Posted January 10, 2024
By James Altucher
5 Must-See Predictions
Everyone and their brother is making predictions for 2024. Take it all with a big grain of salt, but here are mine.
1: AI will have an enormous effect on the economy. I spoke to the CEO of freelance.com, the largest freelancing site in the world with over 60 million freelancers vying for gigs.
“A logo designer used to take a week to make a logo. Now she can make 10 logos in a day,” he told me. “Same goes for programmers, copywriters, animators, etc.”
Productivity is increasing enormously. AI is the first innovation where the hype and the reality are both coming true at the same time. The internet took about 10 years before the reality caught up with the hype.
I speak at a lot of conferences. Yes, there probably will be a recession. But I’ve never seen such enthusiasm for a new technology at the beginning of a recession than I see right now.
2: Countries will be switching to a digital currency. You might know it as “Biden Bucks.” I was in Norway recently talking with the central bankers there. They, and the central bankers of every country, have been figuring out a way to improve the 50-year-old antiquated payment system of the planet.
They know cryptocurrencies are the way to go and they are figuring it out. The big problem: Infrastructure is not quite there in cryptocurrencies. This is a hurdle but hurdles are good things. As those hurdles are leapt, prices go up accordingly.
3: Every day, the U.S. is attacked. On Nov. 25, Iran-based hackers took over a water utility near Pittsburgh. The utility had to shut down and manually open up to avoid the hack. Recently, Chinese and Russian hackers attempted to shut down the U.S. electric grid.
This happens almost every day. We are in a full-scale cyber war. With AI now being used to detect flaws in a system much faster than any human can, this cyber war is going to escalate considerably in 2024.
Recession in 2024?
4: Recession? The Fed recently announced that the rate hikes are over and the next move or two or three will be cuts. The market popped to all-time highs. People were dancing in the streets. Don’t dance so fast.
Why does inflation go down? Because people stop buying things so prices go down. That’s when recessions happen. The only reason the Fed would cut rates (and the first cut is expected by March) is because we are in a recession or they think we are in a recession.
Recessions feel bad. People lose their jobs, homes, experience pain. After 11 rate hikes, we have to expect a recession. We are probably in one right now. But I am hopeful that the excitement for AI will reduce the pain of this recession.
I have a lot of hopes for 2024. In 2023 we finally started to move into a post-COVID world where the data became very confusing. After two years of nobody cutting down trees, of course, the price of lumber increased a lot, making the price of building a house go up considerably. Housing is 30% of the American economy.
Because of the war in Ukraine, of course, the prices of wheat and oil would go up considerably. Because of the war in Israel, of course, there would be protests everywhere and the price of oil would be in flux and people would be scared. After 11 rate hikes, of course, inflation would slow down and now the worry is of recession.
5: When it comes to cryptocurrencies, focus on infrastructure. A lot of catalysts are happening in the crypto space:
- Laws finally regulating crypto will happen and we have a crypto-friendly Congress now.
- Eventually Gary Gensler, head of the SEC, will resign in disgust.
- More countries are adopting crypto.
- Adoption of crypto ETFs will make it (finally) easier to buy crypto.
For a blue chip crypto, pick Ethereum, ETH, and not Bitcoin. Ethereum is used to make all the crypto infrastructure.
Let me say more about crypto…
Crypto: The Evolution of Money
Crypto opportunities are NEVER going away, and generational wealth CAN be made in the times ahead. I’m telling you the opportunity here is immense.
One day, “B.C.” will stand for “before crypto” and “A.C.” will stand for “after crypto.”
Right now, still we’re living in the relatively early years of “A.C.” That’s because cryptos are the natural evolution of money.
First it was the land you owned and the resources you developed on that land (wheat, grains, etc.).
Then it was metals. Gold, silver, etc. You traveled with it by fashioning it into jewelry. But too much gold makes it harder to transport.
Then came paper currency. Backed first by gold it’s now backed by faith in God (“in God we trust”) or government.
Electronic currency followed paper. It’s easily transportable. But transaction fees are all over the system. And it affords zero privacy.
Now we have cryptocurrencies.
Cryptos’ Great Advantages
They’re easily transportable, have zero transaction fees, there’s no human intervention between payer and payee and they offer anonymity.
Money evolves like anything else and the natural evolution of money is always as a store of value that is easier to move, more secure and more private.
How can you transact across a large geographic area with fewer fees, fewer costs, less chance for human error, higher security and privacy?
Cryptocurrencies. They’re the natural evolution of money. The evolution of money and the evolution of every industry strongly imply that cryptocurrencies will be in our future.
Now, it’s true that uncertainty breeds volatility. Cryptocurrencies have been and are going to be volatile for a while.
But why does volatility create opportunity?
Because it’s rare that intrinsic value changes much day to day. If you can identify the cryptocurrencies that are legitimate (have strong intrinsic value), then you can make a lot of money playing off the volatile situation in crypto.
And that’s where I come in…
Separating the Wheat From the Chaff
I want to help the many people who have been scammed by all sorts of schemes duping people into buying or trading “bad” crypto.
My solution is simple.
Research, diversification and building a network of intelligence allow me to understand all the relevant issues and make smart decisions. I sift through the duds and bad info to give people real moneymaking opportunities.
There’s no avoiding reality. The evolution of money and the evolution of every industry strongly imply that cryptocurrencies will be in our future.
I’ve provided regular people with real moneymaking opportunities before, and I intend to keep doing it.
My goal is to help people profit and avoid getting burned.