The recent pull back in the market has led to some well known commentators saying the last rites over the carcass of Bitcoin and lamenting the foolishness of investors in being caught within a bursting bubble.
Calmer minds, from those within the industry and crypto-media environment itself, have side-stepped the hype and provided sound advice including a range of strategies that are designed to protect coin and token holders from the current downturn.
These sage voices though have had to battle with the shrill cry of 'bubble!' that accompanies any mainstream article or broadcast.
So let's pause for a minute and look at this infamous bubble.
Although many Crypto enthusiasts in the West assume that people in Asia, especially the younger generation, are fully on point with developments in digital cash, the truth is quite the opposite. Yes, there are a few who are fully engaged but percentage wise they are almost as rare as an innocent central banker.
How do I know? Well, I teach university students aged from eighteen to their late twenties, both undergraduates and post-graduates from various Asian countries, especially China, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and Cambodia and regularly engage them in discussions to see the depth of their cryptocurrency knowledge.
Most, despite the official adoption of Bitcoin in Japan and the mining farms in China, have no inclination of what these currencies are or what the blockchain itself could achieve. They are highly intelligent and inquisitive yet have had no exposure to the subject either in an academic setting or a social one.
Although the students I chat with number in the thousands, I appreciate this is only a tiny fraction of their respective countries populations. However, they come from precisely the social-economic background who, if we believe the mainstream, should be part of the crypto-bubble.
As nearly all of my colleagues, family or friends in the West are still fully trusting of the FIAT system, the young people from the East are unaware of the digital alternatives and the cryptocurrency market capitalisation still shows that Hedge Funds have not yet flowed into the space, I am left wondering where exactly is this bubble of which they speak?