Hello there! It’s been a while since my last newsletter update. I had intended to write monthly, but that didn’t happen as the end of year became busy. I’m sure you felt similar. As we begin the new year, I spent some time thinking about the past year and the one ahead, and I realized it was a perfect opportunity to compare the 2023 predictions that I published at the beginning of the year with what actually happened. I also thoroughly enjoyed the exercise of thinking about the future last year, so I wanted to do it again.
But as usual, I discovered I had more to say than I expected, so I decided to write separate 2023 Lookback, 2024 Predictions, and 2024 Looking Forward newsletters. This week is the lookback. Next week is the ‘predictions’ newsletter. Then ‘looking forward’ will publish the following week. After the ‘looking forward’ newsletter, you may not hear from me until April.
As always, if you have any feedback or comments, just reply to this email.
2023 Lookback
By Elliot Koss, Founder @ Future Mints
Reflection serves an important purpose. We can see how far we’ve come, celebrate our wins, learn from our losses, and use these lessons to inform how we approach the future.
I reviewed the 2023 prediction newsletters from last year (there were 2 that I wrote - one optimistic and another pessimistic) to compare them with reality. I only made one actual prediction related to Ethereum doubling, which was generally accurate. The other statements I made (let’s just call them predictions) seem to be fairly on target, but that’s also (at least) partly because I didn’t get overly specific with my broad view of the blockchain / Web3 space.
I’m going to review the macro predictions first and then look back on Future Mints’ 2023.
The Macro View
Jan 1, 2023 Dec 31, 2023
ETH - $1,200.10 $2,281.36 (+90%)
BTC - $16,625.08 $42,265.19 (+154%)
At the beginning of 2023, while Future Mints was changing form and turning into a side project, the NFT and crypto madness in 2021 and 2022 was sobering up to the reality that most of the participants in the market were scamming people out of money with vaporware built on false promises. The excess money that fueled the speculation of 2021 and 2022 was being pulled out of the crypto markets and (most likely) held in reserve as the result of a global economy that was dealing with inflation and war. And then the rise of AI innovation sucked the remaining oxygen out of the crypto markets as investors (VCs in particular) sought profits from another promising technology.
The irony of those who think that blockchain technology is a fad while AI is the future is likely lost on them. Artificial Intelligence has been promised to us since well before HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Terminator (1984) made AI generally understood by the masses. It’s taken 50+ years since mass awareness for AI to actually begin to have real potential, and it’s been nearly 100 years since the first computer made AI even something to consider.
This should bring both hope and a little dread for those who are blockchain maxis. Hope that our long-term vision will come to fruition. Dread that it will take far longer than we expect.
In 2022, I wrote some forward-looking views for 2023, one optimistic and the other pessimistic. The only explicit prediction I made was that Ethereum would double from $1,200.10 to around $2,500. Considering that Ethereum has gone up by 90%, I’d say that prediction turned out to be pretty good.
While SBF faced justice in 2023, Binance and Coinbase found themselves in the crosshairs of the SEC. I didn’t know this was specifically going to happen, but I did expect “[f]inancial regulation for blockchain and crypto exchanges will happen over the next few years, but we’re going to see a few more massive implosions that will cost investors billions. Regulation moves slowly, and while FTX plus many other scammers and fraudsters are begging for legislative change, I expect that we won’t see real change until an even bigger meltdown occurs.” I view the SEC actions as net positive, even if I did unwind all of my crypto from Coinbase since I was using a centralized exchange to hold funds instead of using it temporarily. However, I wound up holding onto my Coinbase stock, which turned out to be a good decision.
Despite the recent increase in NFT trading volume, 2023 was down substantially, as predicted. “When it comes to NFTs, I believe that we are nearing a turning point. Instead of the massive trading that we saw over the past 18 months, largely fueled by speculation, wash sales, scammers, and fraudsters, I believe that the large majority of NFTs will lose their stock-like trading appeal. This is a good thing.”
While this wasn’t an expectation for 2023, I still believe that long term this will prove to be true. “The blockchain that will be the most dominant in the coming years will be Ethereum, not Bitcoin.” In fact, I don’t think that Ethereum will overtake Bitcoin until after the full Danksharding upgrade occurs, not just the Proto version, which means we’re a few years away. However, in 2023, Bitcoin (154%) outperformed Ethereum (90%), though both outperformed the S&P 500 (25%).
Overall, the expectations I wrote about last centered on the main concept: “So What’s The Problem With Blockchain? This comes back to the lack of infrastructure.” There was no way that 2023 was going to be long enough for the proper infrastructure to be built, which proved to be true.
