I largely agree with @santiagoroel’s recent article.

Crypto is very clearly in the post–dotcom crash phase that the early internet went through. That has been my core assumption for the last 1–2 years already.

That said, I’d like to add a few important thoughts of mine:

1) I would separate Bitcoin from the rest. Just like gold ≠ tech stocks during the early internet era, Bitcoin ≠ altcoins today. That explains why BTC has held up relatively well while many of the best crypto projects are arguably going through one of the toughest bear markets ever.

2) Yes, after the dotcom crash in 2000 it took roughly 15 years for markets to fully recover and make new ATHs, despite user growth and fundamentals exploding. We’ll likely see a similar pattern in crypto. However, if you account for point 1), I’d argue that crypto’s equivalent of the dotcom bubble already burst in 2021.

On top of that, we live in a much faster moving world. Trends evolve quicker, adoption curves can go parabolic faster, and cycles compress. Because of that, I wouldn’t be surprised if the 15-year recovery analogue in crypto ends up being closer to 5–10 years. Given that we’re already a few years in, the odds that the worst is behind us don’t look that bad.

3) Many people treat this phase as if it’s the end of the world. I’d argue the opposite: this might be one of the best things that could happen to the industry. The last cycle was obviously insane, and expectations around valuations, airdrops, funding, and returns drifted far away from reality. This phase is incredibly valuable for crypto to reset, mature, build real businesses, and come back much stronger.

4) The period from roughly 2000 to 2007 was probably the window of maximum opportunity, one of the greatest investment windows in history.

Amazon, Google, eBay, and many others looked like dumb internet scams or overhyped startups back then. In hindsight, they turned into some of the most valuable companies in the world, delivering 100x or even 1000x returns. We love to shit on altcoins today, but I don’t expect this to look very different in 10 years.

That’s what maximum opportunity looks like. It feels uncomfortable. It feels non-obvious.

So like it or not, but the right time is right now.