Whats next for Crypto !! (Funds, Dapps and Mining)

Hey everyone and welcome to another episode of Fox Mining. So it's been a while since my last video and that's because I was in Singapore checking out the cryptocurrency scene. So I thought what a better topic to talk about, about some reflection and thoughts that I've been having over the past few days about the crypto scene and update the crypto meta. What's going on and what's happening with all the funds, with all the projects and of course with mining as well. So I'm going to talk about all these things in today's video. I'll talk about the funds I visited. I'll talk about the projects I even visited at cryptocurrency mine and I checked out a few projects as well kind of secretly in the background. I'll also talk about the latest biggest news which is in the States ETFs, exchange traded funds. The SEC is making it a little bit easier for people to start it up so that might apply and might mean that it's easier to set up exchange traded funds for cryptocurrencies. So I'm going to cover everything here in today's episode of Box Mining Daily and of course everything covered here is my personal opinion and not financial advice. So let's start off with what's in Singapore. Why is it worth checking out? Well that's because a significant number of funds and projects are there. The reason being is that the government is pushing fintech so blockchain is part of the fintech industry and also it's quite convenient to open bank accounts and set up shop there. So that is why a significant number of funds, for example, Neo Global Capital, Longhash, we also have some Spartan Capital. A large portion of these funds are in Singapore so they're set up there. We also have projects there. For example, we have Zilliqa, we also have 10x and portions of Amise Go are there as well. So I managed to check out a few of them and I definitely feel like I didn't have enough time to see the malls and I feel like what I want to do is in a future kind of time I want to check out, do some meetups in Singapore, show you guys more what it's like. But I really want to just summarize what I did there which is I met up with Neo Global Capital, I checked up with Zilliqa and their team a little bit just a little peek through there and also of course their little area called The Bridge which houses a lot of blockchain projects. And I think this is a very interesting area because all the blockchain projects are gathered together. The area is very close to the NUS or National University of Singapore so they can source talent from there. So what's in that area? Well Neo Global Capital is there. We also have one of the biggest projects coming out of Singapore, Zilliqa is based there. And they're pretty much all at arms reach length from each other so they can really talk and kind of share ideas. And I feel this is like kind of a very productive place to work because it's all blockchain geared based and they can all talk to each other. So I feel like this is kind of the trend for blockchain right now. It seems like having this area for communication and talking is a great way to share new ideas and to collaborate with each other because we know that right now at the current speed that blockchain isn't just going to solve problems with one project. Projects have to work together. That is why their alliance is forming and this is why interoperability is super important this year. Now another update is I feel like the funds right now are very bullish about cryptocurrencies as well. That's why Longhash is expanding to multiple offices around the world. So Singapore is only one of the offices and they're going to expand globally. So that definitely tells me that they have a very hopeful vision for the future. With that being said, the funds are also very picky. It's getting very picky right now to pick up the best projects. So if you look at the projects that are popular now recently, for example, Perlin, for example, or Anchor or Oasis Lab, they all have very strong academic ties. So having these ties to academia or to some industry partnerships up in the background, this is something that the funds are looking at right now because that's the easiest way to find top tier kind of technical projects that have revolutionary technologies and at the same time has ability to push out into the adoption field. So it seems like this is the criteria that funds are looking for and they're getting more and more picky. That's also because the number of ICO projects right now that's been circulated is incredible. You might not really realize that, especially because a lot of projects don't do public rounds anymore, but it seems to be the case that these projects that are trying to raise capital, it's going up to like hundreds and tens of, um, I was going to say tens of thousands, but no, it's around 100 to 200 new projects. And it's very, very selective right now, which projects can succeed and they need to have basically the technical skills and the kind of ability to partnership over industries. So that seems to be what's happening in terms of new projects. Now, of course, there is a concern that these projects, especially to the crypto community, that these projects aren't any really accessible anymore to the general public. And I feel like this is a strategy change, mostly started by the SEC, because the SEC basically said, public sale can contribute to a security. So now it seems like the projects are just saying, all right, let's not try to avoid that for now and choose and to go with private funding and signing staff agreements. So that seems to be the current situation, but it might change at a moment's notice if something very positive happens. So in terms of good news, the cryptocurrency market jumped around 10, 15% last week because of good news coming from the SEC about exchange tracked funds. So this is something that Bitcoin wanted to do for a long time with the Vinco Boss ETFs that were initially denied. But what people are seeing is that if we can get cryptocurrencies on an exchange tracked fund, it allows these big exchanges that are traditional fiat money to come in for people, investors there to come in and buy cryptocurrencies, or at least trade them in a tracked fashion. So having that is very, very important, and especially, and that's why the market reacted so positively that the rules are being eased a little bit. That being said, however, the rules don't exactly mean it's not exactly for cryptocurrencies. It's for most exchange tracked funds run by funds. So it's important to note that while this might mean it might be easier for crypto, it doesn't mean automatically that the current kind of ETFs for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies can automatically pass through the door. There's still a huge process going forward. And I want to say that this is kind of a recurring theme here. In crypto, I know the markets kind of change like this every single month, and we have wild fluctuations, and we want to look for news. We want to look for fast news that's changed in the market. But the result of most things is that most things take a long time. For example, the SEC took a long time to decide if Ethereum is a security or not. I mean, think about it. We're so used to the number two cryptocurrency in the world, Ethereum. But the SEC took a long time to come up