CryptoGram_0023: January 29, 2018

DON'T PANIC: Bitcoin, WE NEED MORE MONEH! #CryptoGram

Getting into it...

First here are the main thoughts of this post:

1. The market appears to stagnating, and by this I mean it the monetary volume of play in the currencies has greatly deteriorated from the December run that took btc to 20k and sent the alts skyrocketing afterwards.
2. The the crazy fervor surrounding the btc run to 20k is currently fizzling in the media.
3. The lack of crazy run, has left people, mostly the speculators looking to make a quick buck un-interested
4. In order for the market to be re-stimulated to growth, there needs to a be catalyst that re-initiates public interest.

Point 1

For those that have been in the market for 6-8 months, the December run was pleasant but not unique. In short, we had a whole lot of money, enter, or attempt to enter the market, then, as peoples accounts got brought online, it elongated the market in general. The sustained run i think was in large part due to the lack of speed in on boarding people to the system. i.e. coinbase, binance, kraken... other exchanges. Now that the backlogs for accounts are thinning out and people haven't made their 1000% gains, people are starting to lose faith and drop out of the market, or some are content to leave their newly invested money in cold storage . This in-volatility hamstrung the surge that was happening.

Point 2

In conjunction with the first point, now that btc, eth, ltc are not making 50% gains or drops in one day, the media has somewhat lost interest. Negative publicity from various actors have downplayed the effectiveness of the cryptocurrency market in the face of regulation and attack. The media will follow the news after it happens, and right now, the mediocre gains/losses happening on a day by day basis are not great starts for headlines.

Point 3

As with the media, so go the thrill seekers. People who were on boarded in order to make some quick bucks on a crazy run have lost faith and gotten out of the market chalking up btc to a passing fad. I wouldnt be surprised to start hearing some "bitcoin is dead" type of news start coming out. Maybe not as dramatic as it once was, but the news might read something like - Bitcoin no longer useful, or bitcoin losing to other crypto... as you already see. Basically, an offhanded, "this use of the technology is no longer relevant..." type news.

Point 4

In order to get past all of this and hit another bull run, we will need a new influx of outside money. The December run has shown lots of processes their limits, which hopefully are being re-evaluated and improved. As this infrastructure is built it will pave the way for the next run. This includes on boarding, storage, security, and scaling (both btc and eth are working solutions that are coming along. BTC with lightning, and ETH with Plasma.) The biggest bottlenecks in the last run are on boarding and scaling - hopefully this is will we will have improvement before the next bull run.
However, the point of #4 is that, even if this infrastructure is worked out, crypto will have to hit yet another tipping point in order to make another run. It wont be enough that technical indicators are pointing one way or another. In order to make another "crazy" run up, i think there will need to be something that inspires people to take advantage. this could be some public news, infrastructure news, or politcal favor of some kind.

Some possibilities I have considered are:

• Coinbase adds another coin.
• A country declares to keep a portion of its reserves in crypto.
• There is announcement of favorable regulation
• Announcement of favorable tax treatment.
• a Crypto etf, or some other mechanism that allows retirement accounts to access crypto, gets approved.
• additional futures plays open up.

This list is by no means exhaustive in my opinion, but i cant really think of any more. If anyone would like to add something, or an opinion, i am certainly open to hearing it.

Thanks for reading,
-libertyhound

State of The Market:

For new readers:

Cryptogram is my personal journal of thoughts about cryptocurrencies and related topics.

Purpose of CryptoGram:

Currently in the crypto space it can be difficult to remember what you have discussed or been thinking from one week to the next. The rapid development of, and many changes in the space keep everyone on their toes. Now that I have been financially involved in the space for roughly a year, I realize that I would love to have my thoughts from 2017 written down somewhere. I believe having this information will help me stay focused, avoid repeating past mistakes, and hopefully help some other people, (anyone who decides to read this,) from making those same mistakes.

Briefly, I need a place to record my train of thought and that place will now be dubbed "CryptoGram"

My thoughts on the structure of this post are:

• About 500 words.
• Frequency of once a day to once a week.
• Each post will have a number and date.
• A snippet of top 5 cmc coins for price reference. (state of the market)
• I will always use these 5 tags, three of them will be:
  • bitcoin cryptocurrency ethereum
  • the other two will be topic specific