforms.
I guess what I am saying is if they aren't already being used by a customer base, altering how a traditional business model can operate, then they haven't proven themselves as a meaningful crypto, in my opinion.
I agree with you. this important thing about bitcoin that it's paving the new grounds, is not emphasized enough. ethereum also has it's scalability issues if I understand correctly. I feel like a mature crypto community would point newcomers to appreciate the brand of bitcoin, cause it really deserves the dignity. after all, the code can continuously be improved and the network already is stronger that any other rivals. anybody who dismisses the importance of decentralization is missing the whole point and I fear this becomes the coming weakness of the network. bankers are gold investors are waging a war. there needs to be great deal of illumination in2018.
I've always loved the topic of why certain innovations ultimately succeed even when there are other "better" alternatives. There are many reasons why and right now I think it's too early to definitively say that Bitcoin will or won't be the one, but it certainly has the best shot just from the absurd level of resources and support thrown behind it. Andreas is the best.
I would like to challenge your views. Bitcoin's PoW is flawed. If Bitcoin does not move away from it, it cannot and will not succeed. The entire earth's electricity network won't be able to supply enough electricity to feed the Beast. That is crazy. Nuts. Kookoo. Now Bitcoin will never move to another consensus algorithm, as miners control the network. Might happen over their dead bodies or if they become desperate enough. In the short term Bitcoin will continue to be King. However cannot say the same for the long term
Funny thing is everyone talks about Bitcoin's transaction problems as if that's going to be its downfall, but how bad is BTC's position if we really consider it? Right now nobody in their right mind wants to spend their crypto on coffee and burritos because they know it's only going to go up in value relative to fiat. What's a better store of value than it to hodl and trust to gain in value? I bought LTC and Dash to spend, but I don't even use them for the same reasons.
I'd argue the bottleneck in transaction speed has created added price volatility that's made it even more attractive to speculators.
Agreed as well, Bitcoin is the Coca-Cola of Crypto, the gateway, the red carpet leading the masses to the whole show. Bitcoin has and will always have a brilliant history, however sadly, I continually pour it out into alts as no matter how high Bitcoin may rise, I've lost faith in those that have imprisoned it's development. In no way will I support a team who wishes to see Bitcoin poked and prodded by sidechains till we no longer see Bitcoin as anything but a shell of what it once was.
I believe Bitcoin to be a prisoner of it's "handlers" held against the original will of vision it was created with. All that aside!! It will not matter, Bitcoin will do very well because a Coke is a Coke no matter how many iterations the end product has endured, to the consumer it matters not.
Excellent Videos, and Excellent replies by all here..Great group you have going here Crytovestor!! Thank You!
I think we need to somehow support Andreas
You have a very good point in that the better technology not always wins, when you have technologies that are competing for the same space the one that wins is usually the one that has the better marketing team.
There is also another part, ease of access. Take HD-DVD vs Blue Ray, both very similar tecnologies that were fighting for dominance in the same space. There is one thing that separates these however, one was included natively with the companies gaming console and the other you had to buy an add on. Blue Ray won, however I do not buy or rent ether, I prefer to watch things online.
I believe that bitcoin is going to be in trouble in the long term should it not fix the problems that plague it, even if it is not going away anytime soon. All this depends on how much real adoption it gets in the next few years. Nowadays it is no longer the only currency, and two of the things that are on the bitcoin.org website are not as true as they where when it started.
It's interesting that you mentioned VHS / Betamax. Whilst Beta (BTC) was the better product, VHS (altcoins) had better marketing, was cheaper and was made readily available to anyone by JVC. You also mentioned in a previous video that scalability wasn't the biggest issue with crypto currencies but in fact adoption. For the world to truly adopt a new meta in finance and transacting...they must be able to get their digital hands on it. I'm afraid BTC has become a victim of it's own success and either we will live in a world where a select few have the vast majority of wealth...(ring any bells?)...or something else comes along that is cheaper, has great marketing and is readily available for the masses at an equal price for all. It is my opinion that BTC struggles to accomplish any one of these things. BTC may have been the first and proven itself thus far, but to a lot of lay people it is still seen as a black market currency used by drug dealers and criminal gangs. The crypto that will market itself effectively and be available to the public for a reasonable price will win the day. Perhaps it is TRON, perhaps not. But there will be a day when BTC is no longer at the top on coinmarketcap.
