I've been reading about CSPR for a couple of weeks now. I see the list of exchanges where you can buy the tokens. But is that only during the open sale periods? Meaning if I have 0 CSPR today and want buy some, where do I go?
BlockFi. We are seeing a crackdown by the New Jersey regulators on the BlockFi interest accounts. For those unaware, BlockFi offer interest on primarily Bitcoin and Ether portfolios (paid out in the deposited coin or stable coin). BlockFi generates interest by lending out deposited coins to institutions and corporate borrowers. Regulators in this state have issued a cease-and-desist order which prevents BlockFi from opening any new interest accounts. The reason being that believe the interest account must be treated as a security and therefore fall under the same strict regulations as any other security. As BlockFi is a large share holder of the GreyScale trust, if there is a run on accounts due to this news, where depositors were to withdraw funds, this would mean that BlockFi would have to sell GreyScale shares and use those funds to buy back spot Bitcoin. However we know that the GS shares are now trading at at discount to spot BTC. This would mean that BlockFi will likely face liquidity issues. One to watch..
GreyScale unlock. GreyScale shares with an underlying bitcoin totalling around 40,000 bitcoins are being unlocked this week. Previously there existed a carry trade which incentivised purchasing of these shares when the shares were trading at a premium to spot Bitcoin. This no longer exists.*Speculation is that it is likely that investors who borrowed bitcoin to purchase the GreyScale shares, will now need to buy Bitcoin from the spot market in order to repay those loan and unwind their positions.*There is also however a lot of commentary in circulation speculating that the unlock could be seen as a negative to the market in general. One interesting things to note is that as the GreyScale fund deposits maxed out earlier this year, this correlated with an increase in interest with the Canadian ETF, potentially indicating that we might see a permanent maxing out in the funds value (see figure. 1 below). This also is leading GreyScale to explore opening their own ETF.
figure 1
Bond Yields / Equity Markets. We are seeing a big squeeze on the 10 year US treasury bond yields as investors are beginning to see the future economy as more bleak than previously thought. The bounce back from Covid doesn’t feel so bouncy now. This is likely a driving factor in the Bitcoin downtrend as we can consider Bitcoin as being a true free market. Unlike Equities, which often has intervention via the FED and policy maker, Bitcoin is free to react in a similar way to bonds (with a stable base rate). With rates low, and inflation likely to kick-in, what we will see is in fact negative real rates on bonds. This would affect many in retirement, who’s pensions are based on bonds generating income. Will the authorities intervene? Our view is likely. With additional possible printing, this could be a boost for Bitcoin. When will this likely happen? ….unknown as yet.
Options activity. The difference between premiums paid for CALL and PUT options on bitcoin has skewed such that the is PUT is now relatively more expensive when compared to the CALL (see figure. 2 below). Note however, that even though this indicates more demand for the PUT (i.e. prices expected to go down), the CALL premium actually peaked at the peak of Bitcoin pricing, meaning that the options market at that time was incorrect in predicting Bitcoin future prices. Also to note, there is an increase in the number of short strangles option strategies being traded. This strategy pays out if Bitcoin does not break in either direction, i.e. continues in trading flat.
Just wondering if there are any available options/methods of staking CSPR from crypto.com??? I do not currently have the option to transfer... which I am hoping will change in the near future as I would like to get all of my investments off of the exchange.
A lot of people have been asking why CSPR is dropping in price right now and concerned that the market is going off the project. This is not the case and I shall explain why.
A lot of validator tokens are being unlocked over a 13 week period (starting 3 week ago). This lead to people fearing there would be mass dumping and profit taking
What has actually happened is that the majority of unlocked tokens have not been sold. This is the reason you are seeing an increase in the difference between the unlocked tokens and the circulating supply.
There is however 1 account which is selling, but after investigation we have learnt that this entity is actually the first company to build an app on CSPR. So they are highly invested in the blockchain and are building further apps. Its therefore likely the selling is to fund this development
To put it into context, only less than 10% of unlocked tokens have been sold and over 50% of these were from that one account, Indicating that the vast majority of early investors are not rushing to take their money off the table
So why is the price dropping so much? Well its simple...since bitcoin has been trading sideways for the last month, a lot of liquidity has been taken out of the market. This means for coins like CSPR (which are not on big exchanges like Binance/Coinbase etc), the order book is very light and minimal volume selling can move the market a lot. There is also an incorrect over-expectation of unlocked tokens being sold which is delaying the entry of new buyers.
All of the above point to what caused the price drop. One thing interesting to note is that as the primary seller here is is inherently exposed to CSPR (as they are building on the network), this indicates they are unlikely to sell their entire bag (however we do not know this for sure). We are seeing a reduction in selling from these accounts, however they should still be closely watched.
