With each step Bitcoin takes toward more widespread acceptance, it loses some of what made it appealing in the first place.
Two big things have happened in the crypto world this month: a public validation and a semi-private snub. Both of them bode poorly for its future.
The official validation came in the form of the SEC approval of a Bitcoin ETF, which will make it easier for speculators to invest in Bitcoin. The slight came at this year’s World Economic Forum, which I attended, and where Bitcoin — or any cryptocurrency, really — was clearly on the outs. Last year crypto was everywhere in Davos. This year, the star of the show was AI. Crypto, like me, didn’t even know about all the really good parties, much less get an invitation.
These may seem like contradictory developments: On the one hand, a Bitcoin ETF legitimizes crypto as an asset class. On the other, the annual jamboree of the elite establishment has all but banished the crypto community. Yet both are indicative of the fact that, as an asset class, crypto has gone fully mainstream — which means it has peaked.
Continue reading the entire piece here at Bloomberg Opinion (paywall)
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Allison Schrager is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal.
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