LONG READS SUNDAY #76
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO BITCOIN + CRYPTO 2019 RECAPS and 2020 PREDICTIONS.
You asked for it, so here it is - all of the best insights on the year that was and the year to come. Strap in team, this is going to be a good one!
THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO BITCOIN + CRYPTO 2019 RECAPS and 2020 PREDICTIONS.
You asked for it, so here it is - all of the best insights on the year that was and the year to come. Strap in team, this is going to be a good one!
2/ Let’s kick it off with the first (and longest!) piece from this year, @MessariCrypto’s “Crypto Theses for 2020” - an 8-day fever dream from @twobitidiot himself covering just about every aspect of the industry.
3/ Even before you dive in, you can breeze through the 100+ comments to see the sort of discussion Ryan triggered. See for example, this conversation about what the most important narrative is for crypto right now. (Spoiler alert: ‘reinventing finance’)
4/ Speaking of narratives, I took a spin dissecting @twobitidiot’s assessment of the top ten crypto narratives in 2019, as part of my rebooted daily podcast “The Breakdown” coindesk.com/stacking-sats-…
5/ A few highlights from the more than 70-page long document. First, the idea that we’re in a “macro footrace”: "It might seem dramatic, but the next 12-24 months may decide whether crypto emerges as a serious asset class in the 2020s" 
6/ Next, as you might guess, the BTC halving next year comes up a LOT in these analyses. Ryan’s take: "Some analysts say halvings are all priced in because the information is known up front, but that assumes the crypto markets are rational, which they are, umm, not."
7/ Mining is back! Expect to hear a lot more of this narrative next year "data centers merely use excess natural gas supply that would otherwise be lost to “gas flaring”, when the energy companies literally burn capacity”
8/ Over in Ethereum, Ryan’s buying the “ETH is Money” meme and in fact, tends to think that Ethereum folks should focus even more on the reinvention of finance space (to the exclusion of other things).
9/ DAOs actually have appeared less than I would have imagined (given the rate they’re being spun up these days) but they do get a mention here: "In 2020, the first “for-profit” DAOs won’t be very far behind."
10/ "I predict Dai will ultimately be the dominant stablecoin of choice in emerging markets like Latin America, where no one actually wants to hold the local currency.”
This would have big narrative implications for the space if borne out.
This would have big narrative implications for the space if borne out.
11/ Finally, we’ll end on @twobitidiot’s Policy Trends section with this one: “As China/Congress goes, so goes the crypto price.” I couldn’t agree more with the significance of this part of the market to shape the context for everything else.
12/ I actually made a similar point in my contribution to @CoinDesk’s Year In Review coverage. I believe that the indisputable most important narrative of the last year was the emergence of a true global digital currency war. coindesk.com/mind-bending-n…
13/ I wasn’t the only one who discussed this type of macro level shift in the @CoinDesk coverage either.
See also: @AriDavidPaul reflation hedge coindesk.com/with-so-much-d… and @jalak on the central bank biz model coindesk.com/the-central-ba…
See also: @AriDavidPaul reflation hedge coindesk.com/with-so-much-d… and @jalak on the central bank biz model coindesk.com/the-central-ba…
14/ Then of course there was @mikejcasey’s piece on why we can’t understand the past decade of cryptocurrency without understanding the past decade of quantitative easing
15/ If these Year In Review pieces seem big and existential just you wait. @Jillruthcarlson triggered a TON of folks with her argument that maybe crypto isn’t MEANT for the mainstream. coindesk.com/cryptocurrency…
16/ In a very cool extension of that piece, Jill went on @theblockcrunch with @mrjasonchoi to debate @yanivgraph on this idea of mainstream use cases.
17/ A few more notable pieces from @CoinDesk’s year in review, starting with @RussellOkung, who has become one of the most fierce advocates bringing bitcoin to new audiences. coindesk.com/what-bitcoin-m…
18/ In many of these End Of Year threads, the rise in regulatory action came up, but @jchervinsky actually argues here that he’s surprised at how few enforcement actions there were coindesk.com/jake-chervinsk…
19/ Another Jake, meanwhile, @jbrukh makes a point that I’ve been hearing a lot while recording EOY interviews for The Breakdown: That 2019 was, ultimately, a behind-the-scenes infrastructure building year coindesk.com/never-mind-ado…
20/ The Year In Review essays from @CoinDesk are still rolling out - check them all out here. coindesk.com/year-in-review… For now, however, let’s turn our attention to another prediction party
21/ With their ‘2020 Crypto Crystal Ball’ @soonaorlater and the rest of the crew at @tokendaily asked a slew of interesting thinkers what they believe is going to happen next year. Here were some of my favorites.
22/ Hot takes from @winklevoss and @tylerwinklevoss, including that the BTC halving should be priced in but isn’t, so will catalyze a bull run, plus that the China digital yuan will be good for everyone in the crypto industry.
