A 2019 Critical Crypto Overview

[tk808]

(note, there will be no sources or no data to backup what's expressed, this is purely a critical thought overview from someone who's been in this scene for over 5.5 years now, and spends several hours per day examining and reading everything on blockchain/crypto).

I've been meaning to write some sort of crypto overview for a while now. The current era of crypto initially was shaped in 2017, with the build-up period occurring between 14'-17'. In today's climate, there's much more capital flowing into cryptocurrency, giving legitimacy and this more observable today than ever in every aspect that has to deal with crypto, more notable, this has brought some stability within the markets. Due to the amount of capital needed to "pump" markets, there remains a grand gateway to actually realizing significant profits, especially if you've been accustomed (like me), to seeing major volatile swings of double-digit %'s on a daily basis. this is just no longer the case, unless a catalyst occurs or some exchange or trader bot goes haywire.


In today's climate, we can segment the market by 5 particular individuals

1) The average crypto investor and trader, not necessarily part of any large organization. This generally ranges from a crypto casual who's interested in this new industry, to individuals looking to create wealth in a very quick period.

2) The entrepreneur who's seeking to raise capital for a business venture and decides to create a "blockchain" gimmick and a new shitcoin to actually be funded through IEO's or less common these days, ICO's

3) The scavenger, generally the types of guys looking to earn any crypto however they can. More often than not, this is a full-time for some guys who can yield thousands of USD per month, through bounties, airdrops and every way team's use crypto's to gain traction.

4) The service/business guy. An entire industry has cropped up since mid-2017 and these are often parasites of the crypto world. Generally, business/services around blockchain tech and crypto are in their infancy, but are maturing quickly. This section ranges from the useless "I’ll promote your coin to 100k users" to business offering liquidity, exchanges and etc.

5) Institutionalist, which is occurring a very rapid pace currently and unlike ever before. This will be discussed heavily, but these are the big guns and outside parties whom are looking to shy away from every conventional (and albeit, corrupted) means of launching a crypto and use their powerhouse name to drive forward new tech, financing or service.



I wanted to define these categories, because it's crucial to understand who's involved in crypto these days and why there's currently a battle occurring, the small guy is no longer essential to the survival of most major crypto's, institutionalists are quickly taking over the scenes, for very good reasons, but they come at heavy repercussions and pull many ignorant eyes on crypto, namely, governments.


Where we are with adoption

In the past 8 months or so, the climate has undergone an ID change, shifting away from the roots in what crypto was founded on, now catering to mass audiences, mass-media and overall the beginnings of integration into society. We're currently at a breaking point where crypto is essentially the new kid on the block and everyone wants a slice of the pie or to be recognized for their excellence in the field (this is the reigning mentality for economists, institutionalists, shills and everyone who talks about crypto). Big financial institutions are no longer on the sidelines discrediting Bitcoin or blockchain, but are entering the acceptance phase that Bitcoin and blockchain is not going away anytime soon, but on the contrary, is in its infancy stages waiting to be nurtured and milked.

I once said somewhere on these forums, when you sit down with an accountant or some financial advisor and they recommend Bitcoin and crypto to you, then you know this industry has become something that many of the oldest guys on these forums known since 2011, this is a financial revolution and it has reached mainstream audiences.

With this increased awareness, we’re now seeing a pool of ignorant and clueless individuals, to those who seek to discredit or de-legitimize the industry entirely with one of the most common associations with crypto, criminal activity. But in several regards, this is a false blanket statement.

