2022: Year of “The Next Bitcoin”?

  Dear fellow investor, On October 25, 2017, I made a bold prediction — that one day cryptocurrencies would soon be a trillion-dollar market. It wasn’t some off-the-cuff remark on CNBC, either. It was delivered to more than half a million Motley Fool members in a nearly half an hour presentation on why the crypto market had just hit a NEW inflection point. Well, that prediction turned out to be… not bold enough!

Chart refers to USD.

At the time of my “trillion dollar” prediction, the crypto space was worth US$175 billion… Today, just four years later, it’s worth US$2.6 trillion. In just four years. (That’s about a 15-fold gain… Across an entire industry!) So, if on that date you’d invested $10,000 in Bitcoin and Ethereum — the two largest cryptocurrencies at the time, we’re not cherry picking any obscure ones… On October 25, 2021, your investment would have grown to more than $270,000 in just four years. Now, you’ve likely heard of Bitcoin and Ethereum plenty of times in recent years… And perhaps you’ve thought to yourself:

“There’s no way to understand them…”

“It seems like just pure speculation…”

“I don’t get what they do…”

And maybe even… “I already missed out on their run…”

Well, I have good news because as we head into 2022… I’m making another prediction. And I’m making it as boldly… and as early… as I possibly can! Simply because of very specific events we’ve been following closely that have led to gains of 117X, 139X, even 245X in major cryptocurrencies just this past year. Take Solana, making big waves in the NFT space, up 117X…

I see things like LUNA, which has massive ambitions in the financial space, up 139X in just a year…

Or get this, the fastest-growing video game in the world is a cryptocurrency — it’s up 245X in a year…

…which leaves no doubt in my mind:

We’re on the cusp of a ground-floor opportunity — still a mere fraction the size of Bitcoin…

That I believe could experience potentially explosive growth… and bring cryptocurrencies into the mainstream in ways few imagine today.

And if I’m right again, this next phase in the crypto space — what I’m calling “The Next Bitcoin” — could take it from trillions of USD… to quite possibly tens of trillions. Creating what I believe could be a series of 100X opportunities for investors who get in on the ground-floor. So, let me show you CLEARLY what’s happening now… I’ll lay out how a major event that potentially creates a NEW inflection point for cryptocurrencies headed into 2022 and could have transformative impacts far larger than Bitcoin itself… It could even become a major threat to the dominance of gigantic technology companies like Amazon, Facebook, or Google parent Alphabet! First… I know many investors who are looking at the news and seeing Bitcoin once again near all-time highs… Ethereum up more than 20-fold in two years and…

You can’t help but wonder, if you missed Bitcoin’s generational run from US$1… to US$1,000… to over US$60,000… Aren’t all the gains in crypto already gone?

So let me get that question out of the way now. You see, when I made my original “trillion dollar” prediction, it was because we saw a trend… A next era happening that would take cryptos from billions in value to trillions! And as you saw above, that has come true. But I’m not here to belabor the past. We’re not here to say, “I told you so.” Far from it. Here’s what’s really important. If you want to put yourself in the position to invest in the “Next Bitcoin” … You have to understand why the cryptocurrency space could be poised to enter a new phase. Because Bitcoin was only the first phase of cryptocurrencies. It serves a relatively simple purpose. It’s Internet money. But let’s be clear: Bitcoin is a big deal. In fact, The Motley Fool made waves when we invested US$5 million into Bitcoin in February 2021. Institutional support is skyrocketing, too — the first Bitcoin ETF just had a record-breaking launch. Which is to say… Bitcoin is valuable because it was first! There’s no central bank; Bitcoin is entirely controlled by rules with a set amount of supply. And it created an incentive system — via mining — that effectively lets people lend their computing resources to verify all transactions. Now, the second phase of crypto really took off in 2016. And that was the legitimacy of cryptocurrencies as platforms. There’s an entrepreneur named Vitalik Buterin — who may go down as one of the greatest minds in technology history with impacts no smaller than Steve Jobs or Elon Musk… And he essentially saw the limitations of Bitcoin — that it was “just” Internet money. And he created Ethereum, which took the cryptocurrency space in a radical new direction. Ethereum used the central Bitcoin technology — a blockchain — to allow millions of programmers across the world to begin building apps on top of it, allowing them to issue their own cryptocurrency assets. This second phase in 2016 allowed cryptocurrencies to become more than what even the greatest visionaries could have imagined mere years before. So, we have…

Phase One: Bitcoin as “Internet money” (2011)

Phase Two: Cryptocurrencies as “platforms” (2016)

And we’re predicting what comes next is…

Phase Three: “The Next Bitcoin” (2021)

Which I’ll reveal in a moment. I must warn you, though… Investors may have a narrower window than expected. If you want the potential for “ground floor” returns in this next phase, you likely can’t wait until the media has caught on and all your friends are talking about this… I’ll explain this urgency in more detail shortly.

