2021 is about to wrap up, so it’s time to reflect and start thinking about all the exciting things to come in the future.
For me personally 2021 has been an exciting and a meaningful year. To start the year I decided to go all into crypto. After I fell into the Bitcoin rabbit hole, it just made no sense to be investing in stocks or saving my money in my bank account.
For those of you who still dip and dabble in the stock market or have parked their Brinks truck at Citi Bank at 0.50% APY, I urge you to reconsider and join the crypto party. Raoul Pal would certainly agree with me:
Intuitively it didn’t take long for me to move from Bitcoin to Ethereum and other altcoins.
My first successful punt was on Chiliz ($CHZ), which I bought at around $0.05. The pump that followed was mind-blowing. It seemed logical that the price would retract so I kept taking profits and reallocating into Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Polkadot, which turned out to be a good move in the long-run.
Lesson here is that most small cap altcoin pumps are not sustainable. In the end it is a game of musical chairs. Take your profits and reallocate into large cap Layer-1s. (Unless you believe it to be a token that will change the world.) More on that later.
What is Chiliz you might ask? In short, Chiliz developed the Socios.com sports fan engagement platform which is built on the Chiliz blockchain infrastructure & uses $CHZ as it’s exclusive on-platform currency. As an avid Fussball fan (English get angry if I say soccer), I think that fan tokens have a tremendous potential. Stay tuned on Chiliz — once they onboard American sports teams (think NFL,NBA,MLB) and cricket in India it’s a wrap.
So that was definitely one of my crypto highlights of the year — a home run of sorts. Unfortunately, I didn’t put down a significant amount so nothing noteworthy— just a lovely memory and a frivolous visit to the Outback Steakhouse.
Over the course of the year I also had to learn to deal with several dips in the market. Notably, we had a good one in May and more recently in November.
Surprisingly, these kinds of market dynamics don’t really bother me too much. I have long realized that market volatility is more related to leveraging and traders going back and forth. For example, I have spent countless hours listening to Willy Woo and Plan B banter about charts and price analytics and to be honest I still don’t really understand much of it.
It is not really my cup of tea and in the long-run it doesn’t really matter. I would consider myself more of an investor and not a trader. For those new to this space, I would strongly suggest you to learn about technology itself at first and don’t get bogged down with technical analysis as it is of no consequence to you (in the long run).
Frivolously, I tweeted my thoughts on the May dip and my little Tweet of no consequence was picked up by the Independent. I was quite pleased but partly pissed off that they omitted my Chuur (if you know what that means comment below).
So if you are worried about the dip — don’t be! DYOR and find a technology that will change the world. Zoom out! Crypto / Web3 is inevitable! Mark Yusko explains:
Ran Neuner of Crypto Banter has the same narrative:
In fact, I would venture to argue that all crypto leaders in this space would tell us the same thing!
Of course believing in something requires you to do some research and thus here we are on this journey together (#WAGMI).
Unfortunately, I didn’t really catch the Solana pump nor did I figure out NFT’s in time. The big GameFi rally also eluded my wallet — not to mention the DeFi summer. Partly, I suspect because I was busy dollar cost averaging into blue-chip coins i.e. high-quality assets that have withstood the test of time.
Accordingly, my goal for 2022 is to catch some of the emerging themes before they happen.
Elliot Trades Crypto has a list of investible themes that have captured my attention:
I am particularly interested in these five emerging themes:
- ZK-Roll-ups;
- Play-to-earn GameFi;
- DAOs;
- Music;
- Metaverse & NFT’s.
I have discussed ZK Roll-ups ad nauseum in my two previous posts so be sure to check them out for more details:
The Ethereum Scaling Solutions Gold Rush and Ethereum might have more to offer than just high gas fees.
Don’t believe the me — here is Ran Neuner giving us the same picks as I do in my ZK post:
L2BEAT is an analytics and research website about Ethereum layer two (L2) scaling. They provide a comparison of the various Ethereum L2 systems available today. Do some DYOR and decide for yourself if you want to take a punt. Ethereum is going to scale and Layer 2 blockchains are sure to catch fire in 2022.
GameFi is also super interesting. I also covered this one in my post on Degen Metaverse Altcoin Picks.
Not enough? The Block Research has an excellent report to get you started on your blockchain-based gaming journey so have a peek.
I am more of a bookworm so I get a kick out of reading these kinds of reports. However, if you prefer YouTube explainer vids then tune into Crypto Banter’s new show In the Game. Host Hustle definitely knows and ‘looks’ like he knows what he is talking about. (Pardon my little stab at all you game/computer nerds for you have the last laugh making all that cash (tokens).)
GameFi will be a MEGAtrend in 2022! It is inevitable! Imagine what will happen once Korea’s youthful Internet Addicts realize they can play games AND not feel bad about it. In fact they can brag about working hard!
This brings us to DAOs, which is in short a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). A DAO is a software running on a blockchain that offers users a built-in model for the collective management of its code. Someone on Real Vision Crypto called a DAO a Reddit community with a bank account — nifty!
Coopahtroopa is definitely on the ball and a bit of a thought leader. I can see how DAOs are poised to make moves in 2022. Raoul Pal is also constantly beating the drums about the importance of communities and DAOs.
Here is a ‘little’ mind map of some DAOs that might be of interest:
Why did my eyes catch the FWB Social DAO right away?
The Friends with Benefits DAO is the ultimate cultural membership powered by a community of our favourite Web3 artists, operators, and thinkers bound together by shared values and shared incentives ($FWB).
Fascinating name (FWB)— whatever it is, I am in, LFG!
*I have yet to put some serious thoughts / research behind this theme so stay tuned!
Another theme that I believe will make some noise is the music industry. Let me ask you this: Is the music industry’s future on the blockchain?
This seems intuitive, doesn’t it?
Water & Music has an excellent article on this:
The state of music/Web3 tools for artists
Oh no it happened again, the first project I notice on this diagram is FWB! I must look into this — (perhaps Nostalgia)?
Again, I have yet to put some serious thoughts / research behind this theme so I will keep you posted once I do more research on this topic.
The Metaverse / Web 3 as an investable theme is also a no brainer. I have written about this in >The Open Metaverse OS_ Deep Dive & Degen Metaverse Altcoin Picks.
As you know I am a big fan of Outlier Ventures’ Introducing The Open Metaverse OS.
BREAKING: Outlier Ventures just published a new paper MetaFi: DeFi for the Metaverse.
I also urge you to look into Jamie Burk’s The Metaverse Podcast. He has got it all covered — DAOs, music, identity & more. If you want to know what’s next, look no further.
I will wrap it all up with one last reference that I wanted to share with you. I recently came across Ryan Selkis of Messari on The Bankless Podcast.
In short, Ryan Selkis has written up a report that will blow your mind. This is pure digital gold. I have spent the last 6 days going over it, highlighting things, clicking on links, and above all learning. Do yourself a favour — print out the report (all 165 pages of it) and read it.
In summary, it is going to be an exciting 2022. #WAGMI. As I have previously mentioned, my writings are merely a reflection of my learning journey and my attempt to compartmentalize the cryptoverse. As such, I am pondering opening a Telegram Group to connect with you — let’s put our thinking caps on and figure this out together. Let’s create a space to share ideas! Comment if you are Frei.
Happy New Year 2022 ya’ll.
Frei Bier / Twitter: @FreiBIER13
Frei Bier Crypto Newsletter | Substack
DISCLAIMER: My writings are merely a reflection of my learning journey and my attempt to compartmentalize the cryptoverse. I am learning out loud so feel free to correct me or disagree with me. This is not investment advice but my hope is that you find value in some of my links and ideas.
