2024.07 - Late
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IMHO
The Bitcoin ETFs keep adding momentum.
We're witnessing total acceleration of #BTC ETF inflows.
— Thomas | heyapollo.com (@thomas_fahrer) February 15, 2024
First 20 days of Trading ~ 42K BTC Inflows
Last 4 Days of trading ~ 43k BTC Inflows 🤯
🚀🚀🚀 pic.twitter.com/IqvX7wI13b
Is it the macroeconomic conditions? Possibly, (we'll dive into that in the Fiat News section), one way to explore this question would be: are other hard assets (specifically gold) catching a bid too?
Answer: Not really. It's more of a Bitcoin-only thing.
Not only is #Bitcoin sucking up funds, but gold is hemerroging AUM at an alarming rate across many ETFs.
— Bitcoin Munger (@bitcoinmunger) February 14, 2024
Bitcoin is going to drink Gold's milkshake and quite suddenly too. https://t.co/ZA1IdGPxTI pic.twitter.com/pULVpfltSx
Exhibit B
Microstrategy —a Bitcoin-proxy which some thought would tank after the ETF approvals— is doing just fine thank you (special thanks to the geniuses shorting it, and getting squeezed right now).
$MSTR over $800 in after hours... this is becoming hilarious. #Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/7lvsSjWeb0
— Uncle Rockstar Developer (@r0ckstardev) February 15, 2024
Banks are petitioning the SEC for legal changes that would allow them a bigger slice of those sweet ETF pies.
US banks, left off key bitcoin ETF roles, are pushing SEC to tweak guidance around holding digital assets. A bank trade gp coalition sent SEC letter asking them exclude ETFs from broad crypto umbrella. They want a piece of the action. I don't blame them, it isn't fair.… pic.twitter.com/advPa94nK2
— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) February 15, 2024
In summary, Bitcoin ETFs are hot right now, despite some naysayers' whinings
A real mask off moment for Bitcoin critic Mike Green
— Steven Lubka ☀️ (@DzambhalaHODL) February 17, 2024
The ETF launch has basically been the most successful launch ever across multiple metrics (volume, inflows, attention, time frame)
Yet haters continue to hate pic.twitter.com/SddhPvFpnM
Most "normal" people still couldn't care less and wouldn't touch BTC with a ten-foot pole. I don't expect them to wake up before $100k (some not even then). There's not much that can be done about it. Everyone wakes up at their own pace.
Regrets
The saddest are the lazy skeptics / agnostics who have expressed some interest but have failed to do the homework and are now wallowing in sorrow and regret at having missing the boat.
I really fucked myself on #bitcoin pic.twitter.com/iF8mhJTgZy
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) February 16, 2024
Dave is worth Millions, there's no reason for him not to buy $10M worth of Bitcoin right now.
Granted, the explanation the Winklevii gave him years ago was horrendous, but he could have anyone in the space hold his hand through the entire process for free. There's no excuse for his laziness.
Compare with previous critics / skeptics have decided to do allow themselves to be curious and have done enough homework that it clicked for them (even if they still find Bitcoiners annoying).
at some point this just starts to make sense
— Quoth the Raven (@QTRResearch) February 14, 2024
have listened to about 25 hours of @saylor the last week, this is my favorite 10 mins, from a ‘21 interview with @DrBrianKeating#bitcoin to me seems equal parts elegant programming and ideologically ethical leap of faith pic.twitter.com/LgithgVClG
On this note, I highly recommend this podcast between Peter McCormack and Quoth the Raven. It's fun, insightful and full of attitude:
Is this really still a good time? Yes. ETF inflows are just getting started. Most players have not even started their engines, Financial Advisors, to name one example.
Word on the wall street is it's generally a minimum 3 month delay for financial advisors to get approval to invest in new products, often longer. So we may not see the real Bitcoin ETF boomer inflows until Q3.https://t.co/vjtuaJbYUQ
— Jameson Lopp (@lopp) February 15, 2024
How much weight do Financial Advisors have? Quite a bit
Independent advisors control $8 trillion in assets, and surveys show 77% of them want to add Bitcoin to their portfolios, aiming for an average allocation of 2-3%.
— Thomas | heyapollo.com (@thomas_fahrer) February 14, 2024
This means we'll likely see $150 billion flowing into Bitcoin ETFs from advisors alone.
H/T @RhinoBTCapp pic.twitter.com/jc0F98KBAL
And that's the tip of the iceberg. Pensions will not be able to ignore the cost of having ignored Bitcoin the last cycle. Same will be true for other large institutions.
𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐥𝐲. +𝟏𝟎𝟎%
— Dom Bei (@Beiwatch1) February 14, 2024
It’s what your pension investment would have been up, if you considered the Nakamoto Gauntlet Board hypothetical and conservative #Bitcoin allocation last September…https://t.co/pmPuDpbQ3L pic.twitter.com/6CFZL1dCra
Does this mean up-only from now on?
No. that'll never be the case with Bitcoin. Volatility will be ever-present and drawdowns will continue to punish the uninformed, the half-committed and the short-minded.
Also, I think most people are glossing over the risk implicit in ETF custody (most of it is concentrated at Coinbase). Learn to hold your own.
A measly 1% insurance coverage at Coinbase for 90% of the world's bitcoin ETF assets... to me that's the craziest story nobody talks about. Probably the highest risk of loss that any ETF holder in any asset was ever exposed to up to now.
— Tuur Demeester (@TuurDemeester) February 17, 2024
Remember: Bitcoin is not a "Get rich Quick" scheme. It's a "Don't Fall into Debt Slavery Slowly" scheme and an IOU from a financial institution will protect you about as much as a Nerf gun.
Congrats @federalreserve.
— Sven Henrich (@NorthmanTrader) February 15, 2024
You've finally got it done. pic.twitter.com/FDcUgvRob1
If you feel you've missed the boat, I'll tell you a secret. It ALWAYS feels that way. Either Bitcoin feels way to expensive or it's fallen so much that it feels insane to buy. Short-term price action is like an optical illusion: This is you trying to figure out if this is a good time to buy:
Visualization of the Ponzo optical illusion: your mind judges an object's size based on its background.
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) February 15, 2024
[📹andrei_dofomin]pic.twitter.com/rut7Q5LcHV
If you want help with allocation strategies you know where to find me.
Keep stacking, we've got a long way to go still.
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Bitcoin News
Not Dead
The death of Lightning has been greatly exaggerated. It's true that using it in a non-custodial, self-sovereign way is still not easy to do, which is a huge deal.
Services built on top of Lightning by big players (with fat, liquid channels) are working well though, which is not nothing.
Will self-sovereign Lightning ever become user-friendly or will we come to accept a more centralizing L2?
NEW: David Marcus reports his company Lightspark is now facilitating single transactions of $100k or more on the #Bitcoin Lightning Network for their clients 🙌
— Bitcoin News (@BitcoinNewsCom) February 15, 2024
These transactions are seamlessly split and promptly reunited on the receiving end within seconds. pic.twitter.com/6TbNh9aLGP
Drooling a Bit
The new ColdCard signer is now shipping. ColdCard wallets are great —but not user friendly. This new design, with a full keyboard among a slew of other features might change that. It certainly looks like a step in the right direction.
₿𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗞𝗜𝗡𝗚: New long-awaited #bitcoin wallet, the ‘Coldcard Q’ begins shipping.pic.twitter.com/HUSVXmaB5l
— Documenting ₿itcoin 📄 (@DocumentingBTC) February 15, 2024
Make Me
Some in the US government want miners to enforce OFAC sanctions, a slippery slope to censoring the network. Expect resistance, but also there will always be miners beyond US jurisdictions happy to mine those transactions.
This is why Bitcoin mining spreading out across the world, seeking the cheapest possible energy, is so important. It prevents control by any one nation. If this incentive mechanism didn’t exist the network could be easily captured https://t.co/wvHbGleJnP
— Alex Gladstein 🌋 ⚡ (@gladstein) February 15, 2024
Epic Troll
Elizabeth Warren's signature was affixed to a certificate honoring Satoshi Nakamoto (a flag was flown too). My understanding is pretty much anyone can pay for this service, but it was a funny troll.
🚨🚨🚨OMG there were rumors of a pro-#Bitcoin mole on @ewarren’s staff. One person told me I’d know it when I saw it. Well, I guess this is it. Nice job, mole!!!💪😂 https://t.co/qGdJiwuEG2
— Caitlin Long 🔑⚡️🟠 (@CaitlinLong_) February 15, 2024
Tio Richy
Ricardo Salinas owns the 7th largest bank in Mexico. Still he advises the public to learn to save in Bitcoin.
Imagina que acabas de recibir tu primer sueldo después de graduarte de la universidad. Tienes varias opciones sobre cómo gastar o invertir ese dinero, podrías:
— Don Ricardo Salinas Pliego (@RicardoBSalinas) February 13, 2024
1. Gastarlo ahora en cualquier pendejada.
2. Ahorrarlo en un banco tradicional como @BancoAzteca.
3. Aprender a… pic.twitter.com/scVAryCEcH
Clownbase
Coinbase Commerce —the payment gateway that helps businesses take payments in crypto— will no longer accept Bitcoin payments directly from a self-hosted or non-custodial wallet. Instead payments will have to come from a (fully KYC'd) Coinbase wallet.
