Investing in Crypto

2023년 4월 14일

There are approximately 22,932 cryptocurrencies in existence.


The image above shows the hundreds of cryptocurrencies on TradingView's crypto coins heat map. Click here to interact with the heat map

With so many cryptocurrencies, how does one determine which, if any, are worth investing in?

In this post, I'll explain how I sorted through thousands of cryptocurrencies to identify a small handful that met my investing criteria. This is post is meant to be educational, but is not meant to be financial advice.

I began by using TradingView's crypto screener, shown below. I filtered out cryptocurrencies with a market cap of less than $100 million. In my opinion, cryptocurrencies with a market cap smaller than $100 million are too volatile and illiquid to safely invest or trade. Assets with a such small market cap can also be prone to price manipulation. The low volume and illiquid conditions also tend to result in poor-quality charting data.



I analyzed the charts of over 200 cryptocurrencies with a market cap of over $100 million. To account for the possibility that a cryptocurrency under the $100 million market cap was growing fast enough to eventually become a candidate, I re-screened all the cryptocurrencies by market cap at a second point in time (6 months later). I also performed both screenings during the current crypto bear market when fewer new cryptocurrencies were coming into existence. I observed that most cryptocurrencies decayed in value relative to the U.S. dollar.

When an asset decays in value relative to the U.S. dollar this generally means that the market believes the asset is becoming worthless. Since the majority of the most highly capitalized cryptocurrencies were decaying in price over time, I assumed that lesser capitalized cryptocurrencies were also decaying in price relative to the U.S. dollar. Therefore, I concluded that most cryptocurrencies are becoming worthless over time.

To objectively determine whether or not an asset is decaying relative to the U.S. dollar one can apply a regression channel to the entire price history of the asset. If the channel is downsloping, then the asset is decaying in value as time passes.


The chart above shows an example of a cryptocurrency that has decayed in value relative to the U.S. dollar. Most cryptocurrencies decay in value relative to the U.S. dollar. (Note: Although the denominator is Tether the chart has been adjusted to USD.)

Although most cryptocurrencies decay in value over time, dozens of cryptocurrencies move up in value relative to the U.S. dollar over time (and have an upsloping regression channel). For these high-performing cryptocurrencies, I then used relative strength analysis to determine the best investing candidates.

For each cryptocurrency that had a market cap of over $100 million and that had an upsloping regression channel relative to the U.S. dollar over its entire existence, I analyzed the cryptocurrency relative to Bitcoin to see if it outperformed. If the cryptocurrency decayed over time relative to Bitcoin (downsloping regression channel), I removed it from my list because I concluded that it would be better to just invest in Bitcoin. Although I excluded crypto that underperformed Bitcoin, I could not reach the conclusion that crypto that outperformed Bitcoin was worth investing in until I first validated the conclusion that Bitcoin itself was worth investing in.

While a quick glance at the price history of Bitcoin, as shown below, may convince many people that Bitcoin is worth investing in, I needed an objective, evidence-based, and mathematical method to determine whether Bitcoin is a wealth-building asset or merely a speculative bubble. Fortunately, chart analysis can help us infer if an asset is a speculative bubble or actually wealth-building over the long term.



In a prior post, I explained that from a conceptual standpoint, a wealth-building asset is one that expands the investor's purchasing power over time. In order to do this, a wealth-building asset generally must move up in price over time faster than the rate at which the money supply expands. In general, only assets that are perpetually scarce or that are increasingly productive can overcome this difficult hurdle to be classified as a wealth-building asset. To learn more about why an asset must outperform the growth rate of the money supply in order to be wealth-building, you can check out my post below.

Therefore, in order to test whether or not Bitcoin is a wealth-building asset over the long term (years and decades), I compared Bitcoin against the money supply. What I found was surprising.


The above chart compares the market cap of Bitcoin to the U.S. money supply (M1).

I found that the market cap of Bitcoin was forming an apparent bull flag to the U.S. money supply (M1) on the yearly chart. Not only is a bull flag apparently forming, but the bull flag structure is apparently a perfect golden ratio.



To learn more about golden ratio bull flag structures and why they can be quite significant, you can check out my post below about advanced bull flag concepts.

I decided to delve deeper. This time I measured Bitcoin against the money supply on a lower timeframe and using a longer lookback period. I found that the total market cap of Bitcoin as a ratio to the money supply was moving in an apparent logistic growth curve. Although it is generally well-known that Bitcoin moves in a logistic growth curve to the U.S. dollar, it is not generally well-known that Bitcoin's market cap is also moving in the same logistic growth pattern relative to the money supply.



The chart above shows the total market cap of Bitcoin moving in an apparent logistic growth curve relative to the money supply. The pink line at the top is the value 1, and it represents a horizontal asymptote (the highest possible value that can be reached). Bitcoin's market cap can only go as high as the total supply of money. As Bitcoin's market cap approaches the total supply of money, further growth becomes increasingly inhibited because there is a decreasing amount of money left that can be converted into Bitcoin so as to push its price up further.

It is thus not possible for the total market cap of Bitcoin to exceed the total supply of money. In other words, when measured in U.S. dollars, the total value of 21 million Bitcoin can only ever be as high as the total global supply of U.S. dollars. Although the money supply tends to increase over time, the total market cap of Bitcoin as a ratio to the money supply can only ever reach 1.

