7th March
Haven looks ready to pop
This is the sort of thing that will change the world. Whether for the better or worse, this is such a game changer. Having a private, offshore bank, in your pocket, that you can carry around with you. This democratises the access to private money. No longer do you have to open a huge size account in the cayman islands with all of your lawyers and accountants helping you. It’s just there, for the taking.
Nobody can take it down. It’s like bitcoin. Or the missing piece to bitcoin. A store of value, but this is the actual place where it’s stored. That’s mental.
The narrative towards having independence in finance is occurring in tandem with a distrust of government. People are losing faith in government, and its ability to work for them.
What will happen? They will watch crypto rise in a parabola, amid fears of hyperinflation, and doubts about the strength of the US dollar given the enormous printing that’s happened during coronavirus. They will rush into crypto because at that point, it will become apparent that the whole world has changed.
It will become apparent that being your own bank, protecting yourself, rather than the state protecting you, this will become a necessity. Why? Because the state will dissolve in the midst of international cooperation of decentralised finance. Banks will FOMO into crypto, because, when it finally becomes a high grade asset, it will seem “obvious” that this is a new paradigm, and not some passing fad. It will become a function of supply and demand.
The banks’ weakness is that they don’t understand that everything, crypto and dollars included is just mimetic value. Its value is based on people believing that it is valuable to other people. And crypto will become extremely valuable to other people.
Other things to think about
If something pumps to a certain price, ask “would I buy it at this price?”, and if the answer is no, then the response has to be to sell. The thesis that the price will go higher after is only valid if it is the case that there are buyers to increase the price further. If there are no buyers, then the price will fall thereafter.
Ash doesn’t hear anything about crypto at the moment
This could mean one of two things. Either a) we are not at the top OR b) it’s not different this time, and while crypto may eventually pump to the moon, it won’t happen this cycle.
Personally, I am drawn to think that it is different this time, and that crypto is going mainstream in a way that it hasn’t done before with a few factors:
- Rising institutional involvement / investment in projects
- Projects having real-world applications, which differs from 2017
- Fears about hyperinflation, stemming from rapid printing of the dollar
- Coronavirus stimulus checks being spent on crypto = more people coming into the space than ever before
- The wider public narrative running that “the world has changed” following lockdown will lead people to being receptive to the idea that “the financial system has also changed”
- Here, public trust in institutions seems to be decreasing
It doesn’t happen this cycle:
If this is the case, then the question becomes “where is the top?”. This is an impossible question to answer, but perhaps we could ask, “what event could mark the top?”
Here, it seems likely that the top will not happen before the launch of the Coinbase IPO — Coinbase will not want to launch in a bearish market, full of fear. They will want to launch in a bull market, when things are breezy. They are in close contact with miners, and market makers — and are in cahoots with them. Coinbase will be very aware of how the market is doing.
Chico has said, if the Coinbase IPO price drops below 373, then it could be going south pretty fast (this price would put them at an $100 billion valuation.
As of now, the Coinbase IPO price is doing good, at $413 a share.
Look into the underlying model
Looks can be deceiving. I guess that this was 2017, and so things were in an experimental, not commercial phase, but nevertheless. If a solid concept gains traction, then it might be one great UX designer away from being bought into by the rest of the market.
This is perhaps the case with NFT20, who are building the first platform for Cross-NFT swaps. The site looks terrible, but the interest is there from big backers, like Aave and more.
Given that NFTX are using their tech, and sitting at an $150 million market cap (compared to $30 million), this seems like a big gap.
Idle is still undervalued
$100 million TVL, a working product, Consensys backed — and sitting an a $20 million market cap, it doesn’t seem consistent with the rest of the market.
Compare this with APY.finance
More than double the market cap, and still with no working product. It just got lots of influencer hype.
Kilt is possibly a winner
If this is true, then it’s super bullish for Kilt. I like the founder, and Berlin-based projects seem to have a healthy focus on decentralisation, long-termism and benefitting users.
The Kilt protocol, and their team, seem to be a key cornerstone of Web3. They form part of the Berlin nexus, which seems to shaping things.
Within this Berlin nexus:
- Energy Web
- Ocean
- Fractal
- Gnosis
- Kilt
- Lukso
The founders seem to be supporting one another, and it seems likely that the connections run a lot deeper than that.
Further, the German Government seems to be pretty involved with each of the projects, (not sure about Gnosis?). There seems to be a really positive energy from this space. Furthermore, there are so many devs working in the Polkadot ecosystem. This bodes well for its success, long term.
Kilt will also get its own dot Parachain.
Fractal has not yet pumped, but it’s only a matter of time.
The question with Kilt is, when to enter?
There’s no word of when the ICO is happening, but perhaps soon, since some dot influencers have started talking about it more.
If the hype is too strong, it might be better to wait for a good entry- as it will likely be an IDO on Polkastarter. On the other hand, it could be an option to DCA. It’s really just splitting hairs to try and accumulate more.
Values:
NUPL: 0.69
Bitcoin Fear and Greed: 81
All in all, still room to grow.
Ash, also, if you’re reading this, I’ve created a Linktree with resources for analysing crypto. If you want to use it, feel free. Also, if you want to use my Glassnode, then I’ll pass you the login details etc.
Here it is:
