@NeuroticFish. It appears that you have misunderstood. It is realistic that yes, there will be a global recession. Biased or not, we know this already. However, I also say that it is also an optimistic prediction because Elon was thinking that it might only last until near 2024. Similar to your reply, I also speculate that it might last longer than this.
This is the opinion of Elon Musk alone, and he is not a great specialist in cryptocurrency. But we already see that all the economies of the states are very weakened by the coronavirus pandemic, which does not want to retreat even a few years after its appearance. And then there's Russia unleashed in the center of Europe the most destructive and bloody war, which has not been since the Second World War. This war has long gone beyond the boundaries of only two states participating in it. More than 50 states voluntarily agreed to further restrict their economies by participating in economic sanctions against the aggressor country. The situation is very complicated and therefore the economic recession in the world can be observed for more than one year.
At the same time, we know that cryptocurrencies very often present us with unexpected price surprises. Therefore, there is no need to despair. The cryptocurrency market can go up and start to recover any day.
Whether he's specialist or not in crypto doesn't matter in this. Last time I've checked the world economy was still not relying (yet?) on cryptocurrencies.
The quoted part was telling about world economy's recession and the expected time to recover. Still, the things you wrote are pretty much unrelated to that (time).
And back to crypto and your last line: while crypto can bring nice surprises indeed, it's expected that during a recession they will also not do great (if people don't have money, they won't buy, and if there is no demand, the price can only go down).
