Author: Tatsuno Source: X, @x element

Standing at the moment of writing this article, 2024Q4, This is the early stage of a new round of bull market in the currency circle.

The value of BTC is in the macro field, analogous to bonds and stocks in financial history, and is the "fuel" for a new round of development of human science and technology; in the meso field, it is the future The currency of the digital world that humans will inevitably enter is also an index; in the micro field, it is a new round of legal supervision and the compliance of currency issuance, thus siphoning the demand for private investment around the world.

This may be the last "reckless" cycle in the crypto industry, and also the last mega cycle in which BTC has a huge beta increase. This means that after this cycle, BTC’s beta will be significantly reduced, but it does not mean that there will be no hundredfold alpha opportunities in the broad token issuance market.

The top of BTC’s bull market will appear in Q4 of 2025, with a high of 160,000-220,000 US dollars. Prior to this, apart from the "first wave" that has now occurred, there are two more significant mid-term bull market trends.

This is 1999 in the Internet era. In other words, after the bull market reaches its peak in the next 12-18 months, the crypto industry will be like that of 2000-2001. Just like the Internet bubble burst, it ushered in a long winter. Of course, this is also an opportunity for industry reorganization. I'm looking forward to it.

When I feel that the bull market is coming, that is when the article output is at its highest.

About 4 years ago, at the beginning of the last bull market cycle, I wrote ""How should we invest in digital currencies in 2021?" 》. When we talk about the entire digital currency industry, it is inevitable to mention the value and price of BTC first.

If you already believe in the value of Bitcoin, you might as well jump directly to Part 5 for your expectations for the future price trend of Bitcoin.

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1. The value of BTC, from an industrial perspective, I want to divide it into Let’s talk about the macro, meso and micro levels

From a macro perspective, BTC represents the risk aversion expectations of the entire human financial market, and is the third "financial medium" that can be capitalized after bonds and stocks in human history; from a meso perspective, BTC is The "digital age" that mankind will inevitably enter in the future is the "index" with the best output value in the web3 world; from a micro perspective, BTC has gradually improved its compliance supervision and will attract a large number of "traditional old money" in the mainstream such as the United States. three worlds , siphoning off private investment needs that cannot be met locally.

At the macro level, we Considering Bitcoin as an epoch-making asset in the history of human finance, the most important thing is to understand the changes in financial history. "How should we invest in digital currency in 2021?" In "Quartet One", the status of digital currency is rectified from the perspective of the history of science and technology. Behind every technological revolution, important financial infrastructure and new financial "medium" are produced.

Behind finance are changes in the current situation. Standing at the present moment, the global political and economic situation may be the most confusing in the past thirty years. It is also the moment when the traditional financial order is the most fragile and the most likely to undergo a major reshuffle. Now I can no longer trace back whether in "Holland Yu" When famous financial bubbles such as "Jinxiang" appeared hundreds of years ago, there were financial venues similar to the London Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange. Or maybe Dutch vendors were accustomed to offline transactions and just speculated without establishing rules. And order, this bubble finally came to nothing. In the long history, every technological innovation that is remembered by mankind has a change in the financial paradigm, and the change in the financial paradigm is an inevitable product of the changes in the current situation. These are mutual causes and effects, but they complement each other. In the end, in human history. It’s written in a rich and colorful way. I don’t have it either. There is a way to predict that if the Civil War had not brought about drastic changes in the social structure of the United States, reshaping social classes and encouraging technological innovation to enter industry, would the second industrial revolution still have started in the United Kingdom, but would eventually be carried forward in the United States and become a milestone? .

At the same time, I have a more radical point of view: when everyone is talking about the economic downturn and how to find a viable business model - business itself, why do we need a business model? , has the word "business model" itself lost its meaning?

