2024.09 - Bubble

IMHO

You're going to hear it soon enough, so I'll just say it now:

"It's a Bubble"

It's an understandable take coming from an uninformed perspective. The markets have never seen anything like this.

Dominic Frisby has a fun take on the "Bubble" argument:

A bubble is a bull market in which you don't have a position
—Dominic Frisby

It's worth watching the 2 min. clip:

It's usually said that the fastest path to ruin is in the words "this time it's different" and there's a lot of truth in that, but there is something different in Bitcoin now. The ETFs are not (IMO) an optimal way to own BTC, but they do open the doors to a (huge) pool of money that would not have touched it otherwise.

Lyn Alden puts it succinctly:

All the ETF is, it's basically an API for the fiat system. It just allows the fiat system to plug into Bitcoin a little bit better than it used to.
—Lyn Alden

Traditional institutions are clearly feeling BTCs gravitational pull:

I'll say it again: "he who panics first panics best". The markets know this and those who missed the beginning of the party are racing to catch up.

Meanwhile, the first movers are turning on their marketing engines.

Technical Intermission

The details of how the ETFs impact the flows and price of Bitcoin can be confusing. Teddy Fusaro made a great thread explaining the dynamics:

I won't attempt to summarize or repeat his whole explanation, but here are five key points:

1. ETF buyers are not buying directly from the ETF issuer.
2. They either buy from existing "Natural Sellers" (ETF owners who want to sell their shares), or "Authorized Participants" (Market Makers whose job is to "act as a buffer" between the market and the ETFs)
3. If the transaction is between two natural sellers there are no net flows for the ETFs (the shares merely change hands)
4. If the purchase is between a buyer and a market maker, there is a 2-day window for the seller to deliver the actual shares to the buyer.
5. If the seller may has to create new "baskets" of ETF shares to fulfill the order, then the ETF has to buy more Bitcoin, otherwise they'll just supply the shares from their existing inventory and no new BTC will be bought.

Back to our program

There's a recurring "exchanges/OTC desks are running out of BTC" meme that makes the rounds often in bull markets. This is mostly hopium —as price rises new sellers will be found.

But it is true that at certain moments, the demand can outrun the available supply and make price jump —as we saw last week before Coinbase crashed, marking the official start of the bull run per tradition.

Many attribute the crash to manipulation rather than incompetence (myself included) but that's beside the larger point: Things are heating up.

Those who chose to stay out will incur a cost.

Let's take Vanguard, their mistake went way beyond not allowing their customers to buy the new ETFs, they also liquidated their previous positions on BTC ETFs —apparently without clearly alerting them.

Was the rejection of BTC ETFs the seed for the CEO's decision to step down? Maybe not, but it's hard to imagine it's pure coincidence. The proof will be in the pudding as we wait for the new CEO's stance regarding the BTC ETFs.

Slowly but undeniably, public attitude is changing.

Bob (below) remarks on how his long-skeptical friends have now decided to take million-dollar positions in BTC, saying they all want one or more full coins

That's the multimillionaire layer, do you not think something similar is happening at the billionaire level?

Maybe this is complete coincidence —wearing my tinfoil speculation hat right now— but why are some of the wealthiest people in the US have starting to "trim" a few billions off their portfolios just now? (some for the first time). What do you think they're buying with that money?

And why did someone —who owns the fastest ultra-long-range business jet in the world— fly in from Qatar to Madeira during a Bitcoin conference?

Reminder: The Emir of Qatar flew to El Salvador to meet with President Bukele last year.

These ultra-wealthy people may or not be tracking the brewing financial storm with the same granularity as Balajis

But it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know this cannot end well.

Add to this, the voices of successful, well-respected names from TradFi publicly defending their bullish thesis for Bitcon and pushing back on FUD.

All of this adds up to one moment:

The moment their Private Advisor tells them to allocate to BTC.

Having these people allocate 1-2% of their wealth would already be huge, but if the rumor below is true, BlackRock is suggesting an eye-watering 28% allocation.

