Happy New Year!

I hope you enjoyed your holidays and are ready to join me in hitting the ground running in 2024! It’s a new year full of new opportunities.

2023 was a huge year for tech, with breakthroughs coming left and right that seemed to be pulled straight from the pages of a sci-fi novel.

But there was one clear winner when it comes to who had the biggest year in the world of tech. That’s right…

Bitcoin.

You’d probably expect that crown to sit atop the head of artificial intelligence, or more specifically: Nvidia. Obviously AI had a huge year and was transformative in the way we looked at work, art, science, and just about everything else.

AI certainly had the biggest coming out party, but its best years are still yet to come.

And honestly, not that many companies have figured out how to make money off of AI…

Nvidia has been raking it in selling the hardware that powers this powerful new technology, but just about everyone else has been in an aggressive developmental phase; sacrificing profits to keep pace in this competitive field.

Bitcoin, however, has already been around the block a few times. Taking off like a rocket on multiple occasions, then dropping like a lead balloon almost as often.

It’s hard to overstate just how terrible 2022 was for crypto.

While most people will associate the year with the collapse of FTX - with Sam Bankman-Fried putting himself on the Mount Rushmore of fraudsters, alongside Bernie Madoff and Charles Ponzi - that’s just the beginning of the story for crypto.

For investors in Bitcoin and other cryptos, nothing hurt quite as bad as the collapse of Terra’s algorithmic stable coin, LUNA.

When an unexpected selloff triggered a type of feedback loop with LUNA and TerraUSD - a coin that was supposed to be tethered to the US dollar (i.e., always be worth $1.00) - both coins quickly became almost worthless.

Not only was people’s faith in Terra shattered, it called into question the utility of blockchain technology as a whole and the crypto market as worthwhile investment.

Despite having nothing to do with Bitcoin itself, the original cryptocurrency saw its price drop under $30k for the first time since the 2020 bull run.

From a price-only point-of-view, the FTX/Alameda fraud later in 2022 was more an insult to injury for Bitcoin than it was a crushing blow.

When you factor in other high-profile fraud that occurred in 2022, such as with the crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, then you can understand why many people assumed that crypto was dead.

And of course, Bitcoin along with it…

Back From The Dead

January 1st, 2023: Bitcoin sat at $16,625. A woeful drop from its all-time-high of $65k just 13 months prior.

Today: Bitcoin sits at over $45k, over 170% improvement from a year ago.

While Nvidia may have beat those gains, it didn’t have to come back from the dead to do so.

2023 was a make-or-break year for crypto, and it delivered.

While Bitcoin led the way for crypto as a whole (as it almost always has), other big names also did well last year. Such as Ethereum (+94%) and Cardano (+141%).

The global crypto market cap is currently $1.73 trillion, after having fallen below $1 trillion during 2022’s struggles.

A lot of these recent gains have been slow and gradual - uncharacteristic for cryptocurrency - but recently the improvements have come in leaps and bounds. A much more “crypto-like” way of doing things.

This action has been driven by the seemingly very substantial rumor that a Bitcoin ETF would finally be approved by the SEC.

Such a decision is a huge reversal from SEC chair Gary Gensler’s outspoken opposition to cryptocurrency. (Of course the approval would be more of conceding a losing battle than an actual change of tune).

Not only would this approval eventually lead to institutional investment accounting for a whole lot of Bitcoin being bought up, it also gives cryptocurrency back the one thing that many feared it had lost for good…

Legitimacy.

That’s why, despite quantum computing and artificial intelligence poised to change the whole world, I have to declare the biggest winner of 2023 the one technology that had to rise from the ashes to make its gains.

With that, I’d like to hear your thoughts. Who is your Tech Winner of 2023? What are your investment goals for the year to come? What do you expect to see happen throughout the tech world in the next twelve months? Share your thoughts at feedback@technlogyprofits.com