Whenever Bitcoin soars or plummets, a flood of private messages comes in: 'Is now the time to enter the market at a high position?' 'Can shitcoins double again?' 'I heard XX country is going to ban cryptocurrencies.' As someone who has navigated the bull market since 2017, I want to use the most down-to-earth language to tear down the real face of this magical world of cryptocurrency for you.
- How crazy will the market circle be in 2024?
Standing atop the IFC in Central, the sounds of Bitcoin mining machines have already been drowned out by cheers for ETFs. On January 11, the day the US SEC approved the Bitcoin spot ETF, traders across Wall Street were secretly signing up for Binance accounts using company computers—this was told to me by a friend who works in derivatives trading at Goldman Sachs.
The total market value of cryptocurrencies has now surpassed $2.5 trillion, equivalent to almost fitting the entire Apple company ($3 trillion) into the blockchain. Bitcoin occupies half the market, Ethereum is eyeing the Layer 2 army, and the rest are various public chains and their monstrous creations: Dogecoin with Musk's endorsement, new projects claiming to replace old money, and those AI tokens that frequently proclaim to 'reconstruct the internet.'
But the most magical aspect remains the flow of funds. In its first week on the market, the Bitcoin ETF managed by BlackRock attracted $3 billion, while Grayscale moves hundreds of millions of dollars worth of BTC from Wall Street every day. Morgan Stanley participants at a Manhattan cocktail party were seen jotting down coin codes from a client list in a corner—this scene is even more thrilling than (The Wolf of Wall Street).
Two, the 'split personality' performance of various governments
Walking into Capitol Hill in Washington, you'll hear two contrasting opinions in the same corridor. In the left conference room, SEC Chairman Gensler pounds the table declaring '90% of cryptocurrencies are securities'; in the right office, a CFTC commissioner is smilingly discussing how to bring DeFi into the derivatives regulatory framework. This schizophrenic regulation is playing out globally:
The US is playing the 'revolving door' game: approving the Bitcoin ETF while suing Binance; the Department of Justice just confiscated Bitcoin from Silk Road, and the Treasury quickly turns around to use those coins for issuing government bonds.
China continues to stage a 'cryptocurrency undercover operation': officially banning exchanges across the internet, while secretly issuing virtual asset licenses in Hong Kong.
. The EU has created the MiCA regulation, requiring stablecoin issuers to collectively take CPA exams.
In El Salvador's Bitcoin Beach community, even homeless people are using the Lightning Network to buy tortillas.
Argentina's new president Milei has directly announced the acceptance of Bitcoin for tax payments, scaring the International Monetary Fund into modifying its regulations overnight.
This global regulatory 'quantum entanglement' state leads to market rollercoasters every time a new policy is introduced. Last year, when LUNA collapsed, Korean lawmakers condemned cryptocurrency in Congress during the day, only to sneakily increase their holdings using overseas accounts at night.
The bloody truth behind the wild fluctuations
At the cryptocurrency summit in Dubai, CEOs of projects were sipping champagne worth $3,000 a bottle, painting a grand picture of Web 3.0 for you. But lifting their suit jackets, they all had hardware wallets with stop-loss functions attached to their waists. The survival rules of this industry are even harsher than in (Squid Game):
1. Volatility is ten times that of traditional markets: a 30% drop in Bitcoin in one day feels like drinking cold water, while altcoins can plummet to zero at any moment.
2. The battlefield of contracts is littered with corpses: when FTX collapsed last year, players with 200x leverage directly experienced 'digital cremation.'
3. Hacker ATM: The cross-chain bridge Poly Network was hacked for $600 million, setting a record, yet the hacker voluntarily returned the funds.
4. The prevalence of scam projects: a certain zoo and AI token skyrocketed 5,000 times in two weeks before disappearing, with the founder caught using the stolen funds to buy a yacht in Miami.
Even more frightening is the heavy hand of regulation. The US Department of Justice froze the code of the mixing service Tornado Cash last year, setting a precedent for 'arresting open-source software.' South Korean authorities even demanded that exchanges monitor 'unusual transactions' exceeding $100,000—at crypto bars in Gangnam, it's now popular to tip with Monero.
Four, is it the darkness before dawn or the end-of-the-world carnival?
At the blockchain lab of ETH Zurich, Vitalik and his team are tackling the final challenge of ZK-Rollups. Once this technology breaks through, Ethereum's transaction speed will surpass Visa, with fees becoming negligible. Meanwhile:
Coinbase is developing a decentralized identity system based on the Base chain
-Uniswap is preparing to launch permissionless options trading
-MakerDAO aims to transfer real estate debt to the blockchain.
The entry of traditional institutions feels more like a dimensionality reduction attack. BlackRock has placed tokenized funds on the Polygon chain, JPMorgan is using private chains for cross-border payments, and Visa has already supported settlements in over 40 cryptocurrencies. The most ruthless is Tesla, which was found to have enough BTC in its Bitcoin wallet to buy the entire lithium mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
But the real upheaval may come in 2025. The Federal Reserve's digital dollar is entering the testing phase, China's digital yuan is starting cross-border settlements, and the European Central Bank's digital currency is beginning to interface with enterprise chains. By then, cryptocurrencies may no longer be the enemies of fiat currency but become the infrastructure of the digital financial ecosystem.
Five, a survival guide for ordinary people
In a crypto café in Lisbon, newcomers often receive three pieces of advice:
1. Always invest with spare money: those who throw their down payment for a house into the coin circle end up delivering takeout.
2. A cold wallet is your Noah's Ark: during exchange crashes, hardware wallets are more reliable than Swiss bank vaults.
3. Focus on the code rather than slogans: projects that declare 'change the world' on the first page of their white paper usually don't last more than three months.
My own investment portfolio follows the '532 rule': 50% Bitcoin and Ethereum, 30% invested in various public chains, and 20% betting on those wild innovative projects. Monthly dollar-cost averaging replaces betting everything at once, and staking rewards cover living expenses—this is the secret to longevity in the coin world.
Remember during the Dogecoin frenzy in 2021, a college student went all-in on SHIB for his tuition, and after it skyrocketed, he cashed out to buy a Tesla. Now he teaches people to trade coins on Twitter but will never tell his followers that his father is a hedge fund manager at an institution, who had already prepared ten backup offers for him.
Conclusion: Opportunities in an era of dancing on the edge of a knife.
Every Bitcoin halving feels like a coming-of-age ceremony in the crypto world. This time in 2024 may allow digital currencies to truly enter the mainstream financial system. But remember: when taxi drivers start discussing Ethereum forks, it’s time to sound the alarm; when central banks around the world collectively embrace blockchain, the real revolution has just begun.
Should you enter the coin circle? This question is like asking whether to buy internet stocks in the 90s. The real winners are never those who accurately time the market but those who understand the essence of technological revolution and are willing to grow with it as long-term investors. In this industry, however, you need to dance in a bulletproof vest, holding your private keys and keeping an eye on smart contracts—because here, a day is like a year in the human world.
