Crypto “experts” from Twitter and YouTube are harming new BTC owners with their predictions. What happened with $20k, $50k by EOY predictions?
Everyone loves predicting what the future holds for Bitcoin these days.
“Filthy nocoiners” like your family member you are having dinner with or that friend who just had a beer too many will often tell you it’s all a bubble, it’s just “neckbeard” Ponzi scheme controlled by a single entity which will crash soon enough and leave many people without their life savings. Sometimes they won’t though and they might decide to take the Bitcoin pill and start looking into it more seriously. Meanwhile, seasoned trading veterans and crypto “personalities” will tell you that this new asset class has enormous potential and that its market cap is just a fraction of what it could and should be.
Some of them aren’t quite “bullish” on the phenomenon; Warren Buffet probably gets a small aneurysm any time someone mentions Bitcoin. Needless to say, the opinions are polarized and everyone has their own idea where Bitcoin and the rest of the crypto world are headed next.
What’s clear is that these groups of people can easily be distinguished and assigned certain attributes. Looking at the “normal” people surrounding you who criticize Bitcoin you’ll see smart yet uninformed individuals who don’t know what they are talking about and just spew the slowly vanning public narrative.
These people are usually older, coming from the “boomer” generation, and are simply comfortable in their own ways, not willing to leave what has been working nicely for decades. Millennials and generation Z are much more inclined to Bitcoin, blockchain and crypto technologies and are driving their adoption forward with each passing day.
Of course, institutional money follows suit. Many younger venture capitalists have invested into Bitcoin years ago, realizing the potential of the technology much sooner than people like Rockfeller or Buffet.
“Old money” is meanwhile rigid and careful, being burned by bubbles like the dot com one and the housing one in the past. The fact of the matter is that people are becoming more and more interested in crypto assets and are starting to do their research on the matter. But even so, it seems like there rarely is any middle ground here, with one side claiming Bitcoin is a scam that will go under and other side claiming the moon is just behind the corner. So, the question on everyone’s mind is, who should we believe?
What happened to bitcoin bulls?
Alex Krüger, trader and economist with MBA from Columbia University touched upon this topic on his twitter. He called out well-known bitcoin “experts” who have thrown outrageous bullish predictions into the ring.
This thread by @lawmaster covers a lot of ground on the topic.
Did any "industry leader" turn bearish on a timely fashion?
How many people got royally REKT because of these calls? https://t.co/KMbDoYcRo3
— Alex Krüger ?? (@Crypto_Macro) December 1, 2018
Alex was obviously triggered by this bold prediction by crypto YouTuber:
A screenshot, before I get blocked.
Notice the number of likes and retweets. pic.twitter.com/EczmsLw7lB
— Alex Krüger ?? (@Crypto_Macro) December 1, 2018
The thread is long and Alex made sure to count all relevant and famous predictors giving them no backdoor to escape.
Stop listening to $BTC price "seers" like @CryptoHayes…
Arthur Hayes in May: Bitcoin will hit $50,000 in 2018
Arthur Hayes in November: Bitcoin will hit $2,000 in 2018https://t.co/OtNRcr14gk— Mike Dudas (@mdudas) November 2, 2018
Additionally, another crypto trader with huge following who goes under a moniker “I am Nomad” gave some sound advice how to deal with these psychics:
“How scammers/frauds get CT attention. 1.) make wild claim with little to no proof. set a price target secondary post to that claim. 2.) make another post with handwavy charts and data. dont worry about your lack of knowledge on the technology and trading-the sheep wont notice.
if price doesnt go your way, delete the price target part. feel free to create between 2-5 posts on why one of many scapegoats caused you to fail. Market Makers , Whales , accusation of manipulation without substance are all popular choices.
if price goes your way (up or down), rt the post several times with various tags to get people to notice. if it doesn’t, thats fine too! just delete the price target part of the post. feel free to gloat either way.
repeat this plan success or fail when enough time has passed for the collective immediate memory of CT to forget … say every 4-7 days, until it works out in your favor.”
Coiners vs. Nocoiners
First thing you should consider when thinking whether or not to believe someone’s prediction about a cryptocurrency is if and how much they are invested in it already.
People like Tom Lee, Tim Draper, MacAfee etc. have been recently raving about Bitcoin heading into a period of upwards movement and have made some pretty wild predictions about the heights Bitcoin will reach in following 5 years. MacAffee even famously proclaimed he will eat his penis on national television if Bitcoin doesn’t reach $500k by 2020. The founder of Standpoint Research, Ronnie Moas, has predicted that Bitcoin will reach $28,000 in 2018. He also feels Bitcoin is due to reach $300,000 – $400,000 in the near future. Moas’ price prediction for Bitcoin is based on the limited supply of Bitcoin — facing unlimited demand.
To fully quote him:
“I don’t know how much gold there is in the ground, but I know how much bitcoin there is, and in two years there will be 300 million people in the world trying to get their hands on a few million Bitcoin. This mind-boggling supply and demand imbalance is what is going to drive the price higher.”
And while these predictions seem mouth-watering, one should remember that these people are seasoned traders. One of the first rules of trading is to keep quiet once you find an asset that you think it’s going to go up in price.
Once you accumulate enough of it, you then go out in public and start praising it. The general public then starts buying it, the price goes up from where you initially bought and then you sell the asset once you feel comfortable with the profit you made. So whenever these people start praising Bitcoin you should be mindful that they might just be priming a bull run before selling off their holdings for profit.
At the same time, there is a group of people who are vehemently against Bitcoin. Warren Buffet recently commented that Bitcoin is like rat poison. He also added:
“[Bitcoin] itself is creating nothing. When you’re buying nonproductive assets, all you’re counting on is the next person is going to pay you more because they’re even more excited about another next person coming along.”
Stefan Hofrichter, another major economy figurehead (Allianz Global Advisors head of global economics and strategy), recently claimed how Bitcoin is a bubble and its value should be zero, claiming it doesn’t generate any income nor is it backed by any production.
While the claims that Bitcoin’s value is entirely speculative do ring true, same can be said for many other asset classes and even some fiat currencies that are in use. Dollar is being held up by the fact that it’s used in oil trade, even in the face of a massive debt USA has towards China. Another thing we need to realize is that these people are a part of the banking establishment, which stands to lose the most if cryptocurrencies achieve mass adoption. Some of these institutions will stubbornly refuse to support the crypto movement and call it a bubble, afraid of what might happen if it in fact turns out not to be a bubble.
Who should I listen to then?
No one can, with 100% accuracy, predict what the future holds for Bitcoin. Many analysts are spending their entire waking hours looking at the price graph and scouring through information online in an attempt to “read” the market and predict Bitcoin moves.
While they prefer calling themselves “independent”, the fact of the matter is that they are invested into cryptocurrency, either with their money or with their time and effort. People like Tom Lee, Ronnie Moas, various Twitter and Telegram “personalities” have skin in the game and will naturally be inclined to act more bullish towards their holdings. Still, these people will be your best bet when it comes to predicting where crypto markets are going next. After all, most of them have positive track records when it comes to calling out the price of Bitcoin.
They also have jobs as analysts and reputations of being good, “independent” traders which they want to maintain. Ultimately, if you don’t feel comfortable trusting anyone with your money, you can always take up trading yourself and learn the ropes with one of the many tools that are available online.
