21st October 2023 > > 2 bad guys and a good guy.

tl;dr

Two bad guys, Hamas, and the SEC. One good guy, VanEck.

Market Snap

Market Wrap

A brief punch through the $30k level was very cheering. Is this because of a Middle Eastern inspired flight to quality, or a growing realisation that spot BTC ETFs will be launched soon?

If it’s the former then, just this once, I fervently hope that this driver for upwards momentum for the price of BTC is removed and removed in short order. If it is the latter, the size of the short-term investment by the asset managers holding $15 TRILLION of assets into the $600 billion market cap of BTC will be key.

Larry, the CCC’s in-house technical analyst, believes that just 0.1% of those assets goes into BTC, and Larry is rarely wrong. My range – wide as it may be – is 1% to 4%. If Larry is right again (I suspect, we both don’t wish that to be the case this time round) I just do not understand why so many large and respected asset managers are spending this much time and effort on a product that undoubtedly carries reputational risk.

Anyone fancy a 250,000 Satoshi bet on month 1 inflows to the new spot BTC ETFs? 1% and above, those sats are mine. Less than 1% and those sats are yours. The CC Treasury committee has restricted my budget on this one to just 1mm sats, capped at 250k per bet.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – Cryptos fund Hamas terrorism

The U.S Department of the Treasury has conclusively identified cryptos have been used to fund Hamas terrorists:

https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1816

I am shocked that the total amount is as much as TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS:

The US authorities spend a great deal of time investigating terrorist organisations like Hamas and the funding of them, and rightly so. The authorities may well find some other examples of crypto involvement on this scale, but just a small briefcase of EUR 500 notes puts cryptos to shame in the battle between the big boys (USD and EUR fiat) to be the illicit champion of funding illegal and immoral activities.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – VanEck

I came across this research piece from VanEck which is a short and accessible summary for the positives of investing in BTC, especially if you take a fund manager’s approach with diversification as your guiding principle. The CC Treasury is diversified too, but only in the sense of holding different cryptos. No other asset class cuts the mustard.

https://www.vaneck.com/us/en/blogs/digital-assets/the-investment-case-for-bitcoin/

Well worth a look but don’t answer the question about where you live as being in the UK as you will be denied access. That’s the good old FCA failing to look after UK investors’ interests once more.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – The SEC takes another hit

The SEC’s case against Ripple Labs Inc. was largely dismissed some time ago in favour of Ripple, with just one outstanding element to be decided. The SEC appealed that decision and lost again.

The remaining point of contention is whether the institutional sales of XRP flouted securities laws or not. The SEC has now dropped its pursuit of Chief Executive Brad Garlinghouse and Executive Chairman Chris Larsen after originally claiming the pair aided and abetted the company in violating U.S. securities laws. Quite naturally Brad feels strongly about this:

“For nearly three years, Chris and I have been the subject of baseless allegations from a rogue regulator with a political agenda. Instead of looking for the criminals stealing customer funds on offshore exchanges that were courting political favor, the SEC went after the good guys.”

That’s a nice little dig at both Gensler and Bankman-Fried there, hinting at the corruption that allegedly took place.