December 2017 – January 2018. Arguably the most amazingly exuberant time in cryptocurrency history – as far a price gains go. At the height of all the action, the air was filled with talks of an “adoption curve“, with possibly no end in sight for such price exuberance. But some predictions from the time are eerily spot on.

However, one crypto influencer was far too experienced to believe this type of market would last very long. Ryan Selkis, Aka TwoBitIdiot on Twitter and Medium, published his “95 Crypto Theses for 2018” on January 2nd of this year – and it includes some surprisingly accurate predictions. Here’s a few interesting points.

Several Notable Predictions

Prediction #2 – “I call it the cryptoasset barbell: cryptocurrencies (sky’s the limit), utility tokens (heading to zero), and “smart securities” (coming soon)”.

This appears to be pretty accurate. Tokenized securities seem to be where the crypto market is heading, with September seeing an 80 percent failure rate for ICOs.

The above ties in with #7, which in part states – “Crypto-securities aren’t really a thing yet, but they will be massive, and they will actually have measurable fundamental value”.

@coinbase CEO @brian_armstrong: "We do feel a substantial subset of these tokens will be securities…we want to be the legal compliant place where you can start to trade these tokens that are classified as securities.” #SecurityTokens https://t.co/YwbGdNhVh4 — Security Token (@security_token) September 8, 2018

At this stage, it’s a logical question to wonder the actual value of utility tokens, in that they don’t necessarily gain value based on the performance of the underlying company in the same way stocks do.

Tying in with prediction #5, – “Most utility tokens, then, will go to zero, regardless of team quality and execution. You simply don’t need to hold them but for momentum & greater fool investing. When the market lacks “higher order” investors for speculators to flip to, assets will unwind. Viciously.”

Utility tokens are merely incentives. Badges, streaks and points are the same thing. Neither is big on a global scale — Pomp ? (@APompliano) June 8, 2018

#20 was perhaps one of the most interesting predictions, detailing the major discounts currently seen.

Selkis writes – “There is no rhyme or reason to prices in crypto, and there will not be in 2018. Best to embrace that this will be a sentiment-driven market until the crash. Stay safe and embrace the opportunity to sit on the sidelines and do research! There will be gems to swoop up in the coming 99% off sale”.

Many crypto assets are still trading at such a discount, as chronicled in Coingape’s article, Crypto Sale: Top Price Gainers Available at >90% Discount From their ATH Prices, published in mid-September.

The respectable part of these price predictions is that they was made during two of the most euphoric months in crypto, when it was hard to see past all the positivity.

Predictions Still TBD

#10 –“BCH is tough to root for, but you have to be long as a hedge. If BCH loses badly, I doubt we’ll ever see on-chain BTC scaling, and Core’s stranglehold on the dev roadmap will be cemented. But if BCH wins, it could take down the whole asset class. Rock. Hard place.”

It will be interesting to see how the upcoming Bitcoin Cash fork on November 15 plays into this statement.

#18 – “Stablecoins will work until they don’t. Sure, the Basecoin and MakerDAO teams seem strong, but these things will always break under (not so) black swan market conditions. And like the fiat currencies they aim to replace, once they break, they’ll be broken for good.”

Seeing stablecoins as the new fad, the market may be in the middle of figuring itself out in this regard. TBD still on this one. Although Tether was pretty broken when it went down to $0.86 per USDT in October.

#58 also mentions crypto tax difficulties. “We need better crypto tax solutions. It’s mind-blowingly complex to do all this reporting”. Hopefully the IRS works on this one soon because crypto and taxes are brutal to record for honest tax paying citizens.

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