In 1998, everyone knew about the internet, yet only 3% of the world population used it. Fast forward 24 years and 34% have still to use it but damn, 66% of the whole world is an active internet user, pretty good numbers if you ask me, if the internet had shares and you had bought as an early adopter you'd be a billionaire right now - translated to real life, those who bought shares of internet companies are billionaires right now, but this metaphor is about the internet in general as a concept.
In 2009 literally only outcasts and due diligence doers knew about Bitcoin, and only a handful of those adopted it. Fast forward 13 years and only 84 million people have adopted Crypto - and this is wishful thinking, the number actually goes around 34 - 70 million people. That's less than 1% of the world population, and only 1.6% of the population with internet access.
These numbers do not need to be tampered or analyzed by taking off children or old people and crap like that, because the comparison of Crypto vs the Internet takes the same parameters: Percentage of people in existence.
And yet, people are still saying the early adoption period is over
I mean, if you're cold hearted and raw about it, the super-early-billionaire-maker adoption period in Crypto is over. You are not getting ultra rich by putting in 1,000 dollars into magic internet beans, forget about it for ten years and wake up richer than a Caribbean Country but, the early-millionaire-maker adoption period is still on.
We can still make it.
That doesn't mean we will all make it, in fact, most of you will not make it.
You will not be a millionaire, and perhaps I won't be a millionaire as well. For that, you need:
- A lot of doing your own research: Something that has proven to be the 99%'s kryptonite.
- Some initial capital: going in big and risky, the era of putting in $100 and cashing out 1M is over. To make real money you need some money.
- Luck, lots of luck: To try to time the market is silly, but to have luck in the market, you have to actually be in the market (paraphrasing @edicted). But it's not only about being in the market, you need a little bit of luck, just like in every frame of life.
- Timing, discipline and setting goals: Set a base, set a goal, get in, reach the goal, get out. If you overstay on a position you will not make it, believe me. This is easier said than done by a thousand miles.
But this is not an advice-kind-of-post, besides who wants to take advice from a guy who is not fuck you rich and doesn't have a portfolio that dwarves a the GDP of a small island in South East Asia? Nobody, that's right.
This is more of a post about early adoption, and how that stage is not over, despite the demoralization and FUD around crypto at the moment.
People take this kind of magazine covers to say oh yeah, crypto early adoption is over, even grandma knows about Bitcoin.
What they are not taking into account is that no matter how many normies know about crypto, the vast majority hasn't given that difficult first step of actually know about crypto, to be versed enough to take that ginormous second step of buying at least some crypto, and it will be years until the take the actual hardest third step of actually investing in crypto.
Yeah, even grandma and your gardener know about Crypto now, that doesn't mean they'll invest in crypto tomorrow.
The market is still young and full newbies
The Crypto market cap is a little bit shy of 2 trillion USD, that's a lot, but it is not near it's true potential. Some say it will surpass gold (At 13 trillion) in the next five years and Raoul Pal believes it will reach 100 trillion, conveniently he doesn't mention when, but states that the possibility is very real.
I am no analyst but, in terms of world population adoption we are still early adopters, and if we take Raoul's prediction as true, we are part of the 2% in terms of market cap.
But of course, it would be silly to just take Raoul's statement as true and be done with it.
60% of the Market cap of crypto is made up of BTC and ETH. These people believe these are the King and Queen. Do you know what I think of that? 60% of the 2 Trillion, 60% of the 1.6% of early adopters, haven't moved to the side of altcoins, DeFi, Web3 and innovation.
My take on this is, we are still super-early adopters in terms of DeFi and Web3. You know that multi-millionaire maker stage of BTC and ETH? That happened a few years ago, but it is only beginning in the DeFi and Web3 ecosystems.
As long as you are not a silly BTC and ETH maxi, you are not late, we are not late at all. As long as you are a DeFimalist and WEb3malist - yeah I just minted those terms - you will be fine, we are still early adopters.
Be like Gandalf. Don't be late.