The Week In Bitcoin - Issue #104: 👋 Hello 2018 - Predictions and Thoughts

Sorry, this issue will mainly be me writing my predictions and thoughts down for 2018. If that’s not your jam, feel free to delete this issue. If my random thoughts are of interest read on…

Before I drop my thoughts for ‘18,  you can check out my predictions for 2017 & 2016 here:

👉  My predictions for 2017 

👉  My predictions for 2016 

Feel free to tweet your predictions at me - I’m @alantsen on the Twitters. 

🎉  Also, on a personal front, I have some cool news regarding what I’ve been working on for the last few months. 

We have been fortunate enough to receive a grant from the Victorian Government to further build out Stone & Chalk Melbourne - so lots on interesting things to come in the fintech space here in Australia over the coming months (and years) 😉

👉  You can check out the press release HERE.

🧐  Have some interesting news (which is not an ICO scam) I should include in my newsletter? DM slide me on the Twitters, Snap or Insta (I’m @alantsen across the distributed world wide web of social).

— Alan Tsen 👊 💯

Ps. If you like what I’m doing here please feel free to share it on your favourite social media network. Also, it’d be great if you forwarded this newsletter to a friend you think might enjoy it.

If you read crypto Twitter it’s easy to believe that the sky is constantly falling in. The reality is the token/blockchain/cryptocurrency ecosystem has never been in better shape. 

Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying here, there well may be a correction in the value of a bunch of tokens/blockchains/cryptocurrencies  - but the depth of the ecosystem is amazing. I still meet some of the smartest people I’ve ever met attacking problems in the chains space. Also, there has never been such large amounts of capital entering the markets. All this bodes well for the future of tokens/blockchains/cryptocurrencies.

Although most are worried about a correction, I’m personally not that concerned. The reality is if you’re pumping a token for luxury cars or sand you probably deserve to be ‘corrected’ out of existence. Importantly, I think we’ve hit a point where a number of these corrections can occur and they won’t hurt the velocity of advancement in the space. IMHO, we’ve hit a tipping point - on a large number of fronts.

Also, I think 2018 will see some really viable solutions to a range of technical problems - at production scale. The issue will continue to be the vocal minority who want to voice their dissatisfaction with a token/cryptocurrency/chain and how it’s managed by the core dev team. 

I’ve said it before - let there be forks! If a vocal minority have an issue let them fork and build an alternative that marries with their ethos/purpose/use case/scam.  The market is the best arbitrator and in 2018 I think we’ll see more forks of big market cap tokens.

When the dentists start investing in an asset class run - as quickly and as far as you can. This week I had my first real ‘dentist moment’. This doctor of the mouth told me he was thinking of leaving practice and trading crypto fulltime in 2018. WTF?

Personally, I don’t actively trade crypto, so price corrections don’t bother me. Having said this, I worry about the market when dentists talk about having a ’ trading system’. 

Jokes aside, I’m not sure how I feel about the rapid rise in the value of nearly all tokens.  As noted above, the influx of n00bs is paying for some proportion of the advancement (to the extent it all isn’t going to car or sand coin) that’s happening in the space. I’m more concerned about the low-income earners who’ve mortgaged their houses to buy crypto. Now that’s scary! This leads me to my next prediction…

This was the year that regulators started to get active in the space. I think 2018 will see this accelerate. 

Having been involved with a few working groups here in Australia with regulators, it’s clear that ICOs and the taxation of crypto are becoming a front of mind issue. Now that many regulators have released their views on ICOs I think we’ll see a few enforcement actions. Reading the tea leaves, I’d be betting on actions targeting claims made in White Papers and advertising of ICOs. 

Also, in 2018 don’t believe the FUD regarding digital currency bans. The reality is most countries don’t have a legal mechanism to ban them  - it’s usually a more nuanced approach to limiting ease of purchase, disposal or general availability of digital currencies.

It’s interesting to me that when you ask an investor what they look for in an ICO one of the top 3 factors is ‘team’. However, in a decentralised project, a contributor can just take their bat and ball and go home. Even more worrying, if they have enough cache they can just fork a project and off they go - on to their next project/scam. 

I think 2018 will see the 'exit scam’ become more common as the tired founder effect kicks in. I imagine it isn’t pleasant having abuse hurled at you all day on Reddit and Twitter. Also, having to review stupid PRs all day is enough to drive most people to want to escape to Saint Kitts (side note, I love this Linus Torvalds response to a dumb PR). 

Given the liquidity for most tokens, exits from day one (if no token vesting exists) has never been easier. Let’s be honest, what difference does it make if you’re worth $30m vs $50m? Either way that’s still a lot of money for unicorn t-shirts 🦄 👕