Leading into financial capital. The beginning of this year saw a 3.5k-4k BTC, dipping to a low-point of around 3k. Since then, Bitcoin has grown by x3 in under 8 months, and there is no sign for another recession for Bitcoin occurring soon, due ever economic and political uncertainty in the world. In the current state and it has been observed in the paste 3-5 months or so that Bitcoin is being ran by big-guys, hedging the world markets (in many respects, but not a direct correlation like gold) to Bitcoin. Thus, with Bitcoin being legitimatized first and often synonymous with cryptocurrency, altcoins have suffered to all-time lows vs BTC pairings. The average crypto investor and trader fell behind the curve and most where unaware of how Bitcoin is essentially the gateway drug into crypto as a whole, driving forward major sell-offs of altcoins for Bitcoin. This was never unheard of btw, this idea of that "Your bitcoin portfolio valuation" was an idea since the dawn of altcoins, it was always about how much your altcoins held with Bitcoin and how many Bitcoin’s you could ever gain.

One has to ask, why is Bitcoin so special? The answer is simple, it is the original and the most tested crypto to date. Tested in the sense of security, awareness, adoption and technical. Bitcoin has been proclaimed to be "dead by so called experts" over 1,000 times since its inception, but today, Bitcoin is stronger than ever. What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger.


The Altcoin Problem

The world is changing and has changed drastically, no longer are systems that are governed by obscure sources with little oversight, there is a great desire by governments, businesses and individuals to capitalize on Blockchain tech, and use it to greatly enhance their businesses? But this is all a lie. As explained earlier, blockchain is in its infancy, blockchain tech is not proprietary or necessarily more efficiencies, faster or scalable as most altcoins claim it to be. 99% of altcoins in existence currently are what we call, proof of concept, meaning, it's all theory for the most part. Yes, these chains are working, but only using the most fundamentals of what blockchain is and their re-imagining of what it can be. You can shill or point out some particular shitcoin here, but the simple response to all altcoin shills, is can your mother use this crypto and understand what it is? I could say that about Bitcoin, which in a sense, is really basic. Everything outside of that, with the most sophisticated chains being marketed, no one gives two fucks once you’re outside your sale or launch phase.

Thus, one could say the altcoin market, blockchain integration is a lie. Yes, you could, but as anyone who's knowledgeable in tech or understands anything about tech since the 60's, knows that evolution of technology occurs at a very rapid pace. There are blockchains out there that have somewhat of a working infrastructure or may be trialed by some large institution, but to date, there's not one single blockchain being used by any large-scale corporation or organization, for daily use.

That is, up until about 4 months ago. Libra is the first representation of blockchain tech integrated on an industrial and world-scale, something that no other crypto or altcoin has been able to capture at all. I'm not going to get into further details why there are details about Libra that are also very damaging to crypto, but I’ll leave the final thought that Libra is only the beginning and most who've been following the news, understand this.


Altcoins have always been linked to Bitcoin's fate directly, at least for most of the last decade this has been true. But as observed and expressed, this is not the case at the current time. What we're seeing is altcoin's inversely being hedged against Bitcoin, directly for the reasons of legitimacy and accumulation of the most trusted (sentiment wise) and easiest accessible crypto, Bitcoin. All altcoins suffer and will have to contend with infrastructure, use ability, integration, functionality and technical issues through their lifecycle, therefore, it’s not even feasible to discuss which altcoin will overthrow Bitcoin, because it will never occur under normal standards. You won’t wake up one-day and see Ethereum the top-alt, even if quantum computing disrupts all blockchains, all cryptos will suffer equally, because the fate of all altcoins is linked to Bitcoin’s fate (disregard any stablecoin for this argument).

So essentially what is so special about altcoins? It’s a token promise that this blockchain will be usable and integrated into the world one day, because if that doesn’t ever happen or there’s no overarching goal for crypto’s in use for mass-adoption, then the tokens are basically useless security tokens, a hedge on the business to perform and execute in what they laid forth. 99% of the shitcoins you hold are worthless shitcoins, your best outcome for these shitcoins is gambling and hoping one day some whale will pump the shit out of your coin, but the chances of this ever happening are <1% (if any coin was ever chosen at random).

