8th February 2024 > > BTFP, Craig Wright, & MS.

tl;dr

BTFP is disguised QE, the least progressive concept ever conceived other than MMT. Act quickly to stay informed. Oh, and some crypto stuff as well.

Market Snap

Market Wrap

Some regional US banks have taken a hit to their share price as news of the end of BTFP starts to be noticed by investors. Regular readers already know about this and crucially that the loans only need to be repaid in over a year’s time, so current fears are nonsensical. Any banks holding long-term treasuries can still pledge them at par (or at whatever minimal haircut the Fed demands) as collateral for cash to the Fed and will continue to do so in size until March 11th this year.

I know that this idea of lending cash at par against treasuries is ridiculous, and it makes no sense in the real world, but it is not one of my making.

BTFP is simply disguised QE whose sole objective is to make the rich richer, and the poor poorer.

For now, everything else you may read about BTFP is just noise, and uninformed noise at that.

…

Of more import is the news that Nikki Haley – the only person still standing who has any chance of stopping Trump being the next POTUS – lost the Nevada primary. The nature of the defeat (there was no competitor) must be somewhat painful. Some do not like Nikki, but her robust approach to politics appeals to me.

If she drops out of the race there is bad news coming for Ukraine, Taiwan, and the rest of the world. For those who think the US is too powerful and want rid of its pesky liberalism and democracy, just wait to see what happens when it steps back from being a global leader under the aegis of Trump.

Occasional Series – Pay attention now

Sometimes I receive some emails that express upset about comments in the CCC that have been described as robust as Nikki can be. Well, whatever, is my response. Or get over it. One of those two.

And then there are many people who do not respond at all.

I suspect most of you have your email settings to send my (almost) daily missive into the trash bin. Which is probably where it should go, and I have no problem with that.

To stop wasting your email server’s time there is now a window of just five days to tell me and everyone else on this list you still wish to receive the CCC. If you don’t – and frankly who would – that is all good by me. We will talk about other stuff next time we meet.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – Dr. Craig Wright

It seems that the court case is not going well for this self-proclaimed inventor of BTC.

As part of the evidence several related documents were presented to the court, documents which Wright claims he produced prior to 2008, in advance of the original BTC whitepaper.

One of the notepads wasn’t in production until 2012, metadata had been altered on some digital files, and other files committed the schoolboy error of using fonts that weren’t available at the time.

Again, Wright’s defence is laughable with the claim that if he had forged documents, the forgeries would be perfect, an attempt at logical tautology that falls flat on its face.

With a bit of luck we will never hear from him again once the case is wrapped up, and we can stop using the word alleged in front of fantasist.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – MS (MicroStrategy)

During its fourth quarter earnings presentation, MS described itself as a “bitcoin development company” accompanied by this graphic:

For those of us in the UK who are denied the ability to buy any of the nine new spot BTC ETFs Lance Vitanza, analyst at TD Cowen, has your back:

“MicroStrategy shares continue to offer investors looking to gain exposure to bitcoin a number of important benefits, in our opinion, relative to spot ETPs.”