I’d like to start off by referencing a post from a few days ago called Drunk on Ripple. My basic postulate was that the Ripple coin (or crypto or worthless string of 1s and 0s or whatever it is) had reached an important level of resistance and would reverse away from the right triangle top. Well, although I don’t trade crypto, I’m glad to at least thump my chest a bit by nailing the top virtually to the second:
As I mentioned in that post, I don’t trade crypto anymore, but I used to. I still like to talk about the charts, though. For example, my view was that Ethereum’s strength earlier this year had petered out, and it was about to turn tail. Once again, I just about nailed that right on the button, and $ETH’s relative strength has indeed been waning against $BTC. Huzzah.
Here’s the thing, though. For years, Bitcoin was a sensation. Percentage returns weren’t measured in double digits or even triple digits but quintuple digits. This sucker had gone from literally one penny to tens of thousands of dollars. Over the course of time, it got hammered into people’s heads that Bitcoin Only Goes Up and, during the rare instances it actually does fall for a while, the smart move is to Buy The Fucking Dip (hey, I don’t make up these vulgar phrases; I just report them).
It ain’t so anymore, though. Over the past ten months, Bitcoin has done – – here, let me check my notes – – – ah, here it is: Bitcoin has done dick. Although it has been festooned with the utterly inappropriate moniker of Digital Gold, a nearly 0% return over the past ten months of unchecked asset appreciation is pretty damned lame. Yo-Yos like Michael Saylor have S.T.F.U. for a change and aren’t talking about $1 million BTC anymore. Jesus, he’s annoying.
And Ethereum, which was projected to be $80,000 or so. I think that Raoul Pal dude was preaching the ETH gospel a couple of years back. Anyway, it’s worth a couple thousand bucks or so, and its performance in recent months has been as exciting as a Phyllis Diller Playboy feature.
As useless and ridiculous as I think crypto is, one thing I do like about it as a chartist is that it’s very organic. What I mean by that is that it tends to reflect a more honest balance between supply and demand, and as such classic charting can be much more effective than the likes of equities, which are corrupt almost beyond recognition. Sooner or later, crypto does, at last get to the truth.
But the reason I called this post First Church of Crypto is that adherents of the stuff are seriously religious zealots. This post notwithstanding, it’s not just worth the aggravation to dare mention how crypto is the biggest financial scam in human history and that, sooner or later, the happy day will come when the entire enterprise crumbles into a heap of dust, and my schadenfreude dial will get cranked up to 11.
It’s also illustrative of their personality that they embrace what I would describe as the Cope Cut-Down. It goes something this:
Terrific Tim: Whatcha lookin’ at?
Crypto Zealot: Oh, bro! Dude! It’s PukeCoin! It’s like going to like totally revolutionize, you know, revolutions. Bro! You should buy some.
Terrific Tim: Errr. Nah, I’m good.
{awkward silence}
Crypto Zealot: Have fun staying poor!
{beat}
Terrific Tim: Yep.
Thus, even with about 25,000 followers and plenty of strong feelings about crypto, I just don’t bother mentioning it on X.com except for maybe a few times a year, each time of which the same motley crew of incels and alpha male con artists beat their chests and make noise. It’s just not worth it. They are really quite a tiresome crowd.
Good Lord. How did I get on this? Anyway. That’s all I’ve got to say about that.
