36 Burst results for "Gbtc"
Crypto News Alerts | Daily Bitcoin (BTC) & Cryptocurrency News
A highlight from 1415: Bitcoin Will Soon Hit $500,000 - Winklevoss Twins
"Welcome everybody to Crypto News Alerts, the number one daily Bitcoin pod. In today's show, I'll be breaking down the latest Bitcoin technical analysis as Bitcoin recaptures $27 ,000 and quoting Max Keiser, the high priest of Bitcoin, Bitcoin is the North Star guiding to the only safe haven asset in the world that protects against inflation, confiscation and censorship preach. Also in today's show, Ethereum futures ETFs can start trading as early as next week. According to top Bloomberg analysts, we'll also be discussing the SEC pushing back the deadline for spot Bitcoin ETF apps, definitely not a good look. And speaking of ETF apps, I'm also going to be sharing the five highlights of Gary Gensler's evasive testimony before Congress quoting Senator Warren Davidson. Gary Gensler's tenure at the SEC highlights two key problems. Number one, Gary Gensler's problem and number two, the SEC's structural problem. That's why I introduced the SEC Stabilization Act to fire Gary Gensler and restructure the SEC. Let's freaking go. Also in today's show, crypto analyst Michal van de Poppe predicts a very positive quarter four for 2023. I'll be sharing his targets in which he outlines. We're also going to be discussing the SEC's inaction on the spot Bitcoin ETF is a complete and utter disaster, according to the Winklevoss twins. And speaking of the Winklevoss twins, I'm also going to be sharing with you their $500 ,000 Bitcoin price prediction, which they say is coming soon. We'll also be taking a look at the overall crypto market. All this plus so much more in today's show. Yo what's good crypto fam? This is first and foremost, a video show. So if you want the full premium experience with video, visit my YouTube channel at cryptonewsalerts .net. Again that's cryptonewsalerts .net. Welcome everyone. This is pod episode number 1415. I'm your host JV. Today is September 28, 2023 and Bitcoin is finally back above 27 ,000 as we're pumping right when I hit the live button. We're currently above 27 ,100 up over 300 % today and we continue climbing. Welcome everyone in the live chat. I gracefully appreciate y 'all. Yeah, who knows? Maybe we'll hit 28 ,000 by the time today's live stream is over. Let's see. And make sure to let me know where you're tuning in from in that live chat as I'll be giving everyone a shout out towards the end of the show. And with that being shared, fam, now let's dive into today's market watch. As you can see here, every major crypto back in the green. Bitcoin above 27 G's. We got Ether up three and a half percent trading at $1 ,655 BNB, XRP, Cardano, you name it. And checking out coinmarketcap .com, we're currently sitting above $1 .07 trillion with about $26 billion in volume in the past 24 hours, Bitcoin dominance at 49 .1 % and even the Ether dominance on the rise today at 18 .5 % and checking out the top 100 crypto gainers of the past 24 hours, holy moly, compound up 20 % trading under 49 bucks, followed by Thor chain up 13 % trading at $1 .94, followed by Lido Dow up 8 % trading at $1 .59 and checking out the top 100 crypto gainers of the past week, massive gains, which we love to see, especially after a pretty bearish altcoin season to say the least. We got CompLead in the pack here as well up 20 % and Rune up 13 .4 % and RLB up 13 % and checking out the crypto greed and fear index, we're currently rated a 46 in fear yesterday at 44 last week, a 47 and last month, a 39 in fear. So there you have it, fam. How many of you are currently bullish on Bitcoin and how many of you took advantage of the recent dip? If so, let me know. It's good to see we pump in once again. So hopefully those positions are now in the green. Now let's break down today's Bitcoin technical analysis, check out the charts and why specifically the market is pumping right now. Here we go. Let's get it. Bitcoin hit new weekly highs after the September 28th Wall Street open as markets awaited fresh cues from the US Federal Reserve. And here you can see in the Bitcoin one hour Campbell chart, pretty freaking bullish to say the least. Data from Cointelegraph and TradingView showed Bitcoin price strength staging a comeback, having delivered what some referred to as a classic pump and dump 24 hours prior during the performance. Bitcoin hit a high of 26 .8, which appeared on Bitstamp as a result of 2 % daily gains before Bitcoin retraced all of its progress, then a slower grind higher than took hold with the bulls edging closer to 27 ,000, which we finally just recaptured here a few moments ago. Now GDP for quarter two grew by 1 .7 % year on year below the projected 2%, while the PCE index data for August came in in line with the expectations, quoting analyst Keith Allen, bring on the volatility. Now meanwhile, data from Binance's order book uploaded by Allen showed little by way of resistance standing in the way of the spot price under the 27 ,000 mark. So as you can see, just more bullishness for the king crypto, the macro data constituted just the prelude of the day's main event. Meanwhile, Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve due to the comment later on today, Powell, whose recent words failed to deliver noticeable volatility to the crypto markets was due to speak at the Fed's conversation with the chairman, a teacher town hall meeting event in Washington DC at 4 p .m. Eastern today. Now commenting on the state of play on Bitcoin markets, popular trader Dan crypto trades was a little more optimistic around the strength of the day's move compared to yesterday, September 27th, quoting him here back to yesterday's highs, but with considerably less open interests. No doubt there is longs chase in here, but it is less frothy than it was yesterday. Would still like to see longs chill out and not get to a full retrace later on. So there you have it. Let me know if you agree or disagree with the analysts. Meanwhile, quoting another analyst, right, capital Bitcoin is right back at the bull market support band cluster of moving averages, challenging to break out beyond them. Let's freaking go. Now, elsewhere in the day's analysis, he acknowledged that 29 ,000 could make a reappearance and still form a part of a broader come down for BTC. As he shares here, it's important to remember the Bitcoin could technically rally even as high as 29 ,000 to form a new lower high, which would be phase A and B. He explained alongside this chart. So there you have it. Let me know if you are currently more bullish or bearish on the King crypto and quoting the high priest of Bitcoin, Max Kaiser, Bitcoin is the North star guiding to the only safe haven asset in the world that protects against inflation confiscation and censorship preach. Now welcome to y 'all just joining us in today's podcast. As always, I appreciate everyone's daily support and means the world. And now let's discuss our next story of the day as Bitcoin continues to pump, shall we? We're going to be discussing the Ethereum futures ETFs, which can get approval. They say potentially as early as next week. So let's break this one down, shall we? Ether futures ETFs could start trading for the first time in the United States as early as next week. According to top Bloomberg analysts on September 28th, which is today, Bloomberg intelligence analyst, James Safart said in an ex post, it was looking like the sec is going to let a bunch of Ethereum futures ETFs go next week. Potentially. His comments were in response to fellow ETF analyst, Eric Balchunes, who said he was hearing that the U S SCC wanted to accelerate the launch of Ethereum future ETFs quitting him here. They want it off their plate before the shutdown, he said, adding that he's heard various filers updates on their documents by Friday afternoon so they can start trading as early as Tuesday next week. As outlined here on X. Now the U S S government's expected to shut down at 1201 a .m. Eastern on October 1st. If Congress fails to agree on or provide funding for the new fiscal year, which is expected to impact the country's financial regulators amongst federal agencies. Now neither specified their sources for the latest update on the long list of crypto ETFs in the queue. There are currently 15 ether futures ETFs from nine issuers currently awaiting approval. According to the analysts in a September 27th note, which is yesterday, companies proposing an Ethereum futures or hybrid ETF product include VanEck pro shares, grayscale volatility shares bitwise direction, as well as round Hill. The analysts gave ether future ETFs a 90 % chance of launching in October with Valkyrie's ether exposure on October 3rd, quoting them here. We expect pure Ethereum futures ETFs to start trading the following week, thanks to volatility shares actions. However, we don't expect all of them to launch. So do note that now as previously reported that ether futures ETFs may be approved in October causing the 11 % spike in ether prices and probably why the Ethereum dominance is up as it's been stagnant and down for quite some time. Ether prices are on the gain, currently just under $1 ,700 and we'll see how high we continue to pump, but do note crypto future products aren't as hotly as anticipated as their spot based alternatives. There are already been Bitcoin futures ETFs approved in the United States since 2021, which is a fact, which leads us to the million dollar question. Why have they approved a futures ETFs, but continue to deny and delay all the spot ETFs? We're going to be getting to that a little later as I share with you the highlights from Congress pressing the chairman of the SEC, Gary Gensler. It's going to get very interesting here in a little bit, but now let's dive a little deeper and discuss specifically the spot Bitcoin ETFs and what is happening and why they're being pushed back and the latest updates of where we're currently at. So here we go and welcome y 'all just tuning in. Make sure to smash that like fam. The US SEC has delayed deciding whether to approve or disapprove spot Ether ETFs. And like I said, we're going to be getting in October potentially get some approvals, but in separate notices filed September 27th, the SEC said it would designate a longer period on whether to approve or disapprove these proposed changes. The commission finds it inappropriate to designate a longer period within which to take action on the proposed rule change so that it has sufficient time to consider the proposed rule change and the issues raised there within. The delay came the same day as the NASDAQ market filed the proposed rule change with the SEC for listing its mix ETH basically ETF, a combination of Ether holdings and futures contracts and also proposed rule changes with the New York Stock Exchange, ARCA for the Grayscale Ethereum Futures Trust, hashtag Bitcoin Futures ETF and the CBOE BXE exchange for the Franklin Bitcoin ETF were all filed. September 27th, that's right. If you're not familiar with Franklin Templeton, there are one and a half trillion dollar asset manager. They're also applying for an ETF. Now the SEC announced September 26th, it would designate a longer period to decide on these spot ETF applications. And as James Safart shares here, here's VanEx delay as expected. So another one, I mean, exactly what we were expecting from the SEC. Now in August, ARK investment manager, founder and CEO Kathy Wood speculated that should the SEC move forward with the spot ETF approvals, it would allow multiple listings simultaneously to avoid giving any single company an advantage over another in the market. Her remarks came before Grayscale Investments won a court battle with the SEC over its spot Bitcoin ETF app, which will likely be reviewed in which they're trying to turn their GBTC product into a spot ETF. So hopefully it happens. To date, the SEC has never approved the spot crypto ETF in the United States, but has allowed the listing of crypto linked futures ETFs and a leveraged Bitcoin futures ETF. Manipulation, fam. The next deadlines for the spot crypto ETF apps from firms, which include the largest asset manager in the world, BlackRock, Wisdom Tree, Invesco, Galaxy, Valkyrie, Bitwise and Fidelity are all scheduled for October. So we'll see how this is likely to play out considering October is now only three days away. Are we going to get some ETF approvals by then? Who knows? I think more than likely they're going to push it back again. However, Congress right now is pressing Gary Gensler to approve a spot Bitcoin ETF and ETPs immediately. So now let's break this down. If you missed Gensler, he was pressed by Congress just yesterday. And I know it's on everyone's mind. So let's break down some of the highlights from this recent hearing with Congress and the chairman of the SEC, Gary Gensler. Let's break it down, shall we? Here we go. Blame for kneecapping capital markets in the U .S. and slam for dodging questions around Bitcoin and Pokemon cards. SEC chair Gensler appears to have had one hell of a grilling from Congress this week. September 27th, the U .S. SEC chief again found himself in front of lawmakers in a scheduled hearing to discuss his agency's oversight of the markets. Here are some of the highlights. First and foremost, you are the Tonya Harding of security regulations. We should create a Gary Gensler diss track, right? One of the more colorful analogies came from U .S. Representative Andy Barr, who accused Gensler of kneecapping the U .S. capital markets with regulatory red tape. Barr referred to the old testimony from Gensler where Gensler argued that the U .S. is the largest, most sophisticated and innovative capital market in the world and that shouldn't have been taken for granted as even gold medalists must keep training. With all due respect, Mr. Chairman, if the U .S. capital markets are gold medalists, you are the Tonya Harding of securities regulations. Ouch. You are kneecapping the U .S. capital markets with an avalanche of red tape coming out of your commission. Preach. Barr is presumably referring to a scandal where U .S. ice skater Tonya Harding, I'm sure you all remember the story, I was a kid when this happened, and an assailant to attack her rival Nancy Kerrigan in the lead up to the 94 U .S. Figure Skating Championships and Winter Olympics. Kerrigan ended up not competing in the U .S. Championships and here is John Dickens who shared it here. Mr. Barr to Gensler, it's hilarious, you gotta watch these clips for yourself if you haven't seen them. So the next highlight, I wish the Biden administration would say, you are fired. That's right, shout out to Warren Davidson who also ripped into Gensler saying he hoped that the Biden administration would fire him. Powerful words. Davidson accused Gensler of pushing a woke political and social agenda and abusing his role as the SEC chairman. Preach. Massive shout out to the senators here doing their job. Damn good job. The U .S. Representative added that he hopes that the SEC Stabilization Act he introduced with fellow representative Tom Emmer could make it happen. Quoting him here, you're making the case for this bill, which is the SEC Stabilization Act. Every day you're acting as a chairman, he concluded, and Gensler wasn't even given a chance to respond. Now next highlight, Gensler reiterates Bitcoin isn't a security. That's right. When asked by U .S. House Committee Financial Services Chair Patrick McHenry whether Bitcoin is a security, Gensler eventually relented stating the Bitcoin didn't meet the Howie test. Quoting him here, it does not meet the Howie test, which is the law of the land. Then McHenry suggested Bitcoin must be a commodity, which Gensler avoided answering. Mr. No Clarity Gary, hence how he got the nickname, saying the test for that is outside the scope of U .S. security laws. Mr. Gensler, we're living in a clown world with this guy. Henry also suggested that Gensler try to choke off the digital asset ecosystem facts and refuse to be transparent with Congress about the SEC's connections with the FTX and former CEO SBF facts. Gensler also wasn't given the chance to respond to the claims made by McHenry. Next highlight, are Pokemon trading card securities? Gensler says it depends. Can't make this stuff up. Quoting Representative Richie Torres, I cross -examine SEC Chair Gensler about the term investment contract, which is key to determining his authority over crypto. Gensler struggled to answer basic questions like whether an investment contract requires a contract. His evasions are defeating and damning. Suppose I was to purchase Pokemon card. Would you constitute a security for this transaction? Gensler responded, well, I don't know the context before eventually concluding it isn't a security if you purchased it in a store. And then Torres asked if I were to purchase a tokenized Pokemon card on a digital exchange via the blockchain. Is that then a transaction? And then Mr. No Clarity Gary said, I'd have to know more because I don't know anything. Yeah, you can't make this stuff up. Gensler then explained to it when it's investing the public can anticipate profits based upon the efforts of others. Then the core of the Howie test, which it is, Torres called Gensler's evasions as damning to say the least. And the next highlight, a sign of defiance. Meanwhile, amongst the back and forth cross examinations between Gensler and representatives, the eagle eyed observers noticed a Coinbase stand with crypto logo behind the SEC chairman. Isn't that interesting? The Coinbase led initiative is a 14 month long campaign that launched back in August aiming to push crypto legislation in the United States. Coinbase also ran a stand with crypto day, which took place in Washington, D .C. September 27th to advocate for better cryptocurrency innovation and policy. So again, shout out to Warren Davidson, Tom Emmer, all the senators for holding Gary Gensler accountable. Hopefully they do something about it. What's your thoughts, fam? Do you think Gary is likely to listen to them and follow their instructions and approve a Bitcoin ETF immediately? Or do you think he'll continue kicking the can down the road as long as possible until he leaves his position as the chairman of the SEC? Let me know your honest thoughts in the comments right down below. Now let's break down the latest prediction coming from crypto analyst Michael Vanay Pop for some price actions for Bitcoin for the fourth quarter, which we are currently in for 2023. Then we'll break down the latest from the Winklevoss twins and their five hundred thousand dollar Bitcoin price action as the price action of Bitcoin continues to pump, baby. Let's go. Here we go. Let's break this baby down. Crypto trader Michael Vanay Pop