As we've been discussing these last few weeks, the current conditions in the crypto market can be described in a single word: Altseason.

The latest confirmation of this comes from data collected by Google, which shows that the topic 'altcoins' is now trending.

Altcoins are defined as any cryptoasset that is not bitcoin, so google's data includes such search terms as Litecoin, Ethereum, and XRP within the broader topic.

Don't get me wrong, Bitcoin is by far still the dominant player in the crypto industry. In fact, if you use the same google trends tool to compare bitcoin with the alts, altcoins is just a flat line. Bitcoin also leads by market share, currently with 51% of the total market cap. 

The results of a recent Twitter poll also showed that 90% of participants believe that investors should hold some level of BTC in their portfolio, with a whopping 42% saying that this level should be around 70%.

Still, the idea that your investment can double or triple in value in a short period of time is very tempting for alternative investors, even if the degree of risk is notably higher.

Traditional Markets

The UK government voted yesterday in overwhelming opposition of a 'no-deal Brexit'. It's important to note that this vote is not legally binding though and should there be no deal or no time extension, it is exactly what will happen.

Today Parliament will vote on whether to ask the EU for a time extension. Just as I'm writing it seems that Europe may be glad to oblige. This tweet out just now from the President of the European Council is circulating fast.

Tilray Shorts Too Much

Cannabis stocks have been popular with investors since the wave of legalization starting sweeping over the United States...

It seems however that another trend is sweeping in the US stock markets... shorting cannabis stocks. According to this report out from Bloomberg's BNN, there aren't enough Tilray stocks available in the client's long term holdings for investors to short.

See, when a client sells short the broker generally needs to borrow the stock from a long term holder in order to facilitate the position. Then when the client closes the short position, the broker returns the stocks to the long term holder.

While the atmosphere in the stock market has been rather neutral lately, with investors looking for a good deal, and Tilray down 76% from it's an all-time high in September, it leaves me wondering if this market isn't set up for a short squeeze.

Crypto Consolidation

The crypto rally may have lost some of its momentum, as volumes across exchanges do seem to be tapering off from their recent highs but remain elevated just under $30 billion per day.

Bitcoin remains rather flat, still trying to break through the interim resistance at $4,000.

Yesterday's altseason winner was Stellar Lumens, which was no doubt buoyed by the announcement that it too will be included in Coinbase Pro.

At this point, it seems that the altseason has entered a new phase, where the super small cap coins are the ones gaining the most interest and the more established industry incumbents are seeing only moderate advances.

Indeed, it remains the case that one of the strongest uses for crypto is the democratization of venture funding. Indeed, several popular crypto websites are in the process of setting up dedicated projects to aid ICO funding projects. Following the success of Binance Launchpad, it seems that Bittrex, and now OKex are working on similar services.

Yes, ICOs are extremely risky but investing startups always is. That hasn't stopped venture capitalists from participating in funding new companies over the last few decades, though. Following the ICO craze of 2017 people are a lot more familiar with these associated risks and are quickly learning how to mitigate them.