Crypto Macro Trends for 2022

Discussion in 'Crypto Assets' started by johnarb, Jan 3, 2022.

  1. johnarb

    johnarb

    *Everything in this post is for entertainment purposes only






    Last year 2021 was a great year for Bitcoin and Cryptos

    It was a good year for me, but not great

    I feel I missed out on incredible opportunities even though I spend many hours of the day constantly looking at individual projects and price movement and Bitcoin and crypto news

    If I simply stepped back and looked at the whole cryptos ecosystem, there were clear trends at specific time periods and those could have turned the crypto portfolio from good to great

    Going forward I will try to do this. I've watched several YouTube videos that did a year in review and a look-ahead for this year. and it was a good guide for me on how I can change my thinking process

    In no particular order, these are the crypto macro stuff I will be focusing on:

    • State of the Market (Are we still in a Bull Market or is it already a Bear Market?)
    • Layer 1 blockchain projects focused on Smart Contract platforms
    • Decentralized Finance (DeFi) which includes DAO's
    • Crypto (Blockchain) Gaming with incentives and Metaverse
    • NFT's
    • New trends

    Bull or Bear Market?

    The big elephant in the room is determining if we are still in a bull market or are we in bear market that will grind down lower and lower over the course of the year and even longer

    For this particular macro concept, my portfolio is mostly invested in Btc that "should" have the least amount of risk and volatility and if it's a bear market, it will be easier to go to cash


    Smart Contract L1's

    Layer 1 coins last year went absolutely bananas! Solana, and Terra Luna and Fantom went up over 10,000%, yup, $10,000 investment became over $1M

    The reason for this is that there was huge demand for blockchain storage (blockspace) on smart contract platforms because of DeFi, crypto gaming, and NFT boom

    Ethereum could not meet the demand is an understatement. So projects and users started building on other smart contract platforms, hence Solana, Alvalanche, Fantom, Terra Luna and others went nuts

    Will this continue? I believe so but only if we're still in a cryptos bull market. I'm positioned heavily in Fantom ecosystem and medium allocation to Solana


    Decentralized Finance

    DeFi was sort of quiet last year, but it seems certain DAO's with ponzinomics were the ones that became very popular, like Ohm

    For this sector, I've chosen Tomb Finance ecosystem. Yield farming and staking and when they release their Ohm fork called Life this month, I plan to get in early. These DeFi ponzis can provide good returns if you get in early enough but definitely requires a ton of caution and a minuscule allocation


    Crypto gaming and Metaverse

    Crypto gaming coins went up 1000's of % last year, but I find myself at a disadvantage since I'm not a gamer. I think Axie went up over 10,000% and Galaga games and UFO over 5,000%. Notable mentions would be Sand and Decentraland

    Anyway, I'm just picking one called Defi Land that seems to have a good team and roadmap since I don't have the time to properly research this by actually participating in the games


    Non-Fungible Tokens

    NFT's, what a year 2021 for Bored Apes, Punks, and others. This is also a very strong trend in the mainstream news. I'm choosing a very subdued approach to this sector as one thing that I dislike is the liquidity issue and valuation of individual NFT's in the same project. I have NFT's, Bears Deluxe but am considering acquiring some other ones but more for long term hodl


    New Macro Trends for 2022

    "Other trends" is really the one that needs a lot of attention. The trends from last year may not repeat this year and something big and new could be this year's winners. I did not mention the Dog coins and the likes from last year as I don't plan to put any allocation on those types of projects, but happy for others who have great success with them


    Anyway, these are my TL;DR thoughts for this year, but all of these are negated if we are in bear market so still waiting for my Bitcoin on-chain analyst subscriptions to advise on this as so far, they are all still indicating we're in a bull market :D


    Happy New Year and Good Luck to Crypto Assets investors!
     
  2. VicBee

    VicBee

    Thank you Johnarb for your expectations summary of 2022. The end of year has been rough on all of us crypto investors and I think we need to keep sharing related info when we find it, as well as share our thoughts without being flamed for one observation or another. We may not always agree with each other but we share the same goal of at least making money on our crypto investments.

    As far as I'm concerned this pull back is a sign that crypto is building up a strong rebound. Not a doubt in my mind.
     
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  3. Trader Curt

    Trader Curt

    I think gaming tokens will do well in 22. Especially considering the fact that some of them are working to bringing NFTs to the gaming space. Phantasma is one that I have an eye on right now, looking for a buy.
     