Here are more of my thoughts, which are a bit complicated. I won’t go into details here. They will be published in another article of mine in the future, "Extras to the Quadrilogy of Cryptocapital - A Philosophical Talk on Business and Investment." Expand as the most important part (related reading.: "Part One of the Quadrilogy of Cryptocapitalism: Token issuance, a new paradigm of financing")

[Excerpt: Discussing business models in the contemporary business environment and financial environment, The context behind it refers to the general path of development of business entities with the "corporate system" as the mainstream in the past 100 years: by enlarging the market size, increasing the number of employees, and finally going public, in the form of profit * PE The entire system of stock pricing. This path may not be feasible in the future.

Of the value owned by today's "social capital" (or expressed as "private economy"), equity companies may account for 95%, while stocks Listed companies as value anchors account for most of the capital value. But in the future, these values ​​may exist more in “business” (why not limited partnership) and “token” (foundation). 】

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2. Spend more time talking about BTC’s industry meso-level arguments

At the end of the book I wrote in 2021, the first point among the eight predictions is that BTC is unbeatable. Please refer to the electronic version of my book. Unlocking New Passwords - From Blockchain to Digital Currency》Postscript 4–

From the perspective of the technology industry, web3 is an inevitable trend in the future, and Bitcoin is the future of the entire web3 world. Core assets, or in economics, should be called "currency". In the ancient times of barter, gold was the most common "currency". After the development of modern systems and financial systems, Currency is the most common "currency". In the future, with the advent of the digital age, all life in the digital world in the metaverse will need a new "currency"

So, some people are holding on to "How come you are investing in a token", which is meaningless. Blockchain and crypto need "+", just like now when someone asks you what track to invest in, you say " "I want to invest in an equity company" and "I want to invest in an Internet company." Web3, as a special industry, and crypto, as a new market method and financial medium, are gradually being combined with other industries - blockchain + AI = DeAI, Blockchain + Finance = Defi, Blockchain + Entertainment/Art = NFT+metaverse, blockchain+scientific research=Desci, Blockchain + physical infrastructure = Depin…

The trend is very clear, but what does it have to do with us? In other words, how can we gain wealth appreciation after seeing the trend clearly?

Then let’s turn our attention to AI.

The main theme of business society in recent years has been bright and dark. There is no doubt that AI is a hot topic that capital has been pursuing and can be put on the table. Crypto is a place surging in the dark, where various legends and myths of sudden wealth gather. However, it is also a place with many restrictions, making it out of reach for many people.

The potential of the AI ​​market is indeed widely considered to be in the trillions, especially in the fields of generative AI, AI chips and related infrastructure. However, for investors, everyone believes that AI is a rising industry and is willing to invest their own money in it, but in what? Can I invest in an AI ETF index fund now to fully cover the AI ​​ecosystem and effectively track industry growth?

No. Nvidia's stock price has risen nearly three times in 2024, while the performance of most AI-themed ETFs during the same period has been mediocre. Looking further back, NVIDIA's stock price performance will not be positively correlated with the overall growth of AI output value - there will never be only NVIDIA as a chip company.

Comparison of the performance of mainstream AI ETFs and NVIDIA stocks in 2024

AI is the main theme, but will there be a product that can anchor the future market value development of the AI ​​industry? Will the value of this ETF increase as much as the output value of the entire AI industry increases? Just like the Dow Jones Index/S&P 500 ETF represents the development of Web0 (equity companies), and the Nasdaq ETF represents Web1, the investment opportunities of web2 are not presented in an exponential manner. The Web3 world, or the value of the entire digital world of human beings in the future, is the most suitable The index is BTC.

Why must the value of the Web3 world be measured in BTC?

Because, since the birth of computers and the Internet, human beings are destined to spend more and more time in the virtual world instead of the real world. In the future, when we put on VR/AR glasses, we canSit at home and go to Yellowstone Park to experience the palaces of the Tang Dynasty. Enter the virtual meeting room you set up to drink coffee face to face with friends on the other side of the world... The boundaries between reality and virtuality will become increasingly blurred. This is the future digital world. , or what the metaverse looks like. And there, if you want to decorate the virtual space, if you want the digital people there to dance for you, you always need to pay - this cannot be US dollars, RMB, let alone physical assets. The most suitable one I can think of and the only one that can be accepted by the entire digital world is Bitcoin.

