A bubble always bursts...
From 1997 to 2001, a period of extreme growth in the usage and adaptation of the Internet by businesses and consumers, caused a bubble on the markets, and when i see cryptocurrency booming as it is at the moment, i cant help but see the pattern emerging looks a lot like it did back in the days before the bubble finally bursted. Many new companies were formed and paid-for, but failed eventually. This graph shows you exactly what happend between 2000-2002 :
Is this good or bad news ?
A crash is never easy, literally billions in profit can disappear overnight, and a lot of people, will loose a lot of money. but when you look back at the dot.com bubble, you can clearly see that really all it did was eliminate the losers, and the projects that really were funded on the back of dreams, that were never going to work in reality. The madness in the run-up to the eventual crash, created such a cashflow that even the most un-realistic buisnessplans were approved and funded.
Can we see that happening today ?
Although i believe Bitcoin and crypto are here to stay, i do see the dot.com bubble happening again. There are of course differences, but there are also a lot of parallels. Today, there are more than 500 different cryptocurrencies, and almost anyone can see that most of them will not last forever. The big ones, lets call them the top-10 cryptos will survive any crash, but could easily loose around 80% of their worth, when most of the others will completely disapear, just like many of the newly formed companies during the dot.com bubble.
Great news
When the dot.com bubble bursted, people were panicking and they thought the internet was as good as dead, while in fact, this was just the internet cleaning up the rotten-apples of that day. And for that the internet thrived, just like crypto will.
So, i think we should prepare for this somewhere in the coming years, but if you invested well, and the currencies that you hold have survived, then they are really going to take-off. Mass-adoption has by then allready happend, and after this correction, the only way is up, just like with the internet-companies that survived the bubble-crash.
As conclusion : The new digital money is here to stay, but prepare for a bumpy ride, it will go up, and it will come down, and go up again. ;)
Please share your thoughts in the comments, and subscribe for more.
Thanks for the post @timtech
The difference I see is money flow. We have yet to see the big cash crypto market. With a market cap of only $160B, this is small potatoes. When you consider that Yahoo probably had a similar market cap when it was $500 a share.
Bubbles do not happen without the masses being involved. What percentage of the public has really even heard about crypto let alone owns some? Compare that with the percentages of people who were investing in the dotcom era or the number of people with a nothing down mortgage (or 4 of them) during the housing bubble.
That said, it is also important to remember that if we are in a bubble, they can go on a long time. The housing market was in a bubble in 2003 yet didnt pop until 2006. The dotcom era started bubbling in 1998 or 1999 yet didnt go down until a year or two later.
Well said @taskmaster4450,
I couldn't agree more, these bubbles usually have a long way up, and personally i can see bitcoin reaching 20k in dollars before any serious correction happes, if it ever will. It's clear that with fiat dropping down, and mass-adoption of bitcoin the price in any fiat currency can go a whole lot higher then what it is today.
I really encourage anyone to start using crypto, and to invest in them, but i always warn them for a potential crash, but i also explain how a crash can reset a system, and put it back on a path to the moon. The true giants of crypto will show themselves, at the moment im leaning towards Bitcoin, Litecoin, Etherium, and the privacy coins Monero and Dash, as i see how when a crackdown on crypto comes it would really boost these.
We have exciting times waiting for us, and one hell of a ride on the way there.
It's a great time to be alive.
I am glad I have a follow on your @timetech...what you say makes a lot of sense.
Right now my holdings are BTC, LTC, ETH, Steem, and GRT (a UBI currency I am involved in). I agree about the privacy aspect of things. My problem with Monero is that Lee is going to add privacy to LTC to the degree that he can while still being able to scale up. Monero might have issues scaling up.
Please take a look at my a post that I wrote last week about putting my savings into crypto...not my money I need to pay bills with but my rainy day fund. It isnt an investment but a way to store the value. I think you might enjoy the read since it aligns with what you said.
Personally I believe the blockchain concept and all that goes along with it will create the enormous wealth for many individuals. I think if one put $10K into the major cryptos, right now, and help for 5-10 years, that person will have a couple hundred thousand at a minimum. Couple that with getting involved with a site like this which allows the buying in AND earning coins, well lets just say another couple hundred thousand could be in the cards.
So yes it really is a very exciting time.
Going to check that out, and your position in crypto sounds a lot like mine, its a store of value, that can actually increase over time. The privacy coins do indeed have some challenges, but they represent what i initially thought that Bitcoin was going to be, untill i did the research, and i just hope that they will (w/f)ork out their problems. ;)
The things i'm seeing around me today, with crypto, are the things that i always hoped i would see, and sometimes i still have to pinch myself to see if this i all truly happening.
Going to check that article you mentioned.
Personally I am a big believer in Charlie Lee. He reminds me of Jobs and Musk. He has a vision and he is implementing it. His goal is to have LTC being the money where BTC is the store of value. With atomic swaps, he wants people to be able to seamlessly switch from BTC to LTC (and ultimately to any currency). So if you have BTC in your account and need to pay for something you simply do it and it is converted to LTC on the fly.
That sounds like a killer-app for litecoin ! I think a lot of people are waiting for something like this, easy to use and understand for anyone, and the integration would benefit both parties. I hold some LTC as they seem like very underappreciated at its current price.
Here is a good interview with Lee.
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