As the Satoshi Roundtable IV, a small gathering of some of the most influential and legendary figures in the crypto space, wraps up there’s one primary reflection I’d like to share with you: nobody who attended this event appeared in the slightest bit panicked about the recent crypto correction… and neither should you.
In all the discussions I was a part of, people simply referred to the recent market correction (from a market peak value of US$825 billion to as low as US$280 billion in the space of a month) as a matter of fact… as though it were an everyday occurrence.
This kind of blasé attitude is born from years of experience. Many of these guys were there right at the birth of today’s crypto market, working alongside the anonymous bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto himself.
There were other attendees whose work and innovation actually laid the foundation upon which bitcoin itself was designed.
In other words, these guys have already seen it all. So a 60 percent-plus drop in the market is just another battle scar amongst many.
This ability of a collective of seasoned, hardened crypto pros to shrug off price volatility allowed for this conference to focus on what it does best – diving deep into the real meat of the crypto space… debates on privacy, scaling, development, exchanges, regulation, decentralisation, token securitisation… even an appearance and lengthy speech from U.S. Congressman Dr. Ron Paul.
This too shall pass
I couldn’t help but draw a contrast with my wedding.
Let me explain…
You see, I got married on a surprisingly hot afternoon in Hong Kong in late October 2008.
A month earlier, Lehman Brothers had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The benchmark S&P 500 equity index was cratering below 900, down 30 percent in a matter of months. Financial markets were chaotic.
I recall a large number of guests speaking of little other than the stock market. There were more than a few senior investment bankers and traders in attendance. Most were glued to their Blackberries. Others just hit the bar… hard.
The only people there who seemed immune to the panic were the older guys who’d been around the block a few times already. Guys like my father Peter, for example, who’d worked through the dotcom bubble, the Russia debt default, the Asian Financial Crisis, the Japan bubble and Black Monday, amongst others.
They say that one human-year is equivalent to seven dog-years. It’s a similar ratio for human-to-crypto years.
In the nine years since bitcoin was born, there have been nine major corrections (two of them being over 90 percent!).
That’s why the kind of people who gather for the Satoshi Roundtable are so laid-back about the market. A correction is just par for the course. The important thing is that nothing has fundamentally changed with regard to the long-term future of the crypto space.
In the same way that people like my father knew that even a crisis wasn’t the “end of equities”, so too do the crypto veterans know that this correction is just another bump in the road that will ultimately pass.
Positions
The second major reflection I have after the past couple of days is this: 2018 will be about quality. By that I mean the market is going to bifurcate between cryptos that exhibit real promise, and the garbage (which constitutes the majority of the market).
So if you’re going to invest in cryptos, you need to make sure you’re investing in the right ones.
Good investing,
Tama
