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The ‘Crypto Crash’ Isn’t A Crash, It’s A…
I’ve written 250+ crypto related posts since I saw the crypto light on June 29th, 2017. The most widely read of those all those posts is titled “7 Thoughts On Blockchain, Cryptocurrency & Decentralization After Three Months Down The Rabbit Hole”. The 5th thought was “ It’s A Bubble….So What”. I went on to explain:
I say “so what” because I believe in Amara’s Law: We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run. This is part of the reason we get bubbles. We get overexcited about a new technology and we drive up prices beyond any reasonable valuation. Bubbles can go on for years. The internet bubble lasted 5+ years.
It still feels like were in the early stages of a Cambrian Explosion in crypto. Just as the Cambrian period enabled the creation of a multitude of new life forms, the emergence of blockchain, cryptocurrency, and decentralization, is opening up a wide range of previously unavailable markets, as well as new ways to compete against entrenched incumbents. Sure, most of the new crypto entities emerging today will die out, but many of the ones that survive will be epic.
Given that view, I think the three charts below give additional perspective to the crypto crash debate.
1. Amazon Price Chart 1997–1999
The chart below looks at the meteoric rise of Amazon’s price from it’s IPO in May, 1997 (at a split adjusted $1.50 a share) to a peak of $105+ in April, 1999. Amazon’s share price went up 70X in under two years. That was EPIC! But was that a bubble?
The 2 “s”’s in the brown boxes in the chart above indicate times that Amazon’s share price split.
2. Amazon Price Chart 1997–2001
We took the price chart above, and added two years. So the chart below has both the epic rise, and then an epic 95% implosion of Amazon’s stock price from it’s peak in December, 1999, at $105+, to its low of less than $6 in September, 2001. That’s a drop of 95%. Is that a crash?
