Understanding Cryptocurrency Investment Fundamentals
Explore the essentials of cryptocurrency investment, covering topics such as the purposes of money, acquiring cryptocurrencies through different methods, popular exchanges for trading, and examples of past investment schemes. Delve into the world of digital assets and learn how to navigate this evolving landscape effectively.
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Innovation and Cryptoventures Cryptovaluation Campbell R. Harvey Duke University and NBER Campbell R. Harvey 2019 1
Money Purposes of money: Primary Unit of Account: A way to compare the value of various goods and services Medium of Exchange: Allows for non-barter transactions. Secondary Store of Value: Allows value to be retained even if partially rather than complete decay (e.g. storing food). Transfer of Value: Ease of transfer of value and to defer value. Original vision of bitcoin was for a technology that would make transactions more efficient (the transfer of value motive) [B] Campbell R. Harvey 2019 3
Acquiring Cryptocurrency Three ways to obtain an existing cryptocurrency Win a block. Receive a gift or be paid for goods or services Buy on an exchange Currently 109 exchanges that trade bitcoin You can also obtain cryptocurrency through an Initial Coin Offering (ICO). New currency can also be obtained via a hard fork. Campbell R. Harvey 2019 4
Exchanges Campbell R. Harvey 2019 5 https://www.coinhills.com/market/exchange/rank-for/btc/
Exchanges Will have more to say later about Coincheck https://www.coinhills.com/market/exchange/rank-for/btc/ Campbell R. Harvey 2019 6
Example Begins in January 2017 Launches with Bitconnect Coin (BCC). You needed to send bitcoin to their exchange and they would convert it to BCC With the BCC, you were guaranteed up to 120% return per year and users were earning interest by holding their coin for helping maintain the security of the network https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitconnect-ponzi-scheme-no-sympathy-from-crypto-community Campbell R. Harvey 2019 7
Example Campbell R. Harvey 2019 8
Example Coin rises to $437.31 Campbell R. Harvey 2019 9
Example Coin rises to $437.31 Campbell R. Harvey 2019 10
Example https://youtu.be/kbR1SXIje1U Campbell R. Harvey 2019 11
Example January 17, 2018 exchange closes following warnings from Texas and North Carolina regulators. Drops 87% to about $30. https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitconnect-closes-virtually-its-entire-operation-bcc-token-drops-87 Campbell R. Harvey 2019 12
Example Note Campbell R. Harvey 2019 13 https://bitconnect.co/system-news/95/bitconnect-update-regarding-the-changes-to-lending-and-exchange-functions/
Example 14
Exchanges 15 Campbell R. Harvey 2019
Exchanges 16 Campbell R. Harvey 2019
Exchanges Only bitcoin??? 17 https://coincheck.com/ Campbell R. Harvey 2019
Exchanges https://www.wsj.com/articles/cryptocurrency-worth-530-million-missing-from-japanese-exchange-1516988190 18 Campbell R. Harvey 2019
Exchanges 19 Campbell R. Harvey 2019
Exchanges 20 Campbell R. Harvey 2019
Exchanges Mechanics of the hack Website says that bitcoin is held in cold storage (off line and untouchable via the Internet and considered safe from hacks) However, each exchange also has a hot wallet . Think of this as float. It allows for very fast and cheap transactions It was the hot wallet that was exploited and the details are unclear 21 Campbell R. Harvey 2019
Exchanges 22 Campbell R. Harvey 2019 https://cointelegraph.com/news/coincheck-stolen-534-mln-nem-were-stored-on-low-security-hot-wallet
Exchanges Mechanics of the hack Coincheck uses smart hot wallet system which was exploited Supposedly, they used a machine-learning based dynamic hot wallet based on volumes of transactions, for easier access and faster transactions Hackers gained access to the server where the keys were and stole all the NEM via unauthorized transactions 23 Campbell R. Harvey 2019
Exchanges Mechanics of the hack (some analysis from Marc Toledo) Speed was important. It happened in a couple of minutes. NEM is known for being one of the fastest blockchain platforms Within Coincheck, everything appeared to be operating as usual Coincheck signaled thumbs up for 250,000+ transactions 8 hours later they discovered the hack 24 Campbell R. Harvey 2019
Exchanges http://explorer.nemchina.com/#/s_account?account=NC4C6PSUW5CLTDT5SXAGJDQJGZNESKFK5MCN77OG 25 Campbell R. Harvey 2019
