TL;DR

1. Need to find ways to be part of expert team(s) to improve my reach and analysis whilst still being able to...
2. Focus on a niche - currently thinking that Infrastructure makes most sense as it’ll succeed across a number of different narratives: NFT, Metaverse, GameFi, dApps and some aspects of DeFi. Must be prepared to sacrifice most opportunities outside of this niche but be good to maintain exposure either through indices or through collaboration with others (see 1).
3. Within that niche need to figure out an investment strategy. Either:
   1. Build my own basket of projects based on individual investments and deeper research and/or
   2. Get exposure through an index e.g. $MVI from Index.coop

Overall industry thoughts

1. 2022 seems like it will be a much riskier market than 2021 due to length of bull run and macro conditions (money printer can’t keep printing forever) - 10 hour and 10 year thinking only! As a result, it’s likely that it’ll be even more important to make good bets rather than expecting the whole sector to go up.
2. Keep powder dry to buy into major dips - be disciplined about waiting for these because they ALWAYS happen in crypto. Be very sure about buying outside of these. “Crypto can always go lower than you think, for longer than you think, and it will. Crypto meme trading and reflexivity are a helluva drug. When the music stops, you’ll see the painful withdrawal, and it takes some time to detox.”
3. Need to specialise in order to win. To do this, I need to find a way to share research and insight with amazing and motivated people. Possible routes to this include starting a team of amateurs, joining a team of professionals in the industry, joining DAOs or a combination of these.
4. More TVL will enter DeFi - but to which ecosystems and where in the ecosystem will the most value accrue?
5. What will be safe(r) havens in a bear market? Manage downside!
6. Crypto has become a permanent part of culture:
   1. More brands will enter, especially via NFT sales as it’ll just seem like easy money e.g.
      1. More retail brands like Nike, Adidas, Budweiser
      2. Blockchain gaming / GameFi seems set to do well despite very mixed reception to crypto stuff within gaming community
      3. SportFi - sports clearly a focus for FTX and Crypto.com with
   2. More retail will enter because more brands have entered
   3. Both parties will look for lowest-possible-friction way of transacting so:
      1. Look at where NFTs are available to buy with credit cards
      2. Infrastructure that will accrue value
      3. Centralised exchanges like Coinbase, Crypto.com, FTX, Binance
7. Metaverse narrative will continue but ultimately actual progress will be slow because this is a 10y undertaking but the same players that support metaverse infrastructure are probably also relevant to web3, GameFi and NFTs.
8. There will be an increasingly polarised attitude to crypto by nation states (also by corporations):
   1. Adoption of stablecoins as an alternative to dollarisation by smaller nations / those with inflation issues
   2. Outright bans increasing in other countries
9. Crosschain infrastructure will become more important as the money ball rotates between different chains and ultimately becomes abstracted away?
10. Airdrops were nice in 2021 - be nice to get some more in 2022 - the only way to do that is through experimentation (even if it’s targeted at likely candidates)
11. Could go for the more speculative earlier coin approach looking at Kucoin and Coinlist - this strategy only likely to work as part of a broader analyst network as there’s just too many too cover effectively - or if you niched down and only looked at projects in a very specific niche.
12. Trading has become increasingly sophisticated and (a) hard for retail to win at (b) I’m not a great trader. Better I think to use TA / trading knowledge to help judge longer term investment entries and exits (i.e. avoid buying at top)
13. VCs will want to pump their bags - look at what they’re holding and just copy?

Niches analysis