2023.49 - Edging

IMHO

Rumors about Bitcoin ETF(s) have been edging us with expectations of imminent approval of one (maybe all) ETFs no later than January 10th, expect this to intensify. If this is your first cycle you'll need to temper your expectations.

Don't get me wrong I'm more bullish than most, but this is not my first rodeo. The flood of hopium headed your way will mess with your emotions.

This $500k price prediction by Bloomberg is not even the most outlandish one I've seen by a "big name". While it's absolutely possible it could happen, extra care must be taken to "not get high on one's own supply" if you know what I mean.

And we're just getting started. This is not even the "mania" part of the cycle yet. How do we know?

a) Google Trends.

b) Most mainstream media is still largely clueless

c) You see people like Owen Benjamin who've done just enough homework to produce midwit takes, shielded by Brandolini's Law

d) Investors may have gotten the memo that there's no need to go "all-in" and decided they want a piece of Bitcoin's NGU (Number-Go-Up) Technology…

…but they still can't be bothered to understand what they're getting into.

It seems safe to conclude we're still in the early days in this bull market.

There are a few factors that will be used to keep edging you even beyond the ETF and you may as well prepare for them:

Institutional FOMO: This cycle will be the "second touch point" for institutions who passed on Bitcoin last cycle.

Ignoring Bitcoin at first is a rite of passage for most Bitcoiners. Forward looking institutions may have felt like geniuses and laughed smugly at Microstrategy all through the bear market, but they won't be able to ignore the numbers.

Pressure Release: There is currently a lot of regulatory pressure coming from BS-slinging, power-addicted, cantillionaire hypocrites and their paid-for politicians. Whenever and however this is resolved it will mark a green light for capital that's sitting on the sidelines just because of these issues.

"There’s a new threat out there, it’s crypto and it is being used for terrorist financing and it is being used for drug trafficking. We can’t allow that to continue.” —Elizabeth Warren

"If I were the governments, I'd close it down" —Jamie Dimon

I'll take a moment here to respectfully refer Mr. Dimon to last week's newsletter and remind those of you just tuning in that JPMorgan managed to come in second place in the prestigious "which bank can pay most fines" race with a staggering $39 Billion, out of which $365 Million (and counting) went to Jeffrey Epstein victims, on account of JPM facilitating his pedophilia-based extorsion empire for over 15 years.

All of which is a long way of saying Mr. Dimon can go fuck himself.

Moving on.

Unlubed "soft landing" Once the kimono falls open and the width and breath of the upcoming recession comes into view, scarce assets that can't be printed by governments will catch a serious bid (Bitcoin is deemed likely to be the fastest horse in that race).

Novel Narratives: Whatever your reasons for being bullish now, expect new reasons to appear, like being a carbon negative asset, (is that even a thing?), or AI using Bitcoin, or some other unexpected thing.

Pissing Contests. There are rumors of sovereign funds accumulating Bitcoin. So far they are unconfirmed, somewhat wild and probably overstated. But at some point it will happen. And as they say "he who panics first panics best", you may not want to be the first sovereign to start stacking sats but you definitely don't want to be the last.

I'll leave it here for now, this is going to be a WILD ride. Managing your emotions will be key and being comfortable with your custody and investment thesis will be critically important. You know where to find me if you need help.

Bitcoin News

Hodling

El Salvador produced a great explainer of why they're holding on to their Bitcoin for the long term.

Write it down why you are hodling and how long you plan to hodl for. You will use this as a reminder more than once this cycle

Oceanic Drama

Ocean, a new mining pool that was launched only last month has been generating wave after wave of Drama.

The short story is: it's a pool that aims to reduce centralization in mining pools which is great, but the way they build blocks filters out inscriptions and Whirlpool transactions, which sucks.

There are decent arguments on both sides but unfortunately it comes down to picking between two bad choices. I hope this gets resolved, but the personalities involved make this seem unlikely.

Ben Carman wrote a piece on the situation which I'm in general agreement with, I'll summarize the main points below:

• There are good arguments to consider Inscriptions —which "hijack" a feature in Bitcoin script— as an attack on Bitcoin
• Most proposals to stop inscriptions boil down to preventing them from getting into the mempool
• The mempool should be preserved as THE vehicle for miners to find the most profitable transactions to mine
• Filtering transactions based on arbitrary "spam criteria" can lead down a dark, regulatory path
• We should patiently wait for Inscriptions to be priced out

Tracking

Ledger Live has been found to use extensive tracking, Apparently so do most web wallets (Trezor and Metamask included). Solution use your hardware wallet with a desktop wallet like Sparrow, instead of web-based wallet software.

Not Thrilling, But Nice

Bitkey, a new wallet slution by Square was just released. The design seems clever in terms of making it unlikely users will lose their keys, but has fairly significant flaws like not having a screen on the hardware component —I won't dig down into why this is a weakness here, but it is.

First impression seems to be it may be a decent option for non-technical and non-privacy minded folks who don't yet understand why KYC can be dangerous. We'll keep an eye on this one.

Hard Life of a Troll

Eric Wall is one of the few "Bitcoin Trolls" I recommend following. I don't always agree with him by any stretch, but he has a deep understanding of Bitcoin and often forces uncomfortable but important discussions. If you are new-ish here you may not always understand what he's talking about. I hope it motivates you to level-up.

Real Measure

When someone asks me "What is a Bitcoiner?" my answer is "they measure their wealth in Bitcoin"

Please Comment

If you are a US citizen, please take 5 minutes to comment on these proposed regulations (the link explains what they are), your future self will thank you

"Crypto" News

The jokes often write themselves

Stable Game

Calling Coinbase's wallet decentralized is hilarious but OK.

Speaking of stables, Tether is now being a model citizen and freezing OFAC-censored wallets.

this is perhaps not all that surprising after witnessing the vigor with which Binance is being anal-probed by regulators.

Speaking Of

Maybe Logan Paul should take a hint and make haste with his promised restitutions.

Fiat News

US Banks

BTFP, the facility where the Fed offers banks loans against their underwater UST holdings keeps growing, signaling a need for liquidity from banks.

and this "bank walk" is probably why.

CHAYNA

Chinese banks are also in pain, as is its stock market.

Dystopian News

The Cyber

China "has invaded" critical US infrastructure. Sounds like someone is preparing to blame someone else for a shitstorm

Stay

The carbon passport will not apply to the rich. Bet.

Thoughtcrime

Plenty of dystopian news coming out of Ireland lately, expecto more if this "Free Speech" bill goes through —don't you love how they always name bills the exact opposite of what they actually do? Almost funny.

Syke

What was Google thinking?

They announced Gemini, an AI that looked like it could be a 5-year old's best friend and then it turned out the video was fake? The Simulation is definitely getting weird.

Limitless

Here's a fun thought experiment (I think the number below is wrong): Find out what the daily ATM withdrawal limit is for your Bank, then calculate how long it'd take you to withdraw $1.6 Million

Price News

Bitcoin Surfing

Bitcoin jumped hard last week, only to come back down (almost) just as hard. After crossing the $44k mark, it tumbled suddenly and currently sits near $41k, still above the Board ($38k)

Dip Fishing

After crushing through the $42k Resistance BTC jumped to $44k before reversing suddenly back below $42k. If you're trying to trade this, don't.

Calm Chart

Despite the price violence, December remains Green.