Conversation with Cobie: 60% of people will lose everything gained in the last cycle in a bear market

Original source:UpOnly

Original Compilation: Dong Yiming, Chain Catcher

Original Compilation: Dong Yiming, Chain Catcher

Summary of views:

• Recently, the encryption video podcast UpOnly had a conversation with the well-known encryption industry KOL Cobie. Cobie told his story when he entered the industry in 2012, and talked about his views on Ethereum, Ethereum 2.0, DAO, and made some predictions about the bear market. The following is Chain Catcher's compilation of this episode of the podcast, with some deletions.

• Summary of views:

• I won’t be surprised if ETH2.0 is not launched next year, because the Ethereum community doesn’t really approve of expansion, and the attitude is even worse now. Optimistic rollup has been disappointing so far, and ZK rollup is not EVM compatible yet.

• Maybe nothing is really meaningful, and the meaning is not that important, especially in short-term trading. Some project parties are very good at content marketing, rather than focusing on encryption technology itself. Narrative can drive supply and demand, but people underestimate how out of control it can be.

• I think the current DAO is a kind of regulatory arbitrage. The DAO could have run better as a company, but they made it worse by issuing their own tokens.

In the future, the base currency of a country is likely to exist on a fully KYC-enabled national chain with DeFi functions, without governance tokens, and the basic asset on this chain is CBDC.

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Cobie：1. Early stories

Uponly: I have read many of your blogs, and I have heard about your amazing story experience, but today I want more first-hand information. For example, since you entered the encryption industry in 2012, how many cycles have you experienced? Most people don't survive these cycles, why do you choose to stick to it as one of the few people who are still in the industry?I bought bitcoin around the end of 2012, but for a long time I didn't even think about what bitcoin was. ——It wasn’t until April 2013, when the double-price bubble appeared and I gradually walked into the “rabbit hole”, that I began to think about this issue. If you look at my "jordan fish" twitter account, I tweeted a few times about bitcoin at the time. Back then I also liked to use the "bitcoin tipper bot" to send bitcoin tips to my friends.

At the end of 2013, I seemed to be crazy, and there was not a day when I didn’t think about Bitcoin, so I wanted to go back to the day in 2012 when I didn’t touch this thing. The only person I knew back then who is still active is Bob Laxative, known back then as "King BTC", who was the first crypto twitter account I followed. I often followed his news at that time, because the views he posted were all great, but the market value of the entire crypto market at that time was only $5,000.

Then I created two accounts, and one account traded exactly as Bob suggested.

Cobie：After 2013, it was like a massacre. 2014 was definitely a very crashing year. It experienced several retracements similar to MtGoX. It was not until 2016 and 2017 that it really recovered to the high level of 2013. Many centralized exchanges such as Crypsy, MtGox, Bitfinex, etc. have been hacked, and everything will be zeroed. Maybe BTC will be attacked by the government in the end, and all altcoins may also be zeroed. The ultimate security may only be self-custodial BTC (BTC account with its own private key).Uponly: How much is your starting capital?So far I have only invested intwo or three hundred pounds

(worth around $500) to cryptocurrencies, I did invest one more time up until 2020, but that project also basically went to zero. In the early days, I got in at really good times and bought a lot of altcoins that were doing well.

Cobie：Just because you've made a lot of money in a bull market doesn't mean you're a great trader, it just means there's a bubble.

Uponly: Are you fascinated by Bitcoin because of its underlying logic, or do you see it as a monetary experiment? Do you believe in its mission, or do you just want the numbers to go up?

Cobie：When I was younger, my motivation for doing things was impulsive and emotional. Bitcoin hit me straight away as an alternative to traditional finance, and I was 100% sure of it at the time. In 2008, nearly every friend of mine was struggling with money in some way. Banks lost credit due to unfair lending practices, and governments also lost credit due to failed monetary policies. Many companies went bankrupt and liquidated due to the financial crisis, countless employees lost their jobs, and even retirees could not get their pensions. , while the government and banks do not seem to be affected, but seem to benefit from it. I saw Bitcoin's potential to cut out middlemen and government intervention, and felt that it must be the solution.

Uponly: When did you start to look at those charts, know how to analyze the psychological factors of people speculating in coins, and become a real trader?

I may never become a real professional trader. I would do this as a side hustle like someone would flip shoes. I'm a very risk-averse person. Some very professional traders will enjoy debating whether the price is a random walk or trending in brownie geometry, and they will also perform a variance independence test analysis to test whether the market is efficient. I have a lot of respect for them, but I can't be like them, this lifestyle probably isn't for me either, I'm a very addictive person.