Exchanges Analysis They tested at 10:02:13 on January 25 and got 10 XEM to destination account NC4C. They then moved 523,000,000 in 7 transactions from 10:04:56 to 10:21:14 to NC4C. They then start moving to other addresses. From 12:57 to 13:29, they do 8 transactions moving the 532,000,000 to different addresses. There are then seven transactions from 13:35 to 6:37 (next day) that appear to be other funds that they have that moved to the original destination of the hack the NC4C 3,800,000. At 9:42 on the 26th, they move 300,000 from the original NC4C to another address. There is are a bunch of dust transactions too. The NC4C account still must have (at least) 3,500,000 in it. 26 Campbell R. Harvey 2019
Exchanges 523m NEMs stolen 260,000 customers affected Promised to return 90% of the value Company has the address where the funds went http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42850194 27 Campbell R. Harvey 2019
Exchanges 28 Campbell R. Harvey 2019
Exchanges Heist larger than Mt. Gox which was $450 million NEM (coins) were lost (other cryptos were not lost) NEM short for New Economy Movement; Coin is XEM Launched in 2015 and similar to bitcoin but less energy intensive. They use Proof of Importance . 29 Campbell R. Harvey 2019
Exchanges Proof of Importance (PoI) Certain supernodes exist with considerable computing power Each account as a PoI score. If you account has 10,000 NEM or more and is vested holding that amount of a few weeks, you can lend your PoI score to a supernode and that increases the chance that the supernode harvests a block Harvest includes coinbase plus transaction fees 30 Campbell R. Harvey 2019
Exchanges Proof of Importance (PoI) They argue PoW gives advantage to those that have the most computing power and there is an excessive amount of energy spent They argue PoS gives advantage of coin hoarders more coins the more you earn. 31 Campbell R. Harvey 2019
Exchanges Proof of Importance (PoI) looks at three factors (see pages 34- 35 of technical document): PoI only counts coins that are in the account for a number of days 10% of the unvested, vests every day The higher number of vested coins the higher the PoI score Need a minimum of 10,000 vested coins to start harvesting https://nem.io/wp-content/themes/nem/files/NEM_techRef.pdf 32 Campbell R. Harvey 2019
Exchanges POW POS POI ( POW+POI ) The more coins you hold, the more mining power you are allowed to do. Algorithm rewards based on number of coins hold, but also based on loyalty and effort Definition Algorithm rewards mining power. Reward system Network fees ( new block winner is chosen deterministically). Network fees (each operation earns you a fraction of currency) First to find a solution, wins. Incentivizes users who do not only hold currency, but contribute by creating transactions, compensating those who interact with reputable counterparts. Fair and competitive. Centralized powers unable to gain too much voting power. Pros Much more energy efficient. Expensive to enter the game (many players, incredible amount of power invested on the system). More of a lottery than a race. Rich becomes richer faster (risk of monopoly and centralization of power). Cons ? Currencies using it Bitcoin, Ethereum (POS soon), Litecoin. DASH, NEO, PIVX, Nxt, Lisk. XEM. 33 Campbell R. Harvey 2019 Created by Marc Toledo
Exchanges Even though NEM blockchain not hacked, lack of confidence leads collapse of coin value 34 Campbell R. Harvey 2019
Exchanges History of exchange hacks: Mt Gox 2011 Mt Gox 2014 $350m NiceHash Dec. 2017: 4,700BTC Bitfinex $72m The DAO $70m Parity Wallet $30m Bitstamp $5m https://www.wsj.com/articles/two-groups-account-for-1-billion-in-cryptocurrency-hacks-new-report-says-11548676800?mod=hp_lista_pos3 35 Campbell R. Harvey 2019
Cryptoassets Asset or Commodity or Currency or Collectible? Asset : Asset produces or is expected to generate cash flows in the future (bonds, stocks, options) Commodity: A commodity derives its value from its use as raw material to meet a fundamental need, whether it be energy, food or shelter. Value can be established looking at supply and demand. Currency: A currency is a medium of exchange that you use to denominate cash flow. Currencies have no cash flows and cannot be valued, but they can be priced against other currencies. Collectible: No cash flow and is not a medium of exchange but could have aesthetic value of value due to emotional attachment (painting or baseball card) BTC is a currency and ETH is a commodity? Campbell R. Harvey 2019 36
