10th November 2024 > > ATH, Cosmos, & Norway.

tl;dr

Another ATH at $79.7k opens up some intriguing possibilities. I am dumping the Cosmos environment out of frustration. Norway gets it oh so right, and then gets it oh so wrong.

Market Snap

Market Wrap

An early morning surge took us from $76k to almost breaching $80k, which is all very exciting. You have to think that there is an expectation of a bumper week for the spot BTC ETFs. That is my working hypothesis. If we see many more days like last Thursday with inflows greater than $1bn, three figures will be in sight. The only stress point is that elevated perpetual futures funding rate. Any generic market shock could lead to a bloodbath for the leveraged longs.

Meanwhile, resident techie Larry has his own take:

“FYI, the macro-TA chart patterns look like this:

 - A monthly Cup and Handle which has a target of $130k.

 - A monthly bull flag with a target of $132k.

 - A weekly bull flag with a target of $116k (lower because the rise from the bottom had a correction on the weekly chart).

My scepticism of TA is well-known, but I do hope Larry is right regarding these medium-term predictions. As for the short-term, it looks like $80k will fall soon:

“Current BTC target is $85k from the 4h bull flag.”

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – An update on ATOM liquid staking

You will recall that we looked at some potential coding problems for the Cosmos liquid staking environment (https://www.curiouscryptos.com/post/17th-october-2024-madness-liquidity-atom). Specifically, the coding has been largely written by coders in North Korea, working under the command of the portly and frankly ridiculous Kim Jong-Un. An audit of the code had raised a number of problems to which the developers decided to get the same coders to correct those security deficiencies. Ho-hum is the appropriate response to that really, really dumb idea.

In theory, liquid staking of ATOM and OSMO is a vast improvement on the old situation, which demanded a lengthy and unnecessary 21-day unstaking period. However, liquid staking is not as simple as it should be (I couldn’t get it to work) and it involves considerable contract risk. In my annoyance I swapped my OSMO for ATOM, and moved the entire stash of new and old ATOM to Coinbase to sell.

At which point I found out that Coinbase is offering 14% APY. This is very close to the old staking or liquid staking rewards, with auto compounding, though the lock-up period increases to a mighty 25-days.

I think I have had it with the Cosmos environment. I am going to sell ATOM, EVMOS, SCRT, and CUDOS. There are better things to do with my time and money.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – Norway gets it right, then gets it wrong

It’s a bitter twist of irony that the UK has gold-plated so many examples of poor regulation that emanated from the EU, but has completely ignored the global standard-bearer for crypto legislation, known as MiCA (Markets in Crypto Assets).

Norway’s central bank, Norges Bank, has shown us how to do it. Kjetil Warne, project director at Norges (more on that in a bit) has confirmed that MiCA will be implemented in Norway, though it isn’t mandatory. There is literally nothing to stop the UK doing the same, except for the anti-crypto sentiment that has infested our political and technocratic elite. That will change, but not just yet.

So, good on you Norway. Sadly though, Warne has a dark side. His full title is project director for Norges Bank’s CBDC project. Shame on you.

He tries to sweeten the poison, but we are not fooled:

“We believe that an eventual CBDC will, if issued, will supplement and not replace cash. We also believe that digital currencies will continue to exist in parallel with CBDCs.”

He adds that “… most central banks, including Norges Bank, do not plan to access customer CBDC payment details or account balances.” That word “plan” is hiding a whole heap of misfeasance by central banks and their political masters, allied with restrictions on our privacy and liberty.

…

To help add a little colour, perhaps a partial re quote of the CCC from 17th August this year, might be helpful:

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – Norway’s sovereign wealth fund (NBIM)

NBIM fund invests the country’s tax receipts from its offshore oil and gas industry on behalf of its population. Recently valued at $1.6 TRILLION, it equates to just shy of $300k per person, which is nice. The UK had a very similar opportunity, but instead we took the decision to spend the cash as it came in. Not that there will be any more tax receipts soon, as we close down the industry, to replace it with imports of oil and gas from the Middle East, on the wholly mistaken assumption that this is somehow better for the planet, and improves our energy security.

According to K33 Research, NBIM’s indirect exposure to BTC has increased by two-thirds during 2024:

This indirect exposure comes from investments in companies that hold BTC such as MSTR and the miners. NBIM owns nearly 1% of all MSTR stock, a very wise decision in my opinion. It has similar holdings in MARA and COIN, highlighting the growing acceptance of these companies to the traditional investor base.

Wait until NBIM starts buying the spot BTC ETFs, or even actual BTC.

That will be a good day to be a crypto investor.