Market Lab Report / Dr. K's Crypto-Corner
by Dr. Chris Kacher
The Metaversal Evolution Will Not Be Centralized™
The Metaversal Evolution
The digital universe is the metaverse which represents all online activities including email, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Zoom, Discord, Instagram, TikTok, blogs, virtual live audiences, socially driven holographic experiences, Sandbox, Decentraland, and massive multiplayer online games among countless others. The metaverse was born with interconnectivity between computers which enabled users to communicate. Arpanet in the 1960s then the PC revolution in the 1980s spurred its growth. The average time spent online is doubling every decade. The metaverse is the beating heart of blockchain. More value is being accrued in digital than physical.
This is why borderless and secure decentralized technologies such as Bitcoin will represent the majority of value in the coming years. This is why the call I made in 2017 for Bitcoin to eventually reach $1 million is inevitable... then $10 million over the next decade. The cryptospace and the best performing alts such as Ethereum should reach valuations in the tens of trillions of dollars since a $1 million Bitcoin implies a Bitcoin valuation of $20 trillion. Once the bear market is over and we get a major crypto buy signal, expect the Crypto Picks list at www.selfishinvesting.com to repopulate.
In addition to being an incorruptible store-of-value (SoV), Bitcoin reduces the attack surface between countries since Bitcoin is not physical. Thus hot wars involving tanks, planes, and bombs will become less economically attractive to countries. Bitcoin will thus minimize the global nuclear threat.
Exponential Metaversal Growth
The internet revolution has continued to rapidly spread across the planet. In 2010, we had just under 2 billion people connected to the internet; we’re now at 5 billion, and by 2030, that number will rise to at least 7.5 billion. The exponential advancement of AI is spawning an intelligent brain for the entire planet as humans become increasingly cybernetic. We depend on AI on a regular basis. For example, AI figures out our likes and dislikes on Spotify, Amazon, YouTube, and Twitter among other platforms. The utility of AI together with blockchain catalyzes growth in the metaverse.
Crypto's Largest Opponent
Bitcoin and the metaverse's largest opponent is government controlled MSM (mainstream media) which uses fearmongering tactics to scare the public, thus pushes lawmakers into passing hasty laws based on bad science. Bitcoin has been badly victimized on which I wrote extensively HERE. Many uneconomic proposals have been passed into law to reduce the carbon footprint and minimize nuclear power. This negatively impacts the global GDP which in turn negatively impacts R&D which in turn slows progress and postpones any breakthroughs in clean energy or carbon reduction technology. This is problematic assuming part of the rise in temperature is caused by carbon emissions.
Uneconomic alternative forms of energy v. nuclear power
No one should be astonished at the Luddite Movement to curtail energy use given the constant FUD spouted by MSM on the dangers of global warming. As a consequence, economically viable technologies such as nuclear power which carries its own special set of MSM FUD are relegated to the back burners. Nuclear power is superior to fossil fuels which are superior to many alternative sources of energy most of which remain uneconomic. Yet this does not stop lawmakers from embracing them because of a misinformed public.
In reality, human beings are incredibly inventive. They rise to the occasion in every crisis. Take acid rain when it was seen as the most dire environmental threat for the planet back in the 20th century. In 1982, Canada’s minister of the environment said “Acid rain is one of the most devastating forms of pollution imaginable, an insidious malaria of the biosphere.” It was widely believed forests would be decimated, but a few decades passed yet forests were healthier than ever. On other fronts where acid rain could create issues, the adoption of catalytic converters for automobiles reduced sulfur dioxide emission from 31 million tons in 1970 to just 1.8 million tons in 2021.
Global Warming FUD
Global warming is little different. Long term trends out to centuries have shown the planet goes through very long cycles of warming then cooling. Earth has experienced cold periods (or “ice ages”) and warm periods (“interglacials”) on roughly 10,000- to 100,000-year cycles for at least the last 1 million years. That said, the rise in carbon emissions is only a small part of the change in the Earth's temperature. In other words, the Earth will continue to warm even with economic crippling laws that reduce carbon emissions. Inflation has been spurred by global warming because uneconomic energy laws require central banks to print more money to feed the beast by sponsoring such technologies.
Weaponizing Fear
Humanity has a horrid track record when it comes to being manipulated by fear. Cognitive biases spawned by an aversion to loss as well as evolutionary psychology are the core of the problem. Loss feels worse than the equivalent gain. Further, the masses on balance tend to be more pessimistic than optimistic even though the hard data shows we are far better off today than in any prior century in terms of average living standards and work hours. Largely vanquished is the ubiquitous slave trade of earlier centuries. Average life expectancy and infant mortality rate have massively improved. Efficiencies only dreamed of in prior centuries are increasingly common today even in third world countries.
Computing power
As computers become more powerful, the demands on energy increase. Electricity consumed by digital devices and infrastructures is growing at 7%/yr while global demands on electricity is growing at 3%/yr. The number of PCs nearly doubled between 2008 and 2015. There are nearly 9 billion active mobile phones. It currently takes 70 billion kilowatt-hours a year to run the internet.* In consequence, the exponentially growing metaverse will become increasingly energy intensive.
The metaverse may be worth $800 billion by 2024 partly due to a surge in online interest during the pandemic, up from $47 billion in 2020. The global AR, VR, and MR markets will reach roughly $300 billion by 2024. In 2020, the mobile AR market was worth nearly $7 billion. By 2025, it should reach over $26 billion.**
This rate of growth is threatened by the enactment of laws based on bad science. The reality is that crypto does things far more efficiently than prior tech. The metaverse diligently expresses these efficiencies. With greater efficiencies comes greater growth thus greater wealth creation thus faster advancements in tech. Crises are not born overnight. Any major crisis gives plenty of warning signs to which humanity will be far better equipped to quash given the advancements being made in cutting edge tech.
*https://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2020/02/the-global-energy-consumption-of-information-technologies-infographic.html
**https://influencermarketinghub.com/metaverse-stats/#:~:text=Gartner%20recently%20named%20the%20metaverse,to%20%2472.8%20billion%20in%202024