An Important Piece of Insider Info About Crypto

A funny thing happened on the way to total annihilation—the beginnings of a bull market seem to have emerged. 

Now that’s going to sound like a wildly optimistic statement to anyone who has listened to the mainstream media chronicle the decline in crypto prices this year. They’d have you believe that crypto in general and NFTs in particular are all but dead. 

And the past couple of days have done little to dissuade the mainstream media from this narrative…given the Federal Reserve has once again unnerved the stock and crypto markets. 

But let me share with you a bit of insider info: Crypto and NFTs have likely seen the bottom. And if not, then they are near the trough. 

Which means—and I say this fully believing these words—that those who are buyers today are the people who’re setting themselves up to be the big winners of tomorrow. No lie. No hype. No smoke and mirrors. 

Just straight-up facts based on my time inside what is arguably the wackiest world of investing. 

I say all of this because of events during and since the third week of June. 

That’s when the Federal Reserve conducted the first of two, back-to-back interest rate hikes of 0.75 percentage points. That’s a big increase. Throughout the early months of 2022, every time the Fed bumped rates higher by smaller amounts, risk-on assets including stocks and crypto melted.  

Yet on June 15, when the Fed announced its rationale for raising rates by 0.75 percentage points…crypto rallied. 

That day, bitcoin and Ethereum each gained more than 2%. Solana jumped more than 17%. 

Since then, the Fed instituted that second 0.75 percentage point rate hike…inflation has continued to confound, prompting the markets to expect more big rate hikes going into the fall…but crypto hasn’t collapsed. 

Prior to this week’s freak-out, bitcoin was flat since the Fed’s June 15 pow-wow. Solana was up more than 22%. Ethereum was up more than 44%. In the last few days, much of that has been erased to be sure because of chatter that the Fed might raise interest rates by 1 full percentage point tomorrow. If it does, my expectation is that crypto markets absorb the news relatively quickly and prices stabilize…in the days ahead. 

The broader expectation behind that thesis is the market’s belief that a full percentage point hike will be the Fed’s way of unloading its ammo all at once in a big, demonstrative move.  

And if we get a 0.75 percentage point hike, we could see crypto actually move up. 

Now, calling the bottom of any market is always a risk-heavy venture. But, to me, the gains in the face of prior rate hikes might just be the bell ringing at—or at least near—the bottom. 

I see it as well in the NFT space that I am active in literally every day. 

NFT prices came off just as hard as crypto. But the blue-chip projects and those with a demonstrated track record of building a real business are actually doing well. Let me show you a few charts… 

Don’t worry about the small numbers. Just look at the transparent blue boxes I’ve added to show the dramatic price rise in these projects.  

The numbers: Blocksmith Labs up 177% since the middle of August. 

Portals, the biggest metaverse on the Solana blockchain, is up more than 126% in the last couple of weeks.  

MetaHelix, which provides services to help projects manage their Discord social media channels, has more than doubled…and it has continued to pay out dividends every two weeks to owners of its NFTs. 

Those are just three. I could show you the charts for many more that are also on the ascent these days. 

Will this last? Is this just a temporary bull run in the midst of a secular bear market? 

Million-dollar questions, both.  

But I can tell you this: I believe we are at or near the bottom, and I am happy to hold NFTs at these prices, and to add to my portfolio here and there.  

I’ve been adding MetaHelix recently because of the income play and the growth of that business. The six MetaHelix NFTs that I own generate about 0.75 Solana per month in payouts. As I write this, that’s about $290 per year—not a lot. However, when Solana returns to its previous highs above $250 (it will), my income could jump to nearly $2,400 per year—for NFTs that cost me cumulatively about $400. (And that doesn’t include the fact that MetaHelix’s payouts have been growing with nearly every distribution.) 

What I’m saying is that, yes, crypto and NFT prices have come down really hard and really far. But the data today, and movement in these markets over the end of the summer, would seem to indicate that the storm has passed, or is in its latter stages. 

Now, we’re approaching clean-up mode. We’re rooting through the detritus left behind, and we’re pulling out the stuff that’s worth something. The fact that projects like Portals, Blocksmith Labs and the others have survived this period and continued to grow tells me they are businesses here for the long-haul. 

They’re the businesses that are going to make millionaires of today’s investors. 

Tomorrow, I will share with you another story that tells me the NFT market has probably touched bottom…and which shows the kinds of profits that are still occurring in this space.