| | | Good afternoon. Today is no ordinary issue – it’s our monumental 300th, and the very first of 2024. 300 issues, countless ups and downs, and one unwavering community.
Today we're raising a glass to you, our readers, who've stuck with us through it all. It’s been one helluva journey. | Happy new year. Now, let’s get back to it. | Today’s Big Stories: | 🧑🚀 History might be made mere hours from now
✍️ 11 lessons from 6 years in crypto | Today’s free newsletter is brought to you by Metla – An all-in-one crypto frontend for managing coins, NFTs, DeFi activity and more. | Today's newsletter is 725 words, a 3-minute read. |
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| ETF Jitters | What else is there to really talk about? | Everyone is holding their breath waiting for the SEC to decide on the future of spot bitcoin ETFs. | Hell, by the time you are done reading this email, the ETFs could already have been approved (or not) and we’ll sound like fools (wouldn’t be the first time). | As of right now, everything is pointing to the ETFs being approved. Members of the Nasdaq team, for example, met with the SEC today to discuss the ETF. | While the meeting doesn’t explicitly mean the ETF will be approved, analysts such as Bloomberg’s Eric Balchunas have made it clear that the SEC doesn't do these kinds of meetings if it is going to “deny or delay” the proposals. | But that doesn’t mean approval is in the bag. The market is still wary… | Case in point was this morning when BTC plunged 7% on the release of a report from digital asset manager Matrixport with the title: “Why the SEC will REJECT Bitcoin Spot ETFs again.” | In our opinion this looks like an ill informed PR stunt not too dissimilar to Contelegraph’s ill informed “approval” tweet some months back. | Bottom line: Investors are jumpy right now. | And whatever happens next – whether the ETF is approved or not – will cause hot-takes, emotional reactions, and prognosticators claiming they know what is best for you and your money. | Here at CoinSnacks, we are hopeful for an ETF and the wider acceptance of bitcoin – without a doubt – but the truth is that we are more excited about the next 10, 20, 50 years, not the next 7 days. | | SPONSORED | An All-in-one Crypto Frontend | | Get free real-time notifications on all crypto transactions via Telegram & Email. Monitor your token permissions, NFT transfers & Airdrops. Get ENS domain renewal reminders and much more! | |
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| | 11 Lessons From 6 Years in Crypto | Over break, we’ve read way too many “2024 prediction” pieces that coincide with our own. So today, instead of looking forward, we’re going to look back and provide some retrospective.
Our crypto journey started in early 2018, so it’s been nearly 6 full years of weekly crypto musings from yours truly. Here are ten lessons we’ve learned along the way: | If it looks too good to be true, it is.
Price predictions are almost entirely complete bullshit. We can’t read another “Cathy Wood predicts BTC will hit $xyz.”
About 90% of DeFi is still junk. Most DeFi protocols are designed to help people just speculate/trade on other cryptos at the expense of other people. It’s not sustainable. The industry needs to sell more products to people who will pay for them with their time, effort, and local currency.
So many distractions make crypto, specifically bitcoin, way more complicated than it should be.
It constantly feels like we are late to the party, but the truth is we are still early.
Decentralized currency is amazing. But we’re not sold on decentralized everything. The wisdom of the crowds – or, group-think – is not always best, and often fails to outperform a well-rounded small team of executives, builders, or visionaries that put their heart and soul into something.
Institutional adoption is painfully slow. We’ve been saying that it’s “right around the corner” since we started and we’re now just finally getting an ETF. Many companies are still extremely hesitant to allocate BTC to their balance sheet.
Most of the people that don’t “get” bitcoin and talk down about it do so from a cushy throne in a centralized first world economy (🇺🇸). Meanwhile, more than 1 billion people live in double-digit inflation around the world. Just because you don’t need to use bitcoin day-to-day, doesn’t mean others don’t as well.
Most of the regulators are genuine people, just trying to do their jobs right. Crypto enthusiasts are way too quick to judge. Except Elizabeth Warren - she’s the worst haha.
Dollar Cost Averaging is the way to go. Don’t batch buy when you think the time is right. Mitigate your risk with recurring purchases. Even it is just $50 a week. It’ll save you some sleep too. Just because digital currencies are a democratizing force for good doesn’t mean that the people involved are benevolent. If anything, the space has produced more frauds, scams, and rug pulls than any other industry in the past 15 years. We’ll call it growing pains.
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 | Jack Mallers @jackmallers |  |
| I no longer own any US dollars. Not even a penny. As an American millennial, I love our country but I oppose our money. I'm all in on #Bitcoin. Setting my sails toward prosperity or going down with the ship. I believe it's important to take a stance now more than ever 🫡 |  | | | Jan 2, 2024 | | |  | | | 11.2K Likes 1.6K Retweets 720 Replies |
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