The so-called "faith" you refer to is nothing more than an asset to me.

Interviewed & Written by Zhou Zhou (Joe Zhou), Foresight News

"I have no faith in BTC."

"Jeffrey 'Machi' Huang will definitely face full forced liquidation, his assets will be gradually wiped out, and the era of retail traders has come to an end."

"I do not believe Bitcoin will surge another 2x from current levels."

"Bitcoin's four-year cycle no longer exists."

"The so-called 'faith' you talk about is just an ordinary asset to me."

"In the next phase, there will be no difference in research strategy between traditional finance and cryptocurrency."

"Gold is already a highly marketized asset, and there is absolutely no need to recreate it via RWA."

"I am bullish on young people today building one-person hedge funds."

Separated by half a year, across two interviews totaling six hours of conversation, I heard a great many incisive, unvarnished judgments from Fu Peng.

As one of the first economists in China to publicly track the crypto industry, Fu Peng holds independent perspectives on BTC, stablecoins, Real World Assets (RWA), and the broader crypto market as a whole.

From Lehman Brothers Investment Bank in the UK, to Salomon International Investment Group in London, to chief economist at Northeast Securities, and later chief economist at New Huo Group, Fu Peng has navigated cycles across different financial markets, taking on a range of professional roles throughout his career.

But he says he has never really changed.

During the interview, he repeatedly emphasized not to fixate too much on his ever-changing job titles. Over the past three decades, he has only focused on one core pursuit.

What exactly is that pursuit?

Throughout our conversation, we discussed Bitcoin, stablecoins, RWA, Polymarket, AI, the current state of Hong Kong's crypto industry, and the future of retail traders. The full interview transcript is as follows:

01｜The Crypto Market Is No Longer What It Used to Be

Joe Zhou: The day before yesterday I attended 2026 Hong Kong FinTech Week, and found that crypto companies made up less than one-tenth of the entire fintech industry presence. Do you think this dynamic will change in the future?

Fu Peng: I don't think the share of crypto in the total mixed asset allocation portfolio will change dramatically. Because its underlying core technology is already starting to integrate with the traditional financial system.

Joe Zhou: Do you think Bitcoin's four-year cycle still holds?

Fu Peng: It does not. That was a product of the previous era. And in our analytical framework, there was never actually a so-called "four-year cycle" to begin with.

Joe Zhou: But it should still have some residual impact, right?

Fu Peng: You have to remember: when a market is still small, large players buying or selling will obviously move prices.

But once the market enters the era of Portfolio management, these dynamics change. It's not that these factors have no impact at all, but they are no longer strong enough to dictate market prices.

Joe Zhou: So volatility will shrink.

Fu Peng: Exactly, that's right. Once institutional players enter the market, volatility will naturally decline.

Joe Zhou: You previously said that the crypto market today has a completely different meaning from the market in earlier years.

Fu Peng: I know this statement will upset a lot of people. Some will lash out, others will reflect. But to be blunt, the people who lash out will likely be gradually phased out by history in a few years; the people who reflect are the ones who will think through these questions carefully, and might even find new directions for themselves.

Joe Zhou: In your mind, what exactly did the old crypto market look like? And what form will it take in the future?

Fu Peng: Do I even need to imagine what the old crypto market was like?

Let me give you an example: the Hong Kong stock market during Fang Zhanbo's era, when traders wore floor vests and shouted orders on the trading floor. It was identical to early crypto. Extremely high retail participation, chip-based trading, zero-sum game trading, high volatility — those were all hallmarks of that era.

Fang Zhanbo (left) in *The Greed of Man*, portrayed by Sean Lau

If you look at China's history, that was exactly the Hainan Commodity Exchange era. Trading coffee, red beans, mung beans, sugar, sorghum... I don't know if you remember, but we once had countless exchanges, one in every province. We had OTC counter-based stock exchanges, and all kinds of commodity exchanges. It was exactly the same as the later crypto market: a pile of exchanges, a pile of altcoins, all kinds of small niche assets, no difference at all.

So for people like me who lived through those eras, it's not that we don't understand the crypto circle — we understand it very well.

The key reason we couldn't participate back then was that our allocated share in traditional assets was already very large. Before you matured as a market, we understood exactly what you were doing, but we could not step onto the playing field.

