Crypto Winter Part 2? Not Even Close.

Note: This is based largely on a dispatch I am sending to readers of a paid, investment newsletter I write. But the topic — the crypto price downdraft this weekend — is something that impacts my readers here, too. So, I am posting this version, with some slight variations.

Well, I went and put my money where my mouth is.

As the crypto market lost altitude over the weekend, I stepped in with some idle cash to fill my bag with Solana, one of the high-profile cryptocurrencies I use as a medium for trading NFTs. The projects I am most interested in all trade on the Solana network, and I saw a chance to buy the currency of that realm for less than $100 per token. In recent weeks, Solana has been in the $200 range. It will see that range again — and likely much more.

To me, then, buying amid the blood-letting was like buying US dollars at a discount.

But this really isn’t a story about Solana. And it’s not a recommendation that you follow my footsteps and grab your own bag of Solana.

Instead, that money-where-your-mouth-is comment is an apropos intro into a dispatch about crypto opportunity masquerading as volatility.

First, we are not in a bear market for crypto.

Yes, bitcoin is down roughly 50%, and by traditional, Wall Street measures that is a bear market. But crypto isn’t Wall Street. Metrics and motivations are very different. Moreover, bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and a host of other cryptos can reclaim every penny of lost ground in just weeks or months.

What I read are media reports that just don’t get it. No offense to my former media colleagues, but the mainstream financial press has very little experience with crypto and very little understanding of the dynamics and the underlying motivation (at an investor, consumer, business level) for owning and operating in crypto — a fact that is apparent when I read some of their comments and explanations.

I don’t sense a lot of bearish sentiment flooding through the real crypto space, as it did in 2017. By real, I mean I’m involved with crypto talk and research on a daily/nightly basis with NFT project leaders and crypto experts. As well, I consult for a Europe-based blockchain and decentralized finance company with employees on three continents. I don’t hear anything overtly bearish.