31st August 2022 > > BTC whales.

tl;dr

The movement of 10,000 BTC coins that remained untouched since 2013 is good news.

Market Snap

Market Wrap

All quiet for now.

Occasional Series – Sgùrr Coire Choinnichean

Three key members of the CCC staff plan to summit Choinnichean tomorrow morning. I am reliably informed that internet access is somewhat restricted at the top. You will be without a CCC for the day.

Occasional Series – Windfall taxes

The CCC takes a traditionally robust approach to the issue of windfall taxes.

There is no doubt that political pressure that results in random, unquantifiable, occasional increases in taxation, raises the cost of capital, reduces investment and productivity in the medium and long-term, and the topic is best left to non-democratic, illiberal states.

But frankly, the situation has become untenable.

Those rapacious capitalists with no thought for the common good, whose input costs are unchanged, but whose revenues are grossly bloated by the rise in energy costs for consumers due to the global price of oil, must be brought back into line.

The only solution is a hefty, swinging, immensely damaging, windfall tax on all suppliers of renewable energy.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – BTC whales

On 28th August 2022, 5,000 BTC with a value of approximately $100mm were moved from a wallet that has not been touched since 2013:

https://explorer.btc.com/btc/address/3GsC42MbUrtGU4un6QHbXkyjKVawyvm6ac

A day later, a very similar transaction from an equally ancient wallet took place:

https://explorer.btc.com/btc/transaction/9ffcc480c54ffa319f91a626023547add7537eb1b7d2770768a911720878e114

This is the blockchain evidence for the initial purchase of 5,000 BTC on 19th December 2013:

With a price of around $700 at the time, these 5,000 BTC would have cost around $3.5mm, a sizeable investment that has returned 2,800% in less than nine years.

Not bad work if you can get it.

The second transaction has a remarkably similar provenance, having been bought just two minutes later back in December 2013.

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Events like these lead to all sorts of speculation, and usually spark fears of a potential sell-off.

As is usual, the CCC does not agree with the common narrative.

It seems unlikely that these coins have gone to a centralised exchange. Indeed the recipient addresses have not been identified or associated with an exchange.

It seems much more likely to me that this is an over-the-counter (OTC) trade brokered by one of the larger exchanges, or an investment bank.

I will stick to my own narrative that movements like this are evidence of growing institutional involvement in cryptos at prices that will remain forever unknown, an issue obliquely addressed in the CCC of 14th August 2022.

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And before you jump to any conclusions, unfortunately I must report that these two trades are not investments being made by the Curious Cryptos Ltd. Treasury department.