The End Times - The Daily Gwei #499
Are they really upon us?
Things are pretty bleak out there right now - and I’m not just talking about the crypto markets. High inflation, war, political instability, looming recession - you’d be forgiven for thinking that the end times are upon us. Though the reality is, the end times are not upon us, what is upon us is a bunch of things that have gone wrong all at once - a storm in a teacup if you will - but this too shall pass.
Let’s start with crypto - what’s going on and why is everything dumping so hard? Well I think at this point it’s obvious that much of the bull market crypto experienced can be attributed to the enormous worldwide money printing of 2020 and 2021. Trillions of dollars were injected into the economy to try and keep it afloat during the COVID-19 crisis and inevitably, that had to be paid back in some form. That form came as inflation at levels not seen in over 40 years and the cost of living is going up rapidly to boot. Naturally, as things get more expensive and people’s wages don’t go up alongside that, they have less discretionary funds to put into investments - and crypto is at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to risk-on investments. Ergo, no one’s coming to buy our bags anytime soon.
Next up we have the “macro” events that are effecting not just the markets, but people’s everyday lives as a whole. The war in Ukraine has put immense pressure on energy and commodities which means prices of these things are skyrocketing alongside everything else already getting expensive due to inflation. Political instability continues to rear its ugly head in places like the U.S where it seems the division just keeps getting worse, and large economies like the U.S are also at very high risk of a dreaded recession (that realistically should’ve happened in 2020).
Alright now onto the “good news”. Well, as I said above in my tweet, I truly believe that from every crisis comes opportunity. Whether that opportunity comes in the form of placing a good investment bet, repositioning your life to both weather the storm and thrive from it (maybe by getting a job in crypto), or simply increasing your knowledge of this industry. Though the opportunities don’t necessarily have to come from crypto - during the 2018/2019 bear market I personally focused on getting into shape, worked on my mental health, making new friends and also landed my first crypto job. You don’t have to just survive bear markets - you can thrive from them as well!
I have no idea where the price of any asset goes from here - they could all fall another 50% or this could be the bottom. Of course, I still remain very bullish on ETH and that doesn’t change just because of market movements, but ETH obviously isn’t going to escape all the headwinds that I’ve outlined above. The best we can hope for is that ETH and other crypto-assets find themselves a bottom to settle into and then rebuild a base from there. Though during this time, the building will still continue and the fundamentals will only get stronger (The Merge is still coming!) - so don’t bow out now.
After all, we’ve still got a world to decentralize.
Have a great day everyone,
Anthony Sassano
Enjoyed today’s piece? I send out a fresh one every week day - be sure to subscribe to receive it in your inbox!
Join the Daily Gwei Ecosystem
All information presented above is for educational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice.
Grounded and sober-minded perspective, love it!