I remember that in the movie "Revolution of 1911", Mr. Sun Yat-sen held up a 10-yuan bond: "When the revolution is successful, this bond can be exchanged for 100 yuan." .

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3. Back to the present

We live in an economically stable country , legal currency can be trusted, but this does not mean that the entire world’s financial system is as stable as the society we live in: the first thing the new president of Argentina announced when he came to power was to abolish Argentina’s legal currency system – anyway, Argentina is not. No one trusts the issuance of legal currency, so why bother? Turkey’s inflation rate in 2023 will be +127%, and its digital currency ownership rate will be as high as 52%, especially in the third world. In the process of gradually improving the information technology infrastructure in recent years, its traditional fiat currency mobile payment and digital currency payment methods have developed almost simultaneously. In contrast, just like around 2010, the information technology boom period has been skipped. The 1.0 era of POS machines and bank card payment directly enters the 2.0 era of mobile payment, the third world In recent years, digital currency payments in the 3.0 era have directly replaced mobile payment methods in the 2.0 era, making digital currency payments a common sight in daily payments.

There is an interesting debate here. Bitcoin has no controller. As a currency or "currency", it cannot realize the macro-control function of legal currency. In fact, the US dollar is also issued by enterprises, so the so-called Macroeconomic regulation must give way to the interest groups behind it, and capital power is the driving force behind the operation of the world. If there is macroeconomic regulation of cryptocurrency, then Bitcoin mining interest groups are the biggest regulators.

Changes in inflation rates in major economies in recent years

Changes in Argentina’s inflation rate in recent years

From a micro perspective, as the speed of capital flows accelerates, technology and financial cycles become shorter and shorter. In an environment with weak economic antifragility, traditional equity markets require 8-10 years of lock-in During the period, the characteristics of this long-term investment caused many people to worry about liquidity issues, and currency rights provided the possibility of early liquidation, which not only attracted more retail funds to enter, but also provided early investors with more flexible exit expectations. .

In the traditional equity market, angel rounds or early investors usually start around 5 years after the establishment of the company, that is, when the company has entered a relatively mature stage of development but there is still some time before IPO or mergers and acquisitions (usually 8 years) -10 years), seeking partial exit through equity transfer or corporate repurchase. This model can effectively alleviate the time cost of investment, but its liquidity is obviously more limited than currency rights.

The attraction of the currency rights model is that it allows early investors to withdraw funds earlier through token issuance or circulation, while attracting a wider range of market participants. This flexibility may have an impact on traditional The pattern of the equity market has a profound impact. In this regard, you can refer to "Cryptocapitalism Quadrilogy Part 2: A Battlefield without Gunpowder - VC or Token Fund?"

On the other hand, most of the world’s sovereign The financial market is extremely fragmented and illiquid, and the inherent global financial characteristics of crypto have greatly attracted this group of funds, including South Korea, Argentina, Russia, etc. The stock market development in Southeast Asia, mainly Vietnam, cannot keep up. The speed of wealth accumulation among the middle class has allowed these emerging classes to directly skip the stage of local financial market participation in the financial market and complete the transition to crypto. In the context of global digital currency compliance and integration with mainstream financial markets, These The investment demand for private assets cannot be met by the weak local financial infrastructure - there are more than 2,500 listed companies on the Korean Stock Market Main Board Market (KOSPI) and the Growth Enterprise Market (KOSDAQ), but 80% of the companies have a market value of less than 10%. To 100 million US dollars, the daily trading volume is negligible, and the digital currency market, which attracts global retail investors, has the most liquidity and has become their best investment target.

Doge’s current market capitalization and tradingVolume

Samsung’s current market capitalization and trading volume

Note: As you can see from the picture, Doge's current market value is about US$60B, and Samsung's market value is about US$234B, which is about 4 times the market value of Doge. However, the 24h transaction volume of Doge reached 5.5B, which is tens of thousands of times that of Samsung.

