The Old Man’s Views Happy New Year!

Republished By Plato

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At the end of the year, we had a few people disappointed because that much forecasted 100,000 on Bitcoin starting to look little more than a dream. But hey-ho, Rome was not built in a day.

I am looking forward to 2022 and watching crypto markets grow and mature.

However, I am not optimistic about the next few months regarding the global economy.

All the bullshit in the world will not convince me that inflation, higher energy costs, increased borrowing and irresponsible government spending are a recipe for future economic growth.

Politics: God help us all!

No matter where we live, none of us can be confident in our political leadership, and the outlook is not suggesting any improvement.

We have had Joe Biden in the White House for one year, and it’s been the worst first year of any administration in history.

With the Democrats in control, America has become a dangerous joke.

Whatever you think of Donald Trump, he was neither senile nor corrupt. Joe Biden is unquestionably senile. But that is not the worst of it.

Biden’s coke-sniffing son, Hunter, left China with 1.5 billion, left Russia with a few million and left Ukraine with even more.

The media can hide it as much as they want; the Bidens are as corrupt as the Clintons and the Obamas, Three families, who along with the Blairs in the UK, and the EU technocrats in Brussels have destroyed the western world in what is little more than a generation.

With the American President still holding the title of Leader of the Free World, the Biden administration is frightening.

We’ve got cackling Kamala, whose only job is to sort out the Mexican border, yet she has never even visited it.

Elsewhere, whilst America suffered from an imports and supply bottleneck, Pete Buttigieg, Biden’s Secretary of Transportation, was on maternity leave because his husband and he had a baby???

And I don’t want to discuss the appointment of Dr Rachel Levine, who got the job as a 4-Star Admiral, because he/she has no balls!

You would laugh if it weren’t so pathetically woke.

Dr Rachel Levine

It is absurd that this diverse Mickey Mouse Administration will influence how cryptocurrencies are regulated.

Remember the Congressional hearing on Cryptocurrencies. The main questions from the Administration were about the colour and sexual orientation of senior people working in sector?

And what about Biden nominating that communist, Saule Omarova, to oversee the industry?

What chance do we have?

Yes, America has become a joke, and its allies in the rest of the western world are not far behind.

The Great Reset is gathering pace whether we like it or not, as all Governments continue to undermine the wealth and future of their country and citizens.

They are still trying to frighten the shit out of us with new strains of Covid-19. More lockdowns, more vaccines, more people staying at home and our businesses shut. And all this is happening whilst our corrupt politicians are making millions in backhanders from Big Pharm.

Then, on top of all this is the Great Carbon Con. This con has got our naive children demanding that we commit them to pay trillions in future taxes, to solve problems being made worse in China, India and Russia.

Pure economic madness!

Look. I am all for cleaning the environment, but this carbon crap will do nothing but ensure that western democracies – and I use the term democracies loosely – are weakened well into the future.

The Chinese Communist Party today can do what it likes, anywhere, and no one will say a thing. America is now toothless because its leader is a paid puppet of the Chinese communists.

In Russia, Putin has already told Biden to keep out of it when it comes to invading Ukraine, and he has doubled down on this by threatening to deprive the EU of much-needed energy if the EU tries to get involved.

The walls of the western empire are clearly tumbling!

Talking of the EU, where are they? We haven’t heard much since the EU’s Fuhrer, Von de Leyen, screwed up the procurement of Covid vaccines.

This timely disappearance is typical of the EU. When the shit hits the fan, pass the buck onto national governments, and let them take the flack.

All we heard throughout the Brexit argument was how important it was for people and goods to move around the EU freely.

Well, the pandemic put the kibosh on that hard-and-fast rule.

As for the Human Rights of European citizens, guaranteed by EU law:

You will stay in your house or risk going to prison. Or, as in Greece, you must put a cocktail of government-approved drugs in your body, or your government can fine you for every month you refuse.

National Governments are stealing our freedoms with the EU’s blessing, and we should not ignore that.

The attacks on individuals by the political elite are obvious, and when it comes to safeguarding our financial security, we are all looking at decentralised cryptocurrencies for the answer. However, the definition of a decentralised currency is now becoming less clear.

Can the SEC tell us which of our products are a security? Not the question we want to hear from people who promote us as a decentralised industry.

Crypto land.

Over recent months, I have become a champion of Bitcoin and the blockchain’s ideology, becoming a devotee of Nakamoto.

Bitcoin purists seem to get it, but it’s about making money everywhere else and little more.

Fair enough. Blockchain and cryptocurrencies are far better than what we had before, so let’s go with it and see what the future brings.

Last year’s rally was incredible, and although we didn’t finish the year strong, the interest in crypto continues to rocket.

I mentioned a few times about buying frenzies and how many new players joined the party because they were frightened to miss out rather than entering the industry with a formulated strategy. This put a lot of minor currencies in the hands of relatively weak traders.

But we have also seen significant industries on-boarding cryptocurrencies, which is a massive positive for the industry.

Having traded through the dot-com boom and bust, I see many similarities between what happened then and today. But with interest in NFTs, the recent buying frenzy was a lot worse.

