While cryptocurrency and the metaverse seem to be all investors can talk about these days, just how resilient are some of these investing trends? In this segment of Backstage Pass, recorded on Jan. 21, Fool contributors Toby Bordelon and Rachel Warren discuss.
Toby Bordelon: I was thinking about crypto, Bitcoin (BTC -1.50%) today. Bitcoin dropped below $30,000 today. It's actually sitting at $36,700 right now when I last checked. This is the lowest it's been, I think, since August of last year, and more than 40% now off of its highs of late last year.
Additionally, the other thing I saw on our poll yesterday about a recent survey of game developers. Seems about 70% of them are just not interested at all in putting NFTs into their games, and that's after a recent customer poll over one developer's plans to put NFTs into an upcoming game. The backlash was so fierce, they had to cancel those plans.
We're seeing a little bit of a backlash, I think, in some NFTs. Take those two things together: Is this the beginning of the end for crypto or NFTs, or is it just a temporary low with this? What do you guys think is going on here with our Bitcoin, with our crypto, with our NFT world?
Rachel Warren: I don't think it's going anywhere [laughs]. I'm not invested in crypto, but I have been getting increasingly interested in it over the months, and I've been following that area of the market a little more closely, and more of the NFT side with just absolute intrigue.
You'll see these stories of some woman that made $1 million selling NFT artwork, which obviously is not everyone's situation. But you do have people that are making serious money with these. Just regular, everyday people, not these big brands that are selling NFTs, which I personally think it's cool.
I don't think it's going anywhere. I think while maybe certain game developers are a little more hesitant to get into it even as you have larger companies that are just jumping in headfirst, I think there's so much excitement among investors about crypto, about NFTs.
I think that will continue to fuel a lot of investment and interest in that area, and then just even as you see the expansion of the metaverse and how there is all this interconnectedness between these different areas. I don't see it going away.
I do think it's really important, though -- as we see all of these different types of crypto assets, ones we've never even heard of, they keep coming out and other kind of digital asset investing opportunities -- to just be very discerning with the kind of investments you make because there are some scams out there. There are some ones that maybe aren't even scams, but a little questionable as to how sage it would be to invest in some of these.
I've seen everything from crypto MLMs [multilevel marketing] to crypto that doesn't even have anything really behind it out there. We've seen some stories in recent months of people that invested in the next up-and-coming digital asset and then it just went poof. I think if anything, investors are going to have to be a lot more discerning in this space. But I tend to think it's here to stay.