In the end, 99% of altcoins will remain speculative, once in a while they will pump and dump due to some whales playing with the markets, or pump because that alt got integrated and recognized (one-step closer to chipping away at Bitcoin’s legitimacy/dominance in the real-world), but nothing will ever ultimately contend with Bitcoin’s dominance in the next decade. What we may see is a fractured market, where BTC’s dominance returns to 2017 levels, but that doesn’t mean BTC will ever lose dominant control of the market or suddenly X shitcoin will become the defacto standard. What we are going to see is more big-business and governments launch their own coins, further drowning out all the start-ups and noise of the relentless shitcoin launches.

Almost every shitcoin will ultimately die in the next 1-5 years, but the ecosystem will continue to evolve as they new cycles and greater tech developers emerge in this space. Coins that launched in 2013 are mostly all defunct as of 2017, <1% of these coins survived. The same thing is happening now, coins to launch in 2017 are now becoming defunct and paving the way for more advanced, backed and more legitimate teams who want to make the business for the future. It’ll continue to be the cycle of death and decay, but only 1% of all altcoins will ever have any use in the real world, similarly to any tech-boom, only a fraction of business will ever succeed, because after all, a crypto is nothing without the people behind or backing it.

There was some rants here, ultimately any particular sentence has nuances and I could go into far more detail about the several topics discussed, but this expresses some root ideas I see being bloomed across the crypto climate at this time

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[pixie85]

TLDR LOL

Joke.

I did read most of it and I agree with you that altcoins are not special in any way. People were taught to differentiate and they did. Mostly in 2015 16 and 17.
You could see two investor types. One was the investor who made money on Bitcoin and tried to differentiate but stay in crypto at the same time. The other was a poor newbie who thought Bitcoin is too expensive and altcoins are more or less the same but cheaper.

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

Almost every shitcoin will ultimately die in the next 1-5 years, but the ecosystem will continue to evolve as they new cycles and greater tech developers emerge in this space.

Well drafted overview, as I enjoy reading through the thread. The quoted part above is what stood out from the message you intend passing with this post followed by the part you identify what made bitcoin special (it's originality and has stood the taste of time). My question goes like this, can this also be said about Ethereum since it has that originality element and have also stood the taste of time although not as much as bitcoin has. Ethereum was proposed in 2013, developed 2014 and went live July, 2015 so it's been 4years now. Bitcoin is special, can ethereum also be considered special?. What's your take on this putting into consideration all the competitors ethereum has currently and would have in the near future.

Back to my qouted part above, the assurance in those words gives me a relief. You have been in the industry far enough to observe the changes and can testify the now  altcoins are superior to the altcoins then and the future is bright for the altcoin industry. I'm a love of altcoins not just because of the opportunity it offers for individuals like us that miss the bitcoin train but because of its diverse utility purpose.

[tk808]

Almost every shitcoin will ultimately die in the next 1-5 years, but the ecosystem will continue to evolve as they new cycles and greater tech developers emerge in this space.

Well drafted overview, as I enjoy reading through the thread. The quoted part above is what stood out from the message you intend passing with this post followed by the part you identify what made bitcoin special (it's originality and has stood the taste of time). My question goes like this, can this also be said about Ethereum since it has that originality element and have also stood the taste of time although not as much as bitcoin has. Ethereum was proposed in 2013, developed 2014 and went live July, 2015 so it's been 4years now. Bitcoin is special, can ethereum also be considered special?. What's your take on this putting into consideration all the competitors ethereum has currently and would have in the near future.

Back to my qouted part above, the assurance in those words gives me a relief. You have been in the industry far enough to observe the changes and can testify the now  altcoins are superior to the altcoins then and the future is bright for the altcoin industry. I'm a love of altcoins not just because of the opportunity it offers for individuals like us that miss the bitcoin train but because of its diverse utility purpose.

