Why this bull run is different than 2017. A Thread: 1/1 - today a friend asked me the following: "Serious question. Bitcoin was at $18000 December of 2017. It was $3500 December of 2018. The current run up to $24000 looks eerily similar to 2017. What gives you confidence that

the current growth rate is sustainable and not a bubble?" - Here was my reply: "it's a very good question, and for someone who has not been researching the space heavily like I have I can totally understand that thought process. However, there are major differences between now

and 2017: in 2017 the bull run was fueled by pure speculation from retail investors. Cryptocurrency was considered a fringe, scammy alternative to real money. It was considered to be fake, and the bottoms can fall out at any moment from speculators or regulations that outright

ban it. Institutional investors like Jamie Dimon from JP Morgan called it a scam that would go to zero. you had virtually zero institutional or government interest in the currencies or and very little interest in blockchain tech. Now let's take a look at what has happened since

2017: 2018 - The SEC finally gave some regulatory clarity on Bitcoin and Ethereum, deeming them currencies and not securities. Investment trusts like Grayscale and several new hedge funds popped up to give crypto exposure to institutions. Central banks and commercial banks have

been meeting regularly with companies like Ripple, Quant, and projects like XinFin and Ethereum. They now realize that blockchain AND the currencies (some, not all - there are over 6000 projects, most are garbage) that operate them are here to stay, AND going to be an integral

cog in the new digitized financial system. In fact, you can easily search up video after video of christine lagarde, head of the IMF, and almost every central bank head meeting and speaking with or about these blockchain solutions and how they will dramatically affect how the

global economy operates on a scale similar to what the internet did for society. Ripple teamed up with MoneyGram in 2019 to provide instant, frictionless cross border transactions that settle in 3 seconds as opposed to 3 days and for a fraction of the cost of today's solution

that involves SWIFT. That solution is currently live and has been for many months. Moneygram stock (MGI) has been flying as a result of their embracing technology to turn their business around. The coronavirus pandemic has dramatically accelerated the plan to digitize the entire

economy. Paper money was already going away but now it's happening faster. The pandemic has caused a dramatic devaluation of the dollar which has led to dramatic demand for gold and bitcoin as an inflation hedge. Institutional investors are now pouring into the space. They start

with Bitcoin bc that's the grandaddy, but they soon learn that there are other projects that are VERY promising and invest in those as well. The future of decentralized finance lies in blockchain and crypto. Already, the tech exists where you can tokenize you assets and put them

on the blockchain. You can tokenize your home and raise funds with it without going through a bank. You can tokenize any receivable. an athlete's contract. Your works of art. The possibilities are endless. Paul tudor jones is just one of many hedge fund investors who have

recently announced they are putting a portion of their portfolio into bitcoin. Mass mutual, an insurance co., just got the green light to buy $100mm bitcoin for their portfolio. The OCC (office of the comptroller of the currency) just greenlit banks to custody cryptocurrencies

for their clients in August 2020. And let's not forget PayPal, which just went live allowing 300mm+ users to buy cryptocurrency through them. This is opening the spicket and allowing the avg joe to start buying. Morgan stanley bought e-trade, which is launching a crypto trading

exchange. Blockchain companies and crypto exchanges are starting to go public. Diginex (EQOS) was the first exchange to go public recently. Soon, coinbase will follow, as will Ripple. Brian Brooks, head of the OCC, 2 weeks ago said in an interview that more regulatory clarity on

crypto is around the corner - 6-8 weeks out. So we are looking at mid January 2021. I can honestly go on and on. There is MUCH more to the story. But bottom line: this is a VERY different time for crypto than 2017. Is it a volatile space? YES. absolutely. Will there be

pullbacks during this rally? YES. Many times vicious ones that will test your mettle and make you question if you did the right thing by investing in this stuff. It's not like the stock mkt. I compare where we are at rt now with crypto to where we were w/ the internet in 2001.

We had just experienced the euphoria of this transformative tech and the subsequent rug pull when the bubble popped. After the internet bubble popped, a lot of people downplayed the significance of internet companies. many did not have the foresight to see what was coming.

Speculation moved to utility and problem solving, and creating a more efficient world through this new tech. Then consolidation. and a handful of players rose from the ashes. AMZN, GOOG, EBAY, etc. the people who had the balls to invest in AMZN in 2001 and hold are multi-

millionaires today. This is where we are right now with crypto. BTC, ETH, XRP, QNT, XDC, ADA, XLM are just some of the names that are poised to rise from the ashes. They aren't going away. In fact, there's a greater chance that the USD (as we currently know it) goes away before

they do." - Thanks for reading - SHARE THIS with a friend or family member who needs to read it!