Cobie：Uponly: Do you think you got addicted to cryptocurrency after you made enough money to change your life, or did you get addicted first and then make money?

If I'm being completely honest with myself, my answer might sound unflattering or even arrogant, because deep down I feel like I'm going to be a millionaire or multimillionaire anyway. Now I would be a millionaire without crypto, without investing, just working. The same thing I've done before, whether it's selling my own company or being acquired.

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Cobie：2. About hypercycle

Uponly: Do you think there is a "hypercycle" phenomenon in cryptocurrencies now?

I myself am more skeptical about the concept of the "supercycle" of cryptocurrencies, because I have never seen the phenomenon of supercycles of cryptocurrencies in the past, and I usually analyze from what happened in the past. Some examples of actual hypercycles include Gold, Apple, and Google.Looking at Apple's annual report data for the past 12 years, you can see that its stock price chart is green on the last day of each year. The hyperloop idea we described with Su in a previous episode might be right, and if crypto becomes more integrated into society as the financial backbone of society, and Bitcoin becomes a store of value like gold, then hyperloop will become The only thing that really counts, like gold, Apple, and Google are all contributing their usefulness to society as a whole.If encryption were to disappear now, how many lives would actually be affected? It’s just that many people’s crypto investments will fail, and it will also have some impact on people in countries with high inflation, or people who play crypto games for a living will also be affected, and that’s the main impact on people’s lives.

Currently, there will be no situation where people will not be able to pay due to a Solana network outage.

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Cobie：3. About Ethereum

Uponly: When did you get excited about Ethereum? How has this affected your life?

Usually, the premise of my investment or asset allocation is to first understand a certain project itself, try to see its future potential and the impact it can bring to the world. If I could see this vision come to fruition in reality, then I would be willing to allocate more assets to it. Even if it's more expensive at this point, I'm less risky and I can see its future.

Beginning in 2017, OG projects such as Chainlink and Eastland began to appear, and more projects will emerge in 2019-2020. If you look closely at these projects, you can see that the future they create makes more sense, even though they are not perfect right now. Instead of focusing on whether it can be realized (ponzification), it is better to focus on the changes of existing products, such as their real use cases, such as the chain loan project being built. Building blocks adds value to the ecosystem as they provide support for future block building. For example, OG DeFi protocols like Metamask are leading this change.

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Cobie：4. Founding Lido and how to see ETH 2.0

Uponly: How did you get involved in Lido and ETH 2.0, these things started before the DeFi summer, why do you have confidence in them? (Editor's Note: Lido is a non-custodial decentralized ETH2.0 pledge service platform, and at the same time allows pledgers to freely circulate their stETH Token through DeFi's AMM mechanism and participate in other services in the DeFi market.)

I was briefly the CEO of a company called ptp.org, a PoS data verification company. If I'm counted as the co-founder of Lido, Konstantin and Vasily, along with the core team, are the real brains behind everything. I had a dispute with Konstantin because of his name, he wanted to call it Lido DPool (abbreviation of Decentralized Pool), but now it is the right decision to call Lido after listening to my suggestion.

When the PoS blockchain was created, there was no concept of DeFi. Even when Ethereum released their roadmap to move to PoS, they didn't have the concept of DeFi. With the PoS protocol you are rewarded for staking tokens to secure the network. And with DeFi, you can lock up your assets for yield, and they are used as collateral. These two will compete with each other - "Should I deposit my ETH in Ethereum? Or put it in Aave or Compound?" People enter the crypto industry to make money, so people will choose the highest APY for the appropriate risk.

Cobie：After staking your ETH in Ethereum, you can use the pledged ETH to earn rewards, and you can also use these ETH to do other things in Ethereum. One simple new product I can think of is a new base currency on Ethereum that can earn risk-free returns, which is the cornerstone of DeFi.

I don't really have much say, the time may be next year's Q2 or Q3, but I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't come out by this time next year. The Beacon chain has been running for a whole year, and people can get pledge rewards on this chain. If ETH1.0 and ETH2.0 are merged, the $35 billion on the Beacon chain will also be unlocked.

The ETH community actually doesn't approve of expansion, and the attitude is even worse now. So far, Optimistic rollup has been disappointing, ZK rollup has appeared, but it is not yet compatible with EVM. I am also skeptical about L1, is it possible that all L1 games are due to capital rotation? Liquidity is fragmented and without incentives, most chains will not be able to sustain the ecosystem.