That is what the early stage of a market looks like. Once the early stage passes, the market matures, and everyone can naturally participate.

Joe Zhou: What are the commonalities between traditional finance and cryptocurrency in terms of research strategy?

Fu Peng: If the market enters the second stage, these systems will be fully interconnected. To put it simply, there will be no difference between them at all.

Because digital assets are fundamentally an asset class, not something that exists in isolation outside the traditional financial system. They will eventually be absorbed into the traditional system.

For traditional finance, this just means adding a new asset class, so the research methodology is shared. For example, if I build a strategy combining FICC and Crypto, all my past experience can be directly applied to crypto assets. (Note: FICC refers to the fixed income, currencies and commodities business line.)

But in the early stage ten years ago, all the accumulated large-scale asset trading experience built up over 50 years of traditional markets was completely irrelevant to crypto.

Think about the HKEX: if you went to trade stocks there in the 1970s or 1980s, talking about macroeconomics or asset allocation was just total nonsense, right?

In that era, the game was played by "Fang Zhanbo" rules: how many chips you held, how many chips I held, who could beat who. In that era, running around talking about broad asset allocation was just reckless.

So this is really just a choice of era. Now, the time has come.

02｜Bitcoin's Ceiling: Limited Supply Also Restricts Its Allocation Scale

Joe Zhou: If you put Bitcoin into an asset portfolio, what assets would sit adjacent to it? For example, arranged by volatility.

Fu Peng: If you want higher volatility exposure, you choose Ethereum. On the lower volatility end, you choose value-oriented assets, like AI stocks in the US market.

This is actually a single chain of assets: on the lower volatility end you have Nvidia, in the middle is Bitcoin, on the higher volatility end is Ethereum. If you take the volatility of the denominator and multiply it several times, you get Ethereum. The largest share of the portfolio will likely still sit on the low volatility end, like Nvidia.

If you work in asset management, you will always put the largest position in the asset with the highest certainty and lowest volatility. And among crypto assets, Bitcoin is gradually becoming the most certain asset in the entire portfolio.

Joe Zhou: So will Bitcoin's share in asset portfolios grow larger and larger in the future, similar to Nvidia?

Fu Peng: Let me ask you a question: commodity derivatives have been developed for 50 years now. Whether through futures, options, or ETFs, what share do they make up in total Wall Street investment portfolios?

That share is indeed growing, but what is the total maximum possible share? To put it simply, it all comes down to scale.

Bitcoin uses its fixed total supply to support its value. But every coin has two sides.

On one hand, controlling supply helps maintain value; on the other hand, it also creates hard constraints. The stock market is different: the entire stock market can keep running IPOs, so the total market capitalization can theoretically keep expanding. As long as humans keep creating wealth, the stock market can absorb new capital.

Bitcoin is not like that. Its supply is fixed, which means its share in total global asset allocation will eventually be constrained.

Joe Zhou: So can I understand it this way: Bitcoin currently has a market cap of around $1 trillion, while Nvidia is $4 trillion. Right now you hold a small position in Bitcoin, but if Bitcoin's market cap also rises to $4 trillion, you don't think it can keep going higher from there?

Fu Peng: It's very simple. When you talk about it that way, you are just circling back to the fundamentalist narratives from the first ten years of crypto.

How is that even possible? A $4 trillion market cap is only a 2-3x gain from current levels. Based on today's market cap, Bitcoin going from $1 trillion to $4 trillion is roughly a 2-3x move, which translates to a price of $300,000 to $400,000 per Bitcoin.

Then I might as well say, because Bitcoin supply is fixed, theoretically all value can accumulate into it, the price can go to the sky, even $1 million per coin? That kind of talk is just for show; the underlying logic is fundamentally wrong.

You can think of Bitcoin as a stock.

Can Nvidia reach a $50 trillion market cap? No. But can it reach $8 trillion? It's possible.

Suppose Nvidia reaches $8 trillion, then its future earnings decline, will its stock price fall? Of course it will. But under what conditions might the stock price not fall even if earnings decline? It can repurchase and cancel shares, reducing the total number of shares to boost per-share value. You can understand Bitcoin roughly along these lines.

Joe Zhou: But Bitcoin's supply is fixed, right? Why wouldn't continuous capital inflows and ongoing buying push its price ever higher?

