There's a Mob at the Gates – Waving Money

Why you should invest in Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency

Imagine yourself standing in a big box store dickering with the salesperson about the price of a big screen smart tv. It's on sale, but you want it lower, you are a savvy shopper in this marketplace, and you know the salesperson wants that commission.

But you can't seem to talk the price down any further, and why? What's that noise?

Turn and look. There's a crowd outside the main entrance, pushing, budging, beginning to pound on the locked doors, and on the street, more are searching for parking. It's a mob scene. Word has gotten out, it seems.

Demand is growing so fast the doors were locked against the incoming mob.

This is the Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency market at the moment. All evidence suggests we have reached the tipping point into early adopters sooner than expected; and as they rush into the marketplace, it is at a pace so furious that the infastructure cannot support it. The highways and bridges – major exchanges and fiat entry points -- cannot carry the traffic.

Many major exchanges, including Binance, Bittrex – and others being added daily –have shut down new account creation. What was once as easy as entering and confirming an email address and sending in some BTC LTC or ETH has become impossible overnight. Before the shutdown exchanges were processing 250,000 or more new account requests every day, meaning millions of new buyers per week, and when Binance attempted to allow new accounts once more, they received 240,000 requests in a single hour and had to pull the plug again.

These aren't players who have tons of coins and tokens they want to sell. These are new people looking to get in. Holding their first BTC or ETH or LTC in their hands, they want to get in on the altcoin market, where instead of 100 times they expect to gain 1000 times or 10,000 times.

They've heard the stories and they want in. Now.

So on the recent market “correction” which entailed a 50% pullback on USD price for Bitcoin and most other altcoins, we are seeing some signs of the new pressure building in the speed of the bounceback. Traditional technical analysis is becoming less and less accurate due to this influx of millions of new players to the field every week. They don't behave traditionally, they don't “follow the rules” and they often want to buy at today's price, whatever it may be, and hold long term.

I was one of the geeks trading cryptos when cryptos weren't cool. We were a small group, internationally speaking, trading with one another and watching the rather predictable moves of the “whales” as we attempted not to be squeezed out or rekt in the pump and dump ecology. We were, by nature, the risk takers. The Innovators who knew we were playing with fire but were taking our burns and going on. After a year and a half, that ecology appears to be changing.

Climbing the Charts – It's got a good beat and you can dance to it.

This last year the crypto market followed some of the basic principles of Forex trading, and in 2017 those methods, adjusted slightly, worked amazingly well in predicting the highs and lows. Learning those basic methods I stopped losing money and started gaining rapidly. But I have witnessed many expert chartists I follow recently having to come back after the fact and say some version of this: “I was wrong on how high it would go and how fast it would get there, I underestimated the exuberance of the market.”

I think what's being underestimated is the pressure of that crowd outside the doors. They can't get in, they want in, and those of us on the inside look over our shoulders at that demand kept at bay, and we HODL stronger and buy at a higher price with more confidence. We know that cryptocurrency is not going to disappear and/or drop to zero. In the old days that was still a possibility, but now the market has gained enough of the world's wealth to become immortal.

Kiss my butt Powers That Be. We are coming for you.

As new exchanges open and existing exchanges attempt to scale up to meet the demand, this pressure will find it's way into the market. Some will find a way around, or break through, or buy someone else's account – these buyers will find their way in eventually. If the existing exchanges don't up their game quickly enough, and begin to shine by being responsive, easy to use, and with reasonable support ticket response times, then they will find themselves made obsolete.

Peer to peer exchanges, atomic swaps, wallets with exchange capabilities, all of these projects exist or are already in the works. The beauty of decentralization is that what the customers demand, they will be provided. What they need and support will thrive, because they will invest in it themselves. Any attempts to stop the tsunami of early adopters will be overrun by sheer demand and the ability of blockchain to respond with working products faster than any slow moving corporate behemoth can roadmap a new project.

Welcome to the market, newcomers! Watch out for scammers and projects with no real business or social usefulness, identify some to believe in, listen to sound advice, then make your own decisions. And when you've made good choices, listen to everyone and HOLD ON FOR DEAR LIFE (HODL). The best piece of advice, and one I wish I had listened to at the time, was given to me in an exchange chat box in 2016. A wise man said:

“Buy cryptos, all you can, then go down to the pub.
Come back in a year, cash out, and buy the pub.”

Those days are coming, those dreams are reachable for the common person for the first time in many centuries. And unlike other “investments” this is a game where your knowledge, skill and patience actually allow you to win – and if you don't have the first two you can likely win by throwing darts at the top 100 coins and having patience, given the overwhelming flood of buyers seeking to get in. Mass adoption is still years away, and you are here early.

Welcome indeed – This is the right place, the right time, and the right equal opportunity moment. Get yourself setup to purchase, even if you don't have funds. Get on Coinbase or Gemini and get verified. Spend time learning what you can. When exchanges allow new accounts get one on every exchange you know is legit. Then, cash out your change jar, your savings bonds, return your Christmas presents – buy a spread of solid coins, and come back in a year and tell me which pub you bought.