2022 Predictions

Inspired by others who have written predictions in order to keep themselves accountable and to improve their predictive abilities, here are some predictions I have for 2022.

They roughly fall into a few categories: cryptocurrency, technology, long-term technology, and fun (i.e. sports).

Cryptocurrency Predictions

These predictions are all part of my thesis that cryptocurrency will continue to exist for at least the rest of my lifetime as a new asset class for believers, grifters, and speculators. Only outlawing or strict regulation could really change this prediction. My basic theses is that as technologists have had increasingly larger holding of wealth, the tech subculture that enjoys crypto can in prepetuity continue to pump money into it. Another theory I only slightly believe is that as the world economy continues to grow, I predict there will be more and more fragmented subcultures that can be propelled forever by their own true believers and the FOMO of others. A trillion dollars really isn’t what it used to be anymore.

A helpful lens to view cryptocurrency is as a fashion brand like Supreme or Gucci. There are many people who genuinely want Supreme, but there are others who only want it because it is in-demand. There are those who turn a profit by flipping Supreme gear, who have a vested interest in Supreme staying in-demand. One could look at Supreme and say it’s a pyramid scheme whereby early investors in Supreme gear get paid out by later entrants. That there’s nothing “economically useful” about Supreme gear.

This is all basically true, for both Supreme and crypto, but I don’t have a particular moralizing take on it. If that’s what people enjoy, then have at it. Same with cryptocurrency. The only danger is if Supreme starts making up a serious proportion of the world’s GDP. Then there are problems. There’s no more excess money to be poured in, and when people run for the exits, there’s no other source of wealth to stabilize things.

I believe regulators will not allow crypto in its current form to be closely tied into the mainstream financial system. That people will naturally take winnings at certain points and losers will not be eager to re-enter, which will put a natural ceiling on the growth of crypto. But I also believe that there’s real demand for cryptocurrency, whether it’s driven by true belief, grift, or speculation. However, this demand is fungible across cryptocurrency as a whole, which is to say, I don’t expect cryptocurrency to grow massively as a proportion of GDP over the next twenty years. It may still grow modestly, but the volatility will come from a continuous upheaval of brands or coins, similar to what we see in fashion.

Technology Predictions

Disclaimer: I own all of these stocks, because I believe this, although the majority of my money is in boring index funds.

I dislike how I’ve written this prediction, but I wanted to quantify my prediction that Big Tech and Cloud Computing will continue winning in 2022 and this seems the easiest. The obvious big risk factor is some sort of anti-trust action, but I feel comfortable putting that at a less than 20% risk for the next year.

Long Term Tech Predictions

ARM will continue winning in both the server, phone, and personal computing markets. 25% and 30% seems low for server and personal computing, but I imagine that Intel and AMD will not go down without a fight, and the switching costs will cause adoption to be slow.

Fun Predictions

The Warriors already look like a top 2 team in the league, and the return of Klay Thompson could mean their updated lineup-of-death could blow teams out of the water.

Man City has the deepest, best squad, with arguably the best coach of the modern era.

Grading

At the end of 2022, I’ll go back and grade my predictions here and try to see not just what I got right or wrong, but where my reasoning was wrong. Hopefully I’ll be right about everything and I can pat myself on the back, but at the very least the making of these predictions itself has been fun.