Fu Peng: The answer is simple: precisely because supply is fixed, that continuous buying scenario will never play out. For example, as an asset manager, I can allocate 1% more to Bitcoin, but it will be extremely hard to allocate any more than that.

Joe Zhou: So Bitcoin cannot double in price again?

Fu Peng: It cannot. Because its capacity is limited. It's no different from the commodity copper. Do you think any large asset management firm would park billions or tens of billions of dollars of client funds entirely in copper? If they tried to do that, their own position would become the single biggest driver of copper prices.

Bitcoin is no different. Its total supply is fixed, so the scale of allocation it can support has a hard boundary.

03｜No Faith, Only Asset Allocation

Joe Zhou: Do you hold crypto assets?

Fu Peng: Our definition of "hold" is completely different from yours.

Joe Zhou: Do you not use centralized or decentralized exchanges at all?

Fu Peng: When we first got involved, it was mainly a compliance issue. The first product we engaged with was Bitcoin futures, because it was compliant. The assets on the exchanges you used back then were unregulated. We can participate via compliant products, like those issued by CSOP Asset Management in Hong Kong. Another route is allocating to Bitcoin ETFs.

Joe Zhou: There is a difference here. For retail traders like us, we would go directly to an exchange to buy coins, while financial institutions prefer to buy ETFs.

Fu Peng: I don't think that is the real difference. The real difference is: the so-called "faith" you talk about is nothing more than an asset to me.

For example, I can get exposure to Bitcoin by buying an ETF. I don't have the compulsion many people have to own an on-chain address, a self-custody wallet, and actual coins sitting in it.

It is very simple for me. Suppose I judge that Bitcoin will rise to $80,000, should I sell? I just trim my ETF position, adjust my portfolio, and that's it.

I never obsess over things like "If I trim my position, will my wallet end up empty?" That doesn't happen for me. That is the core difference.

For us, this just means adding an investable asset class to our allocation framework. It is completely different from the faith-driven "hold" culture in the old crypto circle.

For traditional finance practitioners, Bitcoin does not need to be imbued with special faith, nor does it need to be held directly via an on-chain wallet. First and foremost, it is an asset that can be included in an investment portfolio.

If the price rises, you can trim your position; if your judgment changes, you can adjust your allocation; if a better investment opportunity comes along, you can shift capital to other assets.

This logic is not complicated. What matters is not whether you "believe in" Bitcoin, but how you judge its position in your overall asset portfolio.

Bitcoin can be a faith for some people, but to me, it is first and foremost an asset.

04｜Why BTC Can Still Fall Even When the Fed Cuts Rates

Joe Zhou: From your research perspective, what factor has the strongest relationship with the crypto market? Is it earnings-related factors?

Fu Peng: It's very simple. If crypto assets become investable products, absorbed into the financial framework built over the past 40 years as a formal asset class, they will inevitably experience "co-movement", i.e., the correlation with traditional assets.

The entire framework logic for trading these assets will fully merge with traditional finance.

For crypto assets, the biggest influence will no longer be simple supply and demand, nor the question of how much supply a specific address or wallet plans to dump.

Think about the Hong Kong stock market during the "Greed of Man" era. Back then, there was no need to study macroeconomics at all, because macro was not the core variable. The core variable was how many shares were in float, how many you held, how many Fang Zhanbo held. Everyone sat at their keyboards placing sniper trades, competing to see who held more chips.

The early Chinese stock market was the same. When market makers were battling for control, there was no need to study macroeconomics, because no large financial institutions were involved. That was exactly the state of the early crypto circle, early crypto assets.

But now things are different. Look at today's Hong Kong stock market: do stocks like Alibaba or Tencent still trade like they did back then? You will still see that kind of trading on penny stocks, because they are too small. But for large-scale assets, that dynamic is gone.

At this point, you will find that macroeconomics and liquidity start to matter. Because these factors move large Portfolio holdings, which in turn move the individual assets inside those portfolios.

Crypto assets today already exhibit this dynamic. Many people are starting to notice that AI stocks, Nvidia, and other AI-related assets are now moving in lockstep with crypto assets. Liquidity-driven valuation pressure, traditional analytical pathways, are already starting to impact crypto assets.

That is the answer.

Joe Zhou: So what is the current impact of the macro environment on the crypto market? From a macro perspective, where is the market right now?

Fu Peng: Starting from last November, we have been in a period of liquidity tightening.

