TL;DR: The last decade is in the books. The world Satoshi Nakamoto created dominated financial technology news, for better and worse. The final year was spicy, crazy, maddening even. As we live day 1 of the new year, we’re now beginning what for sure will beat 2019 and by a long, long shot. From Trump to Brexit, the Halvening to John McAfee’s penis, upgrades and innovations, it’s going to be wild. Welcome to 2020.

Welcome to 2020

LEGACY FINANCIAL MARKETS: You ready? We don’t think you possibly could be. Seriously. Nothing has prepared any of us for what is to come. Remember the start of the last decade? Classical economics, including our vaunted neo-Austrian School gurus, predicted mass inflation, near-permanent recession, rampant joblessness as a result of central bank intervention impotence and bailouts. Welp. They were wrong. Couldn’t have been more wrong. More than 100% wrong by any metric. The opposite of correct.

Inflation is almost nil. World economies are rocking. There are too many jobs and too few workers to fill them. Heck, the globe’s most prominent stock markets, largely contained in the United States, are posting unreal numbers, weighted averages without historical comparison. We were not allowed to enjoy the last decade of incredible gains, always on edge for the next collapse seemingly around the corner. And now everyone agrees it’s coming, baby, THE BIG ONE is finally going to hit in 2020. Bitcoiners have never operated during a recession or slight economic downturn.

TRUMP: In civilized, industrialized politics, the US again plays an over-represented role in affairs for a variety of reasons. The Orange God of Thunder has changed traditional calculus in this regard for almost the same kind of reasons as the unprecedented market boom: nothing like him has ever existed. He’s only the third president to be formally impeached by the House of Representatives, but his poll numbers went … up. Up!

He’s universally reviled by media — cannot get positive publicity to save his life. Yet those who gave his predecessors credit for prosperity on their respective watches now have to admit, even if only in passing, Trump has overseen the biggest economic expansion in history, and certainly over the last half-century. He also is theoretically weeks away from being physically removed from office by the Senate once the two articles against him are given a trial.

He could easily be tossed from the White House, his Vice President installed, run for reelection and win … all in 2020. What the hell! If you don’t find that incredible, even in theory, smoke less pot and regain some of your sensitization, brother (or sister). Whoa. And, and, Trump appears to hate bitcoin, a uniquely bipartisan position uniting his administration with the likes of Maxine Waters, his supposed grave political enemy. Who would’ve thought the most unconventional politician would not at least appreciate the most unconventional form of money. If Trump were still in civilian life as a private citizen, you know that dude would have launched several ICOs. Don’t lie. You know it. Go figure.

JOHN MCAFEE: The stat making headlines for all end-of-the-year reviews is how bitcoin rose some nine million percent in value last decade. That kind of return on investment led the made-for-crypto personality John McAfee pledge to eat his dick on national television if BTC doesn’t hit a $1,000,000 price by the end of 2020. The price as of publication is roughly 14,000% from that happening. There might not be a better incapsulation of crypto than The Dickening. Cringe at the mirror held to our ecosystem.

THE HALVENING: No less, um, sexy is The Halvening. You’re going to read a lot about it in the coming days, weeks, and months. The current projection is by Thursday, May 14th, 2020, 00:50:45 GMT, the block reward for BTC will be halved for the third time in its history, going from 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC. It’s a significant change for a host of reasons, but mostly for miners who secure the network. Their economic incentive decreases immediately, assuming the speculative price remains the same, but the inflation rate also decreases, setting up a form of manufactured scarcity.

The previous two events were thought to have caused price increases, the first modest and the second rather dramatically, lasting a full 4 months. Ah, my friend, ’twas but a different time back in 2016. BTC maxis were still talking about it as a global currency, a medium of exchange to compete with the world financial order, a peer-to-peer electronic cash. No more. BTC is “digital gold,” meant in fact to be a better central banking settlement solution for the modern age. It’s okay that BTC is clunky, expensive, and slow. If you’re looking for a deeper analysis of The Halvening, we chatted with economist Eli Dourado about what to expect.

BREXIT: This is also the United Kingdom’s year to officially cede from the European Union. Boris Johnson shocked the progressive world again recently when he was seemingly given an ass-kicking mandate to make good on the popular referendum to leave the bureaucratic clutches of Brussels. As is their want, economic catastrophists have predicted all manner of doom and gloom for BoJo’s Britain, but it’s going to be interesting to watch the transition. The UK has had a love/hate relationship with crypto, but is poised to be a fintech leader — a tension sure to nudge them closer to Bitcoinery. Hard to tell. One thing is for sure, cryptocurrency is deeply on the mind of EU’s new central bank president.

TULIP TRUST: More than 1 million BTC are supposedly locked away, soon to be released to the Satoshi-like rightful owner. Or not. True Believers will again make excuses for the Christ-like savior of their project. The market might be body-slammed by the Truth it failed to see, as Believers howl in righteous indignation at their Leader’s great power. Our guess is more excuses, delays, and cognitive dissonance. 2020 will be a key marker.

LIGHTNING NETWORK: This is the year BTC’s second layer scaling solution is just 18 months away from revolutionizing everything.

JACKFRICA: Twitter’s enigmatic CEO Jack Dorsey is set to make his continental move. Africa is where he said he’s headed, presumably to spread the dream of a Lightning Network shortly on the cusp. Run a node. Open a channel. Fund it. Wait a year and a half. Genius.

ETHEREUM 2.0: For sure, Ethereum is the most realistically ambitious project out there. It wants to be a world computer, revolutionary smart contract and token thing, and sometimes cryptocurrency while making you breakfast. It’s so complex, so many moving parts, Ethereum is its own language, subculture, lifestyle. It’s apparently gearing up for a faster, better, more scalable version in 2020. Your guess is as good as ours.

CASHFUSION: Developer Jonald Fyookball is quietly one of the most important developers in all the cryptocurrency ecosystem. He’s sought for his sage advice, careful appraisal of issues and controversies, and has provided a steady head to the Bitcoin Cash community as it pursues peer-to-peer electronic cash for the world. One of the main issues for a crypto to be cash-like is transaction privacy, anonymity, and fungibility. Watch for more updates in 2020 as Fyookball’s baby, CashFusion, takes center stage.

UPGRADES: Which leads us to Bitcoin Cash (BCH). Two scheduled upgrades, May and November, will again happen, moving the project further along its roadmap and toward 50 transactions per human a day for a population of 10 billion people. Permissionless money for the world is a Herculean task. Everyone will say it’s foolish to even try. Government crackdowns. Bad actors. Fractionalization. Scams. But then skeptics put down their polemics, download a wallet, and use BCH. All those troubles melt, and the realization of what’s possible comes into focus.

Welcome to 2020.

CONTINUE THE SPICE and check out our piping hot VIDEOS. Our podcast, The CoinSpice Podcast, has amazing guests. Follow CoinSpice on Twitter. Join our Telegram feed to make sure you never miss a post. Drop some BCH at the merch shop — we’ve got some spicy shirts for men and women. Don’t forget to help spread the word about CoinSpice on social media.

DYOR: CoinSpice is your home for just spicy crypto things. We’re not affiliated with any cryptocurrency project or token. Each published piece is intended for information purposes only, not investment advice and not in the hope of impacting speculative markets. There are plenty of trading sites and coin-specific advocacy journals out there, we’re neither. CoinSpice strives for rigorous accuracy in our reporting. Information presented here is contingent usually on a host of factors, and the ecosystem moves fast — prices change, projects change, and at warp speed. Do your own research.

DISCLOSURE: The author holds cryptocurrency as part of his financial portfolio, including BCH.