In the United States, the strategic location of the global digital currency market, 2025 is likely to usher in a new cryptocurrency legal system reform. The two most important The two bills, FIT21 and DAMS, will affect the future destiny of the currency circle. The core of these two blockchain bills, which are regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) rather than the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), is that token issuance (token issuance) is regarded as a commodity transaction rather than a securities issuance, and thus falls under the management of the CFTC . Considering that these two bills were proposed by Republicans, and the current SEC Chairman Gary Gensler represents the position of the Democratic Party, the bills face greater resistance. However, with Trump re-elected as president, the likelihood of the bill passing will increase significantly as the Republican Party takes control.

Explain this bill. In layman's terms, currency issuance is regarded as a commodity and is regulated by the CFTC and thus legalized. This can greatly promote the enthusiasm for currency issuance financing. . Enterprises can raise funds through currency issuance in a legal and compliant manner, attracting more capital to flow into the currency circle. And, with a stable channel for long-term compliance development, more people will remain committed to this industry after making money for a long time. The most important thing is that after the United States takes the lead in introducing this bill, it will officially open up the competition between the global digital currency financial market and the blockchain technology market, "grab projects", "grab talents", and free flow in a completely globalized world. In the currency circle, further developments may occur in the future. If the United States were more friendly, or even if currency issuance was no longer a gray industry but a prestigious financial innovation, the founders who live in Singapore, Switzerland and other relatively crypto-friendly countries will soon undergo a great migration.

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4. Looking back on 2016, the world’s crypto types can be divided Count it on your fingers

BTC is like a game currency. You can use RMB to directly enter the exchange for "recharge and purchase". In the era of "recharge and purchase", we were the original people in the currency circle., hopes for the future. (For specific reference, please refer to the end of the article ""How should we invest in digital currency in 2021?" Part 1 of the tetralogy")

That's my dream too.

Originally, my assumption was that it would take 8-10 years to achieve these goals.

However, we only used it for four years.

At that time, I had a new dream - now that Bitcoin as a monetary asset has been slowly accepted by mainstream society, other digital currencies , or token, in addition to digital equity, must also play the role of digital commodities. In the future digital world of mankind, in addition to financial value, it must also generate utility, so that mankind can better enter the digital world.

Oh yes, this thing, later everyone gave it a new name - NFT.

"Digital commodities in the metaverse era", this is my definition of the future end of NFT, and it is also the true realization of web3ization and digitization of "commodities in the Internet era". Thus the most important part of mass adoption.

For this reason, I resolutely built the NFT industry at the beginning of 2021. In the series of articles "The Road to the Future - Web3 Five Steps", I have described its future.

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5. Of course, the most intuitive can attract people, or even let people More people are willing to read the articles I write, naturally they have to rely on the increase in BTC

Of course, the most intuitive thing can attract people, or in other words, even if it makes more people If people are willing to read my articles, they will naturally rely on the growth of BTC.

It’s time to talk about the key points. It is necessary to mention my prediction for the BTC market: the peak of this round of BTC will appear at the end of 2025, and the reasonable range should be between 160,000 and 220,000 US dollars. , and after this, in 2026, it is recommended that everyone take short positions and recuperate.

In my paper "Bitcoin Valuation Model under Miner Market Equilibrium - Based on Derivatives Pricing Theory" written on January 1, 2019, I mentioned the bottom of the four-year cycle from 2018 to 2021,< /p>

As well as what I mentioned in 2022, the bottom of the four-year cycle of 2022-2025 .

