My thoughts on the Crypto Market and where it might be heading the next 2 years

My thoughts on the Crypto Market and where it might be heading in the next 2 years

So I invested in Bitcoin and 7-8 other cryptocurrencies in October 2017, right before the mania began. In that sense, I was very lucky, I got in Bitcoin at 6k, and in Ethereum at 240$. I invested the most in NEM, buying it at 0.20 and saw it go all the way up to almost 2$. I was ecstatic, my investment of 6000€ (I’m from Spain so I count it in Euros) had gone up to 36.000€. My thoughts at that point? This is gonna keep going up much much higher.

As everyone knows, it didn’t. I had done a fair research on Blockchain and its possible impact on the world. I still honestly believe that it can change the world for the better. But I gotta be honest, if I was that compromised with the cause, I would take a developer course and become a Blockchain developer or something like that. But I don’t really like computers. The reality is that I am in crypto to build my wealth, and I think the same is true for 98% of crypto investors.

So, after getting burned and see almost all my gains disappear, I started looking everywhere for articles and people (John Mcaffee, Max Keiser, Tom Lee and the likes) saying it’s gonna go back to the same prices. Wishful thinking at its finest. As you know it didn’t.

I took a one month vacation and travelled around, and I completely forgot about the topic, and now that I’m back, I think I see it all with some more clarity. I just wanted to share with you guys and exchange opinions. Maybe this helps you, or maybe I am missing something and you can help me.

1-   So, first of all, I think Technical Analysis can be somewhat useful (I tried to trade, but the stress just wasn’t worth it for me), but I think the price of the crypto market as a whole is driven by narrative. I think there is no way to predict the future price of any crypto only looking at past price action, you gotta look at the narrative.

2-   The narrative of a certain moment creates a speculative wave. I believe the crypto market advances in a cycle like the one described by the founder of Litecoin, where an irrational bull run is followed by a bear market and then a purgatory, where the market moves sideways until the next bull run begins initiated by a new narrative. In my opinion, the last speculative wave was caused by a combination of exaggerated media coverage of cryptocurrency, people trying to make a quick buck, people discovering crypto and starting to HODL (I would include myself in this category) and the promise of how powerful the Blockchain can be. That was the narrative.

3-   I’m assuming all of us would like to see Bitcoin back at 20k and further. But, at its essence, if Bitcoin is at 20k, what it means is that there is a bunch of guys in the market buying the coin at that price, obviously because they expect it to go even higher. So, what we have to ask ourselves is, what has the narrative gotta be, in order for people to believe that 20k is a reasonable price to pay for bitcoin.

4-   In my opinion, in the state that crypto projects are right now, there is no way that people are gonna initiate another speculative wave anytime soon, it just doesn’t make sense, they know that a lot of people got burned just recently (or maybe themselves got burned). The projects in crypto are developing fairly quickly, but that’s not enough for the market. People are not gonna go back to buying Bitcoin at 20k because of Lightning Network. The bear market is way too recent, and still, even though Lightning Network (and all other advancements that the crypto world is making) are impressive, the fact is that you still can’t do shit with crypto. Okay, you can do shit with crypto, but almost nobody does shit with crypto, and that’s a fact. There is some progress in merchant adoption, but that does not nearly justify that Crypto goes back to ATH levels. It just won’t. People and markets are irrational, but not that irrational.

5-   So, as I said earlier, what new narrative is gonna make people believe that it is reasonable to pay 20k for Bitcoin or 2k for Ethereum? In my opinion, the next narrative that is gonna make people go irrational again is regulatory advancements and real-world practical usage of crypto (as in merchants adopting it and real big-figure business being done through the blockchain). The latter is more important. Now, when could we see that? I have no crystal ball, and please give me your opinions about it, but I don’t think, it is gonna be in 2018, and it’s also hard for me to believe that it will be in the start of 2019. I think (and this calculation is totally random guys, it’s just my gut feeling) that we could start getting the right narrative for a new speculation wave by the end of 2019 and start of 2020. That’s enough time for the governments figuring out what the hell to make out of crypto, and for the crypto projects to make enough progress and drive some real-world adoption. I want to remark that I don’t think cryptos need wide adoption across all areas of economy to create a new speculative wave, but they definitely need some significant adoption, they need some numbers that make people go like: “Hey, this thing is solid, it’s being used to do big business”.

So yeah, these are my thoughts after a month out. It is painful for many of us. Honestly, only now I realize how incredibly irrational I was when thinking that crypto was gonna go up uninterrupted. It was just insane, and I should have sold my position, or at least take some profit, but I didn’t. I got caught up in my own irrationality and wishful thinking, and now I am paying the price, even though it could have been worse.

I think my story could resonate with many of you. Please share your thoughts, I will appreciate your thoughtful answers.

Peace.