Since the inception of Bitcoin and the concept of ‘digital assets’, institutional and retail investors kept their distance (and rightfully so) given the extreme volatility in prices, uncertainty around regulation, and questions around consumer adoption. Not only was the concept of Bitcoin foreign, but potential opportunities surrounding the digital currency and its underlying technology were also quite nascent.
As investors and entrepreneurs increased attention and resources to trading, mining, and building tangential services around these digital currencies, we have witnessed a bumpy road to stabilization and maturity. A study of market cycles demonstrates the relative boom and bust of any new industry. A particular article in Hackernoon shows a great example of this by overlaying BTC prices on stock market performance during the inflating and pop of the dotcom bubble.
In order to attract capital and accelerate a new growth cycle, trading statistics of cryptocurrencies need to be more in line with traditional asset classes. Evidence of that trend has already been reflected in trading price data. Analyzing the trading data of the top cryptocurrencies (based on market capitalization), a decline in 30-day rolling volatilities and significant compression in the volatility spread between BTC with the S&P 500 and Russell 3000 indices were observed.
While there is certainly a long way to go until the industry begins to “mature” (with respect to long term cycles), the sharp decrease in implied volatilities points to certain tailwinds.
First, there have been a plethora of services and applications built with blockchain tech and successful companies in the space are now emerging. Payment services companies such as BitPay demonstrate various applications focused on consumer and business adoption. Ripple’s partnerships provides further evidence that there are tangible results that will disrupt status quo tech. The Zerocoin project has improved its capabilities and made meaningful progress towards secure transactions.
Second, investors are starting to reap rewards of their early investments in blockchain and recycle capital within the industry. The success of Coinbaseillustrates blockchain companies can attract significant investor attention and capital. Prior management teams that have exited these companies have been able to raise money for their own projects; their niches are focused on plugging gaps with current technology offerings.
Finally, large multi-national corporations are beginning to introduce new and specialized product lines for industry participants. For example, Samsung released a new chip to improve BTC mining profits. These new products will reduce the overall marginal cost to enter related markets, just as cloud computing decreased the capability gap between small and large corporations.
While we cannot ascertain where the winners will be (equity investors, miners, coin investors, etc.), there seems to be a long runway for investors and entrepreneurs to figure it out. What we can see is that the railroad is making its way to the wild west, both the numbers and trends point to opportunities for those paying attention.
