2023.44 - Guilty

IMHO

There's some satisfaction to learning Sam Bankman Fried was found guilty of all 7 charges of fraud and conspiracy. Though it's been obvious for a while he was a massive (and incompetent) fraudster, he had purchased relationships with powerful people / institutions, some of whom are trying to backpedal.

Let us not forget he was the second largest donor to the democratic party —and claims to have secretly donated to the Republican party with the same largesse.

Senator Warren makes exaggerated allegations of crypto's role in money laundering but conveniently omits mention of her own relationship (pre-dating FTX) with the Bankman Frieds

Sentencing is not until March, I've heard people say they expect him to get no less than 10 years, possibly 30 (a life sentence is not out of the question). You can dive into the tweet below if you're into Sentencing Math

Life behind bars is unlikely to be fun for Sam according to "Pharma Bro" Martin Shkreli on a Twitter space. After the Space he posted the advice below for Sam and it's hard to tell how much is meant as a joke and how much is dead serious. Regardless of intent, it is worth your time.

If you're tempted to feel sorry for Sam, well, you're probably not on Crypto Twitter

and you definitely did not have your savings at FTX.

All of which is to say, I'm glad they've captured, tried and found Sam guilty but it would be ridiculous to think the ragtag crew at FTX —armed with Excel sheets— pulled off one of the biggest financial crimes in US history.

Hopefully they will keep cleaning up the space, one of the large "engines" last cycle was the infamous "GBTC premium arbitrage trade" that would eventually lead to the demise of 3AC, FTX and Genesis, Vijay Boyapati explains it brilliantly in this thread.

Bitcoin News

MSTR

Microstrategy —which acquired yet another 155 BTC this week, bringing their total to 158,400— will be studied for decades to come. Saylor keeps stacking with conviction and his bet is already paying off handsomely.

Dumpster Mining

Marathon —one of the largest public miners in the world— is joining Nodal Power in a pilot program to use methane vented from landfills to power Bitcoin miners.

This is a space worth watching, landfills natrurally produce methane —which has a larger greenhouse effect than CO2— and not all landfills take care to capture and flare the methane because they have few (no) economic incentives to do so. This type pf operation could change that.

Butthurt

The Fed threatened to sue Bitcoin Magazine for a series of satirical "FedNow" T-shirts and merchandise. You'd think they have bigger things to worry about, like blowing up the global economy.

Two

Seems Taiwan just decided to make Bitcoin legal tender starting January 2024. That will make 2 sovereigns with BTC as legal tender.

Cantillionaires Say the Darndest Things

Has Charlie Munger amassed a huge forltune? Yes. No small part of it has been thanks to positioning himself intelligently close to the money printer, not to mention selling diabetes.

Dave Ramsey is just as wrong about Bitcoin as Charlie. I like Dave, but does he understand anything about how Bitcoin actually works, lol no.

"What if a computer nerd flipped a switch and turned off the #Bitcoin computer. Poof it would be gone." —Dave F*ing Ramsey
(BTC was around $300 at the time).

Don't trust anyone's opinion of Bitcoin, build your own.

Rear

Vanguard is staying out of the Bitcoin race. Good luck with that.

China begs to differ.

Yes Bitcoin is volatile (which some confuse with risky) but it also offers out-of-this-world rewards

Maybe Fidelity's Jurien Timmer said it best: "Bitcoin is exponential gold".

"Crypto" News

The jokes often write themselves

Down Bad

NFT trading platform OpenSea, is struggling, as is the "pseudo-NFT" space in general.

I say "pseudo-NFT" because —regardless of what you think about NFTs— most of what is sold as NFTs is not even that. They are tokens with a URL that points to an image —which can change or disappear. Inscriptions in the Bitcoin blockchain at least have the grace of actually being inscribed on the blockchain, with all the immutability that entails.

Ledger

I've never recommended Ledger, though some friends use it and are happy with it. I remember listening to a podcast a long while ago where Eric Voskuil —author of Cryptoeconomics— gave his reasons for why he believed their security promises were inaccurate.

In any case time has been kind to my decision as they've ben involved in multiple gaffs (like having their customer email list stolen) and now the latest.

No wallet is perfect but I use, and am happy with, Trezor, ColdCard and Jade.

Legends

The Bored Ape Yacht Club threw a party in Hong Kong. Hilarity ensued.

Moar

One of the blessings of going Bitcoin-only is you don't have to keep up with all the "crypto" nonsense, so I don't really know what "Safemoon" promised, (I'm going to guess peanut-butter on the blockchain). Here are the 2 golden rules of crypto:

1- Stop trusting scammers
2- They're all scammers

Fiat News

Wrecking Bonds

Yield on long term US Bonds dropped last week, apparently on the expectation the Fed will take a break from rate hikes. The bond yield curve is "uninverting" historically, recessions have come after this happens.

All well and good, but bond-expert Mohamed El-Erian rightly bemoans the volatility of long-term bonds.

It's not only troublesome for the global economy, it's dangerous to bond themselves. Leveraged hedge funds are rumored to be one of the large buyers that has stepped into the space after international appetite for US debt has diminished, and because they are —this is a technical term— "levered to the tits", they are very sensitive to volatility. If they get REKT that could translate into "market disfunction" (the sh*t hitting the fan).

Another way to "sus out" the state of bonds is this (opaquely named) Liquidity Index —it doesn't actually measure liquidity, see caption below tweet. I won't pretend to explain it, but simply note (h/t Luke Gromen) in previous recent times when this chart has peaked like this, either The Fed or the Treasury have had to step in to provide liquidity.

Went Peacefully

Quietly, 94-year-old Citizens Bank in Iowa was absorbed after collapsing last week, becoming the fifth US bank to go under.

This brings up a relevant point a lot of people are waiting for the Fed to "start the money printer" without realizing they already did, they're just doing their best to hide it.

Bankrupter

As the Fed "remains committed to 2 % inflation, corporate bankruptcies are going up like a sh*tcoin.

I'm guessing this didn't help.

Billionaire Stan Druckenmiller —who recently lamented not owning BTC and accused Janet Yellen of the “biggest blunder in Treasury history”— made an eloquent point: almost any business can seem to make sense at near-zero percent interest rates. Not so much when the hurdle rate is near 5%

It's Not You

Seems the US has found a new stage in which to beat the drums of war. Sorry Vlad.

Corralito

Swiss banks have long enjoyed the status of being the cream of the crop, now they're borrowing a page from Latin America and considering "exit fees" or other measures for people who have the audacity to ask for their money.

Stop Trading

South Korea bans short selling, typically an ominous sign in a market.

Dystopian News

Nice Iris

India just had a Digital ID database hacked, including biometric data. Good thing you can just swap your eyes out, right?

Grokkt

X's new AI is coming, and apparently it's awesome and sassy. But it requires a fully-KYC'd X account, which is a shame. I'm not opposed to paying for premiun but KYC is unnecessary and could be risky (see hack above).

Price News

Guest Chart

This week we found this interesting chart. Could this be used as a "top" indicator? We shall see.

Bitcoin Surfing

Bitcoin has finally popped its head out out of the Sand ($33.9k) and is seeing Air for the first time since June last year. Take a deep breath and enjoy the sunshine.

Dip Fishing

Banging against the $35k resistance last week until it yielded. Will it hold? If not $34k would be likely and if we punch below that, there's really not a ton of support 'til $31k

Calm Chart

November opens modestly green.