Because just like with my “Phase 2” prediction that came before a 15X boom in the crypto market four years ago…

I’m issuing a prediction that we’re about to enter a NEW era in the crypto markets!

But I’m willing to bet you’ve never seen it covered in the media!

Look, the media loves to focus on what I see as the blatant excesses of the crypto space. The cryptocurrencies created as jokes about dogs, cats, or Elon Musk that can sometimes skyrocket to being worth (gulp) tens of billions of dollars… And all this media attention sucks the oxygen out of the room from the real story about world-changing developments in the space. Which is why a lot of people think investing in crypto is about getting lucky and investing in the next joke but…

That is NOT what we’re focused on.

So, I want to make something extremely clear. The cryptos I showed you at the top of this invitation that are up 117X to 245X across the past year… Each features breakthrough technologies and is having surprising impacts on some of the largest industries in the world. Simply put, they’re not “jokes”; I’m confident they’re real breakthroughs. What’s an example of how a leading cryptocurrency is impacting the real word? Well, let’s take a look! To start, let’s just use our imagination… Imagine a company with these results:

Revenue growth of 200-fold!

To put that in perspective, in its first year after going public Amazon had unheard of 839% growth… which is still just a fraction of 200-fold growth!

Transaction growth of 20-fold, or 2,000%.

Compare that to Visa — which is growing transactions at just 4%.

And user growth of 71%

Which makes it one of the fastest growing platforms in the world.

Best of all this company is a platform with dominant network effects that rival Amazon, Facebook, or Google parent Alphabet. Many top companies with a fraction of the growth I just described trade for 50 times sales or more! But I’m not talking about some hot IPO… You can’t even buy it on the stock market — don’t call up a broker and ask to add this to your next batch of stocks. Odds are, even with these incredible growth rates, you probably don’t own it… If you want to own this asset, you’d need to be invested in crypto, because it’s: Ethereum. What’s amazing — you’re essentially looking at an asset that recently grew revenue at 200-fold annually but trades at “cheaper” levels than a blue-chip stock like Starbucks. You see, Ethereum collects revenue the more people use it. And right now, it’s trading for a “P/E” of about 42. Starbucks, growing at a fraction of Ethereum’s rate, trades for 48X earnings.

If you’re shocked or confused by those numbers, you’re not alone…

So let me share another example. To illustrate what a major shift is happening right now… On August 14, I found myself watching a frenzy taking place for the need-to-have item of 2021. It wasn’t something physical like a brand-new Nintendo system or iPhone… It was something entirely different. It was an NFT. And it can be hard to keep up with the headlines blaring about NFTs, which I imagine you’ve heard of — but if not, they’re rapidly becoming the trend of 2021. NFTs are essentially a way to buy a digital good that are one of a kind and can be re-sold thanks to crypto technology. But here’s the thing… Everyone else frantically waiting for this “need to have it” NFT launch was there to fork out money … But I was there for research on what could be a breakthrough asset. Because I suspected that if this NFT launch went smoothly… The value of the cryptocurrency it was launching on could skyrocket. Now, you might ask, what’s so interesting about this cryptocurrency I was so closely following? Well, for one… It was dreamed up by an engineer from Qualcomm, the same company that’s a leader in technologies such as 5G. And it takes a critical technology that — I know this sounds crazy — but it “manipulates time” to redefine crypto technology much the same way that a game-changing technology like 5G works. It’s mind-blowing, but here’s the end result: In little more than two months after the event I was so intently watching… This cryptocurrency jumped from US$44.11 to US$200. That’s 4.5X growth in a couple months!

Solana, the crypto I’m talking about, can process 10,000X more transactions than Bitcoin per second… …which shows you how technologies that extend far beyond what Bitcoin is capable of can redefine the next decade of the crypto space! And with the immense innovation happening in this market… I believe successes like that could happen again and again! But that’s just part of the story.

