Blockchain

Examining Bitcoin’s Valued Attributes: A Letter to the SEC

Reading Time: 11 minutes What follows is the content from a comment letter submitted to the SEC in response to questions and concerns regarding Bitcoin’s value. The comment letter can be viewed in its entirety here but the content is copied below. The Value of Bitcoin Bitcoin is often described as digital money. However, given that reasonable people may disagree as […]

The post Examining Bitcoin’s Valued Attributes: A Letter to the SEC appeared first on BlockchainCapital.

Published

2 years ago

June 27, 2019

Republished by Plato

Reading Time: 11 minutes

What follows is the content from a comment letter submitted to the SEC in response to questions and concerns regarding Bitcoin’s value. The comment letter can be viewed in its entirety here but the content is copied below.

The Value of Bitcoin

Bitcoin is often described as digital money. However, given that reasonable people may disagree as to whether or not bitcoin meets the criteria of money and that money is simply a subset of property, it is sufficient to categorize bitcoin as property[1].

As digital property that does not generate cash-flows, it may be tempting to conclude that bitcoin does not have value. However, such a conclusion is evidently short-sighted: Empirically, millions of people from every region of the world have ascribed value to bitcoin as an asset. This letter will examine why this phenomenon has occurred by analyzing bitcoin’s underlying attributes in relation to other, more familiar store-of-value assets with similar properties.

Prior to doing so, quantifying the market for store-of-value assets may be helpful context to better understand the magnitude of wealth that seeks assets with similar attributes.

Quantifying the Store-of-Value Market

While “store-of-value” is a term that is unfamiliar to most, these types of assets are pervasive across the global economy and well-recognized in all but name.

There are several types of assets that are used as a store of value — that is, these are assets that are not acquired for the purpose of cash flows but, instead, are acquired in order to preserve wealth over time. For brevity, this evaluation will focus on three of the largest store-of-value markets:

· Gold: The total value of above-ground gold is roughly US $9 trillion. For a conservative estimate, we can restrict this quantification to the total amount of gold held for private investments and by the official sector which, in total, account for roughly 38% of all above ground gold, or roughly US $3.5 trillion at current market prices (as of June 2019).[2]Granted, this is an overly conservative estimate as it does not include any of the gold used for jewelry which exceeds US $4 trillion in value — and some portion of which is undoubtedly used as a store of value (as opposed to purely for its cosmetic appeal).

· Art and Collectibles: Deloitte estimates that ultra-high net worth individuals alone store a total of US $1.6 trillion in art and collectibles.[3]Given that these individuals do not comprise the entirety of the art and collectibles market, we can very conservatively use US $1.6 trillion as a low-end estimate of the overall art and collectibles store-of-value market. Further supporting this figure as a conservative estimate, Baird Asset Management estimated the total value of the collectibles market at US $4.3 trillion.[4] Later in this comment letter, I will address how high-end collectibles and art are primarily used as store-of-value assets.

· Real Estate: As of 2017, HSBC estimates that the total value of residential property amounts to roughly US $168 trillion.[5] While a significant portion of the total residential real estate market is attributable to purposes that are not exclusively for storing value — such as its consumptive value (e.g. people living in their homes) and cash-flows from rental opportunities — these purposes are not mutually exclusive with real estate’s utility as a store of value. Real estate’s utility as a store of value is particularly evident upon examination of the micro-structure of many metropolitan real estate markets where a significant portion of the market is driven by overseas purchasers that do not reside in the purchased homes or collect rental income — such purchases are strictly attributable to real estate’s utility as a store of value. As such, even a very conservative view of this market attributes 5%, or US $9 trillion to real-estate’s utility as a store of value.

In total, this very conservative estimate for total store-of-value assets amounts to over US $14 trillion. Regardless of whether the total market size is US $14 trillion or well-above US $100 trillion, it is clear that an extraordinary amount of the world’s wealth resides in assets with store-of-value properties. As is evident in the history of gold and other assets (e.g. other precious metals, real estate), this has been true for hundreds of years and I have found no reason to believe that it will cease.

Volatility and Store-of-Value Assets

Before examining bitcoin’s valued attributes and how they compare to other store-of-value assets, it may also be helpful to first address a common misperception that “store-of-value” implies that the value of such assets is perpetually stable. Looking at the other store-of-value assets listed above, this is clearly not the case.