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Cobie：5. Bear market forecastUponly: How did you decide what to do next, and how would you act?I don't have a crystal ball,

Instead of guessing what will happen in the future, I prefer to observe the real-time market dynamics and see what everyone is doing.

For example, seeing that everyone is building a cross-chain bridge to Avalanche shows that everyone likes the ecology of Avalanche at this time, and it has PMF (product-market fit). Then at this time I will allocate funds into this ecosystem, and if they are built better in the way I think later, I will invest more. Buying at a higher price is less risky because I can see reality more clearly.

Cobie：I think instead of making predictions, it's better to allocate a small part of your assets to something that you think is really cool, and then wait for it to explode; or you can just watch from the sidelines and see how people act, and then Try to join it when you see that a certain project has been achieved.

Uponly: What do you think of Dogecoin, “Animal Coin” and other meme coins?Frankly speaking, do you really think that the rise of Dogecoin is fundamentally different from the rise of some kind of "dex transaction token that replaces the ninth echelon of L1"? I know Dogecoin looks kind of goofy, but why would you put your money in a bottom percentile L1 alternative? This also seems incomprehensible to me. A lot of things seem a little silly at first.

Maybe nothing is really meaningful, and the meaning is not that important, especially in short-term trading.

Cobie：Some project parties are very good at content marketing, rather than focusing on encryption technology itself. Narrative can drive supply and demand, but people underestimate how out of control it can be.

Uponly: Assuming a bear market is imminent, and it is not a recurring super cycle, what impact do you think it will have on the entire market?

In general, projects launched in a bear market are more likely to rise in a bear market. If you think of price as a function of variables, you can adjust factors that affect price. In a bear market, a big variable is that everyone’s investment portfolio has dropped, even some good projects will have many sellers who are reluctant to sell tokens, because some tokens will drop by 60%-70%, people can’t bear it These. If such a bear market really exists, then 95% of the ecosystems of L1 alternatives that are popular now will fail because they pay too much money to maintain ecological security and liquidity.

I think most NFT projects with a development roadmap will also be abandoned and die in this bear market. The reason people are incentivized to build NFT projects is to make money, but if you're building a roadmap, you don't have money left over to build NFTs.I think metaverse games will go to zero as well, since most projects don't have enough money to help them survive a very long bear market.

Meme coins will also go to zero.

Any tokens with a constant token release requirement will also go to zero, because this kind of project needs to continuously release tokens, requiring users to put funds into the system to make the project's products work, but as the price drops, a lot Liquidity providers will feel that they will not get enough APY, so people will stop supporting these protocols.

Regulation can lead to the disappearance of “nominal” decentralized projects.

also,also,

I think 60% of people will lose everything they got in the previous cycle that changed their life.

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Cobie：6. Working in the encryption industry & DAO

Uponly: If you were asked to start a business now, what field would you choose?

Early on I had a TG group called 27Club discussing the market, without it probably wouldn't have gotten into the crypto space, but 70% -80% of the members didn't succeed in the crypto space. Most people have a team like this to share alpha. What matters is that you have such people in your life.

Cobie：Currently,Uponly: For DAO, what do you think its potential success model should be?Currently,I think DAO is a kind of regulatory arbitrage

. DAOs could have run better as corporations, but they had to issue their own tokens, which made them run worse. There are now examples of very good and very bad DAOs. As a cooperative mechanism, DAO is a very good idea. The best DAOs should not be the DAOs that people like in a bull market, or even those with more concentrated ownership, say 10-15 companies that are more likely to succeed.

Cobie：DAOs need a new type of venture capital, more contributor-type VCs to get involved, and Paradigm and Delphi are becoming that.

Uponly: Do you think Crypto will ultimately make the world a better place?

In the future, a country’s base currency is likely to exist on a fully KYC-enabled national chain with DeFi functions, without governance tokens, but many DeFi may disappear because there are no governance tokens. The basic assets on this chain are CBDC. This is the most likely thing I can imagine happening. But if you ask what kind of structure I want to see, I would like to have a basic smart contract chain supported by the financial system, and each country has several roll-ups, but I think the possibility of this happening is relatively small.

Capital motivates people to build better things.

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Cobie：Seven, finallyUponly's tradition at the end of each interview is to ask the guest to offer the audience a piece of advice.Director Albert Maysles once said: "