Around last November, the Fed's balance sheet shrank to a certain threshold. Note: it is "shrank to a certain threshold", which creates a liquidity squeeze at the quantitative (Q) level.

Ordinary retail investors assume that US interest rate cuts are universally good for asset prices, but they overlook the fact that liquidity is not only a function of the interest rate "price" level, but also the "quantity" of money in the system. When the Fed's balance sheet contraction reaches a certain threshold, the drain of liquidity from quantitative tightening will offset the looser financial conditions brought by lower policy rates, resulting in overall tighter liquidity. In this environment, all valuation-sensitive assets will be the first to face pressure.

This logic has already been validated in traditional markets. Over the past six to seven years, this dynamic has played out twice, and both times it impacted crypto assets. That is why you have seen the market move the way it has over the past few years.

Joe Zhou: So when do you think this cycle will end? The bearish phase?

Fu Peng: I told you back in the first half of the year, it will be the end of this year.

Think about it: if liquidity gradually becomes the biggest factor moving the market, then your "timing" needs to be aligned with that point. You have to get the timing right.

In Fu Peng's view, to understand today's crypto market, you can no longer only track on-chain data, exchange fund flows, and large holder positions.

As Bitcoin gradually becomes an asset that large institutions can include in their investment portfolios, it is inevitably impacted by the traditional financial system.

Interest rate cuts do not automatically mean loose liquidity, and lower interest rates do not mean all assets will rise. The relationship between money quantity and the price of capital is becoming a key variable impacting crypto asset valuations.

The crypto circle is starting to look more and more like traditional financial markets. The era of chip-based trading has not disappeared entirely, but for an increasing number of large assets, macroeconomics and liquidity are now unavoidable variables.

05｜In the AI Era, Young People Can Build One-Person Hedge Funds

Joe Zhou: How will AI trading impact the FICC + Crypto market?

Fu Peng: This is essentially the evolution of AI Trading Agents. It will change the entire investor structure.

Simply put, retail traders will be phased out faster. And one thing is certain: today's Gen Z cohort, if they put in the work, have the potential to quickly grow into "one-person hedge funds". AI as a tool drives efficiency up and costs down to extremely low levels. In the past, it was nearly impossible for retail traders to reach the scale and professionalism of institutional players, but young people today have a real shot at that.

But on the flip side, the group of people who refuse to use AI at all will also be quickly eliminated by the market. So the dynamic is bifurcated.

One definite outcome of AI is: a cohort of young people growing into one-person hedge funds, while the large institutions at the top become even stronger.

When these institutions compete in trading in the future, they will no longer compete on "judgment", but on who has more data, rarer data, and stronger computing power. If you are willing to spend 1 billion dollars on backend servers, data maintenance, and computing power, you will outperform other hedge funds.

Do you think the wealth miracle of the old Medallion Fund was achieved through "judgment"? That was the era of computing.

During the programmatic trading era, when none of you knew how to use it, it was very simple: I traded via computer, you manually filled out trade tickets, and I was guaranteed to make money off you. That is how eras work.

Joe Zhou: Do you think the market will become increasingly monopolized by giants?

Fu Peng: It will. The end result will be a massive drop in the share of retail investors directly participating in the market. That means you have to be an ultra-low-frequency asset allocator. If you even think about doing high-frequency trading, you will lose for sure. These are all historical trends.

Joe Zhou: After AI emerged, how has your own asset allocation or core business model changed?

Fu Peng: Not much has changed. We just added a new asset class, that is all. No fundamental shift.

Joe Zhou: What about research methods?

Fu Peng: That will change. Middle-layer analysts are no longer valuable, even end-of-line trade execution is no longer valuable. Your AI Trading Agent will handle all of that for you.

Joe Zhou: What about changes for you personally?

Fu Peng: It is already happening. Don't even talk about me: many old established funds in London are cutting staff right now, because middle layers no longer have value. We do industry macro analysis every day: in the past we relied on people to gather all the information, now we have 17 AI employees.

Joe Zhou: If you had to give young investors one asset allocation piece of advice, what would you say?

Fu Peng: Come on, why do young people need asset allocation in the first place? It's the same as when a young guy comes up to me and says, "I have 200,000 RMB, how should I allocate my assets?" My response is: why not just go all in?