For example, gold lost more than 50% of its value from 2011 to 2015; San Francisco real estate prices fell by more than 50% from 2006 to 2009 (according to S&P/Case-Shiller price index); and while the art and collectibles market is more difficult to measure and index, even the most favorable indices highlight significant volatility.[6]

Indeed, short-term volatility appears to be a hallmark of store-of-value assets rather than a black mark against them. This is largely caused by their above referenced characteristics. With very scarce items, relatively static supply coupled with fluctuating demand can lead to significant price volatility. Gold’s dramatic appreciation in the throes of the 2008 financial crisis is a great example of the effects of an inelastic supply.

This effect is uniquely amplified in bitcoin as a result of its unprecedented scarcity. As mentioned above, other assets are scarce, but even the scarcest assets, such as gold, still increase in supply every year — particularly when price increases and gold that was formerly unprofitable to mine becomes profitably accessible. In comparison, bitcoin exhibits absolute scarcity: supply is truly finite with a mathematical limit of 21 million coins ever being created. With an even more inelastic supply, bitcoin naturally sees larger volatility in its price.

Lastly, volatility is to be expected with market growth. As more investors gain exposure to this new asset class, liquidity increases, and larger amounts of money are required to move the market. In the early stages, relatively small investments could cause large swings in price. However, as the market has matured over the past 10 years, volatility has gradually decreased as the markets deepen. Today, large orders are absorbed without significant slippage.

This is important to appreciate otherwise we risk prematurely dismissing bitcoin as a useful store-of-value asset due to its intermittent periods of heightened volatility as adoption grows.

Examining Bitcoin’s Valued Attributes

To better understand bitcoin’s value as a vehicle for storing wealth, we can individually examine some of its valued attributes including its scarcity, divisibility, portability, fungibility, liquidity, programmability, ease of authentication, and the strong assurances it offers its users.

It’s helpful to explore each of these valued attributes in greater depth and relative to other store-of-value assets in order to further explain why tens of millions of people have ascribed value to bitcoin.

Scarcity

As stated above, the total supply of bitcoin is strictly limited to 21 million units that are released on a perfectly predictable and transparent supply schedule. Examining this attribute alone, bitcoin has value for the same reason that gold and high-end collectibles such as Picasso paintings and vintage vehicles have value: their absolute scarcity provides a useful conduit for capital preservation. With scarcity, holders of these items can rest assured that new supply will not dilute their accumulated wealth. This capability delivers real utility to hundreds of millions of people.

To a similar, albeit lesser extent, real estate also derives a significant portion of its value from scarcity and supply constraints. Indeed, the value of real estate as a byproduct of its scarcity — as opposed to consumptive value — is made readily apparent by examining the micro-structure of many metropolitan real-estate markets.

For example, over the past decade, the Vancouver residential real estate market has, to a significant extent, been driven by overseas purchasers that don’t reside in the purchased homes or collect rental income[7] — clearly these purchases are not for consumptive or cash-flow value, they’re a store of value in an asset with limited supply. The impact became so severe that Vancouver implemented an “empty-house” tax to discourage the use of local real estate as a store of value for foreign capital.[8] Regardless, the demand for these scarce assets is readily apparent.

Similarly, if we examine the market for gold and high-end collectibles such as Picasso paintings and vintage vehicles it becomes clear that the vast majority, if not the entirety, of their value is derived from scarcity.

Gold’s value in this respect is intuitive and well understood, so I will instead focus on the less familiar market of high-end collectibles. Paintings from the likes of Picasso and Van Gogh are undeniably beautiful and masterful, but purchasers do not acquire these assets to put them on their wall — indeed, the vast majority of these assets reside in vaults or museums. Surely, the purchasers of these assets did not acquire them for their inherent beauty — of which they have a limited capacity to consume — instead, these assets are acquired primarily because no new Picasso paintings or 1963 Ferrari GTOs will ever be made. Simply put, they are scarce, widely-recognized assets.

