Last week, I observed my first clear mainstream-radio cryptocurrency discussion. This is something I keep an ear open for whenever we have something that might rightly be described as a "mania". Once a guy named Jim is trying to sell you seats to his seminar where he'll explain how you can make millions flipping houses/Magic cards/turtlenecks, you might want to look into diversifying into more standard sweaters.
Thankfully, what I heard was not a pump commercial at all.
The main local talk radio station, which sits at or near the top of the ratings in most time-slots, had a discussion on the recent price of Bitcoin and Ethereum. One of the most junior members of the staff appears to be a hodl'er, and they were needling him about his losses myopically, likely ignoring the "losses" were merely reductions in paper gains.
They began to coax a little explanation of his assets from him, and he glossed over Bitcoin because he "didn't hold much." When asking him about Ethereum and what it's problems were, as soon as he responded "Ethereum's main problem is..." the host jumped back in and said "...that nobody has ever heard of it!" Everyone laughed and that was more or less the end of any substantive discussion on the matter.
Despite the tone, this is probably a minor, positive bullet point on the cryptocurrency acceptance timeline. Any discussion that doesn't contain wild misinformation and accusations of ponzi schemes is a step up from what we are often used to when it comes to mainstream coverage of Bitcoin and friends.
These type of mainstream anecdotes can be useful mini-indicators of tops or speculative manias, but are rarely actionable. I suppose the host's point is both somewhat valid and a relief if such a thing is to be worried about. There was certainly no respect paid to cryptocurrency and the tone was a bit "this one wacky guy on the staff is gambling on nonsense."
Interestingly, these sorts of anecdotes seem to be more likely during large pullbacks. Those who failed to get in on the bull market love to hop in and get a little schadenfreude from the "losses" of those who have. It soothes their ego into believing they made the right choice by failing to buy in, which incidentally is a decision more often made by laziness and lack of inertia than by sound financial analysis.
Regardless, the cryptos really needed this pullback, and I'm much more confident that the direction is up now that we've filled some chart gaps.
If any naysayers want to hop on, now would be the time.
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Sources: Google, YouTube, Local Radio, Bloomberg
Copyright: Bryan Harris, Charles Schulz, The Simpsons, Zero Hedge