Cryptocurrency Delivered Less Than Promised in 2020-2021

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Written by

Pantera

Bitcoin Is Cash

1 year ago

Topics: Cryptocurrency, Market, Bitcoin, Investing, Social media, ...

Greed Was The Distinctive Trait Of The Last Bull Run

Speculation is an inevitable reoccurring theme in cryptocurrency in parallel to human nature. Greed prevails, and contrary to the actual use case of cryptocurrency, almost one hundred million people joined crypto between 2020-2022, thinking of it as an investment.

The market promises vast riches and unforeseen returns if timed correctly. While it used to be like that, this is not accurate anymore.

The crypto market used to promise riches with 100- 1000x returns to everyone that invested small.

Yet, none today should expect magic internet money to multiply their purchasing power.

Even those that joined in 2017 did not generate a significant outcome.

The last ones that did were the 2013 bunch. The rest are fighting elephants for peanuts.

In terms of proof of how crypto turned around the lives of crypto believers, there was none this time.

Few Got All The New Money

(source)

A few fortunate enough made extraordinary returns and exited the market at the right time.

We witness real opportunities that existed for those that joined until the beginning of 2017 and the carnival we watch today.

One in a Million made it big this time without risking too much and timing perfectly entry/exit points.

Those who made it big were exchanges, DeFi operators, a few NFT creators, trading rooms, inside traders, and the custodians that collapsed after filling up their bank accounts.

Yet, all this greed didn’t provide enough to anyone else to bring opportunities for the rest.

There are no examples anymore of people that made a fortune from cryptocurrency.

It has been five years since 2017.

What were the returns between 2012-2017 when everyone become a millionaire, and what are the returns in 2017-2022?

Not even those of us that supported cryptocurrency every day did not make any significant increase in our wealth. The demands are different and so is the risk we have to undertake.

The "industry" provided too much for too few.

It cannot work like that, though. Value has to be divided properly and accordingly. Why should anyone care if it just becomes a place for billionaires to impoverish the rest?

Yet, it becomes a nuisance to lose our purchasing power against the dollar and euro because centralized crypto companies extract multiple billions out of crypto in bank accounts and collapse out of incompetence. We have to trade the cycles to counter this. Opportunities shrink, and trading comes with multiple risks.

NFTs presented an opportunity in 2020-2021, even so, investors had to undertake unreasonable risks.

Hype and speculation prevailed.

Even by the standards of this industry, the results were terrible. The greed of professional Ponzi bit-lords overwhelmed this market with custodians that now collapse one after another.

Retail entered again late, and opportunities were fewer for all.

Fewer investors and fewer people profited last time, as just a few entities and connected individuals with inside knowledge concentrated the massive amounts of money that entered the field.

I doubt anyone learned a lesson from the ongoing slaughter, no matter the tragic events that followed.

For just a few, this was worthwhile. Perhaps the right approach is to just be part of the speculative rallies from the beginning and sell fake decentralization to retail and institutional investors. What Pomp, DCG, and Saylor did.

Since this is the trend, perhaps even fewer opportunities will appear in 2025.

The sellouts will keep promoting the next Luna scam even at the exact moment they collapse, and the low-effort shills will advertise the next yield-bearing custodian.

Closing Thoughts

These distractions damaged the core of cryptocurrency, leaving many wondering if they will lose more purchasing power.

Custodians, crypto cards, and centralized stablecoins are antithetical to financial progress. Backtracking and sponsoring fiat currency will never allow cryptocurrency to flourish.

In the current speculative environment, opportunities will be scarce even if cryptocurrency revives in 2023 or 2024.

Crypto used to count on people like Andreas Antonopoulos, Roger Ver, and like-minded people promoting the use case. Nowadays, we get CZ and Pompliano types that never even read the whitepaper once.

Even in terms of speculation and those that want to profit, you can only profit in the long run if crypto succeeds in its quest for global adoption as permissionless digital cash.

With CZ leading the adoption race, what can anyone expect, though? Custodians, degenerate gambling apps, and crypto cards that backtrack P2P adoption.