Didn't write a post for the entire month!
Sad, but true.
Oh well these things happen.
I was busy.
So on and so forth.
But it looks like crypto and the dream of decentralization is right where I left it.
How much decentralization has actually occurred over the last decade of being in this space? Ah well, very little if I'm being brutally honest. And certainly that is depressing, especially when we find ourselves in the bear market year in the wake of no alt season to pamp our bags.
At this point I'm fairly convinced that the AI boom thoroughly ate the lunch of crypto last cycle as the defacto risky tech trade. Hopefully that's true because the chance of it happening again (especially at that intensity) is much lower this time around. But again, if we're being honest, did the crypto industry really build anything worth investing in last cycle? We pretty much just got meme coins. That's a bit of a bust if you ask me.
The ironic thing is that maybe the problem actually will end up being the solution after a bit of development. As far as I can see AI generated code is becoming the standard and allows small or solo teams to vastly increase their output. It also greatly lowers the barrier to entry and allows more people to develop these things in the first place. What kind of an affect will that have on the crypto industry after several years of hardcore development? Seems to me that we might actually build something this time around that has immense value. Even if not: I'm sure Bitcoin will do just fine, and the liquidity there can often carry the rest of the ocean. A rising tide lifts all boats, or something.
AI, crypto, and gaming
I'm honestly still a bit shocked that, as far as I know, there are ZERO functioning and sustainable gaming economies within the cryptosphere. Something like a standard MMO economy, but better because crypto. I really would have thought the secret sauce template would have been developed by now, but perhaps the lure of greed is enough to ensure that the vast majority of developers in this space sell out or intentionally corrupt their product for personal gain. To be fair, it is very hard to create a decentralized system in which money flows fairly while also paying the developers that build it. Creating value in crypto is much easier than actually capturing that value and allocating it to the individuals who are doing the work.
Unfortunately many of these products and networks are a victim of their own success (assuming they were successful to begin with). The more something is worth the more likely it is that people are going to put effort into gaming the system to exploit it. This is already a big problem in centralized systems, and is even worse in decentralized ones because you need permission and consensus to modify a decentralized system to account for these kinds of flaws, attacks, and bad actors. But I digress.
How's the BigCorn doing?
In my last post on August 24th I confidently declared that this bear market was over a bit earlier than one would expect for the four-year-cycle enjoyooors. Seeing as an entire month has gone by it seems that this was a pretty solid take.
I was waiting for a confirmation dip to confirm support around $70k-$72k, and instead it only dipped a little below the "liquidity void" range at $75k. And today we are still firmly trading inside that range; coloring outside the lines to scare all the leverage traders and aptly liquidate the ones trading on absurd leverage.
September has basically traded flat, which is not the standard (usually a bit down), but also makes sense within the context of the last cycle and how lack luster it ended up being. The bear market ended early, and I'm confident this month's price action confirms it ten times over. All the moving averages are already on their way back up, which is insane compared to previous cycles. For example, this didn't start happening until February or even March if we look back four years ago. Things are looking good.
4-year cycle reminder
- Bear market year (2026)
- Year of the maximalist (2027)
- Year of the new narrative (2028)
- Bull market year (2029)
Unfortunately if things play out the way they usually do, Bitcoin is going to outperform most assets for another year straight before the alts start playing catchup. Will this pattern happen again? I'm guessing it will, but if it doesn't there will be a pretty valid excuse (the complete lack of an alt market last cycle). I personally wouldn't bet on it but if there was ever a moment for a deviation it would be this time around.
The year of the maximalist can be a bit boring, but at least it's not depressing. Bitcoin might pull an x2 next year, which is pretty great on every metric except for our own unrealistic expectations. Degens gonna degen after all. What I'm really looking forward to is 2028 and seeing what all this rampant AI development can actually churn out for our little corner of the internet. Hell, maybe I'll have even created something by then. It certainly would be about time!