23rd October 2023 > > Techies and CBDCs.

tl;dr

Tickle the techies, cos they just don’t like it. A dystopian future is launched upon us by the EU.

Market Snap

Market Wrap

TPerpetual futures funding rates firmly back to neutral, for the first time in a long time. Those leveraged shorts have been hurt, which always puts a smile on my face.

BTC’s recent performance might just be trickling down into the alt space. The beneficiaries are largely the cohort of the 2017 hard forks, with some notable exceptions such as Solana.

Altcoin exuberance is more usually an end of cycle phenomenon. BTC dominance is at multi-year highs. Personally, I think we want to see that situation continue, for now at least.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – A TA tickle

Our resident TA expert Larry regularly lambasts me for describing his creed as selling snake oil. It is always an entertaining argument and to be fair, he is rarely wrong. Except, obviously, on this specific point.

I am involved in several chat groups (no kidding, I hear you shout), and in one of them this Techie Analysis popped up yesterday that apparently has some legs:

That isn’t even snake oil.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – Euro CBDC

The EU has announced the end of its two-year research into an EUR CBDC with the unsurprising news that they are moving forward with a preparation phase:

https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/pr/date/2023/html/ecb.pr231018~111a014ae7.en.html

Full details of the findings from the investigation phase can be found here:

https://www.ecb.europa.eu/paym/digital_euro/investigation/profuse/shared/files/dedocs/ecb.dedocs231018.en.pdf

At only 44 pages long, this is a restrained report which, just for once, the CCC team will not read on your behalf, as its conclusions will be all too obvious. I don’t why they bothered to dress up the process as being open-minded about the benefits or otherwise of CBDCs. There was only ever going to be one outcome.

…

The press release even goes as far as this:

“The launch of the preparation phase is not a decision on whether to issue a digital euro.”

Yeah right, you ain’t fooling us matey boy.

Convicted Criminal Christine Lagarde cannot wait for this coercive tool that will strip all citizens of any semblance of financial privacy:

“We need to prepare our currency for the future.”

Scary stuff.