As 2018 draws to a close, many members of the crypto community will be happy that they made it through to the end of another volatile year. Many can still be heard repeating their mantra of “I believe in the tech” to anyone that will care to listen.
The battle scars of 2018 will ensure that this year will be remembered for all the wrong reasons by crypto enthusiasts. For example, there was the infamous $520 million crypto hack, and more recently another Japan-based crypto exchange was hacked, losing some $60 million worth of cryptocurrency.
However, Bitcoin prices falling by over 80 percent from the all-time high in December last year and dropping as low as $3,200 have also dominated headlines too. Many analysts and self-proclaimed experts will tell you that crypto winter is coming or is already here.
Despite the doom and gloom, there is something in the human condition that likes new beginnings. The end of the year will also provide cryptocurrencies with an opportunity to indulge in retrospection and time to reevaluate some of their choices. Maybe you are approaching 2019 with cautious optimism.
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Therefore, New Year’s resolutions are the perfect opportunity for digital currencies to start making changes and to thaw the crypto winter. Here are three resolutions for the coming year that thankfully do not contain the ubiquitous phrase, “new year, new me.”
Some more patience and self-belief would help
Back in 1995, Bill Gates, bravely appeared on the Letterman show to enthusiastically talk about how something called the internet would transform our lives. His attempts to help the audience visualize a brave new digital world where email, web browsing, and streaming would rule were greeted by laughter.
Technologies that shift the paradigm often take a long time to be fully understood before they gain real traction. This year represented a ‘gold rush’ in which saw the emergence of bad apples who embarked on unrealistic projects and had hopes of getting rich quickly.
As there were too many players in the field with little factual adoption, holders of cryptos have gotten anxious during the recent price slump and thereby contributed to it. However, the speculation of the death of the market and ecosystem has been greatly exaggerated. So far, we know about 336 Bitcoin obituaries.
We can probably expect more to come in 2019, but the casket is likely to stay empty. Therefore, true to the motto, many experts believe that “strength lies in peace,” some more patience and self-belief would be helpful.
Eventually, naked greed for short-term profit will give way to long-term projects of true Blockchain utility. — Benjamin Bilski, Executive Director of The NAGA Group AG
Bilski, also recently said, “As part of a self-cleaning process of the market, bad apples will be sorted out and projects with real value will have a better chance of showing stable and organic growth.”
Don’t fight each other, cooperate
Many think cryptocurrencies and the underlying blockchain technology are a zero-sum game, including the famous Warren Buffet. However, if you buy cryptos and they go up in value that doesn’t mean someone lost money. There is value creation and calling crypto, in any regard, a zero-sum game is hugely misinformed.
Although Warren Buffet has made the right call on many investments, he is dead wrong on Bitcoin, because he is totally clueless to the technology. — Darren Marble, CEO of CrowdfundX
Some players in the field this year have forgotten about this, and now it seems that the entire community had to pay the price (which has more of a lose-lose situation). Bitcoin Cash’s activation of a hard fork that splintered the fourth-largest cryptocurrency’s network into at least two competing versions has not been necessarily a gift to the entire crypto community.
The November 15 hard fork proved to be fatal for Bitcoin Cash as it crashed over 66 percent. For the next year, we need more cooperation than competition between actors in the crypto space. Remember that your favorite cryptocurrency isn’t a sports team that you blindly follow no matter what and rubbish anything else in the market.
Future successes will require close collaboration between various crypto companies to make the community stronger and drive further mass adoption of blockchain technologies. If partnerships are real, follow a logical business value and are being executed.
Stick to the core
Instead of being consumed by bad news and getting involved in the tribalistic rivalry, cryptocurrencies shall get back to the core. Essentially, crypto companies need to aim for progress in the industry’s infrastructure. Progress, not future promises, will be the key to pulling the crypto market out of its current weakened state.
This will bring the institutional investors into the market, which will thaw out the Crypto Winter and bring a Crypto Spring. — Managing partner of Genesis Holdings
The creation of a legal and technological infrastructure around cryptocurrencies to develop real use cases is also crucial. These are just a few examples of what will bring the institutional investors back into the market and finally allow the thaw of the crypto winter to commence.
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