Regular readers will know that I have a lot of time for cryptocurrency, but this week I’ve had it on the mind even more than usual. That’s because I’ve been covering for Ryan Dinse. He’s taken a couple of weeks off for the birth of his second child.
Smart fella, as he decided to buy his second child a whole bitcoin, as he did for his first. For what it’s worth, I did the same for my child too (who’s now just 11 weeks old). Or to be more accurate, I just gave him one of mine — he just doesn’t know it yet.
But the point is that when he is old enough, he’s going to have something that has significantly better purchasing power than it does today. Maybe he could even use it for a house (or a big chunk of a house at the very least).
That’s the long view at least, and with about 18 years up his sleeve, we guess time will tell. But we do know that Ryan and I (and our combined kids) will be in a select group of people that actually own whole bitcoin.
You might think that’s silly. After all, it’s not really that hard to get your hands on a whole bitcoin if you wanted.
It’s ‘expensive’ now, sure, if you think about its converted price in fiat money. But if you had a few grand to get one whole bitcoin, you’d just log into Coinbase or whatever on-ramp you use and buy one. Happy days.
Well that’s going to change, in my view at least, as bitcoin gets scarcer.
Millions of bitcoins will never see the light of day
We know there are already millions of bitcoins that will never see the light of day. We know this because we know of people that have lost bitcoin. Much of it in the early days when you could mine bitcoin on a bog-standard laptop and pick up an easy 50 BTC reward for mining a block.
Back then, that equated to about US$15 so no one really cared if they lost a wallet or passphrase or secret seed.
It’s only years later that 50 bitcoins would comfortably buy a ‘lambo’, that’s when lost bitcoin really hurts the soul.
These were also the days of the bitcoin faucet where you’d rock into a site and get five free bitcoins just for visiting. Ain’t days like that anymore…at least not for BTC.
The point is, bitcoin is a scarce resource. You’d do well to have and hold at least one whole one.
And I’m on record saying that in my view now is the time to ensure that you have at least one whole bitcoin that you take hold of, hold onto and let ride for the long term.
Get more, trade, exchange, do what you want with it, but always at least have one whole one in the vault and don’t let it go, pass it on — it may become true generational wealth passed through the ages. [openx slug=inpost]
But enough of the super-duper long-term stuff.
I’m here to let you know that while Ryan’s away, we’ve got an eye on things. And knowing him, he’ll be keeping a side eye on all things crypto…it’s too exciting not to.
So, while I’ve got you here, luckily for you it’s pretty good timing.
You see this week gone (just before Easter) I was in Paris for the Paris Blockchain Week. It was a pretty great event, one of the better ones I’ve been to. Not an ICO pitch in sight, just quality information and speakers and guests from quality projects and upcoming developments.
Wei Zhou, CFO of Binance, spoke. Arthur Breitman, co-founder of Tezos was there. Representatives (CEOs, COOs, CFOs, founders, etc.) from Dash, Ripple, Zcash, Zcoin, Elixxir, Qtum, IOTA, BitcoinSV (he had a hard time of it!), Zilliqa and other crypto and non-crypto businesses were in attendance.
There was loads to take away. Everything was covered from payments, IoT, standards, PoW versus PoS consensus, governance on the blockchain, the role of exchanges, the role of decentralised exchanges, zero knowledge proofs and their potential impact on crypto and a whole heap of other sessions — far too much to cover in one update.
But perhaps one of the more fascinating insights was from the role of institutional investment in the crypto space. There were a number of crypto funds in attendance and presenting on panels. But it was the co-founder and CEO of Morgan Creek Capital Management that really struck a chord.
He made a point to say that just six weeks ago Morgan Creek bought physical bitcoin for the first time at US$4,000. And they were doubling down on their investments in the space. Not only that, they were in the midst of (easily) raising another US$250 million for another crypto investment fund.
His view is that real big institutional money, the pension and endowment funds of the world, haven’t yet come, but are waiting on the edges gagging for an opportunity.
The way he explained what’s coming was pretty simple. He said this (crypto) was all building towards the biggest wealth creation event the world has ever seen. He described it as the era of the ‘TrustNet’ and that it’s coming fast within the next five years.
You hear a guy talking about US$250 million in investment funds doubling down on crypto and you can’t help but get excited about what’s coming next.
We know there are teams building away and developing in the crypto world. The overall health of crypto hasn’t ever been this good. And this is all happening in a supposed ‘bear market’.
Well, things have a way of catching up with development. And when they do, when that massive swathe of institutional investment comes, we think we’re going to see a crypto summer the likes we haven’t seen before, which could potentially dwarf what we got from 2017 and early 2018.
I’ve never been as excited about the crypto world as I am right now after getting back from Paris Blockchain Week. You should be too.
Regards,
Sam Volkering