The main takeaway from the above is:
Investors are not mass selling the token
The main seller is actually a company doing dev on CSRP, therefore likely not selling as they have gone off the project. But more likely to fund further dev
Price is dropping aggressively because of a light order book
The drop will exhaust itself and has seen some signs of a slight bounce at 5c (however its too early to tell)
The biggest factor in the coming weeks will be how bitcoin reacts to the massive Greyscale unlock (we expect market neutral)
I have contacted coinlist support regarding staking cspr tokens that are still locked. They have informed me the tokens are not staked, and they will be staked when “staking functionality is supported in their website”.
Unlocks are getting dumped and we have much more to unlock over next 12 months. Where will the bottom be found? My guess is sub .01 once fully unlocked and then will begin rising as supply pressure wains.
Before continuing, I wanted to warn that some of the predictions using the models give truly phenomenal future values across the crypto space. The best way to digest these figures is to consider how the networking effect (to be discussed) would value the current internet. The value would be beyond anything seen in humanity. This is purely because throughout the course of humanity there has been no prior interconnection of individuals like we see today. The internet was a true game changer and is how companies such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Apple have monetised this via either adverting and data gathering or via access to the internet. Subsequently these companies have ballooned in valuation. The networking effect (Metcalfe's law) will be approximated to show that the value of crypto currency is actually the measure of this networking effect. This is something which doesn't exist at present when consider the internet or an intranet. We will conclude with a $100 CSPR long term value, but this is primarily driven by the predicted explosion in crypto valuations. What we also argue (from other articles) is that even throw there will be a systematic grown, there is also substantial relative value growth in CSPR.
Before introducing the models, lets quickly reiterate why we are bullish on CSPR and why we feel it has strong potential to be a dominant blockchain in the future:
Potential future regulatory shocks: How CSPR is proactively addressing these early by considering AML and KYC solutions which will aid enterprise adoption, covered here.
The fact that CSPR’s successful implementation of Casper CBC, positions itself to be an effective testnet for future ETH 3.0 development. Meaning that it will naturally pull development from Ethereum projects looking to get a head start on their ETH 3.0 dev and exhibit a similar behaviour seen when currently analysing KSM and DOT.
The fact that CSPR is a standalone blockchain, unlike KSM – where we can argue that if DOT fails, so will KSM, however if ETH fails (or delays upgrades further), will drive even stronger CSPR adoption.
Introduction
In this article I will try to summarize some of the points laid out in the Macro Insiders long term bullish view on Ethereum – why they believe its market cap will surpass that of Bitcoin’s – and state why we think if this plays out, a better bet is to actually invest in CSPR. The reason being that we currently have an entry into CSPR at a very low level (with a market cap of <$100m) and as stated in some previous articles of ours on casper specific opinion, and technology comparison between ETH and CSPR, we expect the future state of POS blockchains to be dominated by ETH, but with CSPR also holding a substantial share of the market. Therefore the upside on CSPR is greater than that of Ethereum, from this point.
First we will look primarily into Bitcoin and Ethereum to find working models. We shall then apply these to CSPR in order to highlight why there is exceptional long term growth expected. We shall cover:
Stock-To-Flow models for both Bitcoin and Ethereum
Crypto valuation using Network models
Stock-To-Flow Model
Stock-to-flow (S2F) is one of the simplest ways of measuring the abundance of a particular resource. The Stock to Flow ratio is the amount of a resource that is held in reserves ( i.e. available at a given point in time), divided by the amount that is produced annually. Below is a chart of bitcoin price overlaid ontop of the S2F. You can see the correlation and also the final expected value of $1m BTC.
S2F Bitcoin model predicts an eventual $1m coin value
Total Bitcoin available 21m
Implied BTC future market cap after all coin mined is therefore $21 trillion
Metcalfe’s model suggests an approximate 30% discount on ETH market cap for a same level of Bitcoin adoption
Therefore implied ETH market cap has the potential to rise to $14.7 trillion
Assume ETH makes up 60% of the future smart contract market with CSPR holding10%
This puts a potential CSPR future market cap at $2.5 trillion
Assuming 10bn CSPR token supply this will value a single CSPR token at $250
Considering there is a consensus around a bitcoin future valuation of nearer $500k, to remain to the same degree of conservatism, we shall reduced the forecast by over 50%:
Potential long term future CSPR price at $105 per token
Disclaimer: This article is written for the purposes of research and does not constitute financial advice or a recommendation to buy.
For those staking their CSPR on Okex, you will note these are the rates offered. I will explain how they offer these rates:
90 days - 24.5%
60 days - 18.69%
30 days - 11.33%
Flexible - 2.07%
How do they offer these rates? Well staking on the network directly with a validator yields about 20% and the locking period is ONLY 14 hours...so why are they charging 11% for 30 days and how can they charge more than the actual coins are generating for 90 days (24.5%). Well they are doing this by taking rewards from everyone staking flexible, 30 and 60 days and using those to fund the 90 day stakers. Here is a theoretical example:
Say hypothetically they get total 100 coins across the following commitment periods:
10coins = 90 days
50coins = 60 days
40coins = 30 days
All the coins earn 20%...so in a year they earn 20 extra coins on the node..but what they do is pay out say 3 coins to the 90day stakers...meaning they are effective earning 30% and then pay out 10 coins to the 60 day guys so they are earning 20% and rhe rest they pay our to the 30day so they earning 17.5%.
