9th January 2022 > > QE and NYC, NY.

tl;dr

QE but why NYC will save us from those horrors.

Market Snap (at time of writing)

Market Wrap

Techies getting their knickers in a twist as BTC approaches the “Death Cross” – a backward looking technical analysts’ measure that tells us the 50-day MA is below the 200-day MA.

It means precisely nothing though chartists claim that it presages potential further losses. We may or may not see more price weakness, but the Death Cross does not help us predict one way or the other.

For instance, the Death Cross in March 2020 when BTC was at $4k (yes, four thousand) would have made you look rather foolish if you had shorted on the back of it. Ditto the Death Cross in July 2021 at 42k is only back at the money with a very painful spike to $69k for leveraged shorts in between.

In the interests of balance though, this is the current techie chart du jour:

Occasional Series – Socialism and equality

In the People’s Republic of China, one per cent of the population now holds one third of the country’s wealth.

Damn, the Chinese elite are gonna be disappointed now Western liberal democracies are reining back on quantitative easing (QE).

(Reminder - QE, and its closely associated economic theory MMT, is simply a means to transfer wealth from the poor to the rich).

Curious Cryptos’ Definition of the Day - Quantitative Easing (QE)

A process of printing money by profligate governments whilst they pretend not to be printing money because they claim Central Banks are independent.

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Independent?

Seriously?

You are having a laugh.

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We can be sure that on Tuesday 6th May 1997, Gordon Brown did not compromise his principles when he announced to the press that the Bank of England was now free of political interference.

We can be sure that he did not compromise his controlling and centralising instincts when he made the claim that the Bank of England was now independent.

He just didn’t tell the truth is all.

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QE is a huge con that simply transfers wealth from the poor to the rich though rapid and high asset inflation.

QE is often used as a basis to justify MMT (Modern Monetary Theory aka Magic Money Tree) for those who wish to virtue signal whilst simply feathering their own nest.

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The post QE world we are transitioning to will be so much harder and so much more difficult for those with assets - that does include me by the way, no-one would ever describe me as a social warrior.

The post QE world we are transitioning to will be so much better, and so much fairer, on so many levels.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – New York City, New York

NYC has had a rather damning reputation with regards to cryptos.

The previous Mayor and his administration had deliberately set out to restrict not only businesses related to cryptos from setting up shop, but also to restrict citizens from getting involved personally with cryptos.

These attempts to try to ban cryptos simply drove business and tax dollars away from NYC, the latter being an asset that NYC appears to be increasingly running short of.

These attempts to try to ban cryptos simply drove retail investors away from legitimate and honest exchanges into the arms of offshore websites, particularly those based in China with high fees, zero property rights, and all the attendant potential problems.

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The recent mayoral elections were partly fought on a basis of which candidate was the most crypto friendly (see CCC 3rd September 2021).

Eric Adams, the newly elected Democrat Mayor of NYC (is there any other type?), is a vocal crypto supporter. He has vowed to make New York City a mecca for the crypto industry.

The CCC is a long-standing supporter of regulatory competition, as a means of improving regulatory protection for individuals, and as a means of driving innovation and development. This forward-looking view is somewhat at odds with organisations such as the International Monetary Fund and certain other high-profile individuals. I am pleased that I have people like Eric on my side:

“We need to use the technology of blockchain, Bitcoin, of all other forms of technology. I want New York City to be the center of that technology.”

Eric has raised the intriguing prospect of legitimising the acceptance of cryptos in lieu of fiat payments by local businesses. This would imply a complete overhaul of the local regulatory environment and, importantly, the local tax environment. Nayib Bukele, President of El Salvador, must surely be pleased with such copycat actions.

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Eric has also confirmed he will receive his next three pay checks in BTC.

Given BTC’s recent price action, this marks Eric out as a very savvy investor indeed.

Reserve Treasury Protocols (before they all go to zero)

Reminder – Olympus and Wonderland are, to the best of my knowledge, live viable projects. XEUS, FORT and JADE turned out to be scams, though they are still live scams. Scams are not uncommon in these Wild West fringes of Decentralised Finance (DeFi).

Photon appears to have won the prize for being the most extraordinary scam. In under 18 hours it went to zero. And as far as I can tell – and I am no blockchain analytics expert – they walked away with less than $30k.

It is very upsetting we have scumbags like that around.

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