is expressing bullish sentiment on Bitcoin in the coming months. Despite the recent struggles in a new video, he says that Bitcoin is on the cusp of reaching levels that offer accumulation opportunities per inch. According to the analyst, the trader Bitcoin could subsequently start an uptrend. Ultimately, Bitcoin is into an area of consolidation here, which makes it very likely we're going to have to retest here at twenty five, six and twenty five eight. If we are having a recess in that region, then there is this zone where I want to start buying my entries because of the recess, which is the ultimate recess. And if we're not going to get that, the flip to twenty six thousand five hundred, that is going to be the area where I think I want to activate my positions as well. And then we can start targeting twenty eight thousand. And then we can also start targeting the higher numbers, thirty thousand dollars plus or even more in the projection of quarter four. That is going to be very positive overall. Let me know if you agree that we'll have an overall positive quarter as we about to enter October. Let's go. Vanay Pop also says Bitcoin's current price action is similar to what was witnessed in the prior pre halving year, quitting him again. As long as we stay above the 200 week exponential moving average, we most likely are going to continue to the upside. And it starts to be very comparable to the period that we witnessed in 2015 and 2016. In this case, we needed it, but we started to consolidate and start to trend up afterwards. It is very likely to this period to slowly but surely the price starts to crawl up. And then we are going to have a case of the upside in the markets overall. And to watch this video analysis, the analyst did check the show notes below the video in the description. It's entitled Bitcoin price. I am looking to buy. So there you have it. And let me know if you agree or disagree with the analysts and are you currently bullish on the King crypto or do you think we're going to dip and test the lower levels? Let me know your honest thoughts, fam. And now let's break down our next story of the day. And the Winklevoss twins on the spot, Bitcoin ETF continuously being basically denied and kicked back and pushed back for the past decade. And then we're going to dive into their half a million dollar Bitcoin price prediction and why they're so confident that the Bitcoin price is going to hit their big target. So here we go. Let's discuss them with the SEC first. This was a story which was, let's see when their tweet was actually, let's scroll down. This is Cameron Winklevoss. This was actually on July 1st, it got 1 .1 million views. Now let me read the tweet. Today marks 10 years since Tyler and I filed for the first spot Bitcoin ETF. That's right. Over a decade ago, the SEC governor's refusal to approve these products for a decade has been a complete and utter disaster for US investors and demonstrates how the SEC is a failed regulator. Here's why. They protected investors from the best performing asset of the last decade. They pushed investors into toxic products like the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, GBTC, which trades at a massive discount to NAV and charges astronomical fees. They pushed spot Bitcoin activity offshore to unlicensed and unregulated venues. They pushed investors into the arms of FTX, subjecting them to one of the largest financial frauds in modern history. Preach. Maybe the SEC will reflect on its dismal record and instead of overstepping a statutory power and trying to act like a gatekeeper of economic life, it'll focus on fulfilling its mandate of investor protection, fostering fair and orderly markets and facilitating capital formation. This would have led to much better outcomes for US investors. Preach. In the meantime, best of luck to all those fighting the good fight to bring the US spot Bitcoin ETFs to life onwards. So much respect. I mean, 10 years of denying this ETF. I mean, you can't make this stuff up. I think they shared perfectly some of the reasoning. It's to hurt the investors and keep you poor and keep you wrecked and keep you desolate and dependent upon a broken government that threw us overboard so frickin long ago. So much respect to the Winklevoss twins. If you didn't know, they're the owners of the Gemini exchange and they were the very first ever to submit the spot Bitcoin ETF app to the SEC over a decade ago. And obviously they're sick and tired of Gary Gensler, his no clarity and his shenanigans. Just like the rest of us, it's time to fire Gensler. If you think Gensler should be investigated and potentially fired, let me know in the comments right down below and I'll be reading your comments out loud here in a little bit. Now for our breaking story of the day, let's discuss the Winklevoss twins and their case for a $500 ,000 Bitcoin price, which they believe is coming soon. So let's break this down, shall we? And welcome to y 'all just joining us in the live chat. Much love and much respect. So here we go. Winklevoss twins' prediction, Bitcoin will soon hit $500 ,000 per coin. And why? And again, shout out to Tyler and Cameron. Let's get, we already know their background, early Bitcoin investors, OGs, early investors as well with Facebook. Some claim that they're the real creators of Facebook and Zuckerberg stole it. But nonetheless, in a recent interview with the National News, the twins explained they remain convinced of the future of crypto. The main reason is the revolutionary and technical properties as well as the potential of Bitcoin to act as a store of value similar to gold. And in addition, crypto has many other advantages, mainly through programmability. Hence, the Winklevoss brothers believe that Bitcoin could even replace the precious metal. In the long term, Tyler Winklevoss shared the following. If you look at the properties that make gold valuable, Bitcoin matches each attribute or does better. The gold disruption story of Bitcoin is super powerful. We believe in it. Tyler Winklevoss explained his reasoning for the $500 ,000 Bitcoin price action, quitting him here. If you do the math, 21 million in the supply of Bitcoin, the market cap of gold, let's say it's 10 trillion, maybe it's 11 trillion, somewhere in that ballpark, that puts one Bitcoin if it disrupts gold and gets that market cap at $500 ,000 per coin. The two brothers did not want to give specific investment tips. However, Cameron reveals the strategy that they use, which is generally the simplest, which is simply HODL. Hold on for dear life, quitting him here. Generally speaking, if you subscribe to Bitcoin being a store of value type investment, then that strategy is HODL. The same way you would HODL gold is you buy and HODL long term investments. So according to the Winklevoss twins predicting the Bitcoin price will hit $500 ,000, they say predictions are difficult, but they believe that Bitcoin will hit the milestone within a decade. And when they were more recently interviewed and asked, where do you see Bitcoin in five years time? Here's what Cameron Winklevoss responded. We usually take a decade view on it. When we wrote a piece on the value that predicted it being $500 ,000 Bitcoin, we said within the decade. And I believe they wrote that in 2020. So they're basically saying by the year 2030, they're anticipating a $500 ,000 plus Bitcoin price with Bitcoin overtaking that of gold as far as the market cap. Now is that in three years from now or nine years? The timing part is hard, but I think the Bitcoin created $1 trillion worth of value in under a decade. That is fact. I believe back in November of 2021, Bitcoin's market cap surpassed a trillion dollar milestone and the total crypto market cap surpassed $3 trillion. But as of today, we're closer to a $500 billion Bitcoin market cap with the entire crypto market cap down to a trillion. Now, it also spawned many huge productions such as Ethereum and the entire asset class. He continues. If you look at the value increases in Bitcoin, it is this punctuated equilibrium where it is steady, steady, steady, and then boom, it reaches a new price level. This is the new normal. So it can happen very quickly. So there you have it, fam. Ultimately saying when Bitcoin takes off, it explodes quick and vast. And especially considering that two of the most bullish catalysts in Bitcoin history were on the cusp of. Six months away from a Bitcoin halving, we all know the Bitcoin cycles every four years, it drives the Bitcoin price up as it increases the scarcity as well as increase demand, basic stock to flow, numbers must go up. And we also have the approval of a Bitcoin ETF likely to take place in 2024, especially with Congress on Gensler's. But we also have the ETF experts such as Eric Balchunes given a 95 % chance probability that a spot Bitcoin ETF likely get approved in 2024. Those two catalysts will absolutely make Bitcoin rip to new all time highs entering price discovery mode like we have never seen before. So how high do you think the Bitcoin price will likely climb by the time of this next halving? Roughly six months out, scheduled to take place sometime in April of next year. Let me know your thoughts in the comments right down below. And don't forget to check out cryptonewsalerts .net for the full premium experience with video and to participate in the live Q &A. And I look forward to seeing you on tomorrow's episode. HODL.
Crypto News Alerts | Daily Bitcoin (BTC) & Cryptocurrency News
Fresh update on "gbtc" discussed on Crypto News Alerts | Daily Bitcoin (BTC) & Cryptocurrency News
"Welcome everybody to Crypto News Alerts, the number one daily Bitcoin pod. In today's show, I'll be breaking down the latest Bitcoin technical analysis as Bitcoin recaptures $27,000 and quoting Max Keiser, the high priest of Bitcoin, Bitcoin is the North Star guiding to the only safe haven asset in the world that protects against inflation, confiscation and censorship preach. Also in today's show, Ethereum futures ETFs can start trading as early as next week. According to top Bloomberg analysts, we'll also be discussing the SEC pushing back the deadline for spot Bitcoin ETF apps, definitely not a good look. And speaking of ETF apps, I'm also going to be sharing the five highlights of Gary Gensler's evasive testimony before Congress quoting Senator Warren Davidson. Gary Gensler's tenure at the SEC highlights two key problems. Number one, Gary Gensler's problem and number two, the SEC's structural problem. That's why I introduced the SEC Stabilization Act to fire Gary Gensler and restructure the SEC. Let's freaking go. Also in today's show, crypto analyst Michal van de Poppe predicts a very positive quarter four for 2023. I'll be sharing his targets in which he outlines. We're also going to be discussing the SEC's inaction on the spot Bitcoin ETF is a complete and utter disaster, according to the Winklevoss twins. And speaking of the Winklevoss twins, I'm also going to be sharing with you their $500,000 Bitcoin price prediction, which they say is coming soon. We'll also be taking a look at the overall crypto market. All this plus so much more in today's show. Yo what's good crypto fam? This is first and foremost, a video show. So if you want the full premium experience with video, visit my YouTube channel at cryptonewsalerts.net. Again that's cryptonewsalerts.net. Welcome everyone. This is pod episode number 1415. I'm your host JV. Today is September 28, 2023 and Bitcoin is finally back above 27,000 as we're pumping right when I hit the live button. We're currently above 27,100 up over 300% today and we continue climbing. Welcome everyone in the live chat. I gracefully appreciate y'all. Yeah, who knows? Maybe we'll hit 28,000 by the time today's live stream is over. Let's see. And make sure to let me know where you're tuning in from in that live chat as I'll be giving everyone a shout out towards the end of the show. And with that being shared, fam, now let's dive into today's market watch. As you can see here, every major crypto back in the green. Bitcoin above 27 G's. We got Ether up three and a half percent trading at $1,655 BNB, XRP, Cardano, you name it. And checking out coinmarketcap.com, we're currently sitting above $1.07 trillion with about $26 billion in volume in the past 24 hours, Bitcoin dominance at 49.1% and even the Ether dominance on the rise today at 18.5% and checking out the top 100 crypto gainers of the past 24 hours, holy moly, compound up 20% trading under 49 bucks, followed by Thor chain up 13% trading at $1.94, followed by Lido Dow up 8% trading at $1.59 and checking out the top 100 crypto gainers of the past week, massive gains, which we love to see, especially after a pretty bearish altcoin season to say the least. We got CompLead in the pack here as well up 20% and Rune up 13.4% and RLB up 13% and checking out the crypto greed and fear index, we're currently rated a 46 in fear yesterday at 44 last week, a 47 and last month, a 39 in fear. So there you have it, fam. How many of you are currently bullish on Bitcoin and how many of you took advantage of the recent dip? If so, let me know. It's good to see we pump in once again. So hopefully those positions are now in the green. Now let's break down today's Bitcoin technical analysis, check out the charts and why specifically the market is pumping right now. Here we go. Let's get it. Bitcoin hit new weekly highs after the September 28th Wall Street open as markets awaited fresh cues from the US Federal Reserve. And here you can see in the Bitcoin one hour Campbell chart, pretty freaking bullish to say the least. Data from Cointelegraph and TradingView showed Bitcoin price strength staging a comeback, having delivered what some referred to as a classic pump and dump 24 hours prior during the performance. Bitcoin hit a high of 26.8, which appeared on Bitstamp as a result of 2% daily gains before Bitcoin retraced all of its progress, then a slower grind higher than took hold with the bulls edging closer to 27,000, which we finally just recaptured here a few moments ago. Now GDP for quarter two grew by 1.7% year on year below the projected 2%, while the PCE index data for August came in in line with the expectations, quoting analyst Keith Allen, bring on the volatility. Now meanwhile, data from Binance's order book uploaded by Allen showed little by way of resistance standing in the way of the spot price under the 27,000 mark. So as you can see, just more bullishness for the king crypto, the macro data constituted just the prelude of the day's main event. Meanwhile, Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve due to the comment later on today, Powell, whose recent words failed to deliver noticeable volatility to the crypto markets was due to speak at the Fed's conversation with the chairman, a teacher town hall meeting event in Washington DC at 4 p.m. Eastern today. Now commenting on the state of play on Bitcoin markets, popular trader Dan crypto trades was a little more optimistic around the strength of the day's move compared to yesterday, September 27th, quoting him here back to yesterday's highs, but with considerably less open interests. No doubt there is longs chase in here, but it is less frothy than it was yesterday. Would still like to see longs chill out and not get to a full retrace later on. So there you have it. Let me know if you agree or disagree with the analysts. Meanwhile, quoting another analyst, right, capital Bitcoin is right back at the bull market support band cluster of moving averages, challenging to break out beyond them. Let's freaking go. Now, elsewhere in the day's analysis, he acknowledged that 29,000 could make a reappearance and still form a part of a broader come down for BTC. As he shares here, it's important to remember the Bitcoin could technically rally even as high as 29,000 to form a new lower high, which would be phase A and B. He explained alongside this chart. So there you have it. Let me know if you are currently more bullish or bearish on the King crypto and quoting the high priest of Bitcoin, Max Kaiser, Bitcoin is the North star guiding to the only safe haven asset in the world that protects against inflation confiscation and censorship preach. Now welcome to y'all just joining us in today's podcast. As always, I appreciate everyone's daily support and means the world. And now let's discuss our next story of the day as Bitcoin continues to pump, shall we? We're going to be discussing the Ethereum futures ETFs, which can get approval. They say potentially as early as next week. So let's break this one down, shall we? Ether futures ETFs could start trading for the first time in the United States as early as next week. According to top Bloomberg analysts on September 28th, which is today, Bloomberg intelligence analyst, James Safart said in an ex post, it was looking like the sec is going to let a bunch of Ethereum futures ETFs go next week. Potentially. His comments were in response to fellow ETF analyst, Eric Balchunes, who said he was hearing that the U S SCC wanted to accelerate the launch of Ethereum future ETFs quitting him here. They want it off their plate before the shutdown, he said, adding that he's heard various filers updates on their documents by Friday afternoon so they can start trading as early as Tuesday next week. As outlined here on X. Now the U S S government's expected to shut down at 1201 a.m. Eastern on October 1st. If Congress fails to agree on or provide funding for the new fiscal year, which is expected to impact the country's financial regulators amongst federal agencies. Now neither specified their sources for the latest update on the long list of crypto ETFs in the queue. There are currently 15 ether futures ETFs from nine issuers currently awaiting approval. According to the analysts in a September 27th note, which is yesterday, companies proposing an Ethereum futures or hybrid ETF product include VanEck pro shares, grayscale volatility shares bitwise direction, as well as round Hill. The analysts gave ether future ETFs a 90% chance of launching in October with Valkyrie's ether exposure on October 3rd, quoting them here. We expect pure Ethereum futures ETFs to start trading the following week, thanks to volatility shares actions. However, we don't expect all of them to launch. So do note that now as previously reported that ether futures ETFs may be approved in October causing the 11% spike in ether prices and probably why the Ethereum dominance is up as it's been stagnant and down for quite some time. Ether prices are on the gain, currently just under $1,700 and we'll see how high we continue to pump, but do note crypto future products aren't as hotly as anticipated as their spot based alternatives. There are already been Bitcoin futures ETFs approved in