I think the real story surrounding cryptocurrencies is so much bigger than Bitcoin, Ethereum, and even the latest NFT craze…

So, let’s look at ANOTHER industry that’s being disrupted by the latest breakthroughs in crypto tech right now: banking. Right now, the average savings rate is .06%. That’s horrible! Meanwhile…

Housing prices rise at record rates

Used car prices are skyrocketing

People are hoarding supplies

And gas prices have soared more than 50%. So, we have .06% returns vs. the cost of the goods you spend the most on rising up to 50%. That’s not a sustainable situation. So what’s going on? Well somewhere between those two numbers is … The middleman! Banks. Wall Street and Bay Street. Their profit margins are the gap between how much they pay you, and what they lend money out at. But what can be done about the banking system? If 2008 just made it stronger, there’s really no stopping Wall Street, right? Well, there’s a huge new industry emerging known as decentralized finance, or DeFi. It’s grown 100-fold in a bit more than three years — which might make it the fastest growing industry in the world!

There’s now more than US$100 billion worth of assets collateralized in DeFi for…

Lending

Borrowing

Exchanges

Even things like derivatives…

All without Wall Street. People are flocking to DeFi because there is no middleman to take those profits, so yields are often 50-fold or more what Wall Street pays. How does it work? Well, DeFi is almost entirely built on Ethereum! It’s peer to peer and uses “smart contracts” to provide lending without the need for a centralized party, like your bank. It’s not perfect and there will be growing pains, but the growth trajectory, the users, the developers… They’re all building critical mass. And the rewards for being a leader in these markets have piled up at just astounding rates. Take Terra, which has a cryptocurrency that trades under LUNA. It is one of the most exciting financial projects in the crypto space and has picked up incredible momentum — remember, it’s up 139X in the past year!

That’s a huge part of why cryptocurrencies are such a revolutionary technology: they have the ability to create markets we never even dreamed of years or even months ago!

Are you starting to see the major impact these breakthroughs in cryptocurrencies are having?

But I don’t think the “Next Bitcoin” will be a single coin — it’s the next phase in crypto that’s as technologically radical as the invention of Bitcoin itself…

Before I show you exactly what I expect to happen in that 3rd phase… I think you’ll agree that what’s going on in the cryptocurrency space ALREADY is truly mind-bending:

You just saw how cryptocurrencies are already creating an alternate financial system growing at 100-fold in little more than three years that continues expanding rapidly…

I showed you how NFTs have driven remarkable returns for investors who are paying attention. The industry has gone from a niche to being valued at more than US$20 billion in a few short months!

Or how about that crypto video game that’s become the fastest-growing video game on Earth? Well, it’s named Axie Infinity, and it has a cryptocurrency that trades under AXS — it’s up 245X in 2021 alone!

And here’s something out of left field… “Phase 2” of crypto is even revolutionizing sports! There’s a cryptocurrency built on Ethereum that gives sports fans the ability to make decisions in their favorite franchises. The biggest soccer clubs in Europe are all adopting it, and if I had to guess, it won’t be long before you see it utilized by clubs like the New York Yankees in America. Banking, gaming, sports… those are three $100 billion-plus industries and it’s happening TODAY. And to be clear — These gains aren’t because a bunch of traders are shifting into this as some new “meme”… They’re happening because of fundamental factors such as explosive user growth.

Which is why we’re not waiting to release this information to Motley Fool members any longer. Because if history repeats itself…

…And the world awakens to the “Next Bitcoin” opportunity in 2022, from where I sit, the time to hear about it is today.

I’ll be blunt. Being EARLY can really impact your returns. Take my original prediction… If I’d announced it just a year earlier, that $10,000 investment in both Ethereum and Bitcoin?

It wouldn’t be worth $270,000 today… it would have turned into more than $4.6 million!

So why am I making my next prediction right now, at this moment? Simple: Too many investors feel like they’ve missed the best returns of the first and second phase of the crypto market, that we just described. Now, I believe there are still gains to be had from the second phase of crypto and what’s happening with Ethereum… But if I’m right that phase 3 of the crypto market takes the opportunity from trillions to tens of trillions… Well, I trust from the examples I’ve just shown that you can understand why I’m predicting this is going to create some 100X opportunities for investors who get in on the ground-floor of the cryptocurrencies that can lead Phase 3. And if history does repeat itself… Well, I think I’ve made the stakes pretty clear. So, what exactly is this third phase I believe can take cryptocurrencies to an entirely new era?