Ethereum is the first major altcoin to touch apon some of the basics expressed, adoption, usability, appeal, easily understood and often is synonymous with Bitcoin, whereas Litecoin was often mentioned with BTC (as the silver to gold) back a few years ago, Ethereum is often 'the' altcoin, that is associated with all altcoins; it's the king of all altcoins. While competitors are on the heels of Ethereum, none can match the user-base and adoption of the chain itself and they will never be able to. Ethereum's chain has been developed and delivered on most promises that where initially outlined in the whitepaper. This aspect on the ability to deliver on what Vitalik set out to do, is one piece of information that often goes unspoken, but it represents one of the most important aspects in all of crypto, reliability and certainty of the developers themselves.

Ethereum's infrastructure continues to evolve to maintain a competitive edge in almost every regard, but there are some issues with how scalable ETH's chain is, which in itself has cropped up numerous of chains trying to achieve higher TPS, a direct thread to ETH. One of the most important updates coming up is ETH 2.0, with mining being done away with entirely. This will further symbolize and emphasize Ethereum's edge over the altcoin market and for the devs to continually adapt and improve the entire change, while maintaining mass support and enthusiasm moving forward.

The leading thought right now for Ethereum is to shed it's image of being a host for smart contracts/tokens (ICO's or IEO's), and become matured into a more mainstream use blockchain. While Ethereum is moving away from this image a few inches at a time, Binance's chain is capitalizing on this niche now to further solidify itself. This is an entire topic, but if there's one chain the is a copy-cat of Ethereum, it's BNB's chain.

I express to everyone to pay attention to Ethereum closely especially if you're interested in price, because while altcoins are somewhat diverging from Bitcoin's gains and losses, Ethereum has taken over this leadership role for an "alt-coin spring," which Ethereum will be the catalyst and is most likely the contender to chip away heavily at Bitcoin's dominance once capital begins flowing back into alts. This was somewhat the occurrence that occurred earlier this year (march-feb), where Bitcoin hit 2017-2018 dominance lows of around 47%, Ethereum was among the first to regain it's positioning from dipping to 80-82usd, it doubled in BTC VS ETH valuation, before we saw the massive BTC spikes.

Ultimately, I have very very high regards for ETH, above any other altcoin to date. From the team and teams behind it, to the ultimate direction and vision. But that vision needs to be communicated with more frequency to people and the media. Ethereum is a completely different beast than Bitcoin on one simple premise, it's inherently more sophisticated, scalable and the chain can be emphasized and changed with little outside resistance. If any change is made to Bitcoin, you get the occurrence like BCH and all the 10s of 100s of forks that occurred, simply because Bitcoin is inherently an entirely different animal in many regards. ERC-20 still represents the most adaptable, used and integrated smart contract (by a mile) to date and that's for good reason.



In Summary - Ether displays most of the characteristics of Bitcoin, but its reputation, ease of access and trust is still relatively new. Thus, when the topic of crypto is discussed, Bitcoin  will always be discussed first, if someone where to talk more in-depth about blockchains and crypto, then Ethereum is the next contender down the chain of legitimacy, trust and use. But, I'll leave this topic with an open thought on what can be disruptive to Ethereum's current supremacy, which is Libra in some regards. Even though they are tackling two different industries, Libra will usurp Ethereum's current standing in media and prestige. Libra inherently won't do much to Bitcoin, but will definitely shape the altcoin market in ways that will change it forever.

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

Thanks for the explanation, always knew, Libra will be a project to watch out for as It'll be bringing not just mainstream media attention but a fight to the industry especially when it comes to marketcap on Coinmarketcap but for the other aspects, substracting those involving actual use of the blockchain like building dApp etc, i didn't see how Libra will become a threat to ethereum most especially as Libra isn't totally a cryptocurrency or trying to be a building platform for dApp and the rest. Ethereum isn't a currency like Libra is aiming to be. So if Libra goals it to be globally accepted as a curreny, isn't those cryptos that their main goal is to achieve same success be the ones affected like Bitcoin.