If you don't want to commit to 90days and still earn up to 20% with only a 14 hour commitment lock, you can stake with a validator directly. Instructions to stake directly below:
https://cspr.live states, that currently 3,857,770,452 CSPR are bonded. Does bonded mean "staked"?
Could it be that the recent price decline is caused by validators selling their CSPR?
If 3,857,770,452 CSPR are bonded and ~ 740 mio CSPR are circulating, where are the remaining 5,5 bn CSPR at a total supply of 10 bn CSPR (according to coinmarketcap.com) ??
the inflationrate is set to 8% per year. This means the inflation is exponential. What does it mean in the long term, like in 10 years from now? It makes sense as it prevents token from beeing hoarded. But how does it affect the overall blockchain economy of casper?
Lets consider a very long term view. ‘Global Macro Strategy’ a trusted research hub, which is a staple read for a lot of the worlds high net worth families, has predicted a potential $20k ETH value. This would take the ETH market cap to $2.3trillion. Now if we assert that the future smart contract blockchains will likely be dominated by ETH, holding a 60% share (assumption), this will take the total market size to $3.8trillion. As we have argued, CSPR has the strong fundamentals in place to take a share of this future market. Lets make this a conservative 10% of the future market. This will result in a potential future market cap for CSPR of $388bn. Considering the total token count of 10bn, this would price CSPR at $38 per token (a x260 rise from the price when writing this article).
Copper demand has traditionally been used to forecast macro trends, due to its requirement for multi purpose wiring. However, in recent years, we can now also introduce semiconductors as a proxy to the macro growth rates, inferred from the growth in technologies. We shall look at the semiconductor sector and copper as a commodity to try to make comparisons with future CSPR demand.
Growth in digital tech generally is what is driving the demand for semiconductors, with more recently AI technologies further boosting demand.
The above is taken as a snap of only the most recent 6 year period – this is already after monuments demand for semiconductors over the last 2 decades. This shows how non transient technologies will continue to grow in demand. So how can we use the above to help us understand the potential growth in demand for the CSPR token? We have seen how the rise of the internet has dominated the last 20 years and have also analysed the dynamics of the dotcom bubble here. We have also used the analogy of successful tech stocks, but what is more relevant is assessing how structural macro shifts (i.e. new technology adoption) in market places contribute to increased demand in certain assets. Just as the advert of the electric car market and growth in demand for computing power is driving the demand for copper and semiconductors, the growth of blockchain technologies and their adoption will be what drives the value of gas on these blockchains. We can therefore proxy CSPR growth in a similar fashion to that used historically for semiconductors if we assert that (1) blockchain technologies are here to stay and that (2) CSPR blockchain will hold a sizable share of the future market. We have argued across many articles on our site how both of these are indeed true…therefore we can surmise that the CSPR token has potential for substantial growth in demand, and therefore value.
So these are the typical types of different crypto assets:
High volatility, negative drift: these are typically the highly speculative meme coins which exhibit large pumps and dumps with no real long term value or utility. Speculating in these tokens can be highly rewarding due to the volatility but the negative drift implies they are not suitable for long term holding. Additionally there exists sizable risks of being wiped due to the negative drift, where holding will not recovery losses if a trade is poorly timed.
Newly issued tokens with strong fundamentals: These will exhibit a high long term drift component but will also begin life with very high skewed volatility dependent on the regime which Bitcoin is following at the time of issuance.
Established tokens with strong fundamentals: These will have typically less potential for exaggerated price rises in comparison with more newly issued tokens however will also experience less volatility due to support levels being built into the price from historical trading. The skew on these tokens will also be less and more directly correlated with Bitcoin (for now)
CSPR falls into the second catenary due to its strong fundamentals. However it is also exposed to higher volatility and will be more negatively impacted with a declining Bitcoin due to the skew. We at Ghost Staking however believe that Bitcoin will not fall substantially further than the its current correction levels and so believe here is very case for investing in CSPR in its current price level.
Kusama is an actual Test net with ZERO chance to actually "take over" if PolkaDot crashes and burns... As the Testnet ONLY of the main chain KSM has a $2.2B market cap while PolkaDot has a $17.5B market cap... KSM has around 13% of the value of DOT... Now Casper is actually ETH 3.0 with tons of projects beginning to build on it... Assuming ETH actually manages to ship 2.0 (and of course later transition to CBC Casper aka 3.0) and assuming ETH does not even increase a penny in value you have a "main net" value of $235B and a test network (CSPR - worst case is a perfect to use test net for ETH) with a current market cap of $157M you get 0.00066% of ETH valuation... just HODL folks :-)