This is probably Coinbase bending the knee to regulators and imposing censorship on the network (either that or incompetence). Don't accept this, it's a step in the wort possible direction.
⚠️We just got one step closer to self-custody becoming outlawed.@Coinbase Commerce - integrated by many websites as a way to accept e-commerce crypto payments - no longer accepts Bitcoin unless it’s sent from a Coinbase CEX account.
— Chris Blec (@ChrisBlec) February 18, 2024
PREPARE FOR THE INEVITABLE. https://t.co/iFJlpwfsPm
Tulip Mining
This project is simply dripping in delicious irony.
Them: NOOOO BITCOIN IS A TULIP BUBBLE! AND IT’S BAD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT!
— Swan Media (@Swan) February 16, 2024
Bitcoiners: Let’s use the waste heat from mining #bitcoin to warm our greenhouse and grow tulips.🌷 pic.twitter.com/XjhpuK5ZMC
Here's another "cute" mining project: Miner Hut 8 flat-out purchased four natural gas-powered power plants.
Earlier today, we completed the acquisition of four natural gas power plants in Ontario. Read more here https://t.co/pCYDaEeDyE.
— Hut 8 (@Hut8Corp) February 15, 2024
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Fiat News
Recessive
In the opening (IMHO) section I hinted at a disconnection between stock markets and reality. Let's have a look:
Last week the UK, Germany and Japan officially slipped into recession, joining at least 7 other countries.
🚨Countries officially in recession:
— Genevieve Roch-Decter, CFA (@GRDecter) February 15, 2024
- U.K
- Japan
- Denmark
- Estonia
- Finland
- Luxembourg
- Moldova
- Peru
- Ireland
Who’s next?
- China, Germany and Canada?
Place your bets.
Japanese stock market's reaction? a new All-Time High (the first in over 30 years). This is, of course, in nominal terms. If measured in gold the Nikkei is down more than 80% since its previous ATH
🚨BREAKING: THE DAY AFTER #JAPAN IS IN OFFICIAL ECONOMIC RECESSION THE #NIKKEI HITS ATH AFTER MORE THAN 3 DECADES! 🤯
— JustDario 🏊♂️ (@DarioCpx) February 16, 2024
Honestly people, I have no words neither irony left to comment what’s going on here 🙈 https://t.co/yuMBWytgmS pic.twitter.com/t8HMZ9mccN
So how should we read the euphoria in the US stock market? (particularly the magnificent 7 plus a few AI-related names).
I've expressed concern abut Nvidia, given it's more-than-meteoric rise
The market cap of Nvidia, $NVDA, is now bigger than entire S&P 500 energy sector combined.
— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) February 15, 2024
Just 2 years ago, the S&P 500 energy sector was roughly 5 TIMES bigger than Nvidia.
Meanwhile, the technology's sector weight in the S&P 500 is now at ~30%.
This compares to just 4% for… pic.twitter.com/G2j389GKdC
And I totally get how AI is the hot topic of the moment, probably the decade, and have no doubts that Nvidia will continue to sell GPUs like crazy, but cases like Super Micro Computer give me serious dot.com flashbacks
This is incredible:
— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) February 17, 2024
Super Micro Computer stock, $SMCI, closed Friday 25% below its all time high seen just 8 hours earlier.
The stock briefly hit a $60 billion market cap, becoming the 150th largest US company, before losing $15 billion in market cap that same day.$SMCI lost… pic.twitter.com/zAs9xsSjJc
And I was very surprised to learn Nvidia may be cooking the books to look even better —which seems idiotic to me considering the stock is already red-hot
Mainstream media is onto Nvidia's round tripping cash finally... 6 months late.
— Financelot (@FinanceLancelot) February 16, 2024
They've been boosting their sales by providing liquidity to shell corporations, similar to vendor financing during the Dot-Com bubble.pic.twitter.com/AhmbNJvJU3 https://t.co/l4NefeNtc2
Maybe history won't repeat or even rhyme, but I've burnt my fingers on the stove of irrational exhuberance before. Perhaps I'm just getting cranky in my old age but I feel the stock market has disconnected from reality. I know how euphorically some will say "this time it really IS different" but I've seen how this movie ends.
Although we all know markets don’t tend to perfectly follow these trading analogs, the chart below gives us a valuable historical context to the recent run-up in US stocks.
— Otavio (Tavi) Costa (@TaviCosta) February 14, 2024
The correlation says it all.
It is remarkable the eerie similarities between today’s environment and… pic.twitter.com/kEUW3JofTp
I don't know if Jeff Bezos would agree with me (maybe Saylor orange-pilled him). but I do wonder what he's been dumping his shares for.
