Hey everyone, it’s Whatever Wednesdays and I haven’t talked about Crypto in awhile, so we’ll ponder this question “Is Crypto Dead? (again)”

Is Crypto Dead? (again)

Sort of. Bitcoin (and Crypto) has had its death called for many, many times. There is even a counter.

2018 has been crypto dying a long slow death over the course of this year. All of the hype surrounding it has pretty much died down. I think that the only people that are left are the evangelists and the day traders trying to make a buck.

Today was kind of an interesting day as well as we saw Bitcoin plummet to a new low for the year, which was around $5400. It has since recovered slightly as I write this to $5626. However, who knows where it will be tomorrow.

People aren’t really sure what caused this crash, however there is speculation that this is happening because Bitcoin’s fork, Bitcoin Cash is setting up for a fork of its own — into Bitcoin ABC (core Bitcoin Cash) and Bitcoin SV (Satoshi’s Vision). Interestingly, the two major proponents of Bitcoin Cash have diverged on their opinions with Roger Ver (also known as Bitcoin Jesus) backing Bitcoin ABC (core Bitcoin Cash) and Craig Grant (also known as Faketoshi), backing Bitcoin SV. You can read more about it on this Marketwatch article, if interested.

What about the Altcoins?

Well, as expected, with this hit to Bitcoin, all the altcoins took a hit as well, with the majority of coins taking hits of 10-15%.

Just another day in the wild, wild west that is crypto. To be honest, nothing surprises me in crypto anymore. It doesn’t take much to see huge price movements one way or another. Of course, I must remind everyone to only buy crypto with the mindset that it is gambling — or even like buying a lottery ticket.

Any other news I should be aware of?

Well, my two coins that I still believe in (despite their recent hits in price), are still Ripple (XRP) and Cardano (ADA). This is unlikely to change.

Ripple (XRP)

In terms of Ripple (XRP), there has been some news as of late, with a new bank partnership (CIMB Group) and listing on Coinbase Custody. I don’t expect things like to have any real effect on price action other than the current downtrend from Bitcoin. However, I do expect Ripple (XRP) to recover when Bitcoin does.

That said, Ripple (XRP) has recently overtaken Ethereum (ETH) in market cap, and is now sitting at #2. This has happened before in the bull market, but didn’t last very long. We’ll see how long it lasts this time.

I don’t expect to see any large price action in Ripple (XRP) until there are enough financial institutions using it in day-to-day transactions. I think there will be some point at which the demand for Ripple (XRP) will go up once the its enormous total supply becomes the circulating supply. However, I think we are a long ways off from that.

My stance on Ripple (XRP) is unchanged. I don’t plan to sell until at least 2025.

Cardano (ADA)

As for Cardano, it keeps chugging along as expected. However, something interesting has happened recently. Cardano is technically 3 separate entities, IOHK, Emurgo, and Cardano Foundation. IOHK, and its CEO, Charles Hoskinson has been tasked with building the Cardano blockchain and all its research. Emurgo is the commercial arm, in charge of incubating commercial ventures and developing the ecosystem. Cardano Foundation is tasked with “protecting” Cardano, meaning make sure everything does what it is supposed to do.

As of late, the Cardano Foundation has been criticized as not doing enough in the last year to help the Cardano ecosystem, and in some ways even perhaps harming it. The Guardians of Cardano were created which drafted an open letter to Michael Parsons, the chairman of Cardano Foundation to step down. A few days later, Michael Parsons formally resigned from his position.

More interestingly, he did it as a clean break — Charles stated “Parsons did the right thing by leaving the organization with a clean break — no severance pay, no exchange of funds, no strings attached.” While many may disagree with what Parsons did at the helm of Cardano Foundation, I think that him leaving without any severance was “the right thing” as Charles said, which may help him in his future endeavors.

Stuff to look forward to for Cardano:

• Ouroboros research continues.
• Shelley still on the way, hopefully Q1 2019 (with staking).
• Ledger support is coming soon, first with Yoroi and then Daedalus.
• Daedalus 1.4 soon.
• Cardano testnet is just about ready.
• Consensus and smart contracts are coming soon.
• Tangem in talks to develop Cardano wallet.

Of course, Cardano (ADA) is sitting at recent new low, even touching as low as $0.05. How low can we go? I’m not sure. I thought Cardano (ADA) was undervalued at $0.10, so of course I still think it’s undervalued now. However, like I said, this is all just gambling. Like Ripple (XRP), my stance on Cardano is also unchanged, I don’t plan to sell until at least 2025.

However, all that said, the amount of money I have in crypto is tiny — so small I wouldn’t notice if it was gone tomorrow. I would advise all you other crypto gamblers to take the same approach.

Other stuff:

There’s a lot of hype about a new crypto exchange called BAKKT. The reason there is so much hype about this exchange is that it is being created by the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) which owns the New York Stock Exchange. Something like this could increase the public understanding and offer validity to cryptocurrency. This could be the first gunshot to sound off institutions really investing into cryptocurrency, rather than whatever “small potatoes” positions they’ve taken currently.

Unfortunately, it appears to start with, BAKKT will only be offering Bitcoin products, such as Bitcoin ETF, Bitcoin mutual funds, Bitcoin pension funds, etc. I would imagine that if this goes well, we may see it offer more cryptos, with my assumption being the “top ten” coins. We’ll see…

However, for some, the idea of a strong exchange as a “gatekeeper” to Bitcoin goes against the very idea of Bitcoin as a peer-to-peer network. It’ll be interesting to see what happens. I think December will be an interesting month and I think/hope that 2019 will be a more interesting year than 2018.

TL;DR

Crypto isn’t dead. I doubt it will ever “die”.

2018 has been a bad year for crypto… but we’ll see how 2019 goes.

Ripple (XRP) and Cardano (ADA) are still the coins I believe in.

We’ll see if BAKKT makes any waves once it happens in December.

However, all that said, the amount of money I have in crypto is tiny — so small I wouldn’t notice if it was gone tomorrow.

I would advise all you other crypto gamblers to take the same approach.

-Sensei

Agree? Disagree? Questions, Comments and Suggestions are welcome.

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