For someone who felt a little empowered by the prospect of the crypto space as an alternative to the broken fiat system, I am disappointed by the road we strongly embarked on: crypto (and by that meaning bitcoin and a few others) as a new asset class, to rotate to and from.
It's not like this outcome wasn't predictable. It was the most likely sequel after it became clear killing it would have been too costly once it started to spread and have some lobbying power too.
But yeah, it's still sad to see the alternative narrative... go. And we've seen it go in various ways. Through the invention of instruments exclusively dedicated to making money, but in a way that is more like gambling than investing. We started here with many of the IPOs (despite them being more idealistic at first, but many turned into money grabs), the early defi platforms, NFTs without use cases, how the top centralized exchanges work and what they did/do, meme coins, prediction markets, etc. I'm not saying they didn't help at all. They did bring in some people and their money, but mostly gamblers who moved on as soon as things got better elsewhere.
Another big rotation happened when early bitcoin whales "capitulated" last year (they haven't done that at the end of any bitcoin cycle at this scale), understanding bitcoin and crypto is moving in a different direction than their original ideals, probably. Of course, this "capitulation" made them really wealthy, but in terms of bitcoin, settles where it is going. To the corporations, sovereign funds, pension funds, etc. as the newest asset class they need to have on their balance sheets. For the time being, until they rotate to something else.
Another indication of where we are going is the privacy coins that got pumped. The last redoubt of the idealists who believe in crypto as an alternative to the fiat system, and those who worry about their privacy, as much as it still exists in this world.
But others just rotated to AI and precious metals, the huge trends that may or may not have turned into bubbles.
When a crypto website like Decrypt starts talking about AI and precious metals here and there, we need to assume they have seen some trends with crypto people migrating to those assets, but likely too late (compared to when the trends started and where we are on the exponential, especially for gold and silver).
So... there we have it. Crypto is the newest asset class. Soon to be made law in the US through the Clarity Act. Stablecoins are already regulated.
I guess I'll treat it like one too from now on, because we can't live from memories and what could have been. Other than my Hive assets, an ecosystem and community for which I have a sentimental attachment, which I will likely keep even if they go to zero, but hopefully that won't be the case (I will of course switch between them inside the ecosystem as I see fit and may occasional take something out if I need it elsewhere).
Speaking of rotations, I think it will be very interesting what crypto will do this year. I don't think it's settled yet if we entered a bear market or are preparing for another push (much) higher. And when I'm talking about a push higher, I'm saying mainly BTC and a few major alts, plus likely the privacy coins, nothing is certain about the rest.