JUST IN : JEFF BEZOS HAS JUST SOLD ANOTHER $2 BILLION DOLLARS WORTH OF AMAZON SHARES
— GURGAVIN (@gurgavin) February 15, 2024
HE HAS NOW SOLD $6 BILLION DOLLARS WORTH OF AMAZON SHARES IN THE LAST 1 WEEK ALONE$AMZN pic.twitter.com/DRldq2IUie
Could all those investors be wrong?
a) Yes
b) Most of them are not even making any investment decisions. They are in "set it and forget it" mode and rely on someone else to read the homework assignment.
1/2
— Jim Bianco (@biancoresearch) February 12, 2024
According to Bloomberg's estimates, passively managed money just exceeded 50% of all assets.
Money management just crossed the Rubicon.@profplum99 pic.twitter.com/bKzpDKRqSF
Luke Gromen had an interesting take on this:
…US policymakers are essentially euthanizing free market price discovery in stocks and active fund management firms in order to finance US fiscal deficits, government spending, and government power. The Soviet-ization of markets that are the pride of capitalist America. —Luke Gromen
Why? Because in order to keep tax receipts high (which they need given the astronomical amounts of debt they're piling on) they need to keep the stock market up:
Stocks are the drivers to marginal US tax receipts, and therefore marginal UST pricing, so stocks falling on a sustained basis will crash bonds, and before long, collapse the banking system and economy. —Luke Gromen
Will the draining of the Reverse Repo (which could be emptied by next month) be the end of the musical chairs as Morgan Stanley suggests?
Morgan Stanley: Biden's Red Hot Government Spending And Fiscal Stimulus Ends When The Reverse Repo Runs Out https://t.co/ZtMf6PKiOD
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) February 18, 2024
Monopoly Man
This Central Banker from New Zealand laughs at the brokies who believe in the money they freely print and proceeds to dump on Bitcoin using zero arguments.
Here’s the same guy making the claim that ‘bitcoin is neither a medium of exchange, a store of value or a unit of account’ … lol pic.twitter.com/n3HosGSYP8
— Mike Still (@MikeStillBTC) February 13, 2024
Whatflation?
Do you think Bill Maher cares / has any idea of how much a carton of eggs costs? or a house? Of course he doesn't.
Look at him leaning on "ackshually, the numbers say…" with the same assuredness of those who "trust the science" (kudos to Jillian for living in the real world)
MAHER: "We won the pandemic economically."
— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) February 12, 2024
MICHAELS: "We did?...I feel like inflation is insane."
MAHER: "Inflation is not insane."
MICHAELS: "Bill, go buy a car. A house has tripled here. Buy some f*cking eggs." 🤣@billmaher @JillianMichaels pic.twitter.com/Mw1H45zHTh
Maybe if Maher had kids he'd have more of a clue (and give a shit about something besides himself).
Inflation reality: our local school board just released the 2024-25 budget … medical insurance +11%, certified staff wages +4.2%, non-certified staff wages +6.5%, electricity +10%, transportation +6.8%.
— Ben Hunt (@EpsilonTheory) February 17, 2024
Tell me again how wage/price inflation is not embedded. https://t.co/k36WUntsJf
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Dystopian News
Interdit
Speaking up against MRNA injections —which have now demonstrably been linked to serious and sometimes lethal risks— could land you in jail for up to 3 years and cost you a €45,000 fine in France.
I sure feel safer now.
"You will not advice against MRNA injections, or we will put you in a cage for 3 years."
— hodlonaut 80 IQ 13%er 🌮⚡🔑 🐝 (@hodlonaut) February 15, 2024
- European legislation, 2024 https://t.co/Zr4I4SzIlz
X Marks the Spot
WHO Director-General Tedious says you should be terrified about a lethal disease which they have totally not been brewing and will be released when you least expect it.
‘A Matter of When, Not if‘: W.H.O. Director Warns of ‘Disease X‘ Pandemic at World Government Summit https://t.co/H4EjLMHZ1t via @BreitbartNews
— John Galt (@dhrxsol1234) February 19, 2024
Right before 2024 Prez election, so we can have untraceable mail-in ballots
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Price News
Bitcoin Surfing
Bitcoin sprang off the Board ($45.5k) and is trying to stay aloft while The Board catches up to provide some support.
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Dip Fishing
Bitcoin blasted through the $50k resistance on its third attempt last week. Has been hanging around the $52k area. My suspicion is that dips would be gobbled up quickly at these levels (don't see it going under $46k), we shall see.
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Calm Chart
February even more proudly Green this week, which is great and I don't anticipate that changing this month. It is worth noting however that we have never seen 7 monthly green candles in a row. Remember, Technical Analysis (reading charts) is like the Astrology of finance, not always wrong.
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