Cryptocurrencies: Valuation Very challenging Most assets valuations are fairly narrow For example, to value the stock you need a forecast of future cash flows and a sense of the risk (discount rate). There could be disagreement but the range of disagreement is usually narrow For fiat currency (which is closer to cryptos given there is no official collateral), we usually look at the relative expected real GDP growth in two countries and the relative expected inflation. Again, there is disagreement but range is narrow. For cryptocurrency, the disagreement is extreme. Many believe the value is zero. Others might believe the value is $1 million. Campbell R. Harvey 2019 37
Cryptocurrencies: Valuation Many theories Scarcity. The idea is that just because something is scarce it must have value. Bitcoin can be thought of as algorithmic scarcity (given the supply of bitcoin is capped at 21 million). To me, this theory only makes sense if there is a usefulness for the asset. Campbell R. Harvey 2019 38
Cryptocurrencies: Valuation Many theories Assumes the cryptocurrency to be an asset, i.e., cryptoasset Quantity theory of money. It is claimed that There is a fixed supply of tokens. As demand for the token increases, so must the price . However, this is problematic because it ignores the velocity. The key equation is MV=PQ. Let PQ be Total Transaction Volume. So Average Network Value = (Total Transaction Value)/Velocity. However, velocity is very high with cryptocurrencies. This high velocity means that the Average Network Value should be small. https://multicoin.capital/2017/12/08/understanding-token-velocity/ https://medium.com/@cburniske/why-i-like-the-term-cryptoassets-ab6b76e1ee33 Campbell R. Harvey 2019 39
Cryptocurrencies: Valuation https://medium.com/@cburniske/cryptoasset-valuations-ac83479ffca7 Campbell R. Harvey 2019 40
Example : Simple Valuation Model of Storj Year From Launch 2017 2018 2019 GB of Storage Available in the World Each Year (GB) 6,444,290,465,101 8,106,917,405,097 10,198,502,095,612 Price per GB via Storj ($) 0.18 0.144 0.115 TAM for Storj ($) TAM Growth %Share of market addressed by Storj 1,159,972,283,718 1,167,396,106,334 1,174,867,441,415 25.80% 0.0001% 25.80% 0.0002% 25.80% 0.0003% GB that Storj is storing each year (GB) 1,440,000.00 2,165,760.00 3,257,303.04 Amount required in Storj ($) 259,200.00 311,869.44 375,241.31 Utility value of Storj simulation Year From Launch 2017 2018 2019 Number of new Storj issued/yr 2,000,000 5,000,000 5,000,000 Number of Tokens issued 52,000,000 57,000,000 62,000,000 Campbell R. Harvey 2019 41 Consumption value ($) 0.00 0.01 0.01
Cryptocurrencies: Valuation Convenience yield http://review.chicagobooth.edu/finance/2018/article/bitcoin-market- isn-t-irrational/ Campbell R. Harvey 2019 42
Cryptocurrencies: Valuation Many theories Replacement for Gold. Many similarities to gold: No centralized supply Costly to mine World currency Also, there are some advantages to cryptos: Easy to transport Cheap to store Not susceptible to a supply shock However, gold has direct usefulness (jewelry, technology, dental) Campbell R. Harvey 2019 43
Cryptocurrencies: Valuation Many theories Mining cost benefit equilibrium. This mixes some of the other theories. The idea is that people will not mine bitcoin unless it is profitable to do so. So the cost of the marginal miner is the floor for coin price. If price drops, then mining decreases as it is not worth buying a mining machine and paying the electrical cost However, in contrast to gold, decreases in hash power simply cause the difficulty to decrease (it does not impact the coinbase supply) Campbell R. Harvey 2019 44
Cryptocurrencies: Valuation Many theories Bubble mentality. A bubble is an asset that has value because people believe that it has value. Large speculative demand for cryptocurrencies is typical of bubble behavior. As investors join the bandwagon, they create their own truth for a while. Warren Buffett Important. Bursting of a bubble does not necessarily take you to zero. Consider history of bubbles like the housing bubble, tech bubble, Campbell R. Harvey 2019 45
Cryptocurrencies: Valuation Many theories Relative value. The idea is that you fit a regression model to the price of the crypto versus other cryptos. The model delivers a fitted price. If the fitted price is greater than the market price, then the crypto is relatively under valued The key word is relative. It is possible that both are over valued or both are undervalued However, in a long-short strategy, you are only concerned with relative not absolute value Campbell R. Harvey 2019 46