My prediction is that crypto’s next phase is all about challenging the dominant tech titans… And I’m confident it has the ability to once again 10X the capabilities and potential of the crypto space. Here’s why…

I don’t take the idea of this being worth tens of trillions lightly. Frankly, there’s only a single equity industry on Earth that can claim that level of value: and that’s big technology companies. Today, you have Apple, Google parent Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, NVIDIA… Those 6 companies combined are worth about US$10 trillion. And they sure seem borderline unbeatable. Apple has rolled up almost all the profits in the smartphone space. Amazon captures a huge percentage of e-commerce growth. Facebook dominates most social media revenue… Just unstoppable, right? Well, my prediction is that crypto is about to become a major threat to the dominance of gigantic technology companies. And if that sounds impossible, just look at how cryptos have risen to challenge traditional finance so quickly! It sure wasn’t long ago that the thought of DeFi growing to the levels it has today was “unthinkable” … But as I showed you:

An innovative cryptocurrency challenging the status quo in the financial space is up 139X in the past year…

A year ago, the fastest-growing video game in the world being built on crypto was barely a concept the most forward-thinking crypto fans could imagine — well, it’s up 245X since the start of 2021!

And Ethereum’s revenue grew 200-fold… just between the beginning of 2020 and 2021

.

But with my prediction of this next phase being worth potentially tens of trillions, I do have one huge note and some pretty sobering news:

If you missed Bitcoin and phase one… If you missed Ethereum and phase two… I believe there’s an opportunity today, to be on the ground floor of what I consider to be “phase 3” of cryptos… But…here’s what’s sobering… I don’t believe there’s going to be a phase 4. This is — in my opinion — likely the last major shift of this magnitude. The reason is simple: There’s only so much money in this world! And if any industry makes a 10X shift to go from being worth trillions to tens of trillions, the world economy just isn’t big enough for a fourth shift of that magnitude. It’s really just simple math, as I see it. So, if you want to be on the ground floor of what could be a massive shift in this space — that I believe could be the “Next Bitcoin” level event… Well, this could be it.

So, what exactly do I believe is the breakthrough that could take the crypto market beyond trillions into the tens of trillions and make it potentially the biggest technology shift…

Well, ever??

It’s called Web3… and here’s my prediction:

I believe that the Web3 era is the third phase of the crypto market

I believe it can make cryptocurrencies more mainstream than ever

I believe it has the potential to be an event that grows the value of cryptocurrencies ten-fold

It won’t happen overnight mind you, but I think the potential ramifications are just massive… The first thing you need to know about Web3 is the right voices are behind it. Chris Dixon, who I consider to be the smartest venture capitalist alive says… Now, what is Web3? It is an era when cryptocurrency services can compete with and can replace the largest technology companies in the world. Here’s what it looks like in practice…

A “Phase 3” crypto called “Internet Computer,” which trades under ICP, copies many of the most advanced features of major cloud services like Amazon’s AWS and Microsoft’s Azure.

So, you can deploy websites, enterprise IT systems, and Internet services much like you would to Amazon or Microsoft’s cloud hosting. But here’s what’s going to bend your mind a little bit. With “Internet Computer,” you deploy your code… directly to the Internet itself! No hosting on Amazon’s servers, no hosting on Microsoft. You just put it directly on the Internet. Mind-bending right? If Amazon or Microsoft isn’t hosting your site, who is? Well, that’s where the technology pioneered by Bitcoin — blockchain — that allows people to lend their computing resources is hitting a new inflection point in its capabilities. Or take another example…

Another “Phase 3” crypto called Theta is building a cryptocurrency solution to deliver video content across the internet — without relying on data centers!

The Internet is full of video content. In fact, 75% of Internet traffic is video. (Thanks a lot, Netflix!) And it seems like this number is going to keep growing for years to come. The problem is that delivering high-quality video often relies on having data centers located close to you… Which isn’t always the case across the world. Theta is building a cryptocurrency solution to this problem. Essentially, you can provide your unused computing power to Theta, which has built a content delivery network on the blockchain. This isn’t some pie-in-the-sky dream either… The co-founders of YouTube and Twitch TV are on the Theta team. Also, Google, Sony, and Samsung are all backing the project. This is an absolutely massive market opportunity, and I think it could be the #1 way to profit that isn’t a company like, say Fastly… But instead, a cryptocurrency like Theta.

The bottom line as I see it: We’re starting to see Web3 projects that are really pushing the limits.

So, we could wait until the market matures… bring it to our members when there’s potentially less risk but potentially a lot less upside…

Or, we could alert our members about these developments when they’re in what we believe is truly the “ground floor” stage.