Since the inhibiting factor of the growth of Bitcoin's market cap is the money supply then what this means on a conceptual level is that Bitcoin's logistic growth is actually a mathematical indication that Bitcoin is replacing the money supply. In essence, by forming a logistic growth curve to the U.S. money supply, we can infer that Bitcoin is displacing, if not outright replacing, the U.S. dollar. If you would like more scientific evidence that Bitcoin conforms to a logistic growth function, you can check out this research article.



It is not unusual that Bitcoin's price action appears as a logistic growth curve. Logistic growth curves characterize many types of replacement processes in nature. For example, each time a new variant of COVID-19 emerged, it replaced the previous variant through logistic growth, which can be shown in a chart of the relative prevalence of COVID-19 variants over time.



The chart above shows the "S-curve" or sigmoid pattern that characterizes logistic growth. Variants of COVID-19 vying for hosts to infect is reflected as a logistic growth race among circulating and emerging variants. In many ways, this competition among virus variants is analogous to the competition of cryptocurrencies: Each cryptocurrency competes with existing and emerging cryptocurrencies to form a logistic growth curve relative to the U.S. dollar, thereby challenging its market dominance. A small subset of cryptocurrencies are so competitive that they also form a logistic growth curve relative to Bitcoin, which reflects their attempt to replace even Bitcoin's market dominance.

The final step I took in analyzing cryptocurrency for investing potential was to detect which, if any, cryptocurrencies were moving in logistic growth not only to the U.S. dollar but also to Bitcoin. If one can detect an asset that will move in a logistic growth curve to Bitcoin early on, the extent of wealth that can be built is extraordinary.

Below are a couple of examples of the relative strength analyses I performed.

Bitcoin vs. Bitcoin Cash





The above chart shows a downsloping regression channel, indicating that Bitcoin Cash decays in value relative to Bitcoin over time. Therefore, Bitcoin is a better long-term investment than Bitcoin Cash.

Bitcoin vs. Ethereum





In the chart above, one can see that when compared to Bitcoin, Ethereum produces an upsloping regression channel. Since the Pearson correlation coefficient is quite low and since Ethereum was unable to reach a higher high relative to Bitcoin in the current halving cycle, the relative strength of Ethereum and Bitcoin are indeterminate. In light of this, I decided that investing in both Bitcoin and Ethereum could allow me to diversify and lower the risk of investing in only one of the two.

Aside from Bitcoin and Ethereum, in a follow-up post, I'll reveal which other 3 cryptocurrencies I currently invest in. One of them may be a surprise to many. Feel free to leave a comment below indicating which cryptocurrencies you think should be in the top 5 long-term investing candidates.

In conclusion, the analysis above shows that, to a reasonably high degree of certainty, cryptocurrency (Bitcoin specifically) is challenging the current monetary system in ways that it has not been challenged before. It is my belief that cryptocurrency is the next step in the evolution of human financial markets. It builds the infrastructure for a monetary system that equips humans with more efficient transactions within digital spaces. While the Bitcoin blockchain is far from perfect and is heavily reliant on non-renewable energy consumption, it solves many of the inefficiencies that financial systems have been unable to solve for millennia.


If you enjoyed this post, I would greatly appreciate it if you leave a boost! If you have any questions or would like to share your thoughts, feel free to leave them in the comments below. In a future post, I plan to explain why cryptocurrency's displacement of existing monetary systems is becoming increasingly inevitable due to the proliferation of DeFi protocols.




Important Disclaimer

Nothing in this post should be considered financial advice. Trading and investing always involve risks and one should carefully review all such risks before making a trade or investment decision. Do not buy or sell any security based on anything in this post. Past results do not guarantee future returns. Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile. Never borrow money or use margin to invest in cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency is not backed or insured by any authority and is therefore a high-risk asset class. You can lose all or some of your money in cryptocurrency. Please consult with a financial advisor before making any financial decisions. This post is for educational purposes only.

2023년 4월 19일

노트

Correction: In my definition of asymptote above, I noted that it is the highest possible value that can be reached. I wanted to correct this. An asymptote can never be reached. It is a line that a curve approaches but never touches. An asymptote’s value is unreachable by definition. In the context of logistic growth, an asymptote represents the limit of growth.

2023년 4월 25일

노트

Here's a great article about the future price potential of Bitcoin: Bitcoin's Natural Long-Term Power-Law Corridor of Growth

The BTC Power Law Corridor indicator on TradingView, shown below, was created using this theory!

2023년 6월 29일

노트

If you haven't already, check out my latest thoughts about Bitcoin in my new post:

2023년 9월 10일

노트

I promised to post this a long time ago, but never got around to it.

Here's my list of the top 10 cryptocurrencies from a purely regression and comparative analysis.



I compared the total lifetime return of each cryptocurrency in terms of percentage and relative to the U.S. dollar. The cryptocurrencies that have been around the longest have an unfair advantage in terms of this metric. To account for this, I then calculated the Pearson Correlation Coefficient for each of the cryptocurrencies using a logarithmic scale, relative to Bitcoin, not the U.S. dollar. Of note, only cryptocurrencies with a dataset that spans for at least a full halving cycle were considered in this analysis.

It's important to realize that each of these cryptocurrencies, to a varying degree is a strong competitor to Bitcoin and an even stronger competitor to perpetually eroding fiat currency.

As always, anything can happen and this is definitely not meant to be investing or financial advice. Do not buy or sell any security because of this information. This is meant to be purely educational. If you find any errors or have ideas to add to this analysis please post in the comments below.