Had a glass of wine with a former boss of mine who is managing a multi-billion fund these days. Besides the usual "how's health Sle? glad to see you're not dead yet" banter, the topic of crypto currencies came up. I was primarily listening, he dude is much smarter and/or wiser than myself. Here are the highlights:
(a) he is flat (he said one of his kids has a dozen coins), so he said "speaking as someone who has no risk on" that cryptos are here to stay
(b) BTC is the worst nightmare for any country trying to implement capital controls. It's common accepted tender, easy to purchase and sell, very easy to transport etc. Making it illegal will drive it underground, but if anything, will increase it allure for the EM residents.
(c) Point (b) makes it a perfect economic weapon for the countries interested in counteracting the rising EM powers (BRIC) and because of that it's unlikely we will see extreme regulation in the near future
(d) The whole electronic gold concept is highly disruptive and people tend to underestimate the long-term convexity of the disruptive technologies.
(e) A single crypto will eventually win, it has the aggregator qualities and eventually people will migrate to a single coin. No idea which one and it's not going to be the one with superior tech, but the one that's most trusted.
(f) Prices gotta fall from here, simply because the mental infrastructure is not ready yet. We are likely to see some big swings in overall crypto market and will have a lot of people selling on the lows and regretting it later (reference the old joke about the Amazon in 2002 and the beer). Long term target is much higher.
To be honest, his views contradict my thought process that bitcoin will be the next boring asset (gold, credit, etc), but as I said, he's worth listening too.
(a) he is flat (he said one of his kids has a dozen coins), so he said "speaking as someone who has no risk on" that cryptos are here to stay
(b) BTC is the worst nightmare for any country trying to implement capital controls. It's common accepted tender, easy to purchase and sell, very easy to transport etc. Making it illegal will drive it underground, but if anything, will increase it allure for the EM residents.
(c) Point (b) makes it a perfect economic weapon for the countries interested in counteracting the rising EM powers (BRIC) and because of that it's unlikely we will see extreme regulation in the near future
(d) The whole electronic gold concept is highly disruptive and people tend to underestimate the long-term convexity of the disruptive technologies.
(e) A single crypto will eventually win, it has the aggregator qualities and eventually people will migrate to a single coin. No idea which one and it's not going to be the one with superior tech, but the one that's most trusted.
(f) Prices gotta fall from here, simply because the mental infrastructure is not ready yet. We are likely to see some big swings in overall crypto market and will have a lot of people selling on the lows and regretting it later (reference the old joke about the Amazon in 2002 and the beer). Long term target is much higher.
To be honest, his views contradict my thought process that bitcoin will be the next boring asset (gold, credit, etc), but as I said, he's worth listening too.