I hope members appreciate us doing so… Because we’re certain this could be really transformative stuff. It does feel a bit like investing in the Internet in the 1990s. But let’s face it. It sounds hard. I checked and… There’s more than 13,000 cryptocurrencies today! Finding the best ones before they’re the size of Ethereum sounds like finding a needle in a haystack. Not to mention, you can be a great stock investor and there’s just so much to learn. Blockchains, consensus, proof of stake vs. proof of work… It’s a lot to take in. Let alone finding a way to value these cryptocurrencies OR assess their technology in its early stages. Which is why I’m pleased to announce Motley Fool Canada is launching a brand-new service…

Introducing:

For the first-time ever, The Motley Fool is launching a service purely dedicated to recommendations in digital assets like cryptocurrencies…

In early 2021, The Motley Fool LLC publicly announced a US$5 million investment into Bitcoin. That investment was more than anything… a statement. With it, we announced we were watching the crypto space, building up our capabilities, and that we planned to give all of our members the same quality of research as we’ve built in stocks. Behind the scenes we’ve been working with outside experts, building a team of internal analysts and advisors. And today we’re ready to announce the launch of Digital Explorers. Right off the bat, any members bold enough to join Digital Explorers are going to notice it’s different than any other Motley Fool service offered today. That’s because it’s a solution entirely focused on the crypto space. Now, The Motley Fool is not abandoning stocks… Far from it. But this Digital Explorers service is exclusively dedicated to digital assets like cryptocurrencies and won’t feature stock recommendations.

And Digital Explorers is built to be one of the most dynamic portfolios in Motley Fool history!

Now, the crypto space is incredibly fast-moving. New opportunities can rise in what feels like the blink of an eye. So, I’m confident this is going to be one of the most dynamic portfolios in Motley Fool history. We plan to make multiple allocation decisions and recommendations… Every single month. We’ll be recommending investments in cryptocurrencies, assets that provide yield, even NFTs… But here’s what’s important: Members will have a trusted source like The Motley Fool to give them guidance and instruction throughout their entire membership. We’re only recommending what we believe are the highest-quality assets. After all, in the past five years you could have traded a ton chasing returns, but as we’ve seen, simply holding game-changers like Bitcoin and Ethereum was enough to turn investments of $10,000 into nearly $5 million. Members who join Digital Explorers today will find 7 crypto recommendations in the Digital Explorers portfolio with allocation guidance across reach recommendation. In total, we expect to invest in more than 15 holdings. With something like crypto the upside has historically been incredible, but make no mistake… It’s a risky space! So, we’ll show members who join how we plan to diversify and not make a single bet but build a diversified portfolio. One that’s allocated across foundational cryptos, growth markets like DeFi, and yes… we’ll be on the hunt for Web3 cryptos that could lead the next phase of this market.

And we’ve built a library of “how to” guides and reports to make sure members of all experience levels can invest confidently in this emerging space!

We understand that the crypto space is significantly different than stocks. Many members are simply too intimidated to get started. Which is why we’ve put an incredible amount of effort creating exclusive reports to get anyone interested in the crypto space started. These include:

How to Set Up a Digital Wallet

Cryptocurrency 101: A Beginner’s Guide

7 Things to Consider When Adding Digital Assets to Your Portfolio

How and Where to Buy Cryptos

And An Introduction to DeFi: What to Know About this Booming Market

In addition, every recommendation in Digital Explorers comes with research reports written by our team so members can clearly understand their opportunities and risks. Now, as I noted earlier, we plan to expand the portfolio rapidly, issuing multiple allocation decisions every month. This is going to be exciting; members are going to get a ton of new crypto recommendations and research. I think this is going to feel like the closest thing to what it felt like investing at the birth of the Internet, it’s just new and exciting… And we think the potential profit opportunities can be different than other markets you’ve seen. So, from day one, we’re including a research center with our watchlist of crypto ideas. Just think about how much time it takes to hear about a new crypto idea, figure out what it does, whether it’s worth an investment… And members will find an ever-increasing library of our research. We’re launching on day one with at least 11 crypto research reports and we intend to grow this number to dozens in the weeks and months ahead. Because the fact is, in a new and emerging space like crypto its simply hard to find trusted sources… Hard to find research… Hard to find a strategic way to build a diversified portfolio… Well, our goal is nothing short of making Digital Explorers the most comprehensive one-stop shop for investors who are serious about making the most of this space in the coming years that we believe could be absolutely pivotal.

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