with comments of whether Ethereum is a security or not. Right now, they're hinting that it's not, but it's still kind of like a lot of cryptocurrencies out there are still in that gray area. Are there securities? Are there commodities? How should it be taxed? And how should it be regulated? There's still a lot and a lot of kind of red tape. And this is the state we're at. We're still very early in cryptocurrencies. And right now, the path is still not very clear. But what is clear is that some countries are jumping onto it, right? If you look at Gibraltar, Malta, these are countries that are making crypto-friendly regulations. And even in a way, Singapore does have its kind of crypto-friendliness in its essence. And that's why so many projects are there. And of course, outlook on projects going forward. This is the last topic I want to talk about because this is something I'm really interested in. Because without projects that drive actual adoption, then cryptocurrencies are still going to remain in its infancy. It's not going to push onto the mainstream. We're always looking for that new Facebook, the next Facebook, or the next Twitter, next Instagram, whatnot, that can leverage the power of a community-building coin and leverage the power of decentralization. So we're at the stage where we still don't have a killer product yet. Most, for example, look at the dApps on Ethereum network. A lot of dApps have less than a thousand daily active users. And if you're thinking about that in the gaming scale of things, you know, I've been running games for a while, less than a thousand DAU is a dead product. You want millions of people playing your game or using your product. And we still don't have that yet. And that's because it takes a long time to get used to developing cryptocurrencies. It's not. This is something that I started understanding once I was in Singapore and talking to programmers. In fact, I was talking to a Stanford professor called Young Lippard, and he's doing a healthcare project. And what he stated is that it's actually not easy to develop for Ethereum. Even though the syntax is easy, understanding language is easy, but using it and thinking about what's implied by the syntax, by the language is difficult. So just getting used to that. And added to that is the fact that once a contract is deployed, it's not possible to change sometimes in crypto. And that's why it's insanely difficult to develop or at least get used to it. So there is still a climb to do so, and we still don't have a perfect dApp yet. And that's why I still say crypto is in its infancy. We still can't say which one is the winner yet. And that's what makes it both exciting and also very hard at the same time. Now that the market's been moving sideways for a long time, I actually feel like, I know this is really hard to say because, you know, the market's dropped a lot, and a lot of my cryptocurrencies and assets dropped to like half or sometimes a quarter to what they were in January levels. But what I do want to say is that this is good because we get to think about, okay, look, let's look at this carefully. Can this really be pushed forward? Are there any issues here? And we can have a proper discussion. This is something that's really happening on both my cryptocurrency channel, my telegram channel, and a lot of telegram channels around here. The level of conversation, the depth of the conversation is getting greater. And I feel like this is necessary for us to move forward, for us to take a step back from all that hype, from, you know, maybe McAfee, Don McAfee tweeting about one certain crypto and its price scoring and us chasing that McAfee tweet, to more about chasing what makes the technology tick, what is possible here, and to have a good discussion about that. So I do feel like right now we're in a situation where we can start having that discussion. And lastly, with mining, I actually saw a 36 megawatt farm in Singapore run by X squared. So this is a fund in Singapore and they have their own mine name operation as well. What's interesting is checking this out confirmed a lot of what's happening that I was researching happening in the mining scene. So for one, mining is harder now. Now that cryptocurrency prices have dropped, it's harder to mine and also difficulty levels have gone up. So the probability per GPU is getting less. Now there's two kind of ways you can choose to mine. So this mine, specifically the one that I saw, there are GPU mines and GPU mines mostly mine Ethereum or Monero and sometimes maybe Zcash. The cool thing about GPU mines is that they use graphics cards, which can be resold. So there's this advantage here that the hardware you buy is reusable. Now in terms of probability, that has gone down a little bit because the Ethereum dropped. But what they told me is that they're profitable as long as the Ethereum doesn't drop below the $300 mark. They're also trying to find new places with cheaper electricity. This is very important for mining operations because well, if you look at a mine, it consumes a huge amount of electricity and if they can get that to a fraction of what their cost is, well, that's good news. So what it seems to be happening now with miners is that they're all competing and trying to find the next equation, maybe beside a hydroelectric dam or in a country where it's cheap and they can get maybe government subsidy for electricity. There they can have higher profit margins and that makes it easier to mine. But that means that for us, a normal miner that's not a big global operation, it's hard to enter. So that's kind of like the drawback to mining is that the bigger players, because they have more gear, they can scale a lot easier. Well, because they can find cheap electricity, they have better deals. And it's even more true with ASICs because ASICs, if you order large supply in quantities, you can probably get special contracts from Bitmain or your ASIC provider. So this is why it's getting very competitive in the mining scene. It's a little bit harder to enter. So that's why personally, I'm not buying more mining rigs. So those are the thoughts to different cryptocurrencies. I'm very optimistic about the future, but I do see this long-term kind of stagnation sideways trading for a while until really we have new movement and new adoption. I definitely want to hear what you guys think about this current situation and the current market. Do you feel like we have the opportunity to go up now that ETFs are more possible and it's a little bit more exciting for us on the market? I'd love to hear your comments on the comment section below. This week, I'm going to resume to more daily updates. I'm going to bring you updates on news. I also have some new cool things. I have some new hardware wallets that I wanted to do some tutorials of and I want to do a new kind of tutorial series as well. So talk about different technologies and of cryptocurrencies and kind of make a more educational series, which I feel like it's very important for the long-term understanding of crypto and this ecosystem. Thank you guys so much for watching this episode. Remember to click the little subscribe button down below to subscribe to this channel and of course the little notification bell to be notified of new videos when they get released. Thank you guys so much for watching. See you next time.