10th December 2024 > > Corporate Treasury & BTC.

tl;dr

It is time to stop state sponsored market manipulation that affects each and every one of us to our detriment. Early corporate adopters of BTC are going to have a field day.

Market Snap

Market Wrap

Another minor sell-off driven by the market’s need to reset perpetual futures funding rates to a stable level. A bunch of leveraged longs are waking up again with liquidation losses. Still, us investors will keep buying BTC whilst selling alts into strength.

Occasional Series – Market manipulation

A leading UK newspaper yesterday described Jerome Powell, Chair of the Federal Reserve, as “America’s chief interest rate setter”.

Remarkably, I believe that was written without a trace of irony.

Powell’s day job is to be the lender of last resort. At some point in the not so-distant past, we allowed central bankers to become market manipulators of interest rates (across the curve), and FX rates. And by extension, market manipulators of all risk assets, and of all liabilities. An unelected bureaucrat who answers to no-one, but with such power – Karl Marx would be so very proud of this development which he set in train over a century and a half ago.

How did we get it so wrong?

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – Microsoft day

At Microsoft’s AGM today a vote will be taken on whether Microsoft should put part of its treasury reserves into BTC.

The board has recommended that this proposal is rejected. Most votes at any AGM are passively assigned by large funds to the voting intentions of the board, and that is likely to be the case here. You can see this effect on Polymarket – it costs 14c to buy a positive vote, and 87c to sell. Clearly, consensus opinion is that there is virtually no chance of the motion being passed. Though I never like being part of the consensus, it seems highly probable to me that the naysayers have called it right this time.

Except … except …

Microsoft is undoubtedly a retail stock. Perhaps those moms and pops will vote against the board simply to be awkward, as a sort of corporate shareholder version of the political populism caused by the technocratic and bureaucratic elite like Powell ignoring and disparaging the real people.

It might be worth a punt going long, if you are a gambler, but that is not advice.

Anyway, as crypto investors, we will do so well anyway if the vote goes through. Banking a 7x return in just twenty-four hours by going long probably doesn’t cut the mustard, depending on your bet size.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – Amazon day

I have not yet found confirmation, but I am told by my sources that important shareholders at Amazon are also pushing for Amazon’s treasury to invest in BTC.

*** STOP PRESS ***

The shareholder motion states:

“At minimum (sic), Amazon should evaluate the benefits of holding some, even just 5%, of its assets in Bitcoin.”

You all laughed at me when I made the outrageous claim that 3% to 5% of all investments will flow into cryptos, mostly BTC. How much clearer can the direction of travel be?

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – Berkshire Hathaway day

I have not yet found confirmation, but I am told by my sources that important shareholders at Berkshire Hathaway … Oh, hang on. What did the late Charlie Munger say about BTC? Something about “rat poison squared”? Followed up by “Of course I hate the bitcoin’s (sic) success”. You did hate it because you missed out on the revolution staring you in the face, old bean.

Since Munger’s passing away, Warren Buffett has been noticeably quiet on the subject of cryptos, rather than be as disparaging as his old comrade-in-arms, as was his wont. Which is interesting to note given both Berkshire Hathaway’s absolutely enormous cash pile, and the very close relationship he has with Goldman Sachs, a firm which is now very much pro-crypto at the very top echelons of its management team.