Thread by @Mable_Jiang

0/ I listened up to the latest episode of the Uncommon Core by @zhusu and @hasufl where they discussed the top 20 tokens on @coingecko anchor.fm/uncommoncore/e…

Thought it was fun. I had a lot of thoughts as I listened to it

1/ The discussion about privacy tokens $XMR, and related $ZEC, was interesting. There's def doubt re: if adding a layer 2 to an existing L1 with good governance would work (i.e. privacy is feature not a product). IMHO this may be valid but maybe we could think a bit differently

2/ ...In the Uncommon Core EP.13 where SZ mentioned that we needed sth better than Ethereum alone for institutions to participate in on-chain trading. I very much agree to it. So maybe what we need is a swap with ZK features?

3/ I found the argument that $WBTC being a custodial option could be in favor of regulators (as in it's a devil that they know) was quite interesting. Also, as much as some decentralization-maxis may not be in huge favor, as a user I may still choose $RenBTC for its ease to use

4/ $EOS was a chain that many observers would still wonder what they would do with all the money raised. Yet, many operators who used to be active on EOS have started actively looking for sth else to work on. In China, we see at least two alternatives chains they are landing at.

5/...People understand that these old $EOS communities were powerful and could push for huge momentum so the public chains that understand the recent 12-24 months is the window period for growth, are fighting for them actively. Will be interesting to observe for sure

6/ On the chains that are not doing much, it is a thoughtful point in the discussion that some could have the potential to land as the payment rail for CBDC, simply bc/ stablecoins on BTC and ETH is too expensive. Not sure if this would only be served as a narrative though

7/ On $BNB. The discussion was very spot on re: users first and value accrual to the platform token first. This by now is almost a consensus. But it did remind me of a theory that a close friend had: the core to any exchange's success was largely due to one or a few assets.

8/..."Poloniex was via XMR, Yunbi was via ETH, Bittrex was via the ICOs of the altscoin. Binance was through TRX." I think for any major exchange to get where it is today, they only need a few explosive waves of growth. And $BNB was definitely one of the major waves for Binance

9/ On the top10 tokens that are below $1: it is def a psychological thing for retails to buy tokens that are below $1. In fact, a pro-trader friend actually told me a few years ago when he first come into crypto, he bought $XRP exactly because he thought it was "so cheap"

10/ The willingness of owning a "whole coin" was so big that I think it is so smart of Polkadot to have split their tokens into 1/100. Because even if the intention wasn't to trigger more buying interest, the retail investors would def think it's much cheaper to buy.

11/ On the gold/silver theory. It is true that in crypto people love using this comparative thesis. Yet at the same time I also think it's largely due to that there aren't many things that are proven to be working in crypto.

12/ ...So if something proves to be working (or at least on the price level), people would be sure to copy the model and be a "silver" because that's the safest path to go. Together with the comparative valuation thesis the narrative can go far

13/ Hasu mentioned $DOT being the 3rd coin he's most interested in. Substrate indeed provides a lot of flexibility. A lot of interesting things to watch in the next couple months: Rococo, Kusama, parachain on KSM, etc., Also some interesting parachains to be looked out there

14/ For the coins that we don't have full picture of what they are doing, I think it makes the case that in crypto brand and awareness is the strongest moat ever. For the longest existing coins, the top 20 can fit themselves and their fork(s) altogether. ;)

15/ I guess we all have our own list of top 20 coins, i.e. there must be some tokens one thinks ought to belong there but not there yet. 2021 will be an interesting year.

Guess who will be in the new top 20?!

{fin}