the United States since 2021, which is a fact, which leads us to the million dollar question. Why have they approved a futures ETFs, but continue to deny and delay all the spot ETFs? We're going to be getting to that a little later as I share with you the highlights from Congress pressing the chairman of the SEC, Gary Gensler. It's going to get very interesting here in a little bit, but now let's dive a little deeper and discuss specifically the spot Bitcoin ETFs and what is happening and why they're being pushed back and the latest updates of where we're currently at. So here we go and welcome y'all just tuning in. Make sure to smash that like fam. The US SEC has delayed deciding whether to approve or disapprove spot Ether ETFs. And like I said, we're going to be getting in October potentially get some approvals, but in separate notices filed September 27th, the SEC said it would designate a longer period on whether to approve or disapprove these proposed changes. The commission finds it inappropriate to designate a longer period within which to take action on the proposed rule change so that it has sufficient time to consider the proposed rule change and the issues raised there within. The delay came the same day as the NASDAQ market filed the proposed rule change with the SEC for listing its mix ETH basically ETF, a combination of Ether holdings and futures contracts and also proposed rule changes with the New York Stock Exchange, ARCA for the Grayscale Ethereum Futures Trust, hashtag Bitcoin Futures ETF and the CBOE BXE exchange for the Franklin Bitcoin ETF were all filed. September 27th, that's right. If you're not familiar with Franklin Templeton, there are one and a half trillion dollar asset manager. They're also applying for an ETF. Now the SEC announced September 26th, it would designate a longer period to decide on these spot ETF applications. And as James Safart shares here, here's VanEx delay as expected. So another one, I mean, exactly what we were expecting from the SEC. Now in August, ARK investment manager, founder and CEO Kathy Wood speculated that should the SEC move forward with the spot ETF approvals, it would allow multiple listings simultaneously to avoid giving any single company an advantage over another in the market. Her remarks came before Grayscale Investments won a court battle with the SEC over its spot Bitcoin ETF app, which will likely be reviewed in which they're trying to turn their GBTC product into a spot ETF. So hopefully it happens. To date, the SEC has never approved the spot crypto ETF in the United States, but has allowed the listing of crypto linked futures ETFs and a leveraged Bitcoin futures ETF. Manipulation, fam. The next deadlines for the spot crypto ETF apps from firms, which include the largest asset manager in the world, BlackRock, Wisdom Tree, Invesco, Galaxy, Valkyrie, Bitwise and Fidelity are all scheduled for October. So we'll see how this is likely to play out considering October is now only three days away. Are we going to get some ETF approvals by then? Who knows? I think more than likely they're going to push it back again. However, Congress right now is pressing Gary Gensler to approve a spot Bitcoin ETF and ETPs immediately. So now let's break this down. If you missed Gensler, he was pressed by Congress just yesterday. And I know it's on everyone's mind. So let's break down some of the highlights from this recent hearing with Congress and the chairman of the SEC, Gary Gensler. Let's break it down, shall we? Here we go. Blame for kneecapping capital markets in the U.S. and slam for dodging questions around Bitcoin and Pokemon cards. SEC chair Gensler appears to have had one hell of a grilling from Congress this week. September 27th, the U.S. SEC chief again found himself in front of lawmakers in a scheduled hearing to discuss his agency's oversight of the markets. Here are some of the highlights. First and foremost, you are the Tonya Harding of security regulations. We should create a Gary Gensler diss track, right? One of the more colorful analogies came from U.S. Representative Andy Barr, who accused Gensler of kneecapping the U.S. capital markets with regulatory red tape. Barr referred to the old testimony from Gensler where Gensler argued that the U.S. is the largest, most sophisticated and innovative capital market in the world and that shouldn't have been taken for granted as even gold medalists must keep training. With all due respect, Mr. Chairman, if the U.S. capital markets are gold medalists, you are the Tonya Harding of securities regulations. Ouch. You are kneecapping the U.S. capital markets with an avalanche of red tape coming out of your commission. Preach. Barr is presumably referring to a scandal where U.S. ice skater Tonya Harding, I'm sure you all remember the story, I was a kid when this happened, and an assailant to attack her rival Nancy Kerrigan in the lead up to the 94 U.S. Figure Skating Championships and Winter Olympics. Kerrigan ended up not competing in the U.S. Championships and here is John Dickens who shared it here. Mr. Barr to Gensler, it's hilarious, you gotta watch these clips for yourself if you haven't seen them. So the next highlight, I wish the Biden administration would say, you are fired. That's right, shout out to Warren Davidson who also ripped into Gensler saying he hoped that the Biden administration would fire him. Powerful words. Davidson accused Gensler of pushing a woke political and social agenda and abusing his role as the SEC chairman. Preach. Massive shout out to the senators here doing their job. Damn good job. The U.S. Representative added that he hopes that the SEC Stabilization Act he introduced with fellow representative Tom Emmer could make it happen. Quoting him here, you're making the case for this bill, which is the SEC Stabilization Act. Every day you're acting as a chairman, he concluded, and Gensler wasn't even given a chance to respond. Now next highlight, Gensler reiterates Bitcoin isn't a security. That's right. When asked by U.S. House Committee Financial Services Chair Patrick McHenry whether Bitcoin is a security, Gensler eventually relented stating the Bitcoin didn't meet the Howie test. Quoting him here, it does not meet the Howie test, which is the law of the land. Then McHenry suggested Bitcoin must be a commodity, which Gensler avoided answering. Mr. No Clarity Gary, hence how he got the nickname, saying the test for that is outside the scope of U.S. security laws. Mr. Gensler, we're living in a clown world with this guy. Henry also suggested that Gensler try to choke off the digital asset ecosystem facts and refuse to be transparent with Congress about the SEC's connections with the FTX and former CEO SBF facts. Gensler also wasn't given the chance to respond to the claims made by McHenry. Next highlight, are Pokemon trading card securities? Gensler says it depends. Can't make this stuff up. Quoting Representative Richie Torres, I cross-examine SEC Chair Gensler about the term investment contract, which is key to determining his authority over crypto. Gensler struggled to answer basic questions like whether an investment contract requires a contract. His evasions are defeating and damning. Suppose I was to purchase Pokemon card. Would you constitute a security for this transaction? Gensler responded, well, I don't know the context before eventually concluding it isn't a security if you purchased it in a store. And then Torres asked if I were to purchase a tokenized Pokemon card on a digital exchange via the blockchain. Is that then a transaction? And then Mr. No Clarity Gary said, I'd have to know more because I don't know anything. Yeah, you can't make this stuff up. Gensler then explained to it when it's investing the public can anticipate profits based upon the efforts of others. Then the core of the Howie test, which it is, Torres called Gensler's evasions as damning to say the least. And the next highlight, a sign of defiance. Meanwhile, amongst the back and forth cross examinations between Gensler and representatives, the eagle eyed observers noticed a Coinbase stand with crypto logo behind the SEC chairman. Isn't that interesting? The Coinbase led initiative is a 14 month long campaign that launched back in August aiming to push crypto legislation in the United States. Coinbase also ran a stand with crypto day, which took place in Washington, D.C. September 27th to advocate for better cryptocurrency innovation and policy. So again, shout out to Warren Davidson, Tom Emmer, all the senators for holding Gary Gensler accountable. Hopefully they do something about it. What's your thoughts, fam? Do you think Gary is likely to listen to them and follow their instructions and approve a Bitcoin ETF immediately? Or do you think he'll continue kicking the can down the road as long as possible until he leaves his position as the chairman of the SEC? Let me know your honest thoughts in the comments right down below. Now let's break down the latest prediction coming from crypto analyst Michael Vanay Pop for some price actions for Bitcoin for the fourth quarter, which we are currently in for 2023. Then we'll break down the latest from the Winklevoss twins and their five hundred thousand dollar Bitcoin price action as the price action of Bitcoin continues to pump, baby. Let's go. Here we go. Let's break this baby down. Crypto trader Michael Vanay Pop is expressing bullish sentiment on Bitcoin in the coming months. Despite the recent struggles in a new video, he says that Bitcoin is on the cusp of reaching levels that offer accumulation opportunities per inch. According to the analyst, the trader Bitcoin could subsequently start an uptrend. Ultimately, Bitcoin is into an area of consolidation here, which makes it very likely we're going to have to retest here at twenty five, six and twenty five eight. If we are having a recess in that region, then there is this zone where I want to start buying my entries because of the recess, which is the ultimate recess. And if we're not going to get that, the flip to twenty six thousand five hundred, that is going to be the area where I think I want to activate my positions as well. And then we can start targeting twenty eight thousand. And then we can also start targeting the higher numbers, thirty thousand dollars plus or even more in the projection of quarter four. That is going to be very positive overall. Let me know if you agree that we'll have an overall positive quarter as we about to enter October. Let's go. Vanay Pop also says Bitcoin's current price action is similar to what was witnessed in the prior pre halving year, quitting him again. As long as we stay above the 200 week exponential moving average, we most likely are going to continue to the upside. And it starts to be very comparable to the period that we witnessed in 2015 and 2016. In this case, we needed it, but we started to consolidate and start to trend up afterwards. It is very likely to this period to slowly but surely the price starts to crawl up. And then we are going to have a case of the upside in the markets overall. And to watch this video analysis, the analyst did check the show notes below the video in the description. It's entitled Bitcoin price. I am looking to buy. So there you have it. And let me know if you agree or disagree with the analysts and are you currently bullish on the King crypto or do you think we're going to dip and test the lower levels? Let me know your honest thoughts, fam. And now let's break down our next story of the day. And the Winklevoss twins on the spot, Bitcoin ETF continuously being basically denied and kicked back and pushed back for the past decade. And then we're going to dive into their half a million dollar Bitcoin price prediction and why they're so confident that the Bitcoin price is going to hit their big target. So here we go. Let's discuss them with the SEC first. This was a story which was, let's see when their tweet was actually, let's scroll down. This is Cameron Winklevoss. This was actually on July 1st, it got 1.1 million views. Now let me read the tweet. Today marks 10 years since Tyler and I filed for the first spot Bitcoin ETF. That's right. Over a decade ago, the SEC governor's refusal to approve these products for a decade has been a complete and utter disaster for US investors and demonstrates how the SEC is a failed regulator. Here's why. They protected investors from the best performing asset of the last decade. They pushed investors into toxic products like the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, GBTC, which trades at a massive discount to NAV and charges astronomical fees. They pushed spot Bitcoin activity offshore to unlicensed and unregulated venues. They pushed investors into the arms of FTX, subjecting them to one of the largest financial frauds in modern history. Preach. Maybe the SEC will reflect on its dismal record and instead of overstepping a statutory power and trying to act like a gatekeeper of economic life, it'll focus on fulfilling its mandate of investor protection, fostering fair and orderly markets and facilitating capital formation. This would have led to much better outcomes for US investors. Preach. In the meantime, best of luck to all those fighting the good fight to bring the US spot Bitcoin ETFs to life onwards. So much respect. I mean, 10 years of denying this ETF. I mean, you can't make this stuff up. I think they shared perfectly some of the reasoning. It's to hurt the investors and keep you poor and keep you wrecked and keep you desolate and dependent upon a broken government that threw us overboard so frickin long ago. So much respect to the Winklevoss twins. If you didn't know, they're the owners of the Gemini exchange and they were the very first ever to submit the spot Bitcoin ETF app to the SEC over a decade ago. And obviously they're sick and tired of Gary Gensler, his no clarity and his shenanigans. Just like the rest of us, it's time to fire Gensler. If you think Gensler should be investigated and potentially fired, let me know in the comments right down below and I'll be reading your comments out loud here in a little bit. Now for our breaking story of the day, let's discuss the Winklevoss twins and their case for a $500,000 Bitcoin price, which they believe is coming soon. So let's break this down, shall we? And welcome to y'all just joining us in the live chat. Much love and much respect. So here we go. Winklevoss twins' prediction, Bitcoin will soon hit $500,000 per coin. And why? And again, shout out to Tyler and Cameron. Let's get, we already know their background, early Bitcoin investors, OGs, early investors as well with Facebook. Some claim that they're the real creators of Facebook and Zuckerberg stole it. But nonetheless, in a recent interview with the National News, the twins explained they remain convinced of the future of crypto. The main reason is the revolutionary and technical properties as well as the potential of Bitcoin to act as a store of value similar to gold. And in addition, crypto has many other advantages, mainly through programmability. Hence, the Winklevoss brothers believe that Bitcoin could even replace the precious metal. In the long term, Tyler Winklevoss shared the following. If you look at the properties that make gold valuable, Bitcoin matches each attribute or does better. The gold disruption story of Bitcoin is super powerful. We believe in it. Tyler Winklevoss explained his reasoning for the $500,000 Bitcoin price action, quitting him here. If you do the math, 21 million in the supply of Bitcoin, the market cap of gold, let's say it's 10 trillion, maybe it's 11 trillion, somewhere in that ballpark, that puts one Bitcoin if it disrupts gold and gets that market cap at $500,000 per coin. The two brothers did not want to give specific investment tips. However, Cameron reveals the strategy that they use, which is generally the simplest, which is simply HODL. Hold on for dear life, quitting him here. Generally speaking, if you subscribe to Bitcoin being a store of value type investment, then that strategy is HODL. The same way you would HODL gold is you buy and HODL long term investments. So according to the Winklevoss twins predicting the Bitcoin price will hit $500,000, they say predictions are difficult, but they believe that Bitcoin will hit the milestone within a decade. And when they were more recently interviewed and asked, where do you see Bitcoin in five years time? Here's what Cameron Winklevoss responded. We usually take a decade view on it. When we wrote a piece on the value that predicted it being $500,000 Bitcoin, we said within the decade. And I believe they wrote that in 2020. So they're basically saying by the year 2030, they're anticipating a $500,000 plus Bitcoin price with Bitcoin overtaking that of gold as far as the market cap. Now is that in three years from now or nine years? The timing part is hard, but I think the Bitcoin created $1 trillion worth of value in under a decade. That is fact. I believe back in November of 2021, Bitcoin's market cap surpassed a trillion dollar milestone and the total crypto market cap surpassed $3 trillion. But as of today, we're closer to a $500 billion Bitcoin market cap with the entire crypto market cap down to a trillion. Now, it also spawned many huge productions such as Ethereum and the entire asset class. He continues. If you look at the value increases in Bitcoin, it is this punctuated equilibrium where it is steady, steady, steady, and then boom, it reaches a new price level. This is the new normal. So it can happen very quickly. So there you have it, fam. Ultimately saying when Bitcoin takes off, it explodes quick and vast. And especially considering that two of the most bullish catalysts in Bitcoin history were on the cusp of. Six months away from a Bitcoin halving, we all know the Bitcoin cycles every four years, it drives the Bitcoin price up as it increases the scarcity as well as increase demand, basic stock to flow, numbers must go up. And we also have the approval of a Bitcoin ETF likely to take place in 2024, especially with Congress on Gensler's. But we also have the ETF experts such as Eric Balchunes given a 95% chance probability that a spot Bitcoin ETF likely get approved in 2024. Those two catalysts will absolutely make Bitcoin rip to new all time highs entering price discovery mode like we have never seen before. So how high do you think the Bitcoin price will likely climb by the time of this next halving? Roughly six months out, scheduled to take place sometime in April of next year. Let me know your thoughts in the comments right down below. And don't forget to check out cryptonewsalerts.net for the full premium experience with video and to participate in the live Q &A. And I look forward to seeing you on tomorrow's episode. HODL.