It's very simple: asset allocation only matters when you have a certain level of asset scale, and then you calibrate it based on your risk appetite, expected return, and so on.

Joe Zhou: Let me paint a user persona for you: people like us, working in first-tier cities, with a bit of savings, how much of our portfolio should we allocate to crypto assets?

Fu Peng: First pay off your debts, reduce your leverage, secure stable cash flow from your job, and make sure you aren't replaced by AI. Only after that, think about what to invest in with your leftover money. Never use credit cards or small consumer loans to play high-volatility assets — I can tell you, that will end in total failure. Don't ever do that.

Joe Zhou: But if everyone does that, the market will be really boring. It will turn into a super efficient market.

Fu Peng: But the market itself is also a process of elimination. You have to understand: it is built on waves of elimination.

06｜What Is the Real Value of Crypto? Stablecoins, RWA and Polymarket in Fu Peng's Eyes

Joe Zhou: I think something new will definitely emerge to make the market less boring.

Fu Peng: You already find Polymarket interesting, don't you? It's the same thing (laughs).

Joe Zhou: Do you trade it too?

Fu Peng: Damn, do I even need to actively trade it? Back when we lived in the UK, we also bet on football matches. It's exactly the same. But the "betting" we do is completely different from what you do.

Back then internet speeds were much slower. We would bring walkie-talkies, buy match tickets to be at the stadium in person, and exploit time lags: the betting platform had a delay, updating the odds roughly 90 seconds after a goal was scored. That is textbook arbitrage.

Joe Zhou: What do you think about the future market for stablecoins?

Fu Peng: In the end, the share of stablecoins will be roughly similar to the proportion of diverse foreign exchange reserves used in each country, i.e., the currency mix used in the financial system.

A stablecoin is just a technical tool. You can think of it this way: the middle layer of finance, i.e., the trade layer, transaction layer, and payment layer, will simply shift from the original financial system and fiat currencies to stablecoins pegged to national currencies.

Joe Zhou: Between stablecoins and CBDCs, which one do you think has a brighter future?

Fu Peng: In the end, stablecoins will definitely become the baseline.

Joe Zhou: What is your take on RWA?

Fu Peng: It is just a tool, nothing more. You can attach anything to it. Just like blockchain, it is a tool that can be applied in finance. For example, in old trade processes there were massive numbers of paper documents, and blockchain technology can be applied to prevent forgery.

The end product of a technology is an "asset". RWA is not an asset, it is a tool.

Joe Zhou: What do you think of RWA innovation in Hong Kong?

Fu Peng: The most effective RWA in existence right now is stablecoins.

Many traditional assets want to break into the space, using RWA to issue non-standard, long-tail assets. But the question is: what actual benefit do you get from buying these assets via RWA, compared to buying the same asset the traditional way?

Joe Zhou: What about using a high-liquidity asset like gold for RWA? For example, tokenizing gold?

Fu Peng: That is meaningless. Gold is already a highly marketized, highly competitive asset with deep, sufficient liquidity. There is simply no need to recreate it as an RWA product. Any technology must find its real, native use case. It is wrong to assume that existing, mature asset markets can be naturally wrapped in an RWA shell with added value. The RWA projects that actually succeed are the ones serving niches that the traditional financial system has not reached.

07｜Why Join New Huo Now? Digital Assets Are Entering the FICC + Crypto Era

Joe Zhou: Why did you choose to join New Huo Group?

Fu Peng: It's very simple. All the regulatory and technological progress of 2025 is signaling a moment as transformative as the rise of FICC in the 1980s. After World War II, the first major integration and transformation of finance and technology happened in the 1980s. This moment is the second.

The FICC era represented the shift from traditional finance to a new world. It ignited the space. The two sides (traditional finance and crypto) are now moving toward each other, with only a thin layer of paper between them. Someone needs to poke through that paper, and light the fire.

Joe Zhou: What advantages do you think New Huo Group has at this moment of industry transition?

Fu Peng: I think they simply made the right choice.

You see, the first phase of the crypto market was defined by retail characteristics. Back then we joked that it was not exactly "wild", but it was definitely rough, unpolished growth. That rough growth phase is already over. Over the past ten years, with the rollout of global regulation and compliance, that era has ended.

The second phase is built around exchanges. Based on historical experience, the exchange business model is now far less promising than the asset management business we are building.

