If Google Were Teal

How many Internet searches do you do in a typical day? During a busy session of teaching English online, I can rack up 100 queries, related to topics which my students have raised. One week I clocked in a whopping 360 searches, with terms ranging from "kiszona kapusta" to "Doctor Who time loops". They were all conducted on a single search engine (can you guess which one?)

We give an awful lot of personal data away just for the privilege of using their platforms. Don't get me wrong, I love Google -- they are generous with content creators. As a basic consumer the benefits are rather scant, however. Bing will reward you with points for choosing their machine, but they must be redeemed by shopping at the Microsoft Store. If you want to be paid in cold hard cash (well, in cryptocash at least!), Presearch is the only program out there. You can earn 0.1PRE per search, with a cap of 25 searches per day.

As of December 2022, that was worth US$0.81.

Of course, it is chump change but does add up, and it is better than earning nothing at all. More importantly, your PRE gives you voting and ownership rights and the ability to build a search engine that is for the people, by the people. A Teal organization, to be precise... (For more on the Presearch search engine and Ethereum token, click here.) 

Smoking the $-Curve

We could assume that Bitcoin will rise relative to the US dollar by 6% per month, or 100% every year, until it shoots free from the S-Curve. Thus, its value should double every year until the mid 20s, and beyond.

I believe that Bitcoin is in the Era of Ferment stage of its life cycle, and has yet to enter the Early Adopters phase, and cross the chasm. Nonetheless, it seems to be growing in value 100% per year. I am not the first to draw this conclusion. Visionary trader Venzen Khaosan made this very same discovery way back in 2014, while describing a chart: "This up-sloping support line can be interpreted as Bitcoin’s minimum growth trajectory. It is currently at $120 which means it has doubled since a year ago, and this doubling continues at an annual pace according to the support floor’s present inclination..."

Pimping the $-Curve (Japan, 2006)

To complicate things, Bitcoin's value may surge as high as 1300% above the support floor, at any time. The upper range of possible prices from 2014 to 2020 (projected) can be shown here: US$1300 (2014), $2600 (2015), $5200 (2016), $10,400 (2017), $20,000 (2018), $42,250 (2019), $84,500 (2020). The lower possible range of prices over the same period is: $100 (2014), $200 (2015), $400 (2016), $800 (2017), $1600 (2018), $3200 (2019), $6400 (2020). 

While price explosions might be exhilarating, they don't occur so often. Most of the time, price just bounces along some distance above the floor. In my analysis, bear markets last three times longer than bull markets. Absolute lows are hit once every 18 months or so. The complete cycle, from peak to following peak, appears to be getting longer -- the most recent one stretched for four years... (To read my full analysis of how Bitcoin will mature in the years ahead, click here.)