The Café Bitcoin Podcast
A highlight from Self-Custody, CoinJoins, and Q&A with Craig Raw, Sparrow Wallet - September 27th, 2023
"Hello, and welcome to the Cafe Bitcoin Podcast brought to you by Swan Bitcoin, the best way to buy and learn about Bitcoin. I'm your host, Alex Danson, and we're excited to announce that we're bringing the Cafe Bitcoin Conversations Twitter Spaces to you on this show, the Cafe Bitcoin Podcast, Monday through Friday every week. Join us as we speak to guests like Michael Saylor, Len Alden, Corey Clifston, Greg Foss, Tomer Strohle, and many others in the Bitcoin space. Also, be sure to hit that subscribe button. Make sure you get notifications when we launch a new episode. You can join us live on Twitter Spaces Monday through Friday, starting at 7 a .m. Pacific and 10 a .m. Eastern every morning to become part of the conversation yourself. Thanks again. We look forward to bringing you the best Bitcoin content daily here on the Cafe Bitcoin Podcast. All right. All right. Let's go. I don't know about you guys, but I'm getting fired up. Bitcoin is next week. Dude, I am so excited. I'm I'm visiting three Bitcoiners on the way down. Super excited. It's going to be a hell of a lot of fun. Yeah, man. All right. Good morning and welcome, Dom Bay, Mickey. I assume that's Jordan on the Bitcoin Veterans handle, Terrence, Peter, Shane Hazel on the audience, throwing you an invite. Right. OK, quick little update. So next week, next week, we are not doing Cafe Bitcoin on Monday and Tuesdays. Swan team is traveling on Monday. Tuesday, we're going to be having like an offsite. So not going to be around Wednesday. We are resuming our regular schedule. Broadcasting from the hotel Thursday. Broadcasting live from the Swan dome Thursday morning and Friday morning. So on Thursday, we've got our crew plus BTC sessions. Ben Perrin on Friday. We are going to have Tip Enzi and Tomer Strohlight. We'll do it live. Do it live. I can write it and we'll do it live. Yeah, finally, dude, that's what I'm talking about. That's preparation. Asking Tip Enzi if she wants to perform Cantillionaire's game live. I don't know if that's going to happen, but we're going to ask her. If she does that, I will need padded area around me because that that would be insane. That's that's a tough song to do live, though, for sure. Oh, shit. Yeah. Right. You need to do some Wim Hof breathing exercises before spitting that that verse. Dude, I mean, she told me that like she's not really a rapper, right? She did a lot of editing to make the songs come out the way she wants. Good morning, Shane. How are you doing? Good morning, brother. I am working away here in the background, just enjoying a nice respite from the heat down here in North Georgia, man. It's pretty nice, but I'm getting pretty excited for PV next week. And I have a lot of people. I'm actually hosting a panel out there and looking forward to it. Yeah, that's right. That's the other thing. We're going to be doing a Bitcoin Veterans panel live at the Swan Dome. I think that's going to be on Friday. So that'll be cool. That's going to be myself, Shane Hazel. It will be Gabe Lord, Mickey Koss and Jordan Ganrel. The Swan Dome has some firepower this year. I'm not going to lie. Yeah, man. I don't know. I think this is the test run. They're not sure if they want to let Bitcoin Veterans on the main stage yet. They're testing, they're seeing, they're like, what are these crazy fuckers going to do? Like, let's see what's up. Yeah, let me just apologize in advance for screwing up our chances at that. Let me go ahead and apologize for Jordan in advance, too, because, I mean, I think if we don't burn it down, it's a huge success. We all are apologizing to Jordan and for Jordan in advance and considering getting an extra insurance rider for this particular event. OK, what time are you all going up to five? No, no. So Bitcoin Veterans is going to we're doing Cafe Bitcoin 9 a .m. Sharp Eastern and then there will be a short intro and then we're going right into Bitcoin Veterans starting at 10 a .m. on Friday in the Swan Dome. God, I was only asking because if you were going after myself in blue collar, it would for sure be already burned down. So it's checking. Any update on the flamethrower? Having a little trouble in the marshal's office. They don't seem to think that 30 to 40 foot flame lengths that I can handle that. So it's it's a back and forth. It's unlikely, but, you know, never say never. All right, we'll hold out hope. Let's get rolling into the show today. You are listening to Cafe Bitcoin. This is episode 443. Shout outs to our supporters on Fountain and Noster Nests. Our mission for this show is to provide the signal in a sea of noise. Teach the other seven billion people on this planet why there's hope because of this bright orange future that we call Bitcoin. Today, we are discussing Bitcoin news, covering some lizard alerts and talking about what's going on in the real estate markets as well. Later today, we have Craig Raw, the founder of Sparrow, looking forward to that. We're going to we're going to dig in. Last time we had Craig here, we did kind of a lot of background stuff like what is Sparrow all that. Today, we're going to get a little deeper into the weeds. We're going to go straight into the technical stuff. So if you want to know about Sparrow, have questions, whatever. We're going to go straight into that. Right. What's the most interesting breaking news? There's a congressman beating up Gary Gensler now to get those ETFs approved. And then at the same time, the SEC just delayed like three ETFs, I think, even though they're not even, you know, like a month from the deadline. And so they're starting to kick the can earlier, I guess. So it's sort of a strange situation. Maybe they're trying to line up all the timelines or something. Good morning, on the four elected officials in their open letter asking, demanding Gensler approve the Bitcoin ETF. They mentioned Fidelity, BlackRock and Grayscale, thanks to probably the lobbying by Barry Silbert and his compadres. Grayscale doesn't belong in that group. It just doesn't because BlackRock and Fidelity together manage about 13 trillion freaking dollars. Grayscale is a pimp. It's a fly on the windshield. It's very small. And Barry has a lot of problems with his ethics and genesis, GBTC kind of co -mingling funds or whatever they were doing. I understand that a lot of people who have GBTC, I have GBTC, want the conversion to happen sooner. But they're just not in the same class, ethically and just practically. That's like saying a corner grocery store belongs with Walmart. Well, all right then. So Franklin Templeton just filed a 19B -4 for its spot Bitcoin ETF application, which is officially starting the clock with the SEC. Franklin Templeton manages another one and a half trillion dollars. So the big boys are looking like the big boys are wading into the game. Yeah, the big four are besides Franklin Templeton, which is about one and a half trillion. The last one is Invesco, which is also about one and a half trillion. And those are all much bigger than the biggest of the also RANs or the smaller spot BTC applicants like ARK. And Valkyrie and so forth, they're much, much smaller, maybe tens of billions or less. Hey, Terrence, for a liquor store, doesn't Grayscale have a lot of Bitcoin in custody? They do. It's going to be pretty minor compared to the rush of cash that should flood in. Assuming like, you know, the DOJ stuff with Binance and stuff is looks like it's there's more certainty around that. They're trying to they're talking about maybe having a plea deal with CZ and Binance. So if that gets resolved, then yeah, you have a pretty big green light. I will say like one thing with the gold ETFs when those took off and gold prices shot up. That will also correlated with massive problems in the fiscal and monetary policy. And we definitely have that on the fiscal side. I would say on the monetary side rates are, you know, higher than you'd like for liquidity, money supplies going down. But on the fiscal side, with a ridiculous spending debt and deficits, that sets up a big that's a great setup for a big flood of cash to come in. As long as one of the big four launches a big Bitcoin ETF. Hey, Alex, not to not to revisit an old horse, I know that's a butchering of the phrase, but, you know, I know yesterday we were talking about institutional. And for those listening again, like, you know, the ETF comes up a lot again because it is a vehicle for institutional funds to hold commodities. I know you guys were talking about it yesterday, but like other commodities, as far as I know, funds like pension funds, any commodities they hold, none of it is physical. All of it is futures or ETF indexes. And a lot of that has to do with being able to liquidate, move things around, balance the fund, etc. All right, well, you would you mind explaining that a little more in depth for people who don't get that? Because so many I've run into many people who don't understand that they're like, why don't pension funds just buy the underlying asset? Why don't they buy the Bitcoin directly? Why don't they buy gold directly? Why don't they buy corn directly? Why don't they buy oil directly? What's the problem with that? Yeah, so one of the things with pension funds is there's a lot going on.
The Bitboy Crypto Podcast
A highlight from Bitcoin Bull Market: What No Ones Telling You!
