Economist: Crypto isn't cool anymore

[SamReomo]

Forgive me for totally fading the opinion of this so called Economist. Bitcoin continues to burrow deeper into the roots of mainstream finance. Adoption will continue to grow at a steady rate, we will see it hit $1M in the next 10-15 years so let’s keep accumulating.

Very true, the so called economist has misunderstanding about Bitcoin or they're willing promoting fud and nothing else. We'll know that Bitcoin is gaining many new investors each year and during each halving the block reward reduces to half and that makes Bitcoin scarce and anything that's in attention of public and is scarce often gets high when more investors buy and hold that thing.

Same is happening with Bitcoin, many investors are joining Bitcoin hodlers club and buying Bitcoin for long term holding and that will increase the value of Bitcoin. I believe the ones who invest in Bitcoin today will most probably gain 10x to 15x within a decade or two, and I fully believe that we might see Bitcoin at $1m or more in a decade or two.

[hd49728]

Spoons or hair combs or toilet paper don't have a market cap of $1 trillion US. Also, all of those things have a practical use, whereas Bitcoin is just an investment for its own sake, based on its meme.

The author's point was not that Bitcoin will go to $0. His point was that the intense popular hype it enjoyed may be waning, which means the price will retreat because it will become a less popular investment--especially since there are so many other things to invest in like other cryptos, other meme stocks, sports betting, and so on.

Your points are valid but there are more important points for discussion and enlighten people who are unsure about Bitcoin strength and its future.

Other coins aka. altcoins can suddenly have very high market caps and trading volumes but they won't be able to maintain it a long time and soon will have free falls. Like in history of cryptocurrency market, there are times of noisy callings on flippenings of Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash against Bitcoin but we all witnessed that these coins soared quickly as same as how they free fell later. If anyone did not witness such flippening times by themselves, they can check price charts of these coins and see the same stories.

[Betwrong]

Video: "Crypto isn't cool anymore"

https://www.economist.com/video/CVan3v3n7ga/ecJNYicn?f=%2F

The gist: Bitcoin is mainstream now, and can be bet on with the same tools your grandpa uses to buy stocks (ETF), and is absolutely mainstream from a regulatory standpoint. And even the president of the USA is a Bitcoin speculator. All of this means that there is nothing "counterculture" about Bitcoin any longer: it's just another button on your investment app--another product among thousands of possibilities.

The Economist points to this as a reason BTC's price has declined by about half in the last year. The question is, how does it get back? I can't think of any cultural phenomenon that lost its coolness and then regained it. Usually that's a one way street.

I disagree. There were many. The first thing that comes to mind, horror films. The first boom happened in 1920s–1930s with films like Dracula, Frankenstein etc. Then horror films lost their coolness, using your words, and they had been unpopular for decades, but then in 1970s–1980s the golden age of modern horror happened with The Exorcist, Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street ... Then there was a pause, like, 15 years, and then again was a revival with films like Scream and The Ring in the late 1990s–early 2000s. I think something like that can easily happen to Bitcoin since it's a similar cultural phenomenon.

[Floxynice]

I don't think coolness is a requirement for anything to thrive. I don't think spoons are cool or hair combs or toilet paper.

Spoons or hair combs or toilet paper don't have a market cap of $1 trillion US. Also, all of those things have a practical use, whereas Bitcoin is just an investment for its own sake, based on its meme.

The author's point was not that Bitcoin will go to $0. His point was that the intense popular hype it enjoyed may be waning, which means the price will retreat because it will become a less popular investment--especially since there are so many other things to invest in like other cryptos, other meme stocks, sports betting, and so on.

Wait till bitcoin gets bullish again and all of these self acclaimed critics will go into hiding, waiting for another bearish season to come out of their hiding place to explain to the world how Bitcoin is dying or losing it's coolness. Bitcoin is not the only thing people can invest in, let them invest in altcoins that are usually hyped temporarily or invest in gold or anything they find appealing. As for me, I am stuck with Bitcoin for life.

[rat03gopoh]

If you mean that people's interest in Bitcoin is limited to speculation, it would have been abandoned long ago. However, people haven't fully explored Bitcoin, even though institutions are starting to enter, traditional fintech companies (exchanges, insurance, pension fund management, ETFs), technologies that might test the network's security (AI, QC), etc.

Perhaps people will reach saturation point once there is no rejection of Bitcoin from any party, including banks and haters, in other words, Bitcoin has functioned as a mainstream currency.

[Cryptoprincess101]

You're right, OP. The crypto industry isn't cool anymore, truly. If we consider all the create and dumps happening in this industry, we shouldn't have any hesitation in coming to that conclusion. It's crazy how hundreds of useless tokens get created on a daily basis just to pull out money from ignorant folks. More than 90% of tokens (according to information) created daily are just for scam purposes, nothing more. This is discouraging. It gives this industry bad image. It's because of this I crave regulation in this sector just like what we find in stocks and forex trading. We do need it.

And you think cryptocurrency is not regulated? maybe not globally but in most countries, cryptocurrency is regulated. For example, in Nigeria, cryptocurrency have been granted securities which implies that all crypto platforms must be registered and comply to licensing rules which means that those exchanges that list some of these coins in their platforms have to undergo regulatory policies. Regulation is already increasing in many countries, i just used mine as an example.

[legiteum]

Wait till bitcoin gets bullish again and all of these self acclaimed critics will go into hiding, waiting for another bearish season to come out of their hiding place to explain to the world how Bitcoin is dying or losing it's coolness. Bitcoin is not the only thing people can invest in, let them invest in altcoins that are usually hyped temporarily or invest in gold or anything they find appealing. As for me, I am stuck with Bitcoin for life.

Well, the whole point of the article was that Bitcoin losing its coolness among younger people is the opposite of bullish.

If you mean that people's interest in Bitcoin is limited to speculation, it would have been abandoned long ago. However, people haven't fully explored Bitcoin [...]

Oh come on, Bitcoin has been around for over 15 years. And billions of dollars have been poured into promoting it, and the US president speculates in Bitcoin. Whatever can happen to Bitcoin has already happened.

And yes, Bitcoin is limited to speculation for the most part. Its usage outside of that is extremely limited. Bitcoin does a max of about 1M transactions per day, and there are many billions per day with everything else, so Bitcoin's marketshare for payments is infinitesimal. And again, this is after many years and many $billions pushing Bitcoin to be a payment method. It's not going to happen.

Bitcoin will go up in price because more people speculate with it, not because they start using it to pay their parking meter.