I’ve gone on record as saying that cryptocurrencies will be the best performing asset of 2020. If that sounds wild to you, consider that they already were the best performers of 2019 – even after their pullback in the second half. Bitcoin still closed up 113%... far more than the 29% gain we celebrated for the S&P 500 stocks. We’ve talked a lot in MoneyWire lately about the opportunity here. Now let’s talk about WHY the cryptocurrency market really does live up to the hype: Behind every cryptocurrency is some great software: the blockchain. And like every other great software, this one lets us live our lives more efficiently.

Even if you never took a class in economics, you can get pretty far in analyzing the global markets just by keeping the supply and demand equation in mind. The equation illustrates how prices fluctuate based on how much people are buying and selling. And it’s not just something that you’d see a professor draw on a chalkboard. It plays out in the markets every day. Look what happened to the price of oil this week. In the past week, crude oil futures shot up as Iran and the United States traded missile attacks in Iraq (threatening the country’s oil production and worldwide supply). Now oil futures are right back down again after tensions seem to have eased.

When you’re a trend investor, like me, the right stocks tend to reveal themselves. You’re not just putting your faith in one CEO or one company’s next-quarter earnings. You’re making a much bigger – and more profitable – investment in the revolutionary trends that shape our world. Very often, these trends start with a technology breakthrough. So investing this way tends to mean investing in something new and, possibly, alien. Or, at least, they sound that way. But here’s what I’ve learned: Most winning tech companies all do one thing. They provide a better way to gather, sort, and communicate data. Think of Google’s (GOOGL) famous search engine… Intuit’s (INTU) TurboTax software… or even Microsoft (MSFT) Excel.

The start of the new year is a fun, festive time. But then the confetti settles, and we’re left with the same challenges as we had a few days ago. For example… All around the world, people are sick and tired of their leaders debasing their currency. Case in point, the U.S. dollar today is worth roughly HALF what it was worth in 1990! Saving is becoming practically impossible, since we’ve also been saddled with ultra-low (even negative) interest rates. Aren’t you also sick of paying all sorts of hidden fees to price-gouging middlemen – just to live your life in peace? These are the problems that blockchain technology – and its best-known application: cryptocurrency – exists to solve.

Laszlo Hanyecz didn’t expect to make history when he ordered two large pizzas from Papa John’s in May of 2010. But he did. Hanyecz paid for his pizzas using bitcoin in what’s believed to the first transaction using the cryptocurrency to pay for a product. And… this is almost painful to write… he paid what would now be more than $75 million for the two pizzas. He ordered two because he liked to munch on leftover pizza the next day – all without realizing that second pizza would one day cost him nearly $38 million. How could that be? It’s pretty simple. Each bitcoin was worth about $0.003 at that point in time, so the 10,000 bitcoins he used to pay for the pizza were worth about $30.

If you pay any attention to the world of cryptocurrency, you’ve probably noticed that the market has produced some amazing winners over the past couple years. For instance, twice in bitcoin’s (BTC) history a preprogrammed event has taken place that caused its price to soar into the stratosphere. I explained what this event, known as “the halvening,” is all about in last Thursday’s MoneyWire. Basically, after bitcoin undergoes a halvening, the market receives half of the daily supply of new bitcoins. If demand holds up – and it will – prices rise. It’s simple supply and demand economics. In the months that followed the first halvening in November 2012, the bitcoin price rose 2,135%.

I regularly discuss different hypergrowth investing themes, and for good reason. My goal is to offer recommendations to my subscribers that have the chance to grow as much as 100-fold because of the massive, wealth-generating power of newfound industries or technologies that go on to change the world. Cryptocurrencies are in this category. If you’ve been tuning out this new asset class worth over $190 billion as of this writing, please don’t continue to do it this year. Not when so many catalysts are setting up behind bitcoin (BTC) and its altcoin cousins. It could leave you wondering what life-altering gains actually look like.

Back in November 2012, a change took place to the way bitcoin (BTC) rewards miners for creating new bitcoin and securing the network. We talked about this hugely significant event in yesterday’s MoneyWire. It’s called “the halvening” among industry insiders and happens every few years with bitcoin. It is written into the cryptocurrency’s “DNA” if you will – or its code base. Essentially, the supply of bitcoin dropped and the demand for it kept chugging along. In the months that followed, bitcoin’s price soared an amazing 2,135%, bringing a spectacular windfall to early investors who saw the halvening and its implications coming well ahead of time.

Every great investment needs something to drive it higher – a catalyst. A catalyst can be general, like a mega-trend that will grow massively over the years. It can also be something specific, like a new breakthrough product, changing laws, or a drug approval. It’s rare that you can put a huge catalyst on the calendar. Well, it’s time to start planning. We’re gearing up for a known event that’s going to affect the cryptocurrency market in a big way. And it presents us with an opportunity too incredible to ignore. This isn’t a question of “if” or “when.” We know it’s happening. We know when. And we know how much money investors made when it’s happened before.

Most families have annual traditions as each year comes to a close. They travel miles and hours to spend time together. They wear matching pajamas and pose in front of Christmas trees. They cook massive turkeys, light candles, and drink far too much eggnog. But in the investing world, the traditions are a bit simpler. I’m talking about predictions… looking ahead at what will happen in the economy and stock market over the next 12 months. To give you an idea of what my predictions are all about – and also to keep myself accountable – let me first provide a quick review of the 10 predictions I laid out for 2019 before sharing what I expect for 2020.

One of my favorite things about starting a podcast in 2019 is that it allows me to connect with subscribers and listeners from all around the world. I love responding to your feedback, and from time to time I even like to reach out via Twitter (@MatthewMcCall) to ask for your questions and concerns about the market. During this busy holiday season, I decided it was time to reach back out to the Twitterverse. And you guys didn’t disappoint! You brought up some great topics for me to discuss. I received a lot of questions and concerns about the recent sell-off in cannabis stocks. So that’s where I focus my attention in this week’s MoneyLine podcast,