From the current perspective, the entire currency circle is at a critical crossroads. Today's digital currency industry is like the Internet industry at the turn of the century. Within the window period of the next 1 to 2 years, the bubble burst is not far away. With the passage of crypto-friendly laws such as FIT21 in the United States, compliance supervision of assets such as currency rights has been completed. , a large number of very traditional old money who once lacked understanding of crypto, or even completely scorned it, will begin to accept BTC and make allocations at the 1%-10% level. However, after this, if blockchain and digital currencies cannot. Gradually integrate with traditional industries, truly ushering in the "blockchain + industry" change, just like the Internet industry and consumption, social networking , media, etc. are combined and transformed, I really don’t see any new funds coming in, and there is no reason for this industry to have amazing growth opportunities in defi in 2020, NFT and metaverse in 2021, these are all. It was the right direction, and it also set off a wave of innovation at that time. Throughout 2024, BTC has repeatedly innovated. High, but the entire blockchain industry does not have enough innovation to talk about. The market is just filled with more memes and Layer1&2&3, but there is no new "business concept innovation". Moreover, as far as I can see, in 2025, The atmosphere of the entire industry determines that I am pessimistic about the emergence of landmark "business concept innovation"

The rising tide lifts all boats, and now the water is flooding. Small rafts are everywhere, and hundreds of boats are vying for the water. The boatmen are competing to see who can row faster, and even laugh at those heavy, machine-powered boats. However, when the waves subside, the wooden ships will be stranded. Only by maintaining constant machine power can they sail out of the port and face the sea.

Even, to make an interesting prediction, the sign that the currency circle bubble has reached its peak will be that Buffett, the world's largest opponent of Bitcoin, begins to change his mind and even participates in the industry. The staged victory of the revolution is often The moment when crisis lurks the most.

The current currency circle can be compared to the Internet era in 1999. After experiencing a rapid blowout on the right track, the digital currency industry may usher in a drastic adjustment due to a huge bubble starting from the end of 2025. Looking back at history, the Internet industry ushered in Netscape's initial public offering (IPO) in December 1995, followed by Yahoo's listing in April 1996, which triggered a market craze. On March 10, 2000, the Nasdaq index reached its historical peak of 5408.6 points. However, the bubble burst quickly, and by 2001 the market entered a cold period. Although the broad cold winter lasted until 2004, the real low point was in October 2002, when the Nasdaq index almost fell below 1,000 points, marking the lowest point of the industry from a financial perspective.

In 2020, MicroStrategy successfully increased the value of the company's stock by purchasing BTC, achieving for the first time a Significant stock-to-currency linkage effect. In February 2021, Tesla announced its purchase of Bitcoin, which became a landmark event for the giant’s official entry. These historical moments can't help but remind people of the blockchain industry's "1995-1996" - the beginning of the Internet boom.

Looking forward, I think that at the end of 2025, the price of Bitcoin may usher in a long-term peak, but in early 2027, it may hit a new peak. trough. Once the FIT21 bill is passed, it may start a wave of universal currency issuance, just like the ".com" era.

If the threshold for token financing is reduced to almost zero, and even ordinary people can issue their own tokens just like high school students can easily learn to make a website, then The limited capital in the market will be quickly diluted by the swarm of various Tokens. In such an environment, the last wave of "raging bull market" belonging to token issuers may not last more than three months. Subsequently, due to the imbalance of market supply and demand and the depletion of capital, the industry will inevitably usher in a comprehensive collapse.

However, before that, in the next 12 months, we still have a potential beta increase of nearly 2 times for BTC, and for ordinary people, because the global Liquidity is gathering, and there are countless opportunities for early-stage currencies that can be “a hundred times a thousand times” in a very short period of time—why not participate?

And, looking back at the turmoil that year, it was also criticized by many media as a "bubble""Internet industry. Today, the Nasdaq index has exceeded the 20,000 point mark. Looking back, it looked like a mountain in 2000, but now it is just a small hill. Even if I entered the Internet in 2000 Industry, persisting to this day is still almost the most correct choice.

As for BTC, there are one small mountain bag after another.

3202 days have passed since I bought the first BTC on March 7, 2016.

I still remember, I pressed The price at the moment of the mouse is 2807RMB, which is less than 400 US dollars.

Many people have asked me, how high do you think BTC can go? < /p>

This question is meaningless. The price of gold has been hitting new highs these days and years.

The meaningful question is, the price of BTC How high can it rise before a certain point in time?

Let’s wait and see.

The best is yet to come.