Macro Research

Crypto: Avoid this 'Greater Fool Investment Strategy' Asset Class

There is a lot of excitement surrounding cryptocurrencies, but we would like to sound a cautionary bell against investing in them.

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  • Published on 12 Jun 2021

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  • A major fundamental shortcoming for Crypto is the absence of fundamentals and intrinsic value. One of the biggest drawbacks would be its inability to generate any form of cashflow which makes it impossible to derive an intrinsic value.

  • As an asset class, Crypto’s lack of an intrinsic value gives rise to negative implications such as i) being vulnerable to bubbles, ii) lack of reliable ways to gauge downside risks, and iii) incompatibilities in a long-term investment portfolio.

  • We also expect Crypto to remain challenged by wild swings in volatility, potential implosion of leveraged bets, and fading momentum. A possible early tapering risk (by the Fed) remains a key near-term headwind.

  • We liken investing in Crypto to the Greater Fool investment strategy and recommend avoiding this asset class. We further caution against averaging down and dip-buying given the absence of fundamental support.  


Cryptocurrencies (Crypto) continue to be the talk of the town. Amid a turbulent quarter which saw drawdowns between 30% – 60% (chart 1), retail participation remains strong. While such fervent continue in the Crypto space, we remain firm on our stance to avoid this asset class.  

In our previous article on Crypto, we outlined the integral reasons for our bearish stance on crypto  and why we should avoid this asset class. In this article, we examine a major flaw of the asset class and elaborate further on our call.

Chart 1: Most widely-traded coins have suffered significant sell-off since hitting YTD highs

 

Crypto’s inherent flaw – there’s no intrinsic value


A major fundamental shortcoming for Crypto is the absence of fundamentals and intrinsic value, unlike conventional asset classes. In a traditional sense, intrinsic value would refer to the ’true’ worth of an asset which takes into account fundamental factors and future expectations of the asset. Using the example of a company, its intrinsic "value" – or fair value – would be the value of future cash flow, discounted to the present day. 

This certainly would not be applicable for Crypto as one of its biggest drawbacks would be its inability to generate any form of cashflow or income. Crypto such as Bitcoin do not enjoy a stream of earnings like a company nor does it offer coupon payments like a fixed income instrument. This makes it impossible to formulate a credible and reliable valuation framework let alone derive an intrinsic value. 

Furthermore, there is no credible way to derive a proxy value for Crypto as it is impossible to map the asset class to any physical asset. This stems from its lack of real-life utility as the asset class is not substitutable as an input for a commercial product. Take for example, it is infeasible for Bitcoin, or even other coins, to be used as an input (unlike commodities) for the production of a priced physical asset that may otherwise offer a proxy value for such input. 

Aside from the lack of cashflow and income, Crypto do not have a proven long-term relationship with economic fundamentals unlike equities, fixed income, commodities, and even currencies. It is also challenging to establish any reliable relationship, particularly for coins like Bitcoin, given its speculative and volatile nature. As such, even from an economic standpoint, there are no fundamentals to analyse for such investments.

In sum, we think Cryptos’ lack of fundamentals and ultimately an intrinsic value give rise to negative implications as an asset class (outlined in the section below). Such implications will be particularly jarring in the long term and we caution investors against them.

Major implications and reasons to avoid ‘investing’ in Crypto


Our first gripe about Crypto stems from our concerns that investors could easily be buying unknowingly into an asset bubble. Since there is no way to ascertain if Crypto are overpriced (or not) given that absence of intrinsic value, there is no way to tell if investors are buying in at a high or low – essentially reducing any Crypto investment into a mere gamble.  

In the event of a correction within the broad Crypto market, without any fundamental value to cling to, there is also no reliable way to gauge the capitulation and the downside risks could be staggering. Indeed, we saw this happening over the last two months, where Bitcoin’s value plummeted by 47% (as of 9 June, chart 2) from the peak in mid-April, breaking past key psychological levels. It is also worth highlighting that the descent came fast and furious, barely braking at the “important support levels” Wall Street strategists were staking on. 

Our second gripe with Crypto is the inherent difficulty in fitting the asset class into any sound long-term investment portfolios. The lack of fundamentals and intrinsic value of Crypto meant that there is no reliable way to project the future growth of not just individual Crypto coin, but also that of the broader market. We sound the cautionary bell on extrapolating the total market cap growth of Crypto as an asset class to date – such parabolic rate of growth is simply unsustainable in our view. 

From a portfolio management perspective, its extreme volatility (chart 3) renders it challenging for long-term financial planning and extremely unreliable as a storage of value. The massive volatility itself is largely attributable to the way investors view Crypto as a whole (a bias unlikely to change in the near-term). A vast majority of retail investors are buying Crypto blindly – driven by Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) – and view Crypto as an easy avenue to “get rich quick”. 

