Paying Attention To The Incentives Of Bitcoin Pundits

On Friday I had a great lunch with a bitcoin/crypto/blockchain investor that I have a lot of respect for. That lunch gave me a lot to think about some topics I'm excited to dig deeper into. In the meantime, I woke up to my 2nd rule of bitcoin in action.

I wanted to search the net for coherent articles on the implications of Bitcoin breaking $6,000 or any explanations of the surge back above $6,000 that is occurring as I type this on Saturday morning. I was expecting to find pieces ranging from "I told you so", to "Quarter End Window Dressing", to something more detailed. Instead, what kept popping most into my social media stream was a video link where someone was reasserting their call that Bitcoin would hit $50,000 in 2018.

That someone is none other than the CEO of BitMEX. Without a doubt, someone knowledgeable about crypto, but also someone who would seem strong incentives to see crypto thrive. I spent a few minutes googling the prognosticator to see if anywhere was he on record being bearish on crypto. Not surprisingly, at least not to myself, I couldn't find any such bearish predictions from him.

I am not here to argue whether he is right or wrong. Early adopters of crypto are still holding immense profits (much to the bitcoin doomers' chagrin) and deserve respect for their beliefs and effort they put in. While I am skeptical of where Bitcoin is headed, I have not ruled out becoming very bullish again. In fact, much of my lunch yesterday was discussing what it would take for me to be bullish on crypto again, and whether Bitcoin is the right coin to back, but that is another story.

What concerns me is that this call is presented as "news". There are a lot of rules surrounding announcements and prognostications from CEO's, and even pundits, in the security markets. Shouldn't we be doing a better job on crypto?

When some permabear says "Bitcoin is going to zero", shouldn't it be accompanied by information like 'which he has been saying since it was at $100 years ago". I'd be happy with that. I tune out the perma bears. Those who say crypto is worthless with some hand waving and no accountability for missing billions of wealth created in the space, or the rise of some truly interesting companies.

By the same token, pun intended, the media should make pretty clear when a bull is always bullish and has business interests that tend to be highly correlated with the long term rise in crypto prices.

In the meantime, I'm left with the view that today's rise in crypto prices is an artificial bounce and we will break $6,000 again next week. I am excited to work on the challenge of 'what would it take me to become a bitcoin bull again" and for the first time in a long time, that seems like a contrarian challenge.It will be interesting to see how the future of cryptocurrencies go further.