14th December 2024 > > MSTR, Vancouver, & Japan.

tl;dr

MicroStrategy joins the Nasdaq 100 to our collective joy. Vancouver and Japan are exploring holding BTC within their strategic reserves.

Market Snap

Market Wrap

This is a very benign and very positive market at the moment. Perpetual futures funding rates are under control, and we have had a nice 10% plus gain over the last month with relatively (for BTC) low vol. Long may it continue.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – MicroStrategy (MSTR)

MSTR has been elevated to join the Nasdaq 100 (https://www.curiouscryptos.com/post/12th-december-2024-music-memes-microstrategy) as the 40th largest company in the index, to howls of dismay in some quarters.

The ETF revolution started by BlackRock a decade or more ago has one notable feature – most investment funds are now passive, meekly following an index or a specific company or sector. The ETF manager makes no value judgement on the components of each ETF. This means that there are a whole lot of new buyers for MSTR stock, a leveraged bet on the price of BTC with no liquidation risk.

It was nearly four years ago on 31st December 2020 when the CCC first noted that the CC Treasury had started investing in MSTR at a price of $39.10 (after adjusting for the recent 10 for 1 stock split.) At the time BTC was trading at $29,100. At last night’s close of $408.67 MSTR has given a 945% return since December 2020, comfortably beating BTC’s return of 250%. I told you it was a leveraged play on the price of BTC.

10x your investment in just four years is a rare feat outside of the meme coin sector, or other low cap high risk alts. MSTR will continue to raise cheap or free money by issuing convertible bonds to buy more BTC, exacerbating its over-performance relative to BTC in the good times, and exacerbating its under-performance relative to BTC in the bad times. It can be held in a tax-free wrapper such as an ISA. If you think BTC has topped out, then banking those MSTR rewards is the sensible move, but I don’t, and I won’t.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – Vancouver

Mayor of Vancouver, Ken Sim, introduced a bill to explore holding BTC within the city’s reserves, which was passed, though not unanimously. Councillor Pete Fry objected after repeating those tired old tropes of money-laundering and environmental concerns, objections which have been comprehensively demolished time and time again.

Ken tells it like it is:

“Bitcoin is the number one performing asset on the planet over the last 16 years, so to not even look at including it as a part of a diversified portfolio is, I think, reckless.”

Spot on Ken, but it’s not only crypto-denier Fry who is upset.

Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Blackface Trudeau, was the architect of one of the Western world’s most egregiously illiberal policies when he prevented truck drivers from accessing their own bank accounts simply because they were exercising their democratic rights in protest against Trudeau himself. Trudeau then unilaterally declared that the bank account freeze would be extended to crypto transfers too, a decision he did not have the authority to make. In January this year the Federal Court of Canada sided with the CCC:

“… there was no national emergency justifying the invocation of the Emergencies Act and the decision to do so was therefore unreasonable”.

I might have used a stronger word than unreasonable if I had written the judgement, but it will do.

My inside sources tell me that this new development out of Vancouver has left him deeply unhappy about the outbreak of freedom and liberty within his own personal fiefdom. He is not comfortable with the liberating power of cryptos. This is not what he was hoping for during his reign.

Blackface Trudeau’s time is nearly up. The world will be a freer and a far better place for it.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – Japan

And now Japan. A lawmaker or two in Tokyo are proposing that BTC be made part of the country’s reserves.

It starts as a trickle, and then it becomes a flood.

But regular readers already know that.