Edit: Great video and I enjoy these more than the pump and dump altcoin types. I hope everyone heeds your warnings to only invest in a crypto that will actually provide a solution and value.
As you said, marketing, or mindshare have a lot to do with adoption. And names have a lot to do with marketing. So i dont see tron beeing used, just because of the name. Im not kidding here, not even bankers would look at a coin named tron seriously. I may be wrong though, just my opinion
In that case. BTC is not a better product, but it does somehow have better marketing (picked up by mainstream media).
+krisr92... It could be argued that way. However, the way JVC marketed their VHS was by making it as widely available at pretty much any price the retailer wanted to sell it for. Therefore, almost anyone could get one for a cheaper price than Beta. You could even extend the comparison to the entire cassette stage and say BTC is the U-Matic, which was released years before VHS/Beta but ultimately was too expensive for the everyday Joe. Therefore, it never gained mass adoption simply because ordinary people couldn't get hold of it. Therein lies the BTC paradox. Yes it will always be there and be important, but something will come along to take top spot...simply by learning lessons from BTC and doing it better. Marketing is about keeping a consumer happy. If you don't have consumers, you don't have a market.
One thing that you said that's worrying me though is the fact some people own most of the Bitcoin available. If Bitcoin was going to have massive adoption it's really worrying.
I expect another price drop in the 12K range. According to Ichimoku support level. Most likely after hitting again 12K it will slowly but surely rise just like before in about 30-45 days. And I think at the peak we'll see a similar situation to what happened at the last peak, 2 huge candles or at least 1 will most like show the eagerness of people to get into the market because of FOMO.
Note: If the price closes below 12K and for a few days it will keep going down check for trend reversal. Wait for things to chill and enter a safe market if goes back into Bullish trend.
I agree with most of what CryptoInvestor is saying BUT "Better safe than sorry"
Everyone wanting to get into market don't rush to buy at 10K. Wait for the price and indicators to clearly showing bullish. IF it goes bullish then I agree with estimates that CryptoInvestor did and IMHO it might go way above 23K.
Hi,
I was only a crypto miner until recently where I decided to join in the market, mostly to try and HODL a few coins that look promising, I'm not investing much as I remember the first rule of investment (never invest more than you can afford to lose).
However, I'd love to have your opinion on a coin I invested in recently, before it blew up, I feel like it as potential, but I greatly value your opinion otherwise I would've never subscribed to your YT channel or even join steemit in order to try and get in touche with you.
So to get back to the subject, could you please tell me what is your opinion on FLASHcoin, I personally think it's a coin that as much potential, from the roadmap and actual usability, but I'm still learning so much about crypto everyday, I may be missing out something.
Also I'm converting most of my miners revenue into BTC to HODL since it also believe most altcoin are in massive bubble territory, the rest is cashed out to pay the bills required to run the rigs.
I love your videos, they are very interesting and I've learned so much from you. I wish you a wonderful 2018 both for your personal life and the YT channel.
I've seen flashcoin but I don't have an currently have an opinion on it. However there are some things to think on: 1) As the video said, altcoins are currently in a bubble. Therefore, unless bitcoin dies (which is not a zero chance) then the value of flashcoin, even if it stay up, is unlikely to skyrocket(low ROI). 2) is it the BEST? Can't answer, do some research. also, what are it's competitors? are they better? Make your decision. And 3rd) (medium to longterm question but relevant to # 1 is when will bitcoin lose top position(if it does)?
Not everything or even the majority but can be a good starting point.
Great post, and thanks for you thorough analysis! Of the money you have allocated to cryptos, how many percent do you currently have in cash? And if you have cash, what scenario are you waiting for to deploy it?
I've been slowly building a long-term crypto portfolio over the past three months, but I'm only 50% invested so far. If you had to take a guess, do you think it is more likely that we will get another opportunity to buy Bitcoin around $10K, $8K or even $5K, or will we not see those levels again before we see $23,000 or more?
Looking at the previous Bitcoin price history, and taking your altcoin exodus thesis into account, it looks to me like Bitcoin will not break the December 22 low before hitting $20K again. If so, I probably should try to buy some more here at the $14K-$15K levels. What do you think?