Understandable, Libra will be taking the attention from alts that were aiming to achieve same success and render them all useless. Unless you're trying to say the altcoin market will suffer general because of Libra, like lack of funding etc then I'll understand how ethereum would be affected. Always thought a similar coin will be the one to outperformed ethereum since it's losing the hype that were associated with it being the King of alts.

[ttcsalam]

I got some ideas about this topic through this topic. Many were a good topic. I read about the problems of Alter Coins. Many have benefited. I got a summary of the market.

[baigreen]

The biggest cryptocurrency issue today. There is a problem with large countries. Who are trying in every possible way to profit from this new industry. Russia China America.

And the quality of projects in 2019 is still terrible, despite the fact that technology has been around for 10 years. The project does not solve people's problems.

[Rozita]

There is a big difference between altcoins and bitcoin that will lead to death of most of altcoins.
Bitcoin: Created by Satoshi to change payment system in favor of people all around the world.
Altcoins ( Most of them) : Created to make developers rich.

Bitcoin has been a great innovation and will always have its fans. People consider bitcoin as a long term investment.
Altcoins can only survive in a bull market. People use them for trading. When hype is over, people switch to bitcoin. No altcoin can be promising and trustworthy as bitcoin is.

P.S: I appreciate the effort of developers that have tried to make cryptocurrencies more developed. I appreciate developers of Ethereum, Neo, BNB, EOS, etc. There are few altcoins that will survive.

[bittraffic]

Good read. Though I find it discouraging at first to hold altcoins, there were consolations you gave before you end you rants, they are speculative.
May I just ask a question. Are platforms among the projects you can see to have some considerable dominance in crypto apart from ETH and Libra?

[tk808]

Good read. Though I find it discouraging at first to hold altcoins, there were consolations you gave before you end you rants, they are speculative.
May I just ask a question. Are platforms among the projects you can see to have some considerable dominance in crypto apart from ETH and Libra?

Just like Google, Amazon, Microsoft (any big current tech company) parallels can be drawn to crypto companies. There are about 3-5 very notable tech companies and hundreds more that fulfill a niche or have very respectable operations: PayPal, Ebay, Netflix and etc.

I'm going to interpret what you mean by "platform" as a blockchain, or ledger, instead of a protocol (a system built ontop of blockchain) or DApp/smart-contract (a program built in the blockchain).

The point I'm essentially making, is yes there are ultimately many projects (altcoin) platforms, ledgers, blockchains that will succeed and will have dominance over the markets; but definitely not on the level of Ethereum (I will not make a comment on Libra atm). These crypto's have mostly risen to the top 20-30-40 of all cryptos, as we've seen smarter decision making and a general consensus by most altcoin investors, traders and enthusiasts on which of these projects have merit and will survive.

There are many projects making huge headway, while I will not give you a direct coin that you should look at, there will be projects that potentially mirror or gain against Bitcoin and Ethereum parings, it's entirely possible and more than likely to occur.

Ethereum serves many niches, Bitcoin serves many niches, Libra serves many niches, but; all the niches and areas of interest, in regards to blockchain and crypto are not even close to being fulfilled. Hence, the market is currently drowning out the majority of shitcoins and will continue to collapse and centralize itself into 4-5 leading giants.

Coupled with that, Blockchain and crypto is very dynamic in nature, and that nature is technology. Tech revolutions, advancements and etc do not stop, it's an ever evolving process of growth, maturity and seeing what ultimately works (or fulfills a niche). The best crypto's in my experiences, are ones that consistently evolving and that are open for other's to develop or integrate their systems into existing frameworks of business.

I'll speculate that Crypto will look a lot like the big tech companies, in years or decades down the road (in terms of how heavily they weigh on the rest of the markets), in terms of how many projects succeed and how we'll ultimately view what "Ethereum and others" truly means to the world and not just investors, traders and the beginnings of integration into our society.