23/ @balajis says that, as people truly grok that bitcoin was the best performing asset of the decade, all of tech will be decentralized, “one major service at a time.”
24/ @Leishman has something of the opposite take, saying that “2020 will be the year that most Silicon Valley VCs realize they were wrong about ‘Web 3.0’” and that the “prevailing narrative will continue to converge around bitcoin.”
25/ @melt_dem goes HAM and probably needs to publish this as a post. Bitcoin halving will get weird; bitcoin looks more like trad. Finance; 2020 is the year of transaction fees; CBDC’s continue to surge.
@Melt_Dem 26/ @nic__carter is delightfully specific in his bets: +fiat-stablecoins draw regulatory ire; +Binance forced out of Malta; +SEC wins case against Kik; +major US exchange does proof-of-reserves
27/ In the world of DeFi, @AshAEgan bets that we’ll see SERIOUS increases, with total value locked 5xing to $3B.
29/ Moving away from the @TokenDaily thread to some one off posts, @SpartanBlack_1 agrees what we’ll see all time highs on the back of the halving. Also bets that Polkadot’s 2050 market cap will surpass Ethereum’s (at least for a time)
30/ @bobbyong meanwhile bets that we’ll see even more emphasis on derivatives. For my money, the growth in derivatives is one of the most quietly important stories of 2019.
31/ @AaronvanW continues to be the absolute hero of bitcoin tech journalism, crushing his overview of bitcoin’s most important tech releases for @bitcoinmagazine
32/ If that piece is all about what happened in bitcoin last year, this absolute monster of a thread from @jfnewbery looks to the bitcoin possibilities for the next decade. Massive.
33/ On the journalism front, this was an undeniably good year for crypto media. Here are three threads of great journalistic content.
34/ First up is @fintechfrank who recaps some of @TheBlock__ best scoops from their first full year in the game
35/ Next up is @Timccopeland from @Decryptmedia who shares five of his favorite pieces, including deep background stories on Binance, Quadriga, and Crypto Capital.
36/ Lastly on this journo front, I have to give it up to @la__cuen, who has for my money consistently written about the most important topics, even when they weren’t just the thing that everyone was talking about at that moment.
37/ Now, one more theme from this year as institutionalization and new types of investors coming into bitcoin. To understand how this actually played out, look no further than this report from @VisionHill_
38/ The most interesting part of the @VisionHill_ report to me was that combination of #4 - institutional investor interest growing and #5 - more demand for simpler structures to invest in medium.com/vision-hill-bl…
39/ Okay, we’ve now been through a lot of people and a lot of predictions, but let’s close on the only report that can give @twobitidiot’s a run for its money in length and comprehensiveness: @Blockchaincap
@twobitidiot @blockchaincap 40/ I’m going to run through a few highlights of @blockchaincap’s presentation, starting with their assertion (that I agree heartily with) that the macro environment is setting the stage for crypto
41/ Speaking of the larger context for crypto, we have a general sense that tech companies are getting more bank-like but this graphic really drives the point home.
42/ One of my fav quotes of the year was @DoveyWan calling the market “a BTC bull disguising an altcoin bear.” This chart really drives that idea home, with BTC accounting for 93% of overall growth.
43/ Were IEOs the biggest nothingburger of 2019 or what? The year started in a frenzy with people thinking they would be ICO2.0 and by now, many exchanges are cancelling their programs due to poor performance.
44/ Reinforcing the idea of 2019 as a behind-the-scenes-building-year was the 13% growth of full time blockchain devs from June ’18 to June ’19 (h/t @ElectricCapital for the data on this one)
45/ Devs weren’t the only category of actor to join the space. Traditional financial institutions have started to get involved in a big way (and the competition seems poised to heat up in 2020).
46/ What about the business models of crypto companies? @blockchaincap points out how much competition there is for a similar pie, pointing to likely consolidation in 2020.
47/ Looking at blockchain gaming, they find 1) a big uptick in activity, with more companies than ever experimenting; and at the same time 2) highly underwhelming uptick among real users.
48/ Finally, @blockchaincap ends on these pretty massive predictions. The most interesting to me? Privacy coins delisted and Libra greenlit when the US gov’t realizes its massively far behind China in digital money.
49/ Phew, and there we go! I read hundreds of pages of trends and predictions so you don’t have to. But honestly, you really should. I won’t add a set of predictions of my own, but that doesn’t mean you’re not getting end of year content from me...
50/ Between now and New Year’s, The Breakdown will be publishing some great interviews with the likes of @PeterMcCormack @Melt_Dem @katherineykwu @Shaughnessy119 and more on 2019 trends and 2020 predictions. Subscribe plnk.to/nlw?to=page
51/ As always, thanks so much for reading! Next week we’ll be back with a very special WEEK BY WEEK Best of LRS2019. Subscribe so you don’t miss it getrevue.co/profile/nlw