"Anytime you start making paper Bitcoin, or paper silver, or paper gold, and what do I mean by that? Futures, ETFs, stuff like that, that creates paper version. That's not actual spot, right? So anytime you do that, yes, the same money that comes in to buy it, so that they can actually short it, and they could keep it down with unlimited money and unlimited leverage, they could keep it down indefinitely, or until they scoop up as much as they want, when everyone loses interest, and then it takes off. What's up, everybody? Good morning, good afternoon, and good night wherever you're tuned in from. Welcome to another Saturday edition of the Alpha series here on Discover Crypto. My name is Kelly Kellum. Welcome to the show. If this is your first time, and I hope to guarantee that it's not going to be your last time, we've got an excellent guest lined up for you today. Mr. Jesse Olson is going to be breaking down what it means to cut the noise out of all these narratives from FUD and HOPE. Look at the chart, let the chart do the talking for you. So without any further ado, let's go ahead and dive in right to our guest. And I want to ask him a question right up front. Jesse, first off, thank you for being here, but do you think we're still going to get another bull run, bull runs like we've seen in the past, or do you think all these new institutions coming in and big money players coming into the market are going to change the dynamic of what a bull run is in Bitcoin? What's your thoughts? What's up, Kelly? Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. And we should have some fun here. Coming from a trading standpoint, right? I'm going to come from a trading standpoint and a point of view. When I first got the first bull run, right, 2020, 2021, I was still learning. And yes, I was doing pretty good 2021, really good. But the whole time I was saying this, I was like, please give me one more bull run after this, right? Please give me one more. I'm not 100 % certain that we get another bull run like we did on the last one. And I'm not as optimistic with the big institutions coming in. And I wasn't back in 2020 and I wasn't in 2021. Because coming from options, I know that manipulation is in there because they want to make money. They have billions, if not trillions of dollars. They've had algorithms for, I don't know, 12, 15 years or longer that are probably where us retail folk are at now, right? And they have the money behind it, right? So when futures were created end of 2017, I think Bitcoin started to become more correlated. Then there's trusts like GBTC. And if there's ETFs and stuff like that, I think it will become more correlated. I think it's amazing for traders, right? I just don't think that if I'm wrong, I hope I'm wrong because I will do much better, right? I will do much better if we get a massive bull run. But if we don't, it's because it will become more of a trading thing than it will be a long -term great. I just, you know, it can't be that easy. And if it is great, we'll all be there, right? I'm trading Bitcoin. I'm trading it with leverage. I welcome that. I make way more money on a long position with leverage than I do on a short position because, A, the leverage you're gaining profit and the coin value is going up. But on the short side, the coin value isn't going up, it's going down. So I collect more coins, but the coin value isn't going up. So first and foremost, I do want another bull run and I beg for another bull run so all my snipers can participate and they can make money as well and change their lives. But I'm not certain that it's going to happen. And I would be surprised if they allow it to happen. If big companies are coming in, you know, I don't know. We'll see. It'll be interesting to see. But we'll be there if it does and we won't be surprised if it doesn't. Put it that way. Now, Jesse, I have to say how much I appreciate people that are in this space that bring a balanced view because everybody thinks it's just going to go up, up and away, especially considering the fact that we have the halving right around the corner. Do you think the halving is going to be the primary driver of if we do get a bull run? Do you think the halving really truly is going to have an impact on price action? What's your thoughts on this? I have a couple of thoughts on it. So one, I think the halving will still play a factor, right? If all things are the same, if the same, you know, if the one there's a couple of things that could hurt it. Right. So Bitcoin has never Bitcoin came out after the 2008 crash. Right. So it's never experienced a dot com bubble crash. It never experienced 2008 crash. I have. I went back to zero. I lost everything. So for me, the up only left me a long time ago. Right. Like, I know it's not up only when I thought it was up only in my mid 20s. Right. So for me, a couple of those things. I do have hope for Bitcoin. I do believe on some level they'll be able to manipulate it and suppress it. If you look at gold and silver. Right. Gold and silver should probably be $30 ,000 an ounce by now for gold. And silver should probably be $1 ,000 per ounce by now. And because of paper, silver and gold should probably suppress it. Right. So I believe those are probably should be worth a lot more. The one positive with Bitcoin is anyone can go buy spot Bitcoin much easier than silver and gold. Right. I've bought silver and gold and they deliver it to you in a weird package and it's heavy. Right. It's not easily transportable and all that stuff. So there are some positive about Bitcoin. Right. So, you know, who knows what the agendas are? I don't. That's why I stick hyper focus to the charts, because I don't know what the backroom deals are happening. I don't know the narratives. I don't know any of that stuff. I'm not a top point one percenter making those decisions. So the only thing I can do is trade the charts. But, you know, going back, if we do get this bull run, I do have some reasons why, you know, like you said, you brought up one hundred fifty thousand. I do have a couple of reasons why that I could see Bitcoin hit one hundred and ten, one twenty five and maybe even top would be like one hundred forty thousand dollars. But that's a lot of what ifs. So, you know, we will take it level by level and swing trade the heck out of it all the way all the way up in the bull run. If we get another bull run, that's kind of like the topping that I would see price it. So now I appreciate that answer. And I'd like to shift gears here for a second, because you've been trading for years, years before Bitcoin was even around. And I'd like to dive into that experience a little bit and throw it back to the beginners out there, because we do have beginners that are out there still right now. But disproportionately, as we get new bullish impulses, especially in Bitcoin or the rest of the altcoin markets, we're going to have a huge number, a huge influx of new people into the space. So what would you say if you had that? Maybe not a secret sauce, but a beginner's pack, a beginner's sort of encouragement and the need to knows and the need to uses for people that are starting from scratch. Maybe they don't have a pro trading view account. Maybe they're not buying one of our indicators of one of your indicators or some of the many paid indicators out there. There's a lot of free tools. So what would you say for beginners getting started today or at any point in the future? Where do they start? How do they dive into this? Yeah, definitely. I mean, you know, first and foremost, like before this, I would say salvage as much capital at first as possible. I feel like the faster you want to jump in to make money, the faster you are going to lose money. So it sounds generic that, you know, learn first. Right. But say you already passed, you're going down discovery road and you're trying to learn and develop your own strategy. Right. Well, if you're on trading view, for example, you can get a relative strength indicator for free. If you're on trading view, free platform, you can get the MACD indicator. I think that's the most commonly used for beginners is the MACD indicator. And just before you do anything else, just study it and study it some more and then back test it and develop a strategy based off of your back test. There's an amazing replay button on trading view that you can go back and kind of after you develop a strategy, you can easily go back and hit the replay video and see what that, you know, how that kind of plays out in the past. It doesn't mean it's going to happen in the future, but you can get an idea over time of back testing with the replay button. That's probably number one. And then paper trade. I know it's not exciting. I know I didn't do it. I jumped head head first. I would have five digit wins followed by five digit losses. And it was brutal. Right. And I've never had a six digit loss, but I've had six digit wins. But I've had five digit losses and it wasn't until the five digit losses that made me like I made five digit wins with basically hardly any strategy whatsoever. And that was probably the worst thing that could happen. The best thing that could happen is that I had the five digit win loss and it made me go back to the drawing board. It made me reevaluate my whole life. What am I doing in trading type of thing? That aha moment. And that's when I really went obsessive on the charts and developing my own strategy. I saw other people's strategies out there. And when I would back test it, I went through a phase where I back tested so many other people's strategies. I would just say, didn't work. This doesn't work for me. This doesn't work for me. And every strategy could work differently for different people, especially on different timeframes. So develop something that works for you. Find a timeframe that works for you and your lifestyle. Some of our snipers, they can't do swing trading on the daily chart. They don't have the patience for it. They're scalpers. They're day traders. So you got to know yourself too. And then at that point, as you're graduating from paper trading and back testing, the next level is maybe risk some lunch money. The amount of money you and I would go off for like a nice lunch. And if I were to buy your lunch, I don't even think twice about it. Like something that I'm not even going to lose sleep over. Then I talk about doing lunch money. Then maybe you do lunch money with leverage or blah, blah, blah, or a little bit more money with spot, right? So you got to take it in levels and kind of make it a systematic approach. And if you treat it like a business in those levels, that's when you're going to have a better chance of making it. Otherwise, if you jump straight in and you want to go 50 X leverage, no strategy, no experience, no back testing. I guarantee you blow up account. I guarantee it. One of the things I say is like, if you're, if you're trying to double down, like you were doing well, right? So a couple of things that I've talked about in coaching is that, and by the way, I don't do live coaching anymore. I have recorded coaching, but I don't do live coaching. It's just too much time and energy. But when I was doing those live coaching calls, we talked about this and we talked about that. You know, every time you win a trade, if you're treating it like a business, you pull out, for example, I pull out my personal strategies. I pull out 50 % out of that trading kill and I take it out of the digital world and then go maybe put it in the physical world or diversify in some other way. Right? So you're always taking a piece off, always taking a piece off. And one of them, one of the students is like extremely young. Right. And, uh, I, I said, Hey, what are you gonna do with your winnings? Right. He crushed it. And I was actually jealous of his trade. He, he actually nailed it on high leverage. And I'm like, I'm like, go buy your mom something nice. Right. So not only take like money off the table, but it's the whole mindset. If you're not taking money off the table on each trade, what happens is you're up. Like you were say, you know, $50 ,000, $100 ,000, $10 ,000, $1 ,000. Maybe you're brand new. You're up $1 ,000. And that's the most you've ever had. You want to flip that into $10 ,000, right? Then you want to flip that into a million dollars. And that's, and that's what you just fell into that same example you just gave you fell into that mindset. And you only can do that by learning the hard way. So what you have to do is be more systematic about it. And after a win, fighting the urge of going back in and instead of going all back in, you're, you're pulling some out and then you're, you're, you're going at the new, every trade you have to treat as brand new and instead of jumping in and out is everything lining up on the charts, just like it did the first one, you nailed the first trade. And a lot of times this happens when you're, I talk about it, you'll have like nine winning trades in a row and we're human. We're not robots. I'm not a robot. I know I'm most likely to have a bad trade after I've had nine in a row. Why? Because my confidence is so high. I've skipped steps, right? So if you skip steps because your confidence is so high, that's when you're most likely going to have your next loss. And if you forget to put, and if you make a mistake on that, you forget to put in a stop loss. You do too high of leverage. Next thing you know, you're having a major setback and a change. It sets you back not only on financially, but mentally. So be cautious. Once you are making the wins and you are winning like nine times in a row, you're going to have a loss. And usually it's because your confidence is so high, not because you're, you've been on a losing streak, right? So just want to point that out. And it was based off what you're kind of talking about. You're winning. It was the bull run. And then all of a sudden you went all in with more leverage and took a $70 ,000 loss. So you learn from your mistakes, right? Yeah. Well, I got to say, I couldn't agree more with you on all those great places to start for beginners and how utilizing a lot of those free tools that are available to you to get started, to understand the mechanisms of all these tools that you're going to be utilizing when you're doing price analysis and trying to figure out when to buy and when to sell. It's not just about looking at price action. It's about looking at those underlying data sets that can give you an edge as to when trends are going to shift. So with that being said, I have to say, Jesse, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for taking your time to share your thoughts with us and your lens on this market. And everybody, if you want to see more of Jesse, throw one in chat, comment down below, hit that like button, hit that subscribe button, ding the bell. And if you would make sure you head over to Jesse J -E -S -S -E -O -L -S -O -N, find out so much more about him here, all kinds of different content he shares on a daily basis, really breaking down charts. He even has his own Market Sniper Academy right here at MarketSniper .Pro. You can also find out more information on BitLab Academy right here at Academy BitLab. Follow me, of course, at Kelly Kellum, K -E -L -L -Y, K -E -L -L -A -M. Make sure you check out bitlabacademy .com. We have all the tools and courses and strategies and the community that can really help you dive into this space and understand what is going on. Self -custody, trading fundamentals, psychology of trading, on -chain analysis, candles, candle patterns, indicators. There's so much in here as a point. Join us here in BitLab Academy. You can still use our coupon code GIVEME30 for an additional 30 % off your first month. I hope to see you in there in the Discord and over on the BitLab Academy daily YouTube stream right here at youtube .com forward slash at BitLab Academy. I'll see you there. I hope you all have a wonderful day. Have a wonderful weekend. Get out of the charts and we'll see you in the next video. Adios.
Crypto News Alerts | Daily Bitcoin (BTC) & Cryptocurrency News
A highlight from 1410: Bitcoin Will Hit $10,000,000 Per Coin - Binance CEO CZ
"In today's show, I'll be breaking down the latest technical analysis. And also I'm going to be sharing with you a 48 ,700 Bitcoin price target, pre halving according to a top analyst. Also did you know it was exactly six years ago today, China tried and failed to ban Bitcoin for the second time and ever since the Bitcoin price action is up 600 % and the mining hash rate is back at all time highs. Also quitting Max Kaiser, Bukele has restored the human rights to 7 million Salvadorians that have been taken away by murderous runts, the British and American state, a 93 % approval rating tells the story of the most popular leader in the world. And now Bukele -nomics is being copied around the world as a blueprint for freedom and justice preach. Also in today's show, Mt. Gox repayments delayed yet again. Creditors are waiting on Bitcoin, Bitcoin cash and Yen payments until next year in 2024. We'll also be discussing, according to this latest report, Coinbase currently holds 5 % of the entire Bitcoin supply in existence. That's right. While Coinbase holds 25 billion in BTC, the exchange only owns around 200 million in Bitcoin and its wallets. We'll also be discussing the catalyst, which will catapult the Bitcoin price action. According to skybridge capitals, Anthony Scaramucci will also be discussing the latest with the Binance CEO CZ setting the record straight on $250 million loan claims. That's right. The US court had recently denied an inspection plea by the SEC. I'll be breaking down this latest FUD and speaking of CZ, the Binance CEO predicts the Bitcoin price will reach $10 million per coin. In fact, a couple of years back in an interview, he said, if all of the major institutions allocate 1 % Bitcoin, we're going to see 1000 X or more growth of the Bitcoin price. And if you run the math, 1000 times today's price action is 26 to $27 million per BTC. We'll also be taking a look at the overall crypto market, all this plus so much more in today's show. Yo what's good crypto fam. This is first and foremost, a video show. So if you want the full premium experience with video, visit my YouTube channel at crypto news alerts .net. Again, that's crypto news alerts .net and welcome everyone just joining us. This is podcast episode number 1410. I'm your host JV and today is September 23rd, 2023. So welcome to another sat stacking Saturday. Let's kick it off with our market watch as we do here each and every day, seven days a week. We can see Bitcoin back in the green trading above 26 .6 and we also have ether back in the green trading at roughly $1 ,600. The market cap is sitting at 1 .06 trillion with roughly 17 billion in volume. In the past 24 hours, we've got Bitcoin dominance at 49 .1 % and the ether dominance at 18 .2 % as Bitcoin continues outpacing Ethereum and checking out the top 100 crypto gainers of the past 24 hours, we've got theta lead in the pack up 7 % trading just under 64 cents followed by rocket pool up 4 % trading at $21 .63, followed by chain link up 4 % trading at $7 .18 and checking out the top 100 crypto gainers of the past week, we have WeMix leading this pack up 15%. We have PLS up 8 .2 % and XRD up 11, I mean 7 .4 % and checking out the crypto greed and fear index, we're currently rated a 47, which is neutral. Yesterday was a 43 in fear, last week also a 43 and last month a 41 in fear. So there you have it. How many of you have been stacking M -Sats and taking advantage of the recent dip in dollar cost averaging? Let me know. And how many of you are anticipating Bitcoin price action to maybe dip a little further south before packing some new positions? Let me know how you feel with the current status. And also just quick reminder, we're almost at the end of September historically, September is the worst month out of the entire year for the Bitcoin price action, but it's always followed by up tober, which is historically one of the most bullish months for Bitcoin. So we only have another week until we get out of September. So we'll see how this is likely to play out. Let's break down today's Bitcoin technical analysis. Bitcoin failed to reclaim 27 ,000, though we came close. It stalled at 26 ,500 as of right now. Meanwhile, the altcoins are in no better shape with minor losses coming from most of the larger cap ones. With Chainlink, the only one with a notable price increase. So last week was expectedly less volatile, aside from the brief spike on Saturday that pushed Bitcoin then to the multi -day peak of 26 ,400. But after failing to continue upwards, Bitcoin retraced at 26 ,000 and spent the rest of the weekend there. Then Monday didn't start all that positively either, but finished the way. Bitcoin went on the offensive and soared above 27 ,000 for the first time in weeks, but then shortly dumped after. But the bulls kept the pressure on and pushed Bitcoin to a new 20 -day peak at 27 ,500 on Tuesday. The next few days were rather calm with Bitcoin maintaining 27 G's, even after the US Fed's decision to stop raising the interest rates. Yet Bitcoin's momentum disappeared by Friday as it fell to 26 ,400. It even tried to bounce off the end of the day, but failed and currently stands at 26 ,500. Its market cap is south of 520 billion, while its dominance over the alts still just inches shy of 49%. So there you have it. And as we mentioned a little earlier, the altcoins, a lot of them are also in the red with the exception of Chainlink, which seems to be outpacing the rest of the major alts. Now for a prediction from Titan of Crypto, here's what he shared on X. Bitcoin 48 ,700 before the halving rocket ship to the moon. You might want to bookmark this one. Fam, never in history the halving occurred without Bitcoin reaching the 78 .6 % Fibonacci retracement level. So first off, first cycle price reached this four months before the halving, and the second cycle it was two months before, and then on the third