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  4. johnarb

    johnarb

    Thank you, I also believe things will turn around to the upside based on the amount of money and brain power coming into the space

    I really like this one because the FDV is still low and they have a lot of partners. Thanks for sharing this!


    I forgot to include on the OP the concept of zk-Rollups for scaling and privacy. There's been a lot of mention on this and I was reminded by Baron's post today on Matic

    jebus on CT mentioned $Dusk as his play which I'm watching but have no position in
     
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  5. Metaverse related crypto could definitely go well this year.
     
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  6. thanks for the summary! I think I'm having a similar feeling to what you describe. I feel like it was sitting right there in front of me the entire time, not just last year but for the past 2-3 and I somehow missed it. Now I'm playing catch-up.


    My 2 cents: I think L1's and Metaverse, in that order will be the major theme for this year, unless crypto gets highly regulated. I think most people don't yet understand what the Ethereum chain is versus eg., the ONE chain versus eg., Terra, etc. and how the different chains can act as ecosystems to serve specific purposes (my wife rolls her eyes when I talk this way - proof I'm early). It plays in with the Metaverse trade which I think is still very early. To this end I'm watching ETH, ONE, LUNA, MANA, IOTA, and, CRO & BNB (as an entry to crypto, ie., gotta pay to play). I think the L1's will put downward pressure on BTC but it can still go higher. Good luck out there!
     
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  7. Yes, I think so too there are artists already selling NFT it is possible will increase interest for creator NFT to make money through metaverse gaming, or selling NFT on a marketplace like in OpenSea
     
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  8. VicBee

    VicBee

    I would also add comments from Jason Calacanis and David Friedberg of The All In Podcast last week that 2022 will be the year for crypto projects to put up or fail, meaning that the tech community's time of living in a bubble is over, that the money being invested in their various projects need to produce tangibles or else. Per a previous analogy I made, those obsessing over the perfect concrete foundation will lose out to those who produce an imperfect but sellable house.
     
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  9. johnarb

    johnarb

    Thanks! My 2 satoshis :D

    L1, Metaverse and NFT's are an interesting combo for a theme

    And it's related to the regulations that you mentioned

    Do Kwon (Terra Luna) is basically telling SEC that the project is decentralized and not a security and they have no jurisdiction over a non-US citizen. Billionaire counter-suing the SEC

    Many crypto project teams are operating outside of the US and are decentralized

    In many Discords I join, there's a lot of "rich" crypto people because of the past 2 years. Some are very young but still able to communicate how crazy it's been in cryptos

    One convo I saw on Discord pretty much summed it up, he said he's still in high school and cannot tell his mom how he has all this wealth in cryptos, making $1,200/day in yields alone when the average monthly salary in his country (Asia) is less than $400 (As an aside, yields are gone at the moment due to peg parameters being lower than target, could come back later)

    Everyone's ready and some are looking forward for the bear market to arrive so we can have a break from all this madness

    I should not say I'm looking forward to a bear market, but I do feel anxious and as far as a break, not sure it's going to be champagnes and caviars with the restrictions on everything IRL

    So to circle back to the beginning of the post re: the macro theme, L1 smart contracts, Solana, Ethereum, Fantom Avalanche, Binance Smart Chain, Terra Luna, etc are going to play an important role

    Along with DeFi, AAVE, Uniswap (and all dexes) and stablecoins and NFT's

    During the bear market, many cryptos players are not going to cash out to the traditional banks but they may cash out to the crypto banks

    This is very important outside of the US where the banks cannot be trusted

    It's also important even in Europe where the banks do not welcome money coming from cryptos

    They are going to utilize stablecoins especially the algorithmic ones like UST, MIM, Rai, Fei and earn yields from crypto banks like AAVE

    They will also utilize NFT's especially the blue chips NFT's to store some of their wealth

    They'll even enjoy using the NFT's in the metaverse since events like concerts and parties with Snoop Dogg and Eminem, both are involved with NFT's

    Everyone chills and work on projects and in a few years, when crypto bull market is back, things are going to absolutely go bonkers again
     
  10. Overnight

    Overnight

    My intuition is telling me the bull will be back for cryptos (or at least BTC) sometime in late February. Don't ask me where that comes from. I have no idea.
     
    #10     Jan 5, 2022
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