What do you really think about crypto?

What do you really think about crypto?

I ask the question as, having recently returned from the biggest crypto event in the world, I think I’m beginning to get the glimmers of what people think, and it seems to be changing.

For a start, right now there are something like 20,000 different crypto tokens listed on nearly 1000 exchanges. I’m ignoring all those projects that have crashed and burned, destroying myriad savings made through the TradFi world.

The overwhelming thread is no one really cares what a project is about. Quite apart from anything else, lots of them are so esoteric and using such arcane language that nobody (and by that I also mean the founders) actually know what it’s all about.

The overwhelming imperative is “Pump!” “Going to the moon”. No one ever says “Going down the toilet”, even though many of them are.

We all spend large sums and many hours creating white papers that no one ever reads. They pick out the bit about tokenomics to see if they can understand how tight supply is, which just might give them an advantage, but they don’t really care beyond that.

As I’ve said before, tokens started life as a way to finance a project, but that has now transferred into an end in itself. The project is merely the tail that wags the dog of the tokens. But I get the sense that people are beginning to realise that in order to survive, crypto has to change.

Compare that to Tradfi listings on stock exchanges. The companies in general produce something that people want (a service or a widget) and that in itself is a reason for living. Crypto has to begin to produce real world solutions and uses beyond mere speculation (and yes I do know there are some already)

If that’s the case, what is the raison d’etre of crypto? I would suggest that Crypto is still in the Wild West era of use and adoption, but it is very definitely making progress.

At Token 2049 (why 2049 by the way? I could only think the implication was it was 25 years ahead of its time) there were glimmers of some really interesting and potentially life/world/business/ changing apps/programs/companies – you can mix and match these to please yourself.

One of the best is DePin. Not strictly anything to do with crypto, but using the technology, I can’t do better than quote from Google: “DePin stands for decentralised physical infrastructure networks, which is a concept that uses blockchain technology to motivate people to build and maintain physical infrastructure. DePins use cryptocurrency tokens to incentivise people to contribute physical or digital resources, such as storage or computing power, to a decentralised network.”

‍I should add it also leads to collaborative knowledge which in itself is a “very good thing”.

It is fantastic stuff. There’s hope yet that myriad tokens will get whittled down as realisation strikes, and I could personally see quite an amalgamation of tokens to strengthen the offerings. We are bound, in my view, to go through a period of consolidation, similar to the mergers within TradFi that have shaped our present business landscape.

As more and better regulation takes hold, there will be fewer pump and dump scams, and people will begin to realise that crypto is not a way to a get rich quick future, but to a sustainable and better world. In many cases so far, we have had the direct opposite ie a destruction of value, and not the capitalist type of constructive destruction either.

So if all you want from crypto is to make a fast buck, you might be lucky, but statistically 70+% of you will lose. 20+% will roughly break even. 9+% will do ok, might even make a living. And right at the top, through luck or misadventure, less than 0.1% will get really top rank stinking rich. Good luck to you!

But don’t bet the farm on it.