Of course, ultimately the exchange space will see a period of flourishing competition, followed by a wave of massive consolidation. Personally, I think signs of that consolidation are already starting to appear. You can see traditional exchanges like the NYSE and Nasdaq already positioning themselves in the space. The integration and onboarding of traditional exchanges has already begun.

Joe Zhou: What do you think the future of the cryptocurrency industry looks like?

Fu Peng: Look around: traditional exchanges are rapidly iterating and entering the space. This is not unprecedented in history: a field full of homogeneous exchanges will eventually go through a wave of mergers and acquisitions, leaving only the largest global players. At the same time, low-quality assets will gradually disappear.

It is exactly the same. Don't think the crypto circle has some special status; it is no different from the cycle 50 years ago.

Joe Zhou: Will you get a Type 9 license in Hong Kong to directly manage funds?

Fu Peng: I'm too old for that. We already have the teams here. You just need to bring up the young people, right? Why would I be at this age, still staring at the market frontline? Don't you worry about stroke? At my age, you do what Ray Dalio does: pass the torch, let young people take the lead, but pass on all your experience and knowledge to them.

Joe Zhou: Does your decision to join New Huo at this moment mean some major industry shifts have happened?

Fu Peng: Finance evolves as technology changes.

08｜China, Hong Kong and the Future of Crypto: A Long Transition Between Old and New

Joe Zhou: What is your view on China's economic development trend over the past two years?

Fu Peng: It is not just China, my view on the whole world is roughly the same, summed up in one phrase: transition between old and new.

Traditional production relations and traditional industries are facing all kinds of problems, while innovative sectors are thriving. It is the same in China: if you work in AI, artificial intelligence, data, computing, robotics, you definitely won't think the current environment is bad. But if you work in real estate, or traditional production relations, traditional manufacturing, you will probably feel the market is extremely competitive and tough.

Which one is right? Neither is. Both exist side by side.

So we are in a phase where "the new exists, and the old still exists". If you stand in the new camp, you will say "we have completed structural reform and are moving forward"; if you stand in the old camp, you will ask "who is going to save me?" (laughs). This kind of contradiction is inevitable.

It was the same in the US back in the day. Around 2015 and 2016, the US was also in this state. After the 2008 subprime crisis, leverage in the financial system had to be removed, so the deleveraged industries naturally suffered. Meanwhile, new industries were being born. Around 2015 and 2016, the "disruptive innovation" sectors that Cathie Wood talked about were still in their early stage, and that part of the market was performing very well.

Joe Zhou: Is it hard for China to break through with innovation culture in the crypto and financial industries?

Fu Peng: Financial innovation is a form of innovation, and technological innovation is also a form of innovation.

On the path of innovation, the Western model is: if the law does not prohibit it, you go ahead and do it first, then update the rules later, move forward boldly. In Asia, the model is: we first have to confirm that the activity is allowed, find someone willing to take responsibility, wait until other regions have finished most of the journey, then copy the model and implement it.

Joe Zhou: Given this cultural difference, how can the crypto industry be better advanced?

Fu Peng: Who is going to advance it?

Joe Zhou: Hong Kong.

Fu Peng: Hong Kong sits right in the middle. It is straightforward: it cannot choose not to adapt. If it fails to keep up with global efficiency standards, it will be left behind, so it has to move forward. But it also cannot adopt the fully open, laissez-faire approach of the US, letting unregulated innovation spread unchecked. That is not how it operates. So Hong Kong occupies the middle ground, positioned between Eastern and Western models: it is not as conservative as markets in mainland China, nor as open as Western markets. Its regulatory efficiency is neither as high as unconstrained Western markets, nor as low as more closed domestic markets, sitting right in that middle space.

Joe Zhou: Do you think mainland China will open up to crypto in the future?

Fu Peng: No. I have already laid out my reasoning systematically. Eastern and Western cultural values are different, so the path of innovation practice is completely different. In the West, if the law does not prohibit it, you go ahead and do it first, then update the rules later; in Asia, we first have to confirm that the activity is allowed, wait until other regions have finished most of the journey, then copy the model and implement it.

Joe Zhou: Do you think RMB stablecoins will eventually be approved for issuance?

Fu Peng: They will, but it will take a very long time. The process will be iterative: we will watch other markets work through all the pitfalls first, then follow the path they have blazed.