cycle it was 12 months before. The next halving is now roughly six months away. Bitcoin might reach the 78 .6 % Fibonacci level within this period as it currently lies at 48 ,700, but the million dollar question remains, will this time be different? So as we enter this fourth halving, let me know where you feel the Bitcoin price action is likely to hit before we have liftoff. I mean, obviously that would be a bullish scenario setting us up for a perfect price discovery in 2024 post halving. So I cannot wait. I hope the analyst is right. And if you didn't know, it was exactly six years ago. China tried and failed to ban Bitcoin for the second time because guess what? You can't ban Bitcoin. You can try. Good luck with that. And ever since the price action on the King Crypto is up 600 % and the mining hash rate continues to hit all time highs. And as you know, hash rate is a good indicator for the strength of the network, meaning the market cap is just north of only $500 billion. And as Max points out here, referring to Bukele, he has restored the human rights of 7 million Salvadorans that have been taken away by murderous runts. The British and American state, a 93 % approval rating tells the story, the most popular leader in the world. And now Bukele Nomics is being copied around the world as a blueprint for freedom and justice. Massive shout out to Najib Bukele and the people of El Salvador. Which country do you feel is likely to adopt Bitcoin as a legal tender next? Let me know your honest thoughts in the comments below. I feel it's going to be another Latin American country. I'd say a great candidate for that is Argentina, which has hundreds of millions of people. We have Javier Malay, the pro presidential candidate. There is a 70 % chance plus that he is elected as the president. And we already know the likelihood he could make Bitcoin a legal tender, especially being orange -pilled by Max Keiser, who is the senior Bitcoin advisor for President Bukele. As Max has already announced, he can't wait to touch down in Buenos Aires to orange pill Javier Malay. Then we also have Mexico. We have people like Ricardo Salinas, the third richest man in Mexico, very pro Bitcoin, claiming Bitcoin has been his best investment ever because, again, Max orange -pilled him back in 2014. Then we have Brazil and so many other countries that make Bitcoin a potential to become legal tender. And we all know that's going to be a game changer. And that's just another catalyst on top of the Bitcoin halving scheduled in six months in 2024, plus the approval of a spot Bitcoin ETF in the United States. So can you say fireworks lays ahead? Let's go. Now let's discuss the latest more bullish news, meaning Mt. Gox is going to be delaying these payments, which means no crypto is going to be dumped onto the open market anytime soon, which again is good for the hodlers. Check it out. Now we got Nobuaki, the Mt. Gox trustee in charge of the funds owed to the exchange creditors, updated the public on September 21st, two days ago, according to the trustee, because of the lengthy discussions with specific payment providers, he could not make the October 31st deadline. That was the initial deadline, fam. And because of this reason, the repayments will start next year. And so they say, quitting him here. Therefore, with the permission of the Tokyo district court, the rehabilitation trustee changed the deadline of the base repayment, the early lump sum repayment and the intermediate repayment from October 31st, 2023 Japan time to October 31st, 2024 Japan time, respectively. By the letter of the Kobashi details, the Mt. Gox creditors waited nine years for payments. Good Lord. Currently, they're owed one hundred and forty one thousand six hundred and eighty six BTC plus one hundred and forty two thousand eight hundred and forty six Bitcoin cash and sixty nine is that billion yen. Good Lord. I'd love to know what that equates to in dollars anyways, though the delay has been extended. The creditors who have completed their claims might receive the payment by year's end, quoting them again. Rehabilitation creditors who have provided the necessary info to the rehabilitation trustee will see the payments made in a sequence as early as the end of this year, according to the letter. However, this schedule could change. Kobashi also said that due to the high volume of inquiries regarding the process, the rehabilitation team might not respond promptly. Well, that doesn't sound so promising, but I guess it's a good sign that most of this cash is not going to be dumped off any time soon, as there's a lot of FUD that's always circulating. The Mt. Gox, you know, sell off is going to crash the entire market. I think that is very unlikely and is nothing more than FUD. And again, we're gearing up for the most bullish sentiment in the four year cyclical cycle amongst us in twenty twenty four. So versus being in fear, I would be very optimistic about what's to come for the king crypto and the crypto market as a whole. But what are your thoughts, fam? Let me know in the comments right down below. Now let's discuss the largest crypto exchange in the United States. Clearly, it is Coinbase. The CEO is Brian Armstrong. But did you know, according to this latest report, they currently control and own over five percent of the Bitcoin in circulation. That's pretty hefty. And let's break this one down. And how many of you have used the Coinbase crypto exchange before? Let me know in the comments below. Here we go. Blockchain intelligence platform ARKAM recently identified the crypto exchange Coinbase holds almost one million Bitcoin in its wallets like, whoa, the coins are worth more than twenty five billion dollars at the current prices. Now, according to ARKAM, the exchanges holdings amount to almost five percent of all the existing Bitcoin. ARKAM said Coinbase holds a total of nine hundred forty seven thousand seven hundred and fifty five BTC. And at the moment, Bitcoin circulating supply is around nineteen million four hundred ninety three thousand five hundred thirty seven, according to coin info on CoinGecko. And as ARKAM shared here on X, ARKAM now identified twenty five billion of Bitcoin's Coinbase reserves with one million, approximately Bitcoin on chain. This makes Coinbase the largest Bitcoin entity in the world on ARKAM, with almost five percent of all the Bitcoin in existence, almost as much as Satoshi Nakamoto. Crazy, right? Furthermore, ARKAM noted that it has tagged and identified thirty six million Bitcoin deposits and holding addresses used by the exchange. And according to ARKAM, Coinbase's largest cold wallet holds around ten thousand BTC. And based on the exchanges financial reports, the intelligence company believes that Coinbase has more Bitcoin than are yet labeled and could not be identified. And while Coinbase holds over twenty five billion worth of Bitcoin in its wallets, the exchange only owns around ten thousand of all the Bitcoin in which it holds, which is roughly two hundred million dollars, according to the recent data. Meanwhile, community members express varying reactions to the news about the amount of Bitcoin on the centralized exchange in which they hold. Some believe it's a sign to withdraw their Bitcoin from the exchanges, warning hodlers not to wait until the exchanges start to halt withdrawals. Others say that since there are legitimate concerns over cold wallets, there is no good way to store your assets. I'd like to chime in real quick. Obviously, if it's not your keys, it's not your coins. So while a custodian such as Coinbase can hold your crypto, you've got to also note that it's not yours. So if something were to happen, hypothetically, like we've seen with FTX and the collapse last year, then not your keys, not your coins, they don't belong to you at the end of the day. So you've got to start to weigh the risk reward with having a custodian such as Coinbase or a centralized exchange hold your coins versus taking the responsibility for yourself and learning how to self custody your own crypto and call storage such as with a Bitcoin cold wallet, such as a treasure. So I just wanted to point that out. There's no right or wrong way to hold your crypto. You've got to do what's in your best interest, of course. So, you know, I mean, just want to keep it real at the end of the day. So check it when it comes to Bitcoin ownership by companies, business intelligence for MicroStrategy still owns most Bitcoin. I believe it's over one hundred and fifty two thousand eight hundred BTC, to be exact, worth over four billion dollars at the time of this recording, making them the largest publicly traded company to have Bitcoin on their balance sheet. Now, another major company that controls over six hundred thousand BTC is Grayscale in their GBTC product, the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, which they just recently had a lawsuit against the SEC with the plan to convert their trust into a spot Bitcoin ETF. So considering they already control the underlying asset in the sum of over six hundred thousand BTC makes them a pretty strong contender. Wouldn't you agree? Let me know your thoughts, fam. And now let's break down our next story of the day and discuss the Bitcoin price likely to catapult along with the altcoin to coin to SkyBridge Capital, Anthony Scaramucci. Let's break this down. Shout out to the Mooch, SkyBridge Capital founder Scaramucci is detailing how one catalyst could have a bullish impact on Bitcoin, as well as the alt. In an interview with the Wolf of Wall Street, Scott Melker Scaramucci says that a spot Bitcoin ETF could be approved in the first quarter of twenty twenty four, which seems to be a ninety five percent likelihood, according to top ETF analyst at Bloomberg, Eric Balchunes. So according to SkyBridge Capital founder, the approval of the spot Bitcoin ETF and the Bitcoin halving, which is expected to occur in April of twenty twenty four, could combine to ignite a crypto bull market. No, it's not. It could combine. It will combine. Just saying. Quitting him here as Wall Street or products on Wall Street are sold, they are not bought. And so there is going to be tens of thousands, if not one hundred thousand plus people at these Wall Street firms selling these products to their traditional investors. So people that are in Bitcoin understand the finite supply of Bitcoin, right? We all know there's a finite limited supply, 21 million, and they understand the nature and the quality the Bitcoin has. This will push Bitcoin up. Of course, it will have a dramatically positive effect on the altcoin market because it will lead to more capital into digital properties so people can think whatever they want. They can think short term about the near term volatility of Bitcoin. But these macro positive factors are overwhelming. And according to Scaramucci, the potential approval of a spot Bitcoin ETF filed by giant asset managers such as BlackRock, who controls over 10 trillion in assets under management and Fidelity, that controls over four and a half trillion in assets under management, can see Bitcoin increasing its market cap by roughly 24 times from the current level. We'll send it. Let's go quoting the Mooch here. It is important that now the largest asset manager in the world who started out with some level of skepticism related to digital assets and Bitcoin is now willing to adopt Bitcoin. I mean, I guess they mean BlackRock is willing to adopt Bitcoin, but even more important than that, they're willing to explain to their clients. I think BlackRock now has 13 trillion dollars in assets under management. So for them, seven trillion for Fidelity. While these numbers are higher than I even imagine, while their clients need exposure to digital property like Bitcoin. And so we have a five hundred billion dollar plus market for Bitcoin. So you and I know gold is at 12 trillion ish, depending on where it's trading. But yes, 12 trillion. There is no reason why Bitcoin couldn't get gold. So there you have it. And to watch this video interview he did with Scott Melker entitled 37000 Bitcoin. Can it skyrocket 35 percent? Check the show notes below the video in the description. And I think we all could agree it's only a matter of time before Bitcoin returns to price discovery mode, virtually meaning entering new all time highs. My personal prediction is sometime in 2024, considering the two biggest catalysts, which we just covered, the Bitcoin halving and Bitcoin ETF approval, which we know is going to be a given, especially considering the SEC is not going to be able to push it back and push back that deadline any longer because, you know, they just they have been pushing it back now for 10 years while they continue to approve futures ETFs, which can allow them to spoof and manipulate the market, which is all by design. At the end of the day, there's not new under the sun and three things cannot be long hidden. The sun, the moon and the truth. But just saying. Anyways, fam, now let's discuss the ongoing fight against CZ, the finance CEO with this 250 million dollar loan. And then I'll be breaking down his 10 million dollar price prediction and in fact sharing a transcription of him claiming that Bitcoin can thousand X from the current price, which would ultimately mean not 10 million, but we're talking twenty six to twenty seven million dollars per coin. Let's break this down. So here we go. First, with the FUD, the Binance CEO, CZ Shangping Zhao had refuted a recent report alleging that he received the 250 million dollar loan from BAM Management, the company that serves as the holding entity for Binance US. Now, how many of you have used Binance US or Binance before as the exchange? Let me know, fam. The development comes amidst Binance's struggles with plunging trading volume as the world's largest crypto exchange faces mounting lawsuits and increased scrutiny, regulatory which seems to all be by design by the SEC and the regulators. Right. The report published by Decrypt September 19th drew its conclusions from court documents associated with the ongoing lawsuit involving Binance and the United States. SEC, according to the news agency's interpretation, the Binance US legal representatives asserted in the documents that BAM Management US Holdings had issued a quarter billion dollar convertible note to CZ back in December. CZ, however, challenged the accuracy of the report when he tweeted the following. The amount of wrong information is just they got the direction wrong. I loaned 250 million dollars to BAM a while back, not the other way around, and have not taken it back. The Binance CEO clarified that the loan arrangement was, in fact, the opposite of what was reported in the post. The exec explained that he had extended a 250 million dollar loan to BAM Management and asserted that he had not yet received the payment. So there's nothing new under the sun. Just more FUD, it seems like, fam. The legal battle has taken a toll on Binance US, which saw a flurry of employee departures. The US SEC alleged that Binance was not cooperating in the ongoing probe and even claimed that BAM refused to make essential witnesses available for deposition. Concerns were also raised on CEFFU, which happens to be a custody service offered by Binance's international arm, Binance Holdings Ltd. The SEC's filing claimed that the platform appeared to be in violation of a previous agreement designed to prevent the transfer of the assets abroad. And despite the scathing attacks by the financial regulator, Binance scored a small win this week. The SEC's motion to approve an inspection into Binance US was denied by the USDC District Judge, Zia Farokhia. So there you have it. I mean, the ongoing FUD will more than likely continue, as obviously Binance is the largest crypto exchange in the world and regulators seem to have a problem with them and want to go after them for whatever apparent reason. So, like I said, hopefully in the end, you know, truth is revealed and the real story versus all the FUD and, you know, the manipulation of the price action and all the shenanigans we continue to witness in the market. And with that being shared, now let's dive into the Binance CEO, CZ and his 10 million dollar price prediction, as well as him predicting that Bitcoin price action could even a thousand X from here, sending the Bitcoin price parabolic to 26 or even 27 million dollars per coin. Let's break this baby down, shall we? Here we go. JV, have you ever heard of him? A crypto YouTube influencer from Crypto News Alerts remembered CZ's prediction. You're damn right I did. The Bitcoin would reach 10 million per coin. JV referred to the statement in a recent video uploaded on YouTube where he analyzes various aspects of the Bitcoin market development. Now, JV looked back at CZ's Bitcoin prediction while analyzing the Bitcoin CEO's recent Twitter comments. And in a Q &A session on July 5th, CZ addressed several issues, including Binance's reaction to the ongoing regulatory scrutiny. He also spoke about the rising interest of institutional investors in crypto currencies, as well as the proposed BlackRock spot Bitcoin ETF. CZ made the 10 million dollar price prediction back in 2021. In fact, I have the article already pulled up and I'm going to be reading word for word what he shared. Following MicroStrategy's announcement, allocating Bitcoin for the corporate strategy, CZ based his analysis on the possibility of several corporate companies, major institutions across the world, allocating just one percent of their corporate treasury into Bitcoin. And according to CZ, that would lead to a thousand X growth in the value of BTC. JV highlighted CZ's welcoming approach to institutional investors in the Bitcoin ecosystem, and CZ noted that advantages in traditional finance firms they bring to the crypto industry, despite concerns about their intentions clashing with Bitcoin's decentralized nature. And according to JV, CZ identified two key factors driving Binance's strategy for the next 18 months. They include the upcoming Bitcoin halving event now less than six months out, as well as, you know, we could be seeing a Bitcoin ETF here in the near future. The Bitcoin community expects the next halving to occur in April of 2024. Now quoting CZ word for word from the initial interview he made on Bloomberg Radio predicting a potential 1000 X increase in the Bitcoin price action. So here's what he had to say. Right now, I think only 11 companies again, this is right around the time that MicroStrategy announced putting Bitcoin on its balance sheet. They announced having allocating some talking about Bitcoin, like usually less than one percent of their corporate treasury to Bitcoin. And we think that it is most likely what caused the initial price rise. I think MicroStrategy's Michael Saylor started it first, but there are six hundred and fifty thousand companies in the world, like relatively established companies in the world, and their treasury is huge. Preach. So if all of them talking about these major institutions only allocated just one percent to Bitcoin, we are going to see, I don't know, 1000 X more growth in the Bitcoin price. And if they allocate more than one percent, then it's going to be even bigger. So I think people don't quite get the magnitude of the wave that is about to hit us. Now, let's run that math one more time. Fam, today's price is roughly twenty six thousand five hundred times that by one thousand. He's talking about a twenty six and a half million dollar Bitcoin price action. The potential if they only put one percent of their strategic reserves into Bitcoin, you do the math. If it's five X and five percent, what are we talking? One hundred and twenty million dollar Bitcoin price. Just saying this is coming from CZ, the world's richest man in crypto. So very powerful words indeed. Let's get back to this prediction of what he shared. So the finance CEO estimates that the flagship crypto can go up anywhere from nineteen hundred percent to twenty thousand percent from the current price levels from the time he made the prediction. And he goes on to share with price predictions. It is really, really difficult. I think it can go to, I don't know, one million dollars, ten million dollars. It is very hard to tell. And again, if we literally did a thousand X from today's price, we're talking twenty six and a half million per BTZ. So CZ also reveals that the exchange is onboarding new users as an at an unprecedented sustained rate during the bull run, outpacing its user growth during the twenty seventeen bull run. So again, this was during the twenty twenty one bull run. Here's what he had to share. Just to give people the idea, in twenty seventeen, when Bitcoin hit the peak of about 20 G's, we were seeing three hundred thousand new registered users per day. And that only happened for a couple of days. And that kind of trailed off and became slower. Now we're seeing sustained new user registrations above the peak and sustained like for over two to three months. So could you imagine running the world's largest crypto exchange and having over three hundred thousand new registered users every single day for like 90 days straight? That is insanity. And that's the previous market. I think twenty twenty four is likely going to outpace the previous market as Bitcoin becomes a common household name and as Bitcoin game theory continues in full effect. You have presidential candidates making Bitcoin a big determining factor. We have people like Ron DeSantis, Kennedy Jr., Javier Malay over in Argentina. So naturally, it's just going to create more commotion and positive catalysts for Bitcoin as we move forward into twenty twenty four. So, I mean, fireworks are ahead. Let me know how you feel. We're likely to finish out this year by December of twenty twenty three. Where do you feel the Bitcoin price action is likely to be? And don't forget to check out CryptoNewsAlerts .net for the full premium experience with video and to participate in the live Q &A. And I look forward to seeing you on tomorrow's episode. HODL.
