The Week To Be In Crypto [10/8/2018]
By: Jonathan Tompkins
Tags: Crypto, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cryptocurrency, Blockchain

Market Overview

Two weeks in a row of 1% or less movement for the top two cryptocurrencies. Lots of memes about bitcoin being a new stable coin pegged at 6500-6600. Its unclear when it will happen but it feels like when volatility returns it will be hot and heavy. Around this time last year there was a lot of concern around Bitcoins status as the #1 crypto with threats of hard forks looming and Ether making a run. A year later I am kicking myself for doubting the big dog and letting my concerns lead to unnecessary over-diversification.

Bitcoin is more than ever looking like the best bet to gain widespread adoption as, at the very least, a unit of account with a universe of other tokens with different uses trading off of it. The lightning network catching on, real on chain scaling (schnorr signatures discussed in the LTB pod below), theoretical non-hard fork scaling, and advances with anonymity and security features coming down the line its going to be hard for anything to catch up. A popular argument against bitcoin is the historical examples of the first not usually being the winner (Myspace <> Facebook the most common) but we aren’t dealing with a company here, there is limitless potential for bitcoin to change and it is upgrade path is by definition driven by the will/desire of the community. Lets say some feature is found that makes “newcoin” way better than bitcoin at what bitcoin does. Newcoin would need to unseat bitcoin before bitcoin could adopt the killer feature newcoin introduced. I just dont see that being particularly likely.

What I’m Buying

Just wanted to clarify a few things from last week. There is a bit of a split in this industry between HODLers and BUIDLers, which generally breaks down to folks focusing on trading and investing in the space and those focused on building products. They seem to butt heads more and more as the space grows but I think its important to recognize the importance of both groups. Just trading and investing to make more money does not do anything to help improve adoption or move towards a better more decentralized future. That being said, not taking advantage of being interested in the space this early to better your financial situation seems like a waste. On the other side of the coin, those building products need robust funding and speculation to not only build great products but also build shitty ones so we can find out what doesn’t work. That doesn’t happen without investors, traders, and speculators.

I am focused on investing in good projects but have also recently started working on something that will hopefully contribute something useful to the space as a whole (more to come on that). No new coins/tokens on my radar right now. Tokens are going on little mini runs here and there so Im just trying to keep an eye out and move to BTC when an opportunity arises.

Recommended Media

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From the Slack

A collection of content from The Bitcoin Podcast slack group the past week

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