Bitcoin is valued for these exact same reasons; however, unlike gold or real estate which are inherently at risk to increases in supply (i.e. new supplies of gold being discovered, or sudden new development in real estate), bitcoin’s supply is enforced algorithmically and hard coded into the network, making its scarcity superior to previous store-of-value assets.

Some have raised concerns about other blockchain-based digital assets diluting the total supply of bitcoin. However these fears are misguided: These other blockchain-based digital assets will not be validated or recognized by the Bitcoin network. In this sense, the notion that other blockchain-based digital assets dilute the supply of bitcoin is erroneous in the same way that suggesting that newly minted Thai Baht dilutes the supply of US Dollars.

Despite their utility as a scarce asset, at an average price per Picasso painting or vintage Ferrari in the tens of millions of dollars, and the average home price in Vancouver over US $1 million, these assets are largely inaccessible to the vast majority of people — which leads to another of bitcoin’s valued attributes: divisibility.

Divisibility

Whereas the required capital to access scarce assets such as metropolitan real estate, or high-end collectibles exceeds US $1M, the fact that bitcoin is divisible to eight decimal places lowers the barrier to entry for exposure to less than US $1. In part, this helps explain why bitcoin has been a democratizing “bottom-up” asset with the smaller end of the market driving a majority of volume to-date — in contrast to the other assets described which have largely been confined to the realm of high net-worth individuals. In this sense, bitcoin is the every man’s Picasso.

Furthermore, while a majority of purchasers use these assets as a store of value, it is extremely challenging and cumbersome to sell a fraction of a Picasso painting, a fraction of a 1963 Ferrari GTO, or a fraction of a home in Vancouver. In comparison, users of bitcoin as a store of value can readily liquidate any fraction of their holdings with ease. This is real utility that is valued by many of its users.

Portability

As the native asset of a global network, bitcoin can quickly and easily be transferred to anywhere in the world. In comparison, most other store-of-value assets are impossible or extremely cumbersome to transfer: real estate is inherently immobile, vintage vehicles are challenging and expensive to move and, given their fragility, classic paintings are similarly challenging to transport.

Relative to most other store-of-value assets, gold likely has the best portability but even gold is heavily constrained in this respect by its physical nature. For example, in 2013 the Bundesbank announced a decision to repatriate 20% of the country’s total gold stock from foreign vaults in Paris and New York. However, repatriating even a minority percentage of Germany’s total stock took roughly 5 years and cost over US $9 million to complete[9]. In comparison, a similar value of bitcoin could be transferred in mere hours at less than a millionth of the cost.

Bitcoin’s portability is clearly a valuable and unprecedented attribute.

Fungibility / Homogeneity

Among traditional store-of-value assets, only gold is fungible: That is, one ounce of gold is as valuable as any other ounce of gold. In comparison, each Picasso painting is priced differently; each vintage Ferrari is valued varyingly according to its current condition; and every piece of real estate is valued differently depending on a variety of factors (location, size, condition, etc).

In this sense, bitcoin resembles gold: Each bitcoin or fraction thereof is equally as valuable as other units of the same size. This is important because it reduces the overhead costs of evaluating the various qualities of each asset to arrive at a fair price.

Liquidity

Partly as a byproduct of its divisibility, fungibility, and portability, bitcoin has a highly liquid secondary market that is conducive to an efficient market and price discovery. While classic paintings and vintage vehicles rarely trade in secondary markets and consequently, have poor price discovery, bitcoin regularly trades more than US $250M of spot market volume — and often sees more than US $1B of daily volume. Bitcoin’s liquidity is valuable to users in that they can quickly acquire and dispose of the store-of-value asset with minimal transaction costs. Empirically, we know that liquidity is valuable in that liquid assets tend to sell at a premium relative to illiquid assets.

Furthermore, whereas real estate transactions take months to finalize and with costs typically totaling 8–20% of the property transacted, units of bitcoin can be transacted in seconds with <1% transaction costs. Bitcoin’s reduced transaction fees and accelerated transaction timeframe are a boon to users of store-of-value assets and bring additional liquidity to the market by lowering barriers to entry.

Programmability

Among other store-of-value assets, bitcoin is particularly unique in its programmability. As a natively digital asset, bitcoin can be programmed to attain unique objectives and enhanced security.

