The crypto sector is in an interesting phase right now.
The market has rallied from its lows this past winter and is up a lot in 2019:
But Bitcoin now makes up almost 70% of that aggregate market cap.
In some ways, Bitcoin is the one protocol that has found lasting product-market fit. In terms of a censorship proof digital store of wealth, there is nothing that comes close to Bitcoin. There are some protocols, like the privacy-focused ones, that offer similar and in some cases better use cases. But for the most part, Bitcoin is our digital gold.
Ethereum, as many of you know, confounds me. It has shown the way to so many important things; smart contracts, programmable trust-free computing, potentially proof of stake, and a lot more. But it remains hard to build on, scaling issues abound, and many developers are looking elsewhere.
Stablecoins, including Facebook’s plans for Libra, are a bright spot. There has been much innovation in this sector and more is coming. There is no doubt that technology can provide a stable programmable crypto asset. We are still early days in the use cases but it is not hard to imagine why one would want to own and use stable programmable digital money.
We are also seeing signs that users like using crypto-assets in mobile and web apps. Kin, built by our portfolio company Kik, has become one of the most used cryptocurrencies in the world and is built into more than fifty mobile apps. Our portfolio company Blockstack has a Dapp platform that many developers are using to create consumer Dapps. And our portfolio company YouNow’s Props token is seeing a lot of consumers transacting with it.
But there is also plenty of disappointment to be had in crypto right now.
Regulators and banks in many parts of the world are downright hostile to crypto and have pushed much of the liquidity to Asia and the innovation has followed it there. Many of the most interesting things in crypto right now have emanated from Asia.
And many of the most promising and best-funded projects are massively delayed in getting to market. Some of this is that building scalable secure and decentralized protocols is not easy. But it is also true that the decentralized development approach that many of these projects are taking is not well suited to deadlines and ship dates.
And maybe most of all, crypto has not gone mainstream. Very few people earn in crypto. Very few spend in crypto. Very few use Dapps. Very few do anything with crypto other than buy, sell, and mostly hold.
I am an optimist. I am convinced that many of these disappointments will be overcome in the next few years. But it is easy to be bearish on crypto right now. The reality is well below the hype and challenges abound
I am long crypto and USV is long crypto. And we are putting more capital into the sector and will continue to do so. But it is not without risks and setbacks. Actually it is full of them.