In fact, I still believe this: “I’m not expecting the needle to move substantially for the next 2 or 3 years.” And while I don’t have a good way to validate this (someone else may be able to), I also believe that this prediction was largely correct.
A ton of Web3 / blockchain companies and communities wound down. I received a bunch of their notifications. While it was sad to see, it was also predictable given how the market was trending. The companies that were able to survive raised a healthy amount, cut costs as quickly as it became obvious the market was headed for a winter, and dug in to build. But none of these companies are thriving. They’re surviving for another year, the question remains if they’ll outlast this winter.
No matter what happens, though, there were a ton of learnings, and the dead companies of 2023 will fertilize future growth in the blockchain markets. Afterall, we stand on the shoulders of giants long after they are gone. That’s the beauty of innovation and discovery.
Future Mints Lookback
As it relates to Future Mints, I feel like I made the right decision by choosing to step away at the end of 2022 instead of trying to raise money. I could have tried to raise $500K to $1M in April 2022 (in fact, I was explicitly advised to do it then based on where VC trends were headed). Instead, I tried to bootstrap things after our initial NFT mint. I did this, because I felt like if we couldn’t generate our own revenue after the initial NFT mint and consulting work (~$100K), then perhaps it wasn’t the right idea or the market wasn’t ready.
Instead, toward the end of 2022, I came to the realization that “[t]he broader blockchain space is currently experiencing a downturn. As a result, user adoption is going to be slow in 2023 and likely throughout 2024 with 2025 being the year of the comeback. Because of this, Future Mints is going to survive by operating lean and taking a long-term view. And I intend to use 2023 to explore the various use cases that will make blockchain essential technology for the future.”
The past year only reinforced my belief that this was the correct decision.
With that said, I set a target at the beginning of 2023 that I mostly followed. “One key outcome of all the writing we’re planning in 2023 is that we’re going to turn these weekly newsletters into a book at the end of 2023 / early 2024. The intent for the book is that it becomes an easy-to-use reference with 3 to 8 pages covering basically every topic that you’d encounter in blockchain. Knowing this targeted outcome has also informed the structure of our newsletters.”
I spent a little time at the end of 2023 gathering everything written in 2023 for the book, and there were 32 ‘chapters’. I’d estimate the average length is 5 pages single spaced, which means about 150 pages. Several will need to be rewritten, and there’s plenty to edit away. But I’d estimate that about 80% of the intended book is already written which I consider a big deal. In October when I wrote my most recent newsletter update, I noted that “...the book is still going to happen at some point in 2024. I need to figure out the chapters that are missing before declaring the first draft done and ready to begin editing. The Future Mints NFT holders will be entitled to a free digital copy of the book.”
The website is still sort of operational, though I haven’t really maintained it, and I’m pretty sure the OpenSea API key lapsed when they switched to a new API version. But I still look at the landing page almost every day, and I continue to reference some of the cool things that I built when chatting with people. My hope is that in 2024, I breathe some new life into the website or officially wind it down. I’m not yet sure which, but I’ll explore it in the 2024 Looking Forward newsletter.
The last notable thing from 2023 is that I started working on a new product. I outlined part of it in the Oct newsletter. The reality is that the Future Mints research platform was targeted at people who like NFTs directly, but it’s not focused as much on the community experience which was what I always considered to be the real value. I wanted to create a place where NFT communities could add their updates so that their members would receive a regular update instead of having to hunt down Discords or X (formerly Twitter) messages. It would turn NFTs into less of an active, time-consuming experience and into something more passive and enjoyable to the masses. I still believe that this is the future of NFTs, but I don’t believe that the Future Mints platform solves this problem well. So I’m basically starting over with a slightly different focus for the MVP - in-person community gatherings.
Long-term, I firmly believe that NFTs and the blockchain will power the next wave of technology and human interaction in fundamentally important ways. However, I’d rather tinker on an idea until I get it right before trying to focus on it full-time. I learned a lot of lessons from Future Mints, and probably the most important was that I have a tendency to get overly excited about a big picture idea before I’ve nailed down the details of what the product should be. I have an aversion to Venture Capital (which is a topic for an entire newsletter at some point), so if I plan to build something meaningful, I need to plan on a slower timeline. A slower timeline means I need to think through the details more, because I won’t be iterating as quickly.
Anyway, that’s a topic for the 2024 Looking Forward newsletter.
All-in-all, I feel like 2023 was a good year for Future Mints and blockchain builders. I cannot wait to see what 2024 has in store.
Next week, I’m sharing 7 Predictions for 2024, and then the week after, I’ll share the 2024 Looking Forward plan. Then, I’ll probably be quiet for the rest of the first quarter while I attempt to finish the first draft of the blockchain fundamentals book.
Until next time.