Cryptocurrency bear markets destroy portfolio worth and so they have a harmful tendency to pull on for longer than anybody expects. Happily, one of many silver linings of market-wide pullbacks is that it offers traders time to re-focus and spend time researching initiatives that would thrive when the development turns bullish once more.
Right here’s 5 areas to concentrate on when deciding whether or not to spend money on a crypto challenge throughout a bear market.
Is there a use case?
The cryptocurrency sector has no scarcity of flashy guarantees and gimmicky protocols, however when it comes right down to it there are solely a handful of initiatives which have delivered a product that has demand and utility.
When it comes right down to figuring out if a token ought to proceed to be held, one of many important inquiries to ask is “Why does this challenge exist?”
If there may be not a easy reply to that query or the options supplied by the protocol don’t actually clear up a urgent downside, there’s a good probability it received’t acquire the adoption it wants long run to outlive.
Establish a aggressive benefit
Within the instances the place a viable use case is current, it is necessary to think about how the protocol compares in opposition to different initiatives that provide options to the identical downside.
Does it provide a greater or easier answer than its opponents, or is it extra of a redundant protocol that doesn’t actually deliver something new to the desk?
An excellent instance of pointless redundancy is the oracle sector of the market, which has seen a handful of protocols launched over the previous three years. Regardless of the rising variety of choices, the oldest and most generally built-in oracle answer is Chainlink (LINK) and it stays the strongest competitor within the subject.
Does the protocol generate income, and the way?
“If you happen to construct it, they may come,” is a cliche expression tossed round in tech circles, however it doesn’t at all times translate into real-world adoption within the cryptocurrency sector.
Working a blockchain protocol takes money and time, which means that solely protocols with income or adequate funding will be capable of survive a bear market.
Figuring out whether or not a challenge is worthwhile and the place the income comes from may help information traders who’re enthusiastic about shopping for decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens.
If a challenge reveals restricted exercise and income, it might be a very good time to start out evaluating whether or not it is undervalued or a funding that must be prevented.
Are there money reserves?
Each startup is supposed to have a struggle chest, treasury or runway as previous to investing, it is necessary to establish whether or not or not the challenge has adequate funds to outlive downtrends, particularly if offering yield on locked property is the first incentive for attracting liquidity.
As talked about earlier, working a blockchain protocol isn’t low cost, and nearly all of the protocols on the market won’t be liquid sufficient to outlive a prolonged bear market.
Each profitable NFT challenge ought to herald a crypto monetary supervisor/treasurer to correctly diversify/hedge their struggle chest, not simply preserve all the pieces in ETH.
A challenge must know the best way to take revenue too.
— $trawberry Sith (@StrawberrySith) May 10, 2022
Ideally, a DeFi-style challenge ought to have a big treasury containing quite a lot of property like Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and extra dependable stablecoins like USD Coin (USDC) and Tether (USDT).
Having a well-funded and diversified treasury that may be pulled from throughout robust occasions is essential and as $trawberry Sith suggests, initiatives have to study when to take revenue, and never go away a majority of the protocol treasury in Ether or the platform’s native token.
Associated: Main crypto corporations reportedly lower as much as 10% of workers amid bear market
Are roadmap deadlines saved and met?
Whereas previous efficiency shouldn’t be essentially an indicator of future outcomes, a challenge’s historical past of following its roadmap and assembly necessary deadlines can provide worthwhile perception into whether or not it’s ready to endure robust occasions.
Along with holding monitor of roadmap milestones, websites like CryptoMiso and GitHub may help traders peer backstage to see the frequency of growth and developer exercise for a protocol.
If a group is displaying little to no indicators of exercise as roadmap deadlines come and go, it could be time to think about the chance {that a} gradual rug pull is happening and that it might be time to get out earlier than additional losses are realized.
This text doesn’t comprise funding recommendation or suggestions. Each funding and buying and selling transfer entails threat, and readers ought to conduct their very own analysis when making a choice.
The views, ideas and opinions expressed listed below are the writer’s alone and don’t essentially mirror or symbolize the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.