So there will be a BTC bubble (a wild one, most likely) but it's barely getting started. Hang tight to your sats and keep stacking.

Bitcoin News

Silver's Medal

After surpassing Berkshire Hathaway, (and just now Meta's market cap), BTC is in the top 10 assets by market cap and sets its sights on the next target: silver

Comeback Kid

After a brutal bear market, it's been phenomenal to see Michael Saylor's thesis playing out.

There's a long way to go before MSTR —which some label the most painful stock chart on Wall Street— can make a new all-time high, but whichever way this ends, this will absolutely be a business case for the history books.

Parity Party

The Malawian Kwacha just about achieved parity with the sat and the Mexican Peso —which has held remarkably well against the dollar— lost cent parity with the sat.

Krypto News

"Crypto" can be lethal to your portfolio

Princes not Amused

Nigeria is going after Binance, blaming it for their failing currency. Expect more of this.

Hot Tip

New investment thesis: SBF will do everything in his power to pump Solana, lest he become the girlfriend of his entire cell-block.

Regarded

This is crypto epitomized.

A centralized, useless coin whose founder is a pathological lier about to get his ass handed to him in court for falsely claiming to be Satoshi Nakamoto, has pumped like crazy.

Likewise, a bunch of otherwise worthless memecoins are pumping like mad, acting as vessels of pure speculative animal spirits.

Travis saw this one coming in his "Financial Nihilism" thread from a few weeks ago.

If you decide to gamble on memecoins just know you will burn your hand in the stove.

.

Fiat News

Who?

You may remember SMCI from their recent (insane) pump. Well. it's now part of the S&P500 which, if I'm not mistaken will force a bunch of funds to add it to their portfolios pumping it even further.

Will it become a new member of the Magnificent 7? I'm betting yes, but I hope the acceleration doesn't tear the wings off this plane (I don't own any SMCI shares BTW)

Ghostly

US commercial real estate still bleeding…

Dystopian News

The Grift

The lawyers that blocked Elon from getting paid performance-based the $5.95 bonus he had negotiated years earlier want to:

1. Have the bonus reassigned to them
2. Be paid in Tesla stock

These are the people Ayn Rand refered to as "moochers" and if entrepreneurship is driven away from the US you will know who to blame. Un-f*cking-believable

Nonprofit

Speaking of Elon, he's (rightfully) suing Open AI for deciding it would switch to a for-profit, closed source company after receiving funding under the premise of an open-source non-profit.

Say it Ain't So

The WEF is saying something good about Bitcoin?? The world really has gone mad.

Breakfast Event

The CEO of Kellogg's has figured out the solution to rising food prices.

Batshit

Canada's leadership has utterly lost the plot.

Price News

Guest Chart

It's illustrative to see Bitcoin denominated in things other than the dollar. It is already making All-Time Highs in many currencies including the Euro, Yen, Pound, Yuan and many others.

It's also at an ATH against 10-year US debt.

Bear in mind, the US ATH is nominally $69k, but because of the loss of USD purchasing power the "real" ATH will be somewhere around $77k

Bitcoin Surfing

In one of the biggest weekly candles in recent memory, Bitcoin leaped into the air last week —just as the Board ($50.9k) was racing to catch up to it— and is now within smacking distance of the ATH ($69k)

Dip Fishing

Spectacular week for price action, Bitcoin sliced through 2 resistance levels, knocked its head against the $62.5k level a couple of times before jumping straight through the $65k level this morning. NORMALLY, I'd expect a pullback to $60k (and maybe even lower) as BTC catches its breath. But I'm not sure we're in normal times. Cast your nets and hope to get lucky!

Calm Chart

February closed with the largest green candle in recent memory and March is off to a green start. I've said before that BTC has never made 7 Green monthly candles in a row, bot someone pointed out January was a "doji" candle —the open and close of the candlestick were very close to equal— so that might pacify the charting gods. Either way, we are about to find out.