Having laughed at the ‘Money printer go brrr!’ meme all year, the blockchain community might be sensible in the dying hours of 2020 to hit the humility button as ‘Number go up’.
Not because any of us who have been toiling away over the past three years don’t deserve some upside.
And equally not because that upside shouldn’t be reflected in - at least - the psychological joy of feeling more wealthy. Goodness knows I think it’s a great feeling with which to be starting the new year.
But - it has to be said - if we were actually the Spartans some of us sometimes pretend to be, Bitcoin at $30,000 or ETH at $800 etc would not be the great success we take it to be.
For, whether we own 0.1, 1, 10 or 1,000 BTC (or ETH), we don’t own any more BTC (or ETH) no matter what the USD price is.
That fact we’re currently feeling wealthy is because we’re still mentally locked into the fiat universe; understanding that we’ll have to cash out of crypto to transact anything of value.
Until that changes or Lamborghini starts accepting Bitcoin, the battle is not won. Probably that battle will never be won.
Indeed, as we’ve seen with XRP, blockchain does not live in a vacuum and never did.
Which leads me to another cautionary point. The thing that concerns me most for 2021 is not the price of cryptocurrencies, individually or generally, but the operation and legality of the underlying technology.
If, in 2021, we don’t see significant re-testing of USDT’s collateral promise via its psychological dollar peg, much more Chinese pressure on crypto (especially Bitcoin mining and OTC trading), and widespread governmental interference in terms of money transfer legislation and privacy, we will have done well.
Happy New Year.