Ryan Selkis Shares His 2024 Crypto Predictions

The important battle that must be won is in the Senate. There is no future for crypto in the US if the Democrats hold the Senate.

Really?

At least not until 2030. I think if it's a clean sweep for the the the Dems, then um move your family.

Wow, really? Move your family?

Or or pick another industry, right? I mean, I'm I'm not gonna be doing crypto in the US if if it's a clean sweep from the from the Democrats.

Like w why? What do you think happens?

What will 2024 have in store for crypto? That is the question on today's episode. And to answer that question, we brought on Brian Selkis. He gives us his crypto theses for 2024. This is from a document that he publishes every year where he goes through, I think this one is 200 pages of all of his predictions, all of the themes, all of the narratives, all of the things he thinks will be in store for us in the following year. A few things we talk about in today's episode, the big investment themes in 2024, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and all the other tokens down the market stack. Also, the people to watch, including Larry Fink. Ryan thinks he is about to get a lot more bullish on crypto. How we defeat Elizabeth Warren as well, we talk about that. And why Ryan thinks Barry Silbert will make a comeback. I think he called him in this episode undefeated. We also talk about the future of stable coins. Ryan is particularly bullish on Coinbase's layer two. Uh it's called base, of course. We talk about that. And finally, we conclude with some policy takes. And Ryan has some particularly spicy takes here. Just me on today's episode. David is out today. He is ice climbing. True story. Guys, we're gonna get right to our episode with Ryan Selkis. But before we do, I want to thank the sponsors that made this episode possible. Thankless Nation, our next guest, needs no introduction because we do this every freaking year. We have Ryan Selkis, he is the founder and CEO of Missari, which is a crypto analytics firm and media company, helping bring clarity to the crypto space. And every year he brings for us toward the end of the year his theses going into next year. Today we are ending 2023, actually, not today, but this month, sometime, and we're entering 2024. So it is time to take a look at Ryan's predictions, he's his theses going into 2024. Ryan, how are you doing today?

I'm tired, man. This is

You're tired?

we were just talking off camera. This is the longest one yet. Um and uh and it's still under review.

Uh we didn't even get you the full draft yet, so I appreciate you doing this, but I'm I'm not.

We're looking at we're looking at

the

I'm 102 sections into the 105 overall. So 102

two sections.

I think I'm going to finish tonight and then we'll go through about a week or or so of edits and then ship it out right before the holidays.

So uh Bankless Nation, this is a 200-page document, of course, that we are we're gonna try to distill half of this into an hour or so long episode, which is an absolutely monumental task. But of course, we'll have a link so that you can download the full document and get your digest. This is some fantastic holiday reading for you uh if you're interested in in kind of a recap of 2023 and and the things going into 2024. I I'm wondering before we get into kind of uh the the various sections here, and we we've got a number that we're gonna cover, if you could give us sort of a recap of the year. So you you start with this welcome letter. The carnage of the past 12 months in crypto have been brutal for all of us. We've grinded through bankruptcies, lawsuits, layoffs, turnovers, and a general malaise that comes with a bad hangover after a big party. That's uh very much how I felt. Uh we ended, you know, 2022 and 2023, I suppose, for for much of the year was part of that. How would you recap the year that was 2023 and how are we positioned going into 2024 at the highest level?

I feel good about

heading into next year uh and where we are. We have uh a number of tailwinds that I think should be uh pretty encouraging for most of us.

There is a a weird backdrop.

In the private markets, like the private venture markets, where there's still pretty significant dislocations in terms of prior valuations. And I do worry that some of the non-token affiliated companies

might

be

getting a little bit of a false sense of security or this might be a false start in terms of like resetting certain levels of optimism, particularly for folks that have been around for a while.

But that's mostly a function of the both the public software and kind of private venture market still being relatively icy.

I think Seed Stage feels good, Series A feels good.

Obviously, the token markets are coming back. There's different narratives that are starting to get people excited. And then at the very highest level,

you know, Bitcoin has uh has a number of tailwinds.

We'll talk about Ethereum as well, as we always do, um, and kind of bat that around. But um, but I think the Bitcoin spot ETF

tailwind is probably the biggest um kind of wealth generator or potential wealth.

Generator for folks within the crypto ecosystem, then that usually has a trickle-down effect. So

we're in this like little bit of a weird

transition phase, but all things are generally

uh trending positive, including policy uh right now. Um might not feel like it, um, but I can I can certainly share some thoughts on on why I think um things are

slowly coming back um to a good spot. Maybe this is the dark before the dawn there.

Ryan Ryan, would you call this a a bull market? Are we in a bull?

Well, technically we've we've been on a bull market all year. I mean, you know, um Bitcoin's up, you know, 150%, you know, Ethereum's uh almost 2x uh off the lows.

Uh Solana and some of the other um you know highest performing you know big protocols or mid-cap protocols are are are up five, you know, in some cases even upwards of 10x.

So I I certainly think um

uh just it it it's it's almost undoubtedly and and indisputably a bull market from the bottom.

Um

but there is still you know a ton of

uh recursive investment, you know, within the industry, right? So when you think about infrastructure companies, when you think about, you know, um

Where we are

from an ecosystem health standpoint,

a lot of our long term growth and kind of really hitting the potential for crypto and all these emerging protocols is going to come from real world adoption and kind of crossing this chasm either with users or in the case of DeFi and financial instruments with Wall Street. And that's where we're starting, we're still in a bit of a halting pattern. I would say it's probably more acute.

um on the DeFi side of things um than it is for you know just Bitcoin on kind of the the the currency front or some of the other emerging applications like you know D Pin and

um

uh and and non financial we're not explicitly financial applications but

um it uh it it feels like we could be on the cusp of uh of a really fun year it it really just depends on how a couple things break.

So going into twenty twenty four, do you have an analog for what year twenty twenty four will be most like? Is this like, you know, if we if we go back to the previous um market cycle, is this

twenty twenty one or is it twenty twenty? Or you can even go back further than that. Is it twenty sixteen? What what do you think twenty twenty four will be?

Yeah it feels like 2020 and a six month

you know delay or or or or so because um

What we're seeing right now in the Solana ecosystem in particular, um, and and you know, the this hotball of money trade and and you know, all the enthusiasm for

um

different, you know, alternative L1s or or you know farmable ecosystems, it it's very reminiscent of of DeFi summer 2020.

Yeah.

And of course, you know, DeFi Summer 2020 was was basically like rocketing off the

um COVID crisis lows in March.