As I said, I am a devotee of Bitcoin and blockchain technology, and the idea behind smart contracts is a massive improvement on previous ways of making transactions. But I cannot say I am entirely confident about the other things happening in this arena.

Despite all the sales pitches, having thousands of cryptocurrencies and hundreds of exchanges is not necessarily positive for the industry.

And continually banging the drum about decentralisation when we know most exchanges are not decentralised might be stretching the truth just a tad.

We had clear evidence of this over the Christmas period when an account got hacked, and some Bored Apes and other NFTs disappeared. As a result of this theft, the owner emailed Opensea, the biggest NFT marketplace, and they stepped in to freeze the assets.

The phishing attack was wrong, and we need to protect investors better. But, if OpenSea promotes itself as part of a decentralised business, is it making a false claim? It should be impossible to freeze any assets in a genuinely decentralised world.

Most people in the business are not overly concerned about this because their focus is financial gain. But it does make a mockery of decentralised claims made regarding some Altcoins and tokens.

Some decentralised exchanges are operating, and I forecast that we will see an increase in the number of these exchanges following the action taken by OpenSea. And let’s not forget, not everyone in the crypto environment is happy about governments and central bankers being able to impose rules and regulations on our business, so decentralised exchanges will become more attractive.

The crucial difference between centralized and decentralized exchanges is whether or not a middle man is present. Decentralized exchanges are less widespread and less popular as compared with centralized exchanges. Nonetheless, there are more decentralized exchanges all the time, and it’s possible that they will give centralized exchanges a run for their money in the future.

This year we will see many, if not the majority, of NFTs losing money, but that is not necessarily a negative.

Collectables have taken off, and we will see thousands of copycats coming to the market. But we have to see beyond that. Too many NFTs are created by people trying to make a quick buck in a field going through a lot of experimentation. Punks and early Apes will maintain their blue-chip status, but later stuff will probably fail to find the same level of interest. So we really will need to do our research before blindly jumping on the next pixelated ape or antique.

That said, rules and regulations are holding back the expansion of NFTs and Smart Contracts. But, when the laws and rules are worked out, we will see a massive increase in Smart Contract adoption.

The Metaverse

Augmented and Virtual Reality technologies have been with us for some time; however, now we can monetise them easily through using cryptocurrencies, they’re finding massive investment and interest.

The Metaverse will be a place we can escape to, or use for commercial purposes. It has unlimited potential and endless possibilities.

However, everything suggests when we arrive in the Metaverse, it will seem like a backdrop from Blade Runner or Total Recall, bright lights, advertising everywhere and hustlers on every corner.

Believe me, If Zuckerberg is investing big-time, then the advertising involved will be off the charts.

As many of you know, I am against government involvement in most aspects of crypto, but the Metaverse may very well need policing.

The Metaverse is ultimately a place to go to escape reality, which in itself is rather sad. But there will be very dangerous users at play, and they will need monitoring.

Our young people are increasingly using social media to interact with their peers; look how big TikTok has become. We should not ignore that many of our young children have made friends with people they have never met and friends we do not know.

But, when these “Friends” are Avatars, we don’t know who is behind them.

In the Metaverse, little 10-year-old Mary makes friends with Rebecca. They go riding regularly on fluffy Unicorns through a land of Candyfloss and soda-pop, laughing, giggling, and playing games. The grooming begins. One day, Rebecca asks Mary, “Have you ever seen a man’s penis?”

Before you ask the question, this is not from me. A group is already investigating how to combat such issues in the UK and discussed it on TV last week. But it must be a serious consideration.

We could also have Mr. Candlewicks Candle shop in Craftland, where you can learn to make candles. But in a private room for members only, you will find Mr. Abdul, teaching people how to make bombs and offering maps of airports.

In the Metaverse, how will we combat such problems without some form of centralised governance?

It is worth thinking about before it really takes off.

Areas of interest for the coming year:

We may see an increase in decentralised exchanges to combat increased threats of government interference.

Thousands of copycat NFTs are coming to the market to capitalise on Bored Apes and Punks. The market will become saturated, and the over-bloated valuations will take a massive hit.

Some objects offered for the Metaverse will rocket, but most will flounder.

We can expect to see an increase in theft, hacking, and suspicious activity from dodgy players.

They will promote headsets of all types; most will go as quick as they come. It will not be for a few years, or at least the 3rd Generation until that we see anything near what we envisage today.

Altcoins will decouple from BTC, and we will see less correlation in currency movements, which will make it more of a picker’s market.

New players will start to eat into the market.

My pick for this year will be Concordium.

I believe Concordium will do very well due to its focused management, in-house expertise, and deep pockets. But more importantly, its owners have a long history of building successful global products on the internet, which is a rare attribute in our young business.

And finally, and I say this without any influence, I expect this to be a good year for JPFS.

The guys at JPFS have put a lot of time, money, and effort into what they are doing. This year, JPFS will be launching more professional services and products aimed at both seasoned and less established operators. You will be hearing more about this over the coming months.

So, watch this space!

The post <h5>The Old Man’s Views</h5> <h3>Happy New Year!</h3> appeared first on JP Fund Services.

Source: https://www.blockleaders.io/the-old-mans-views-happy-new-year/

Time Stamp: January 12, 2022