Solana in 2024-2025 & Crypto's Future
Trouble is brewing and an inside glimpse into influencers.
Greetings and welcome to August, 2024! A lot has been happening as usual in the blockchain space and I aim to fill you in as best I can.
Trump and RFK Jr Promises
Trump and RFK Jr head off at the Bitcoin Convention promising to embrace crypto in various ways.
At the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville, former President Donald Trump made several promises regarding Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. Here's a summary:
Strategic National Bitcoin Reserve: Trump pledged to maintain a "strategic national bitcoin reserve" and "never sell" the government's seized bitcoin.
Crypto Capital of the World: Trump promised to ensure that the United States will be the "crypto capital of the planet" and the "Bitcoin superpower of the world."
Firing Gary Gensler: Trump vowed to fire Gary Gensler, the chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, on his first day in office.
Crypto Advisory Council: Trump announced plans to appoint a bitcoin and crypto advisory council to design transparent regulatory guidance for the industry.
Stablecoin Regulation: Trump promised to create a framework for ensuring the safe expansion of stablecoins.
No Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC): Trump stated there would "never be a CBDC" while he is president.
Bitcoin Mining Powerhouse: Trump pledged to make the United States the world's undisputed bitcoin mining powerhouse.
100% of Government-Held Bitcoin: Trump promised to keep 100% of all bitcoin the U.S. government currently holds or acquires in the future.
RFK Jr made similar promises. However, since these speaches it appears rumor have begun related to the Biden Admin starting to sell off their 200,000 BTC from siezures and the like, though this is unconfirmed and its more likely that on chain movements of portions of the sum are to different long term custody solutions.
Solana 2024-2025
If you watch my Youtube channel, you’ll know I’ve never been an advocate for Solana, even though I do hold some still that I acquired through bot trading back when it was just $20. I still bot trade with it today which I’m happy to share in the name of total transparency. However, I’ve made predictions over the past 6 months at least that I believe this is likely to be Solana’s last market cycle and that is If it survives even that long which a part of me is doubting.
To further my point, a recent video was released on Youtube by a CBCrypto that turned out to be one of the most detailed expose’s on Solana I’ve seen to date.
Exposing Solana: Everything they dont want you to know!
I highly encourage anyone interested in not just Solana but the future of crypto to watch that video entirely to the end. As it appears, more and more people are waking up to what Solana really is, has been and does to maintain its advantages in the market, much of which appears to have come out of the FTX and Terra Luna playbook. Whistleblowers are apparently coming out of the woodwork exposing new elements of Solana previously unknown and they are coming with reciepts.
However, against all of these details, on chain metrics and other reciepts, I’m seeing people crawl under the beds, pulling the blanket over their faces while thinking “If I cant see them, they cant see me” as they continue trying to maintain an elements of plausible deniability. The group doing this the most that bothers me the most are influencers in the space, and its bad.
Now, I’m not ever one to try and dox people for credit or klout and I’m certainly not one to try and stir up drama for engagement. It’s just not my way. We are all learning together as things change and the markets grow. However, I started a private invite only Telegram group back in 2017 for Crypto educators, influencers, twitter folks etc to empower easy access to one another for collabs and just to help one another. Its grown to over 250 of all of the crypto bros in the space.
The thing is, I’ve seen it all in this group. I’ve had to kick BIG Tubers for fighting with others and to some extent I’ve seen some of the different sides to people in the group. The one thing I’ve noticed lately since that video above was released are the number of people that either flat out wont touch it as they state their love of Solana or they just try to deny the videos validity simply because they dont want the contents of that video to be true.
A LOT of money has been spent by Solana insiders to establish a ring of influence on both Twitter, Youtube and paid crypto news media. The majority of the Solana based articles you see are paid advertisements. This isn’t to say that paid marketing isn’t common, though you dont see much or any of that from Cardano because it goes against the decentralized nature of the chain and its mission until Chang Hardfork this month and the public can begin voting on what to do with the 1.5 Billion ADA locked in treasury.
Why do I care about Solana at all? Because I believe wholeheartedly that like FTX, Celsius, Terra Luna and others before it, its a frabricated story driven house of cards perpetutated by the interests of the millionaires and billionaires playing the public for their own gain and it is likely going to end poorly and not just for Solana holders.
The FTX debacle put a terrible taste in the mouths of outside venture capitalist groups the world over. Even where I live, which is a bit of a blockchain hotspot, mention crypto to the truly wealthy and connected money men and they will scoff and mention FTX. FTX had celebrities in for millions, stadium sponsorships and so much more and the whole thing was a house of cards. They had everyone snowed with a belief that SBF was a genius and that everyone was going to get super rich from their “Number go up” methods of management. Nevermind how it was working behind the scenes.
One thing we know is that a coordinated effort of whales, market makers, wash trading, bots, marketing narratives and the like can and do often dictate the price action of projects not worried about SEC involvement or overall backlash. The mentality of a lot of these folks appears to be “we may have to pay a fine” as a cost of doing business. Why do these insider seem to be so fearless? I’d love to know. Maybe the juice is just worth the squeeze in the grand scheme of it all.
My fear is that if or when Solana collapses, who will be further affected? When will it happen and what will cause it? How much will it affect the blockchain space and what will be the regulatory repurcussions of it after the fact? Will Solana become the straw that breaks the camels back in blockchain giving gov agencies all of the fuel they need to lock everything down in protection of investors? Especially now that institutions are running into the space with more inflows daily…it scares me.
I’ve been warning Youtubers about all of this, asking them, how much do they care about their viewers. If SOL does collapse, most of them will likely lose their followings entirely but what is sad is that, they dont seem to care much. They care about riding Solana as high as it can get before tanking and keeping their finger on the sell button for when it does. I hate to say this but many seem to view their followers as exit liquidity or a safety blanket for when things go bad.
I’m personally boycotting anyone that promotes Solana on their channels anymore because there is simply too much information out now with more coming almost daily showing the truth behind it all and while I understand people holding a lot of SOL dont want to ruin a “good thing” or send their own bags into the toilet, I would at least like to see people averaging out and changing their tune if they truly care at all about the public that puts their trust in these channels. The monsters still see you even with a blanket over your eyes.
Am I saying Solana wont pump from here? I’m not saying that. Am I saying Solana can’t resolve its issues and become better? Anything is possible. Am I saying Solona is guaranteed to fail? No, I’m not saying that either. I’m saying, quite simply, its looks like a land mine zone with a lot of people running through it and one of those mines may potentially set off all the rest at the same time. I just know that given all of the superior tech out there, with better use cases than meme tokens and pet rocks, people are likely better off getting involved in those ecosystems for long term interest.
My only true hope in this post is for you all to be informed from multiple angles and perspectives as to the true potential of what is happening. Dont let yourselves be fooled. Most people in crypto only care about serving themselves and very few will take a stand for what benefits others. Anything could happen, for better or worse.
I hope this finds you well and I hope August proves more fruitful for the space overall and while I expect big things to come out of Cardano this month, we aren’t yet out of the woods in the entire crypto space.