For example, bitcoin can be sent to a “multi-signature” address that effectively specifies that under no circumstances can the bitcoin move unless, say, 2-of-3 or 4-of-5 parties consent to the transaction — effectively reducing a function of a vault to a few lines of code. Similarly, bitcoin can be sent to a “time-lock” address that specifies that under no circumstances can the bitcoin move before a predetermined point in the future.

In this way, Bitcoin natively replicates many of the functions of a legal vehicle such as a Trust or contract. However, whereas it can be costly — in terms of nominal expense and time — to establish a Trust or have a contract drafted, the Bitcoin network democratizes access by performing these functions with minimal time and cost.

Currently, more than 18% of all bitcoin in existence (valued over US $34 billion as of 6/22/19) is stored in multi-signature addresses — in this sense, bitcoin’s programmability delivers real utility to its users and programmability is another unprecedented and valued attribute.

Ease of Authentication

It is difficult to verify the authenticity of most traditional store-of-value assets. Even gold, one of the simplest assets to authenticate, requires dangerous nitric acid or expensive professional equipment.

At the more difficult end of the spectrum is the high-end collectibles market. For example, in the rare art market, forgeries are notorious and pervasive, and few people have the ability to discern high-quality frauds from authentic pieces — and even those that are qualified regularly disagree with one another regarding authenticity. Vintage vehicles are similarly (but less) challenging. Real estate similarly requires expensive and detailed inspections on the various aspects of the property.

In comparison, bitcoin can easily be authenticated on a standard computer using free and widely available software which makes it more accessible and valuable to a greater number of people.

Strong Assurances

Earlier we discussed the impact of foreign store-of-value purchasers on the Vancouver real estate market but this occurrence is not unique to Vancouver — indeed this occurs in many cities across Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and others.

What these cities have in common is that they all reside in jurisdictions with relatively strong property rights. Given that people have an innate desire to protect their property, wealth gravitates to these jurisdictions (particularly from countries with weak or ill-defined property rights or where they are poorly or unequally enforced) in part to mitigate the risk of wealth seizure.

Bitcoin is very useful in this respect: Its underlying network is a rules-based, self-arbitrating court where valid transactions are clearly defined, objectively verifiable, and unerringly enforced by network participants’ software. As a result, bitcoin offers its users strong, geo-politically neutral assurances for objective property rights, impersonal rules and consistent enforcement.

Bitcoin’s strong assurances are of great utility to the largest segment of the population: good, honest people that want to protect their property in a non-violent manner.

Conclusion

While, admittedly, digital assets and digital scarcity are relatively new frontiers for everyone, bitcoin has over 10 years of consistent operating history and the market is unequivocal in its demand for an asset with bitcoin’s attributes — many of which are unprecedented.

At a low-end market estimate of roughly US $14 trillion for store-of-value assets, the magnitude of the market reflects people’s innate desire to preserve a portion of their wealth through scarce and well-recognized assets.

Lastly, given that demand for store-of-value assets has persisted for thousands of years and that bitcoin presents a unique — and in many ways superior — set of attributes as a store-of-value asset in the digital age, it seems reasonable to allow the American investing public easy, secure and regulated access to financial products that provide price exposure to this asset through existing, trusted channels and advisors.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on this filing and the value of bitcoin.

Sincerely,

Spencer Bogart, CFA

General Partner, Blockchain Capital

Thank you to Conner Brown, Ben Davenport, Aleks Larsen, Hasu, H Joshua Rivera, Bart Stephens, and Aisling Cronin for edits, revisions and suggestions.

[1] IRS Notice 2014–21, Section 4 https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-14-21.pdf

[2] World Gold Council, as of 2017. https://www.gold.org/about-gold/gold-supply/gold-mining/how-much-gold

[3] Deloitte and ArtTactic, Art and Finance Report 2017 z https://www2.deloitte.com/lu/en/pages/art-finance/articles/art-finance-report.html

[4] Baird Asset Management, “Picasso, St. Gaudens or Lafite: Does Passion Have a Place in Wealth Management?”, 2009, https://content.rwbaird.com/RWB/Content/PDF/Insights/Whitepapers/does-passion-have-a-place-in-wealth-management.pdf

[5] HSBC, Global Real Estate: Trends in the world’s largest asset class, 2017 https://internationalservices.hsbc.com/content/dam/hsbcis/pdf/HSBC_Global_Real_Estate_Report_July2017.pdf

[6] See Artnet’s price indices. https://www.artnet.com/price-database/

[7] “The Role of Foreign Capital in Vancouver’s Housing Market”, Anjum Mutakabbir, Simon Fraser University School of Public Policy, 2014.

