By Danni Levy
Bitcoin hit an all-time high in November of 2021, falling just short of $69,000. at the time of writing this article, it sits at $38,634, giving investors little over half the returns they’d have seen six months ago. with fear outrunning greed, is it time to grab the bull by the horns and dust off those old banknotes? “Absolutely not!” say the world’s top crypto experts…
CFO of Boston Trading Co. Jeremy Britton started the world’s first crypto mutual fund in 2016. he has worked in financial markets for over twenty years.
“If I had a dollar for every time someone said ‘Bitcoin is dead’… I would almost have enough cash to buy another Bitcoin! Remember a time long, long ago, in a universe far, far away, before we had heard of COVID19 or pandemics?
“Remember when we used to hug friends without a mask and gloves, and birthday parties were celebrated by someone blowing their breath all over a cake and then everyone eating the same cake? We were all healthy and happy back then, but mostly oblivious to the illness of the global economy.
“The fact is that the central banks pumped billions of dollars into the economy in 2008 to deal with the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). This has led to the stealth tax known as inflation, where prices go up and dollars go down. If you print more of anything, it becomes worthless. Bitcoin was created in the aftermath of the 2008 GFC because a) it was a finite asset that could not be minted, printed, or inflated and b) it could not be manipulated by central banks.
“China has banned Bitcoin a few times; nobody cares. Prices sometimes go up 1000% and then drop by 80%, that is the game we play. Investment bankers who previously referred to Bitcoin as a ‘scam’ have started to buy billions of dollars’ worth of this same scarce commodity they once mocked. When billion-dollar hedge fund managers start to invest in something, it is no longer a fringe asset hoarded by computer nerds.
“In September 2019, the team at Boston Trading.co saw a rise in overnight repo markets and a drop in copper prices, signaling bad times ahead. If the manufacturers of smartphones, electric cars, and other goods that required copper were buying less, it meant that they were expecting fewer sales in 2020 than the previous year.
“This was a red flag that could not be ignored. We instructed investors in Sept/Oct 2019 to exit stocks, bonds and cash, and stock up on scarce commodities, such as gold, silver, and Bitcoin.
“Disclaimer: We did NOT know there would be a pandemic, but we knew the economic signals of a downturn. How do central banks battle a bad economy? They print more cash, just as they did in the Great Depression and the GFC. This devalues cash itself and leads to higher prices in scarce assets.
“Six months after our warnings, the pandemic started and as predicted, central banks printed more cash. Cash started to lose its value, and the three assets that we recommended, gold, silver and Bitcoin went up by 50%, 100% and 800% respectively.
“Yes, the price of Bitcoin is volatile, just as the prices of gold, silver, stocks, and bonds can be. But we are in the early days of adoption: stocks and bonds were extremely volatile prior to the 1960s when there were less than 5% of the population holding them. Prices tend to stabilize when there are more people investing.
“Bonus fact: Bitcoin is scarcer than gold, silver, or diamonds. Some people buy comics or baseball cards due to their scarcity, and it tends to work out well for those who hold over the longer term. It is true that you cannot physically hold a cryptocurrency, but this is a security feature, especially when you consider that physical items can be readily stolen or seized by officials. Residents fleeing Ukraine could not carry cash or gold, but they could hold their Bitcoin securely on their smartphones.
“Bitcoin prices have been forecast to exceed $1 million in the next few years; this is not something claimed by tech nerds, but by billion-dollar hedge fund managers with teams of financial analysts.
“You can say that you do not like it or do not understand it (many said the same thing about the internet in the early 1990s), but you can no longer ignore it. If you missed out on investing in Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, or Google in the early days of the internet, do not miss the crypto boat.
“Crypto markets can be volatile and risky, just like stocks (remember MySpace, Blockbuster Video and Nokia?). Only invest what you can afford to lose. Diversify into a few projects to reduce risk. Do not fall for the scammers, flimflammers or anyone promising great returns on TikTok or YouTube. Invest a few hours into your own education. If you are too busy, delegate the task to a trusted financial adviser or crypto mutual fund manager. Do whatever you have to do, but do not miss out on this new asset class.”
COO Steven Bumbera created the next evolution of tokens, Many Worlds, the world’s first dynamic tokenmics system in cryptocurrency. Its structure solves the scalability issues facing Evergrow coin. Steven says:
“Has Bitcoin lost its bounce? The short answer is I don’t care, and neither should you.
“Fiat has not won, and neither has crypto. Less than 4% of the world uses cryptocurrency due to the perceived difficulty of getting started and currently, a large majority of any movement is based on hype.
“Truthfully, the battle hasn’t even begun yet. Social media and modern press enable the masses to learn about and participate in bleeding-edge technologies. Naturally, it’s all hype at the beginning of a new technology, because it is not refined or integrated into society yet. Whereas in days gone by, we’d ignore the idea of things like human flight until they became a reality, we now create ideas that lead to us all jumping on the hype train way before that plane is ready for flight!
“The desire to ‘get in early’ and participate in the hype is the definition of greed. Long-term mindset is the only one to have in the crypto landscape if you take it seriously at all.
“Bitcoin is famed for being first, but I don’t believe it should act as the gold standard for the crypto markets. Alas, our free and open market has decided it to be so. I don’t like trying to predict prices or movements of crypto because it is just so early without a ton of intrinsic value to backup pricing, but I will say crypto is undoubtedly the future. Whether it be how businesses run, how medical records are handled, for real estate, taxes, or accounting purposes, crypto can and will drastically improve. On what timeline and with which asset? Nobody really knows for sure.
“My advice? Find a project you like and support it. Not by buying into it, but by being active in the community and helping that project to grow. That is the magic of crypto. It’s not about catching a wave of hype, rather by having control over the success or failure of the project you are involved in.”
With Many Worlds, Tokens held in the same wallet have different intrinsic values based on how long they have existed in that wallet. This is a groundbreaking concept in the blockchain space.
CMO at gate.io Marie Tatibouet is known for spreading the importance of blockchain technology to the masses and simplifying its technicalities for the everyday user. She says:
“Well, for one, we are currently facing unprecedented macro factors. US inflation rate hit 8.5%, a 40-year high. The Federal Reserve has announced that they will be cutting down the balance sheet by $85 billion each month to counter this inflation. Oh, and in case we forgot, there is still a war between Russia and Ukraine! Now, you would say that Bitcoin should be decoupled from all these factors – but that may not be the case anymore. Bitcoin’s price action has been closely tied to the Nasdaq 100.
“As per Bloomberg1, this correlation is unprecedented. What this means is that the crypto market is more attached to external macroeconomic factors than ever before. Yes, Bitcoin has lost its bounce in the short-term. However, the long-term outlook with increasingly favorable regulations still looks very bullish.”
Gate.io is one of the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchanges. The platform has over 10 million users across the world and boasts a comprehensive ecosystem of products and services. Gate.io also offers users the opportunity to invest in NFTs through the company’s dedicated NFT Magic Box platform.
Want to know more? Here’s Blockchain Explained.