Let me introduce myself.
I am South Korean born Australian. I work in finance and my majors were in economics and asian studies.
I have been following finance news and trading since 2009 when my eyes were opened to the world behind the veil, through the global financial crisis that followed the Lehman Brother's liquidation and mortgage crisis in America. I was bought into the idea that gold and especially silver was due for a long bull run. I still believe a silver bull is coming, but just like trying to predict the Tohoku earthquake, everyone says it is imminent, but it happens in its own time when most people don't expect it. Anyway, I still hold some of the silver I bought back in 2009 but from the end of May 2017, I started learning about cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, my passion now, which I am sharing my thoughts on with you.
I learnt about Steemit from Jeff Berwick's Dollar Vigilante newsletters, which I have followed loosely from a few years ago and have been reading a lot of what other people have been sharing on the cryptospace. There are a number of Youtubers and thought-leaders that I respect and now follow, which I might share with you later on.
When I started looking at bitcoin, it was about $2000 USD and I have put some value into the cryptospace through holding bitcoin, ethereum and some other altcoins, as well as doing some cloud mining and actual GPU mining from home. I also got involved in bitconnect. The ride has been excellent and although I haven't made 10x gains, I have been doing well because of the rise in the value of bitcoin. To be honest, my investments as a whole has lagged behind the growth in bitcoin and I sometimes wish I had just bought and held all my crypto value in bitcoin. As well as those mentioned above, I tried out other things like bitcoin debit visa cards, trading bots, gambling sites, high yield investment programs, trustworthy and untrustworthy. I lost money in some places but I like to try whatever is out there and as a result it has helped mature my mindset on the cryptopace, so I can share my experience with others. (Staying away from gambling and weird high yield investment platforms).
In the finance sector, it seems that 95% of people do not own any cryptos and my guess is that of the general public, 95% do not even know what bitcoin, blockchain or cryptocurrency is. Awareness will rapidly increase as institutional investments attract headlines in mainstream news and once a market is created that allows institutional money from hedge funds and large investment pools to buy into cryptocurrencies. There has been analyse that so far only about 1% of the adult population own any cryptos and it will reach 2% by 2018 Q1 and 3% by 2018 Q2. It is difficult to image how rapidly this awareness and participation will increase from the second quarter of 2018.
From the beginning of August 2017, after the segwit fork, new money has been getting into crypto. New people generally start off by buying bitcoin, and I believe this to be the cause behind the quick rally that took Bitcoin to around $4500 USD. Now, existing investors are waiting for Ethereum to rise and I believe this will happen once the Bitcoin rally subsides and the new investors start to diversify as they learn more about other alternatives (altcoins).
During this drama, I have been waiting for news about large institutional investors money getting into Bitcoin and other cryptos. The brave innovators in the institutional investment sector have been dipping their toes in the crypto space and the courage has been rewarded with larger returns on their client portfolios. Once these companies report their gains to their clients and peers, we should see larger and larger amounts of funds flowing to bitcoin through social proof.
In order for even more institutional money to go into the cryptospace, there needs to be development in the exchange-space to allow them to do so. A government regulated derivatives exchange will allow this market to start trading at large volumes for the not so brave investors and this is exactly what is forming and growing in awareness among institutional money.
I don't endorse LedgerX, nor do I like government regulations but, here it is. Even if it isn't LedgerX but a competitor, it's coming. The institutional money wave is about to hit the shores of the cryptospace. My guess is that this is going to boost the entire crypto marketcap, starting with Bitcoin and hopefully Ethereum as well.
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-08-02/ledgerx-will-transform-cryptocurrencies
Digital money moves a step closer to official acceptance with the creation of a clearing house for derivatives contracts.
“LedgerX’s registration is a historic milestone for derivatives and for digital currencies,” said Gary DeWaal of Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP, which assisted LedgerX during its CFTC application process. “To me, it is equivalent to the launch of currency futures back in 1972 that heralded the beginning of exchange-traded and cleared derivatives based on financial products,” concludes DeWaal.