[8] City of Vancouver, Bylaw 11674, https://vancouver.ca/your-government/vacancy-tax-bylaw.aspx

[9] Financial Times, Claire Jones, “How Germany got its gold back”, November 2017

Source: https://blockchain.capital/examining-bitcoins-valued-attributes-a-letter-to-the-sec/

Blockchain

Market Analysts Say Bitcoin Holders Are Adding On Dips, Noobs Panic Sell

Market Analysts Bitcoin Holders

Rate this post The leading market analysts believe that the long-term holders of Bitcoin are adding the cryptocurrency on dips whereas the people who are beginners are selling the digital assets. The noobs in the crypto industry are selling off their asset and are losing their positions due to the panic situation in the market. Bitcoin Holders Stacking Up, Tells Market Analysts Well, the prices of the leading cryptocurrency seem to have stabilized over the past 24 hours as the panic selling has lowered and the noobs appear to have been pushed out of the market. At the time of writing this article, the price of bitcoin is $45,400, which is up 5% since yesterday, and its low during this period of correction went to as low as $42K on May 17. In addition to this, it should be noted that the correction has already shed 35% in 35 days which ultimately declared it to be the largest one of the current rally and almost copying a likely correction that occurred during the year 2017. Using the data from the weekly report of Glassnode, the analysts have confirmed that the recent entries in the market have surrendered at a loss while the long-term holders have continued to make purchases at the dips. Weak Hands and Noobs Panic Selling In response to the tweet shared by the owner of Tesla, Elon Musk, heavy selling was witnessed in the market that ultimately led to the tumbling in the prices of Bitcoin to their lowest levels in 20 weeks. Glassnode, the on-chain analytics provider mentioned that the total number of addresses holding a non-zero BTC balance has also retreated from its ATH of 38.7 million as over a million traders in the market elucidated their positions. Along with this, Glassnode stated: “A total of 1.1M addresses have spent all coins they held during this correction, again providing evidence that panic selling is currently underway.”

The post Market Analysts Say Bitcoin Holders Are Adding On Dips, Noobs Panic Sell appeared first on Cryptoknowmics-Crypto News and Media Platform.

Published

45 mins ago

May 18, 2021

Republished by Plato

Table of Contents

Rate this post

The leading market analysts believe that the long-term holders of Bitcoin are adding the cryptocurrency on dips whereas the people who are beginners are selling the digital assets. The noobs in the crypto industry are selling off their asset and are losing their positions due to the panic situation in the market.

Bitcoin Holders Stacking Up, Tells Market Analysts

Well, the prices of the leading cryptocurrency seem to have stabilized over the past 24 hours as the panic selling has lowered and the noobs appear to have been pushed out of the market.

At the time of writing this article, the price of bitcoin is $45,400, which is up 5% since yesterday, and its low during this period of correction went to as low as $42K on May 17.

In addition to this, it should be noted that the correction has already shed 35% in 35 days which ultimately declared it to be the largest one of the current rally and almost copying a likely correction that occurred during the year 2017.

Using the data from the weekly report of Glassnode, the analysts have confirmed that the recent entries in the market have surrendered at a loss while the long-term holders have continued to make purchases at the dips.

Weak Hands and Noobs Panic Selling

In response to the tweet shared by the owner of Tesla, Elon Musk, heavy selling was witnessed in the market that ultimately led to the tumbling in the prices of Bitcoin to their lowest levels in 20 weeks.

Glassnode, the on-chain analytics provider mentioned that the total number of addresses holding a non-zero BTC balance has also retreated from its ATH of 38.7 million as over a million traders in the market elucidated their positions.

Along with this, Glassnode stated:

“A total of 1.1M addresses have spent all coins they held during this correction, again providing evidence that panic selling is currently underway.”