Consequently, Crypto have been highly susceptible to the whims of the investing herd, whose pursuit of short-term capital appreciation relies heavily on Crypto’s demand outpacing its supply – a dynamic unreliable at best.

Last but not least, a key point we believe is not mentioned enough: Cryptos, as an asset class, are largely still in their nascent stage of development. The future of Crypto is still highly uncertain – many aspects of Crypto (the financial infrastructure surrounding them) are highly experimental at this stage. 

For one, Crypto (as a financial asset) are still unregulated; government intervention, via taxation policies and regulatory frameworks (to protect retail investors) are powerful obstacles that can potentially impede the development in the Crypto space. While China is the only major economy so far to outright ban Crypto and Crypto exchanges within its borders – who’s to say that there won’t be others to follow.

Taking a step back, even if we were to assume that Crypto successfully evolve into a more permanent fixture of our modern monetary system in the near future, there is no promise that any of the current coins (e.g. Bitcoins, Ethereum) will survive past their infancy. As argued in our previous article, major central banks are now exploring options of issuing their own Crypto (China with their own digital Yuan) – which may pose massive challenges to the current coin offerings. 

Chart 2: Bitcoin's value plummeted after mid-April, breaking key psychological levels

 

Chart 3: Volatility of Ethereum and Bitcoin far surpassed major assets


 

Other pitfalls


Crypto - aside from stablecoins - are highly momentum-driven with momentum strategies dominating directional movements in the asset class. While Crypto can ride on momentum higher, the reverse is true.  A reversal in momentum signal has the potential to trigger a crash in momentum as these strategies act on the strength of the momentum, irrespective of the price direction. Inevitably, this will result in violent drawdowns and therefore, fading momentum will often be one of Crypto biggest headwinds.

Structurally, as an asset class, Crypto like Bitcoin faces massive volatility and potentially higher leverage buildup. In fact, many Crypto exchanges offer investors a dramatic amount of leverage from anywhere from 3 – 5x to above 100x, fuelling Crypto’s speculative nature. Compared to other asset classes, we see higher risk of leverage bets imploding and wild swings in volatility embed in Crypto.

Also, much of the run-up in Crypto can be attributed to the easy monetary stance by Fed. Given inflationary fears, potentially higher yields, and ultimately a possible early Fed tapering risk, Crypto are highly vulnerable to expectations of monetary tightening. 

Our Stance: Avoid this 'Greater Fool Investment Strategy' Asset Class


To summarise, we are particularly concerned about the spike in investors’ interest in Crypto as a form of speculative “get-rich-quick” investing/trading scheme. (We noticed a steep increase in interest for Crypto from our interactions with clients – particularly during the Q&A sessions in our webinars).

We liken investing in Crypto to the Greater Fool Theory; any investor (or gambler) who subscribes to this theory disregards fundamentals and knowingly buy into overvalued assets, because everyone assumes that there will be other greater fools out there who will take the “hot potato” off their hands – netting these investors an “easy” profit, or so they think. It’s all fun and games until you ended up the final fool – far too much risk to undertake for too little rewards.

This is exactly what we have been seeing in the Crypto space now. Many investors are buying into Crypto fully aware that the value that they are paying for is nothing near what they have paid. Despite that, many still willingly place big stakes on such a gamble – emotions and irrationality often get the best of us. Looking at the current state of the crypto markets, odds are high that anyone entering now will be left holding the bag as the ‘Final Fool’.

Hence, we felt the need to sound the cautionary bell for investors looking to invest into Cryptos now.

As it stands, there is absolutely no telling how far the current correction will extend. If 2017/18 serves as a guide, a collapse of the Crypto bubble could easily set Bitcoin (and the other Crypto) back below the USD 10,000 level – representing a steep ~70% fall in value from current prices. Additionally, we also see downside risk from a potential monetary tightening as a material headwind weighing on Crypto moving ahead (as outlined above). 

If you’re currently down on your Cryptocurrencies holdings, here’s our advice; Do not attempt to average down. If you have bought Crypto (esp. Bitcoin) at highs of USD 50-60K per coin, you could be tempted to buy in now to average down on your investments, but we strongly caution against doing so – it’s better to actualise the loss and invest properly with the remaining capital.

Let us repeat: Don’t Catch the Falling Knife. Unlike stocks where “buying the dip” may be a good strategy in certain cases (where prices are below its fundamental value), it is rarely so for momentum-driven assets like Crypto. “Buying the Dip” could the biggest mistake for investing in Crypto – there is no fundamental support whatsoever when the panic selling continues. 

The Research Team is part of iFAST Financial Pte Ltd.

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