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The Bitcoin Bear Market Diaries are a series of interviews featuring various important voices and perspectives in the Bitcoin ecosystem. Each interviewee was carefully selected and asked the same group of questions. The main goal was to provide the world with a collection of commentary and opinions on the state of the current Bitcoin and crypto market. Some of the names you will recognize while others don’t wish for the limelight but have great insight and experience we all can learn from.
These interviews are raw and unfiltered with no agenda other than giving each individual their opportunity to speak their mind. If you like what you see, please share with your friends. If something offends you, you should probably X out and find another crypto fluff piece that gives you warm fuzzies.
Terrence Yang is founder of Yang Ventures which specializes in angel investing in founder friends they have known for years or in Bitcoin, law and finance related projects. Terrence is a Havard Law J.D. and brings a very interesting perspective to the Bitcoin world.
Name
Country
US
How do people know you?
@yangventures, Quora
How long have you been into Bitcoin?
2014
Best Bitcoin experience?
Now. I am loving Bitcoin Twitter. Many smart people who share insights and info, including in person and privately.
Worst Bitcoin experience?
Finally realizing I was on the wrong side of the UASF/No2X movement. I am still blocked by some Maximalists but I get it. As someone told me on Bitcoin Twitter, we all have our journey.
What do you think is Bitcoin’s biggest threat?
Indifference. If not enough people care, it’s over. Others might say a catastrophic software bug to Bitcoin Core but I bet if enough smart folks keep at it and try different things, stay positive, a solution can be found.
What are your thoughts on the various Bitcoin forks?
This is not advice but consider dumping them all before they go to zero — which is probably where they are heading.
What are you optimistic about in this space?
Bitcoin layer 1 improvements to security, scaling and, yes, privacy.
Liquid.
Lightning.
Increasing transactions and increasing use of full nodes, which may be driven by Lightning adoption and experimentation.
The Bitcoin community who keep Bitcoin censor resistant and fight misinformation spready by nocoiners and altcoiners.
People like Jack Dorsey, Anthony Pompliano, Naval Ravikant becoming more “Bitcoiny.”
Biggest regret during the last bull market?
Not ignoring the price or having a lot more conviction to ride the momentum on the way up, then shorting the heck out of it on the way down.
What have you learned during the current bear market?
Ignore price unless you develop strong conviction.
What is the biggest fail you have seen during the bear market?
People thinking it’s over. Look at the current market cap of some altcoins you think are the worst. How are they worth what the market cap says? Bitcoin has yet to decouple from altcoins. Crypto is young and Bitcoin is still just somewhat over 10 years old. These things take time.
What do you think helped trigger the current bear market?
A combination of:
Shitcoiners running out of willing widows and orphans to dump on.
Whales and OGs taking profits.
China banning crypto exchanges, curbing most of the Chinese capital flight and Chinese money laundering in crypto.
Price going up way too fast in way too short a time. Wasn’t sustainable.
What kind of damage do you think latest price drop has done to buyer sentiment?
Buyer sentiment for Bitcoin took a substantial hit. How could you not, going from $19.5K to $3.2K. I don’t think we hit the real floor yet but right now sentiment seems decent.
How do you feel about the current state and future of lightning network?
Current: Good progress. Love that it seems to be driving more users to run and use full nodes.
Future: Like any other tech, I would need to see LN or a Lightning app meet an unmet need. Preferably a big and important unmet need.
What are your thoughts on HODLing Bitcoin?
HODLing Bitcoin is great.
Prefer DCA accumulation but HODLing is second best.
What are you thoughts on alt-coins?
Avoid virtually all of them.
Grin is promising. If market doesn’t want Bitcoin to fill the ecash function then Grin has a shot at being private, censor resistant ecash with a known inflation schedule that moderates over time, a good DNA, good devs and good community.
Disclosure out of an abundance of caution & self-promotion:
I’m long Layer1 which Peter Thiel also invested in. They are an activist crypto investor involved with Grin.
Do you hold any? If not, why?
I have only ever owned or HEDL Bitcoin, HNS and QSP.