READ Price of XRP Increases By 17% Bringing Stellar To A New Peak

#Bitcoin #Bitcoin Holders #Market Analysts

Source: https://www.cryptoknowmics.com/news/market-analysts-suggests-bitcoin-holders-are-adding-on-dips-noobs-panic-sell/

Blockchain

StormGain: Crypto Mining now available on all smartphones

Published

60 mins ago

May 18, 2021

Republished by Plato

For many years, cryptocurrency mining has only been reserved to a select few – those people with enough time and capital willing to invest resources into setting up their own mining rigs. However, cloud mining has been quickly gaining speed, and StormGain’s solution removes the technical barriers from the equation in hopes of creating a more even playing field.

Since miners need to keep several factors in mind, including electricity costs, upkeep and maintenance, and the overall investment return, mining has become less lucrative for the smaller players. StormGain wants to change this narrative, and give everyone the chance to participate in the verification of cryptocurrency transactions, earning a nice income whilst doing so.

Cloud mining is a prevalent trend in the cryptocurrency industry today. However, many providers claim to offer significant yields and fail to deliver on those promises. StormGain is a different breed, as it provides a mobile-based cloud mining solution. Every user can mine cryptocurrency directly from their mobile phone without dealing with the hardware side of things. Mobile app users connect directly to remote cloud servers, allowing StormGain to provide a risk-free and convenient mining solution, incomparable to those offered by other cloud mining service providers.

The first step is to register at the StormGain platform using a smartphone – or desktop computer for those who prefer that option. StormGain purposely opts for a pain-free registration process to get as many people acquainted with cloud mining as possible. The registration process also involves a lucrative bonus of $5 USDT, delivered directly to users’ mining accounts. The process is simple – upon registering, use the promo code MINER to receive the bonus. After confirming the account, users can begin mining Bitcoin right away by connecting to the cloud mining server, with no impact whatsoever on the smartphone’s performance.

After meeting the minimal $10 USDT profit threshold, users are free to trade and exchange their crypto assets with StormGain. Withdrawal of mined currency is not possible without going through the trading process first, but all profit generated via trading can be transferred out of one’s account at any given time – a fair trade-off.

The trading and exchanging via StormGain is available at 0% commission, with users benefiting from all standard and advanced instruments at their disposal. The service also introduces fiat-based cryptocurrency purchasing for those who want to expand their crypto portfolio quickly and effortlessly.

StromGain has contracted incredible partnerships since its inception, making it the 1# interest rate provider for crypto traders by CoinMarketCap, a member of the well-known Blockchain Association within the Financial Commission, but also an S.S. Lazio official trading partner, and the market’s best cryptocurrency trading & exchange platform, according to The European. To date, StormGain’s trading product notes a 30-day volume of over $6 billion, generated by tens of thousands of traders worldwide.

What sets StormGain apart from other cloud mining providers is how mining rewards are proportional to trading volume. Users with a higher trading volume will earn a higher daily mining income. Mining with StormGain over more extended periods can have a significant impact on one’s profit potential, showcasing huge capital inflows for the most active miners and traders.

Cloud mining rewards are distributed every 30-40 minutes. Then, users are free to withdraw the funds to their trading accounts, within less than 72 hours. For newcomers, the first mined Bitcoin rewards will become accessible within 4 hours, a feat that is available nowhere else within the cloud mining industry.

About StormGain

As part of its services, StormGain’s cloud mining service effectively removes all entry barriers to the mining market. Consequently, there’s no longer a need to invest in expensive mining chips that take up space, make noise, and consume electricity. Contract prices are inherently small so ongoing investments can translate to significant profits over the long term. Since the bitcoin mining service is readily available via the cloud, accessing it via desktop and mobile devices couldn’t be easier, with no hardware and time investments involved.

Disclaimer: This is a paid post and should not be treated as news/advice.

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Source: https://ambcrypto.com/stormgain-crypto-mining-now-available-on-all-smartphones

News

Bitcoin’s Market Share Falls Below 40%

Published

1 hour ago

May 18, 2021

user

Bitcoin’s market share has fallen below 40% for the first time in three years as altcoin sezun gives rise to many cryptos.

In particular ethereum has risen to its highest crypto market share since the last peak in February 2018, accounting for more than 19%.

