I've been a crypto advocate for the past year or so and was lucky enough to stumble upon a friend who was an investor and opened my eyes to the world of crypto and the coming revolution of cryptocurrency - about 18 months ago. I remember at the time debating with him about how this could all play out, and the biggest stumbling block I could see was the establishment. After all, how would 'the man' - central government and the banks allow the status quo to be challenged? An old adage sprang to mind - the Golden Rule, "He who has the gold makes the rules!"
I just couldn't see how those with the wealth and power would allow this 'new' technology to overtake their hold on wealth and power. Anyway, the debate carried on for some time and we kind of both agreed that ultimately there would be a shakeout point where the concerns of central government and banks would result in some systemic pushback - which I believe we are seeing now. I guess the question on many people lips is where are we on the adoption curve?
Personally I think we're just entering the early adopters phase and are still not yet into the early majority. If you're like me you're starting to see bitcoin attracting more and more media attention. Sure a lot of the press headlines are focusing on the 'death' of bitcoin and crypto (How many times has that occured!) but there is certainly an increased awareness of bitcoin - people are hearing about it, and starting to ask questions. Getting back to an earlier point - Banks in general are making it as hard as they possibly can for people to convert fiat into crypto. Often under the auspices of anti money laundering legislation and attempting to hold the high ground by saying that they don't want to support corrupt regimes, or indeed finance terrorism.
We all know that this is generally just subterfuge - as they see that crypto has the ability to disrupt the banking system and take out the third party middleman, and basically their profit margin.
Anyway...back to my original thread. Where are we in the establishment phase of crypto. What is going to happen to Bitcoin, ethereum, litecoin and the altcoins. In my humble opinion those coins without any true value proposition behind them will fall by the wayside - but we have to go through this establishment phase, we have to endure the pushback and the barriers to establishment that any incumbent regime has to put up. In my view it is a good thing towards making crypto mainstream - it's inevitable that those holding the purse strings fight tooth and nail to keep what they have, it's just the nature of man.
So let's not despair at the wild fluctuations from 20K down to 8K or whatever it is today. we just need to realise that it's part of the shake out phase that crypto has to endure to come out the other side. Once we're through this and into the early majority phase then that's when the benefits will come.