I bought HNS, decentralized internet started by Joseph Poon, LN white paper coauthor which Founders Fund, Draper, Sequoia, a16z, Pantera, etc. co-sponsored.
Quantstamp CEO Richard Ma gave me a lot of QSP for past help. I didn’t even expect it. So I asked him to HODL it for me. They do security audits. Great team.
What kind of impact do you think the radical drop in alt-coins will have on their future?
Over 99.9% never had a future. That’s just more apparent to more people now.
Thoughts on the notion of bitcoinization?
Hyperbitcoinization can happen eventually but USD and US economy has so much inertia. I’d like Bitcoiners to focus on making bitcoinization happen first in Greece, Iraq, Venezuela, etc.
What Bitcoin startups are you excited about?
Because convenience and user experience is so important, I’m excited about:
Chaincode Labs — especially Optech
Square — CashApp and Square Crypto
CasaHodl
Samourai Wallet
But I am also excited by the great work Blockstream and MIT Media Lab do in contributing so much to Bitcoin Core development and Lightning Labs for their work on L2 and LN.
What “crypto influencers” do you think get it wrong and why?
Any crypto influencers who stray from Bitcoin too much.
Any crypto influencer who doesn’t understand why censor resistance is paramount to a blockchain’s value prop.
Private permissioned blockchains can work but they are centralized so they are more like shared databases, maybe with a tradeable virtual token.
What “crypto influencers” do you think get it right and why?
Too many to list but here are some
Nic Carter
Ari Paul
Hodlonaut
Hanakookie
Warren Togami
Udi Wertheimer
Eric Lombrozo
Eric Martindale
StopandDecrypt
Pierre Rochard
Peter Todd
Francis Pouliot
Dovey Wan
Theonevortex
Hasufl
Tuur Demeester
Lane Rettig
What’s it going to take for this bear market to turn around?
Better user experience and more convenience.
Someone like Fidelity offering institutional custody.
How bullish are you on Bitcoin despite this recent pullback?
Overall quite bullish.
With respect to Bitcoin’s tech, I am:
Bullish. I’m not technical but the smartest devs I know are excited about all the progress in privacy, scaling and security in Bitcoin Core.
With respect to Bitcoin’s adoption, I am bullish:
Jack Dorsey and Square are doing a lot to push more mainstream adoption. I like that they don’t offer other coins though I suspect @sqcrypto is a Twitter handle they chose to give them some flexibility to add another coin later, such as maybe Grin.
With respect to Bitcoin’s price:
Bearish short term.
Not sure medium-term.
Bullish long-term, meaning 10+ years out. Bitcoin can at least replace gold (~$8 trillion market cap) given that everything is going cashless and electronic and gold is physical.
Bullish on the tech progress.
Any tips you want to give to people new to Bitcoin?
Find your calling. Bitcoin is not for everyone.
Find your BTÂ voice.
Read up. Ask questions. Practice explaining what you just learned to someone who is even newer than you.
Tweet a lot so you write and think better. You have to ship and listen to feedback. Silence is deafening. Be interesting and useful.
Best tips for storing Bitcoin?
Normies should just just use CashApp and hodl. You won’t control your private keys but it’s not worth it.
Technical people and non-normies should just follow the guides other have written, control their private keys and use a full node.
Name some of your favorite information sources and/or podcasts in the space.
Bitcoin Twitter. Messari. The Block.
Any last words of wisdom?
Develop deep conviction.
Just read up on whatever you’re most interested in and feel compelled by.
Then learn to articulate the others’ sides better than they can. Steelman.
Until you can do that, you don’t really know your stuff. And deep down you won’t have the confidence to make the right decisions when push comes to shove.
Stay tuned for the next Bear Market Bitcoin Diaries. You can find more volumes and articles here!
Bitcoin Bear Market Diaries Volume 17 with Terrence Yang was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not reflect the views of Bitcoin Insider. Every investment and trading move involves risk - this is especially true for cryptocurrencies given their volatility. We strongly advise our readers to conduct their own research when making a decision.