That’s almost as much as all other cryptos combined at 21%, which themselves have seen considerable appreciation with the top 20 ranking transformed:

Bitcoin’s market cap has fallen now to $800 billion, while ethereum is almost half of it at $400 billion.

Then we have Binance Coin which is like their token share, worth $80 billion in part because Binance buys it back based on quarterly profits.

Cardano is the only one to survive in rankings from the 2017 ICO whitepaper wave with it on fourth position based on promises of smart contracts ‘soon,’ albeit about five years too late as eth invented smart contracts in 2015.

Doge is perhaps the wildcard crypto as no one thought it would rise to top five, yet maybe it should have been predictable, except no one could guess Elon Musk would shill it even on SNL.

Tether is at the top still with a market cap of $60 billion. Some say the bull will end when tether goes to the second page of rankings, but we’re not sure how much that will be true.

XRP survives. Still no all time high as it fights SEC in court, but it’s clinging on despite being delisted from many exchanges.

Polkadot has risen to a market cap of $37 billion with this trying to solve scalability by getting shards to go through a central coordinator which happens to be a bottleneck.

Finally a new coin, the Internet Computer. Ohh, it’s Dfinity! Finally this has launched. Just now actually on May 10th. We haven’t quite looked at it yet, but back in 2019 Joseph Lubin of ConsenSys said:

“Dfinity has a very strong team. Because dfinity is a currently closed system controlled by a small number of investors and token holders – though they’ve indicated they will open source their project at some point – it is hard to tell, but it appears to me they are less interested in being a global base trust and settlement layer and more like a somewhat decentralized AWS replacement.

They’re likely to do a very good job of this whenever it gets released.

Ultimately, it doesn’t seem viable for Dfinity to be a base trust layer for the planet as there is one fundamental design choice that they and Cosmos made that will prohibit this.

Both Dfinity and Cosmos favor safety or consistency over availability and liveness. This means that if 34% of the nodes on their networks find themselves on the wrong side of some great firewall that blocks traffic for a period, their entire global network will halt, freezing every system built on it.

And there are other known related failure modes. This is a non starter for many different classes of application.”

As it happens, eth 2 has this 34% as well, which is why plenty think the ethereum PoW chain will keep running even if the eth 2 PoS chain becomes dominant.

Bitcoin Cash is down to 10th now with Litecoin keeping on since 2011. Uniswap keeps up and up, with quite interestingly even USDC making top 20 with a market cap of $14 billion (wow).

Solana, this launched in March 2020 and never got our attention but seems a bit interesting on the surface because they claim they use a Proof of History in the blocks themselves or in the transactions.

At the most basic and utterly simplistic to the point of perhaps misleading, it sounds like each transaction has a private key of sorts (a hash) to prove that it was made before its inclusion.

The full details are worthy of study for those interested because, unless our surface view is mistaken, this is an experiment in scientific blockchain pruning.

We all know about the blockchain data ever increasing and that means no scaling. If you can remove old data from storage however, while still being able to prove the history of such old data so that you can trustlessly synch on the network and obviously so that you can prove coins are not just being printed, then there are effectively no scalability constrains.

So if Solana proves itself, their method or some adaptation of it may be incorporated into bitcoin where devs there have been tinkering with crypto hash based pruning, something that would make bitcoin globally scalable.

Polygon (Matic) is a second layer on eth so how this is so valuable is not clear, but the token is probably used in a Proof of Stake environment and so speculators are maybe betting this will find much usage in eth.

VeChain is ancient by crypto standards of the second blockchain generation wave with it focusing more on supply chain use of the blockchain and presumably doing something right since it keeps surviving.

Theta is a new one in rankings, although this launched in January 2018, and is “a blockchain powered network purpose-built for video streaming.”

Showing thus the crypto space is transforming, as was predicted during bear years, with two new entrants as well as an eth token ranking.

Interestingly both new entrants are scaling focused, so maybe at some point we’ll hopefully get out of the 80s dial-up and into 90s broadband when cryptos can go mainstream in usage.

As well as technical challenges to get there, there are also political challenges but somewhat slowly it looks like this space is generally moving in the right direction with innovation still clearly very much booming.

Source: https://www.trustnodes.com/2021/05/18/bitcoins-market-share-falls-below-40