Tech Path Crypto
A highlight from 1256. $300 Billion Coming To Bitcoin ETF w/Mark Yusko
"All right, so welcome in today. We're going to be diving into topics around ETFs and also what is happening with the SEC in terms of their enforcement actions and some of the things they've been doing that could be causing a slowdown in innovation for blockchain. We'll break into all this good stuff today. I think you'll like it. My name is Paul Baron. Welcome back in to Tech Path. Joining me today is a regular guest, one that I think you guys all love, and that is Mr. Marc Usko coming in from Morgan Creek Capital. Great to have you on the show today. No, great to be with you, Paul, as always, and happy Friday. It's going to be a good one, Marc. Let's first of all get into a few things. I want to lead off the show with a tweet from James Seyfert, who is one of the Bloomberg analysts on ETFs. He does a really good breakdown. He's been on our show before. There's some dates to watch here. We've got middle of October, next major days to watch. October 16th with Global, and then also October 7th. And then you've got all these scenarios playing out right here with iShares, which of course is BlackRock. I'll zoom in on that a little bit so you guys can see it. Second deadline coming up on 10 -17, and then a slew right there on that same day. First of all, I want to get your opinion on, do you think that this October is when the SEC might actually give us an early Christmas present? Or are you just going to get pushed again? No, look, I'm 50 -50 at this point. So I do think more tricks than treats for anyone who's 10 -17 date. So any decision before that date, I think is a negative decision. I'm not sure it'll be an outright denial, but will definitely be an extension and a push. And then we come to the big dog. I believe, and I've said multiple times, that BlackRock will be the first one. I've actually been saying that for over a year. I actually might even go stronger and say, oh, that'll never happen. That would be too much corruption. Well, I'm just saying it's certainly possible. What's probably more likely is BlackRock first, and then a gap, and then some number of others. But the thing is, whoever's first is going to get the vast majority of assets. Vast majority. Well, first mover is always going to be taking. I mean, that's just like the gold ETF, kind of the same kind of scenario. Yeah. The gold ETF is an example with GLD. You had the Bitcoin futures ETF with Bitto getting 98 % and then a couple others getting like 1 % each. So that's just my belief. And I believe it's who you know in this game, not what you know. There are a lot of people who have should gotten approved. The Winklevoss twins were the first to apply. They should have gotten approved. There was no reason not to approve it other than, again, kind of the way the game is played and the people in charge want to be in charge. So any new disruptive players I think are unlikely. Cathie Wood partnered with one of our companies, portfolio Amun, to do 21 shares. That looked like a great application ding pushed out. I think Bitwise is a day ahead of iShares on 10 .16 as much as I would love it. Again, portfolio company, full disclosure. I would love for them to get approved. I just don't think it's going to happen. Again, I don't think it'll be denied. I just think they'll be pushed. And here's why I'm 50 -50, Paul, to answer the question. I think they could approve on the 17th, but I don't think they will. I think they'll push it into next year. So you push 90 days. That gets you into January. January 15th. Yeah. You could push again then into March, April. But that's it. Then you have to approve. Now, what's interesting is we have this little thing called the halving coming up in mid -April of 24. And so it would be an interesting alignment of stars. But I said, could they pull the trigger on BlackRock in a month? Yeah, they could. Yeah. All right. Well, with that and to your point, the third deadline, just so everybody can put it on your calendar out there, you've got January 15th for BlackRock and then moving in all the way into March, what we're going to discuss there. March would be an interesting timing. I think you're right, because obviously the halving right there on the cusp of that, along with maybe a little bit of lightening the load in terms of inflation, because I feel like we're going to continue to see some inflation hits through the end of the year. What is your thought on how the inflation numbers came in this week and how the Fed might react? I don't think the Fed cares about gasoline prices, quite honestly, Paul. All this little blip is gasoline prices, all of it. I think most of the other components were actually negative. And the gasoline prices are because Saudi has decided to go a different direction. We had a very hunky dory relationship with Saudi from 1973 till now. And that's clearly over, right? The big guy went over to Saudi right before the election last year and tried to get them to pump more to get oil prices down and gasoline prices down, because there's this inverse correlation between presidential popularity and gas prices. And they basically said pound sand. And so he came down, he came in and said, well, this is a convenient decision to get gasoline prices down. Guess what happened? Democrats did pretty well in the election. And because there's no way out for that now, though. I mean, there's no way. Now we have an empty SPR. And the thing is, we can't fill it up ourselves because, and again, not to get too technical, but there's, there's light sweet crude, which we produce and a number of other places, Nigeria and others produce. And then there's heavy sour crude, more sulfur content, because we cut this deal with the Saudis in the seventies, we built all of our refining inventory infrastructure, sorry, around processing heavy sour. Yeah. Well, here's the problem. If now Saudi is going to sell their heavy sour to China and Russia and other places, and we're not going to get as much of it, what are we going to do? Well, we've got to build new refineries or retrofit the refiner. It turns out no one wants a new refinery in their backyard. Yeah. I think I'm right. It's been like 30 years since we built a refinery. It turns out they spit out, you know, pollutants and things like that. So nobody really wants one around. We all like driving cars by the way. And and living our lives and, you know, Oh, well, you know, we can, we can stop using oil. No, we can't. Nothing you do every, I mean, everything you do every day, the vast majority of it is powered by oil and gas, the vast majority. And yeah, you say you could get an electric car, but where'd the steel in that car come from? Did they make a little electricity? No. How about the plastics? Nope. Oil. So it's just, it's kind of comical when I hear we're going to, you know, outlaw fossil fuels, but back to the inflation number I think this might not be temporary in the sense that Saudi announced, they're going to do a voluntary cut. Why? Cause they're just sticking the knife in a little bit deeper because they're like, all right guys, you said you were going to refill the SPR. You didn't do it. Oil prices were all the way down in the sixties. Could have easily done it for sure. Now oil prices are in the nineties. Yeah. We're going to hit a hundred bucks a barrel for sure. How does this, okay. So when you look at that Mark and you look at an election year coming in, you've got all this pressure from the macro side, including most likely jobs market getting a lot stiffer. Companies starting to really get some pressure on. We had bankruptcies at the highest point ever. We've had a very long period of time for independent companies. This does not look like a rosy picture. Where do you think we come out of this in relationship to the timing of the havening, a Bitcoin ETF, maybe into next summer? How far into 2024 do you think this happens? So I believe the ETF will be approved sometime around year end, whether it's in early January or December, sometime in that timeframe. And I think that will pave the way for a very large influx of capital. I know you've had Eric on the show about Eunice and he does this great work, right? I mean, there's 30 trillion with a T 30 trillion. Remember 1 trillion is a dollar every second for 31 ,710 years, but 30 trillion is going to come into, or that's the total amount of money managed by RIAAs and others that is not allowed at this point for whatever silly reason to own Bitcoin. And they can't own GBTC and they can't own Bitcoin miners and they've called a timeout. Well, once there's an ETF, particularly if it's an ETF that BlackRock runs, there are going to be no excuse and they're all going to have to approve it. Their clients have been asking for it. I would say I have a family harmony account at UBS. They let me buy what I want to buy. And they're like, no. So I think all that goes away. And I think Eric's number is, let's say one 10th of 1 % comes in. That's 30 billion. Well, but wait, 30 billion on 500 billion. That's not that much. Well, no, it's not 500 billion. 400 billion of the 500 billion of Bitcoin's market cap doesn't really trade. It's either locked up like the Satoshi wallet or the Winklevoss wallet or, you know, hodlers that just said, you know, take it out of my cold, dead hands. It's only about a hundred billion that is the free float to borrow a TradFi term. And so 30 billion on 100, that will move the price. But I don't think it's going to be 10 basis points. I think it's 1%. I think you have to do 1%. As a fiduciary, if you got, you know, 50 % in equities at some of the highest valuations in history, and you got another 30 % in bonds, which have had the first two negative years in the history of the bond market, 140 years of history, two negative years, looking pretty ugly. And you got this asset that is the best performing asset again, 11 of the 14 years that Bitcoin has been alive. It's been the best performing asset of all assets. It's the best performing asset then this year. Yeah. Eric hit on his prediction about 150 billion in terms of market impact. Do you like that number or do you think that he's still like it? Well, again, I think 150 billion would be half a percent, right? Instead of 10 basis points. And it looks like he's updated his, his thoughts. I'll go further and say 1 % seems more likely that'd be 300 billion, 300 billion on a hundred billion of free float price goes up a lot, a lot, a lot. And here's the, the interesting thing, Paul, is the way halvings work is the fair value increases. So we've got a tailwind that the fair value today based on Metcalfe's law model that Tim Peterson runs and that I think is fantastic, says that the fair value is somewhere in the low fifties, 52, 53, let's just call it 50. So at the halving, fair value doubles. What do you mean, Mark? What are you talking about? Well, think about it. The miners who secure the network, their costs are fixed, mining machines and electricity. So if their block rewards, the number of rewards that they're paid to secure the network gets cut in half and the price doesn't move, then they're out of business. So there's a built in mechanism to move the price higher, which is actually really interesting because that attracts attention because there's movement. And so long story short, fair value, every halving added has a zero. So we went from a hundred to a thousand, then we went from a thousand to 10 ,000. Now we go from 10 ,000 to a hundred thousand. So a fair value is a hundred thousand and we're trading at 26. It's a pretty rapid increase to fair value, I think, as investors buy things that are below fair value. But then what happens in the post fall halving, you get this parabolic blow off top. And in the previous cycle, fair value was around 30K. We got all the way to 69. That was because there was too much leverage and too much gambling and speculating. I don't think we go 2X this time or two and a half X this time. Could we get one and a half X? Sure. That gives about 150K, something like that. Yeah. Well, that is OK. So that's very intriguing. If you're if you're estimating this could be in the 300 billion dollar area, you know, for based on, you know, just the exposure to these funds and obviously how that might play out. How do you think retail response to this? Do you think retail is going to come in like a banshee coming in on this with a lot of now what would be legitimized ETFs? How do you think they play? Again, it's I've been saying this for five years. My hashtag get off zero zero is the wrong number, right? This is a truly unique diversifying asset that must be in everyone's portfolio. Doesn't have to be your whole portfolio. I never said that. It should be at least one percent.
The Breakdown
A highlight from How Impactful Will FTX Estate Selling Be on Crypto Markets?
"Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW. It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin and the big picture power shifts remaking our world. What's going on, guys? It is Friday, September 15th, and today we are talking about how much pressure FTX selling will put on the crypto markets. Before we get into that, however, if you are enjoying The Breakdown, please go subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation, come join us on the Breakers Discord. You can find a link in the show notes or go to bit .ly slash breakdown pod. Hello friends, happy Friday. We have lots to catch up on today, starting with what has emerged as a key narrative. That is, of course, that FTX has been granted approval to begin selling their crypto assets. On Wednesday, the bankruptcy judge ratified the sale plan, which was filed in late August. Galaxy Digital has been appointed as the selling agent. At last count, FTX said it had $3 .4 billion worth of liquid crypto assets to sell. Galaxy has been authorized to sell $50 million worth of crypto this week and next week, then $100 million per week after that. Creditors can agree to increase this amount to $200 million per week on a temporary basis before seeking court approval. Galaxy has also been given permission to hedge their sales using Bitcoin and Ethereum derivatives without sizing limits and at their sole discretion. Staking of assets will also be allowed if Galaxy deems it necessary. During the hearing, the judge questioned the need to sell crypto rather than distribute it directly to customers. FTX lawyers explained that there was no meaningful segregation of customer assets and balances held didn't line up with customer accounts. They said, quote, it's all part of one pool. There are assets that are associated with the exchange we call the dot com customer pool and the US pool, but they don't necessarily match customer entitlements. So when we dispose of this, we'll be turning it into cash effectively and the cash will be available for distribution pursuant to the plan. Now, all parties appeared concerned with getting this liquidation moving quickly while also limiting the price impact on the portfolio. A lawyer representing the ad hoc creditors committee said, the sooner we can get this process rolling, the better. Now, the speculation all over Twitter has of course been that this would lead to incredible downward price pressure across the crypto markets with any asset that was being sold. However, Jeff Dorman, CIO of ARCA pushed back on notions that this liquidation will be an uncontrolled dump. Here's a summary of his Twitter thread. He pointed out that Galaxy Asset Management, not their trading desk won the bid. They must act as a fiduciary and sell gradually and opportunistically. He pointed out that Galaxy is receiving massive amounts of reverse inquiry already, some from real funds and some fishing expeditions, but over the counter sales will dominate the buying. In other words, we're less likely to see a lot of selling on exchanges or via TWOPS. As good bids come in, they will engage. Hedging, he points out, will be opportunistic, i .e. long puts to offset a large drop in the portfolio. And he points out that people thinking that Galaxy will rush to sell $3 billion in futures right away is crazy. The goal, he points out, is to outperform a static portfolio, not turn the estate into a long short fund. He reminds that Galaxy cannot front run the sales and profit internally, that that is very illegal and that their asset management business is completely walled off from their prop desk. Finally, he points out that this is not some half -baked plan. It involved months of working with the courts to win this business, and that the point of bankruptcies is to maximize the upside of the estate, not speed of distributions. In other words, this may be capped short -term gains due to opportunistic sales and to strength, but it is not a fire sale into weakness. Now getting even more granular, much of the speculation in recent weeks has specifically surrounded how sales of the hefty FTX Solana portfolio will impact that market. In their most recent accounting, FTX said they hold $1 .1 billion worth of Solana, which is able to be sold. That would be around 14 % of the current market cap. It was previously believed that much of this supply was staked and would be unlocked between 2025 and 2028, although the latest FTX filing threw this into question by lumping all of the Solana holdings in together. FundStrap published a report earlier this week detailing the FTX crypto holdings and claimed that less than $150 million worth of Solana is liquid and able to be sold off. Now, ultimately, no matter what people say, it's going to be very, very hard to get people away from the concern that this amount of selling will impact the market. Liquidity is incredibly thin right now, and probably the best that we can hope is that some of the negative price action over the last few weeks has been in anticipation of this and trying to front run it. But ultimately, the only way out is through, and so we just have to deal with this as the next thing we have to deal with. Now moving over to that other big exchange, two more Binance US executives have joined the exodus from that embattled company. The head of legal, Krishna Juvadi, and the chief risk officer, Sidney Majalia, are leaving the company according to WSJ sources. Juvadi was one of the firm's main contacts for communicating with the SEC, which is currently in active litigation with Binance. This makes three executives reported to be jumping ship from Binance US in less than a week. Remember on Tuesday, sources said that Binance US CEO Brian Schroeder had left his position. Now, Schroeder has not been active on social media since February, leading some to speculate on whether reporting was simply catching up on events that had quietly transpired much earlier. According to a company spokesperson, chief legal officer Norman Reed has stepped in as interim CEO. Bloomberg ETF analyst James Safart said the obvious thing when he tweeted, well, this cannot be a good sign for whatever is going on at Binance. On the flip side, crypto has at this point, I think, written off Binance US as a going concern. The Flow Horse writes, why does anyone care about Binance US employees leaving? They don't have a job to do. The exchange is a placeholder and no one uses it. Proof of Talent founder Rob Hayon writes, Binance US doing $9 million in 24 hour volume right now. At what point do they shutter the doors? Gotta be soon, right? Now, staying on the Binance train for a moment more, the SEC have accused Binance US of refusing to cooperate during the discovery process of their ongoing lawsuit. A court filing made on Thursday noted that only 220 documents had been produced by the exchange. Binance US had signed a consent order regarding the scope of discovery in June, but the SEC are claiming that many of the documents produced in accordance with that order, quote, consist of unintelligible screenshots and documents without dates or signatures. The SEC noted that Binance had refused to produce essential witnesses for depositions, including former CEO Brian Schroeder. Instead, they unilaterally limited the list of witnesses to just four employees. The SEC said that Binance US quote, has responded to requests for relevant communication with blanket objections and has refused to produce documents kept in the ordinary course of its business, claiming those documents do not exist only for the SEC to later receive such documents from other sources. Now the bulk of the SEC's filing related to SEFU, the wallet custody system at Binance US, which is provided by Binance International. The regulator called attention to contradictory statements about Binance's involvement in the management of US customer funds. They argued that the usage of SEFU violates the terms of a prior agreement that Binance US customer funds would not be diverted offshore. The heavily redacted filing also included information obtained by the SEC with the cooperation of a former Binance US auditor who has provided over 6 ,500 documents related to Binance's accounting. The SEC are treating the lack of disclosure of these documents from Binance US directly as evidence of a lack of transparency. Now continuing on the cleanup theme, three Eros Capital co -founders, Kyle Davies and Suzu have been slapped with a nine year ban from the regulated financial services industry in Singapore. The pair have been prohibited from taking part in the management of or being a major investor in any regulated firm involved in capital markets. Now MAS, the Monetary Authority of Singapore handed down the ban after concluding its investigation into the collapse of the once high flying Singapore based crypto fund. They found that 3AC had failed to notify the regulator of the appointment of a new fund manager, falsely claimed that this manager wasn't conducting regulated activities and failed to have in place appropriate risk management. MAS assistant managing director of policy payments and financial crime said in a statement, senior management of fund managers are required to implement robust risk management measures to protect the interests of investors. MAS takes a serious view of Mr. Zou and Mr. Davies flagrant disregard of MAS's regulatory requirements and dereliction of their directors duties. MAS will take action to weed out senior managers who commit such misconduct. Now, alongside spending much of the last year ignoring requests to engage with the 3AC bankruptcy process, Zou and Kyle launched a new offshore exchange based in the Seychelles. However, that crypto and bankruptcy claims marketplace was recently reprimanded by Dubai authorities for advertising within the emirate. They were issued a $2 .8 million fine, which big surprise remains unpaid. Moving on to yet another hanging chat on Wednesday, Digital Currency Group formally proposed their Creditor Agreement as part of the Genesis bankruptcy. The agreement seeks to refinance a $630 million intercompany loan owed by DCG, which fell due in May and remains unpaid. According to DCG, the plan could offer, quote, all unsecured creditors a 70 to 90 % recovery with a meaningful portion of the recovery in digital currencies. DCG claimed the repayment of loans over time using crypto would allow creditors to, quote, capture the appreciation of cryptocurrency up to $85 ,000 for Bitcoin and $8 ,500 for ETH. We'll come back to that in just a moment. DCG called the deal a, quote, remarkable outcome for any liquidating Chapter 11 case, let alone one in the volatile cryptocurrency industry. Now, the deal will, of course, require the agreement of creditors before moving forward. DCG have secured the consent of the unsecured creditors group. However, the major creditor, Gemini, have so far been silent on the deal. Gemini claims to be owed approximately $1 .1 billion in the bankruptcy on behalf of hundreds of thousands of their customers. The Gemini claim is in a much stronger position than unsecured creditors, as Genesis posted about 31 million GBTC shares as collateral when taking loans from Gemini customers. This collateral has appreciated significantly since the bankruptcy and represents about 60 % of the total balance owed to Gemini. DCG indeed claimed that Gemini customers could see an excess recovery of up to 110 % under the new agreement. They wrote in their filing, at current pricing, the Gemini user collateral is worth approximately 607 million. If Gemini agrees to provide 100 million to Gemini earned users under the proposed agreement as it previously did, or to distribute even a small portion of the Gemini user collateral to Gemini earned users, there would be little doubt Gemini earned users would receive a full recovery. DCG then contended that Gemini is failing to, quote, put its money where its mouth is. The filing stated that Gemini, quote, is not contributing a single penny to provide Gemini earned users a better recovery. Now, the crypto community was not as convinced as DCG made it out that this was a great deal. Lumina Wealth CEO Rama Lawalia writes, The deal between DCG and Genesis reeks of self -dealing at worst and incompetence at best. The deal presumes an $85 ,000 for Bitcoin and $8 ,500 for ETH. The defaulted party should make the creditors whole, not speculate yet again on a risky gamble on behalf of creditors. Creditors lent money expecting credit risk, not volatile equity -like risk. If DCG truly believes those numbers, they should ensure that outcome for creditors through an options contract. Genesis creditors should seek the removal of the Genesis CEO, who was conflicted in a party to the alleged fraudulent balance sheet statements, petition the judge to have a new trustee, pressure Genesis to focus on the turnover motion and resume litigation. What a mess. Now, speaking of Genesis, Genesis will also cease all trading services according to a company spokesperson. If you're surprised to hear that Genesis's trading services were continuing, you're not alone. Although the crypto lending arm of the firm declared bankruptcy in January, many other DCG subsidiaries which shared the Genesis branding continued to operate throughout this year. Earlier this month, the Genesis company which handles US -based over -the -counter trading announced it would be shutting down throughout September. At the time, it was believed that Genesis would continue providing offshore OTC trading from their British Virgin Island companies, but with this announcement, Genesis has signaled their exit from OTC and derivatives trading globally. A spokesperson for the firm said, this decision was made voluntarily and for business reasons. With this termination of services, Genesis no longer offers trading services through any of its business entities. Now, while this was highly expected, it still marks something of a big moment. Wayne Vaughn tweeted, the former largest OTC crypto trading desk is officially closed. Genesis announced today that they are no longer offering trading services through any of its business entities. Seems like a juggernaut falls with every cycle. In this cycle though, friends, I think we can agree that numerous juggernauts have fallen, but perhaps it is just to clear out the way for companies who will use that juggernaut status a little more responsibly. Anyways, friends, that is going to do it for today's episode. I appreciate you guys listening as always. Until next time, be safe and take care of each other.
Crypto News Alerts | Daily Bitcoin (BTC) & Cryptocurrency News
A highlight from 1398: This Will Send Bitcoin to $1.5 Million - Cathie Wood
"In today's show, I'm going to be sharing with you the five things to watch out for in the Bitcoin market this week. Quoting Max Keiser, El Salvador's Bitcoin adoption helps secure them from the central bank coups and other financial terrorist attacks. Preach! We'll also be discussing GBTC discount hits the smallest since 2021, despite the Bitcoin price currently at three -month lows. We'll also be discussing Thailand authorities arrest five in a $27 million crypto scam. We'll also be discussing El Salvador's Bitcoin curriculum will teach the students the dark side of fiat currency. Let's go. Also, big breaking news. Will FTX liquidate $3 .4 billion worth of cryptocurrency? That includes over $560 million worth of BTC and over a billion dollars worth of Solana. I'll be breaking this down for you. We'll also be discussing Cathie Wood predicting a $25 trillion crypto market valuation in 2030, fueled by institutional bidding. I'll be breaking down this latest report. She also says the Bitcoin and artificial intelligence are about to witness explosive growth. I'll be breaking down why, as well as her confirmation on her $1 .5 million Bitcoin price forecast. All this plus so much more in today's show.
The Crypto Overnighter
A highlight from 665:X Scams Unleashed, SECs Crypto Showdown, and G20s Global Framework
"Rockstar Energy Punched, bringing a bold and unapologetic flavor packed with energy through a blend of B vitamins, guarana extract, and 240mg of caffeine to fuel what's next. Rockstar Energy Drink Good evening, and welcome to the Crypto Overnight -er. I'm Nickademus, and I will be your host as we take a look at the latest cryptocurrency news and analysis. So sit back, relax, and let's get started. And remember, none of this is financial advice. And it's 10pm Pacific on Sunday, September 10th, 2023. Welcome back to the Crypto Overnight -er, where we have no sponsors, no hidden agendas, and no BS. But we do have the news, so let's talk about that. Tonight we're diving into the murky waters of cybersecurity, starting with Vitalik Buterin's compromised X account that led to a major heist. As scams proliferate on X, formerly Twitter, are verified accounts losing their sheen. Then we switch gears to Capitol Hill, where Congressman Tom Emmer is looking to put a leash on the SEC's crypto crackdown. And on the global stage, the G20 summit strikes a chord for crypto regulations. Also on deck, Coinbase's strategy to dodge US regulatory hurdles, a bittersweet tale of Bitcoin mining in Texas, and JP Morgan Chase's new venture into blockchain -based deposit tokens. Strap in and let's go. Vitalik Buterin recently had his X account compromised. The hackers posted a fraudulent link that led to a phishing site, swindling nearly $700 ,000 from unsuspecting followers. And as usual, the scammers appealed to someone's greed. The post offered free NFTs to celebrate Ethereum's proto -dank sharding. The scam resulted in significant losses, including valuable NFTs like CryptoPunks. The total amount drained from victims' wallets exceeds $691 ,000. Some reports even suggest the loss could be as high as $800 ,000. The first publicly claimed punk NFT was also reportedly lost in the scam. The fraudulent post has since been deleted, and efforts are underway to restore the account. This incident is not just a one -off event. It's a glaring symptom of a larger issue plaguing the crypto community. And frankly, this is the kind of crap that will drive retail investors away. Phishing scams are on the rise, and even the most tech -savvy among us aren't immune. The fact that Buterin could fall victim to such a scam is alarming. It raises questions about the security measures in place on platforms like X. The hackers didn't just compromise any ol' account. They targeted a highly influential one. This was a calculated move, aimed to exploit the trust that followers place in verified accounts. It's a wake -up call for all of us, really. If you're thinking, it won't happen to me, well, think again. The hackers are getting smarter, and we need to stay a step ahead. I consider two -factor authentication to be a necessity. The incident also serves as a warning to the crypto community. Let's not forget that the decentralized world has its pitfalls, too. This same technology that empowers us can also be used against us. So let's not just focus on the financial loss here. Let's talk about the loss of trust, the most valuable currency in a decentralized world. In a twist of irony, the platform that was supposed to usher in a new era of trust has become a playground for deception. You see, scams don't discriminate. Whether it's a pioneer like Vitalik Buterin or an established trust like Grayscale, all are potential targets. The shift from Twitter to X brought with it a wave of challenges, including the degradation of the verified blue checkmark. The new system not only failed to stave off scams, but seems to have invited them in greater numbers. With this environment, the question isn't if you'll be targeted, but when. So as we shift gears, let's talk about a new scam that emerged on X. I just mentioned Grayscale a little bit ago. Here's what I was talking about. This scam involves a purported $25 million crypto giveaway. The scam is related to the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, a $13 billion trust that recently won a court case. And that's an important point because scammers usually target companies and names that have been in the news lately. This scam claims that $25 million of a new token, also called GBTC, will be given away. The account promoting this, at Grayscale underscore FND, is not affiliated with the real Grayscale company. Before Musk bought Twitter and renamed it X, a blue checkmark verified an account. Now it only means the account owner pays $8 a month. This has led to a rise in scams from blue checked accounts. The real Grayscale account on X has a gold checkmark, so keep that in mind. In another development, XRP -related scams have also increased on X. Despite Musk's claims of eradicating 90 % of scams, users argue that fraudulent activity has hardly diminished. Ripple, the company behind XRP, has been a prime target for scammers, especially due to its recent legal victories. Remember what I was saying about companies in the news? The recent scams on X, especially those involving Grayscale and XRP, are a glaring example of the platform's failure to secure its user base. Musk's acquisition of Twitter and its rebranding to X was supposed to usher in a new era of social media. Yet it seems to have only exacerbated the problem of scams, particularly in the crypto space. The blue checkmark, once a symbol of verification, has now become a tool for scammers. This is a significant issue, especially for a platform that has a large number of crypto accounts. The gold checkmark for official accounts is not enough. It's a band -aid on a gaping wound. As for XRP, the scams are a symptom of a larger issue. Ripple's legal victories have made it a target for bad actors looking to exploit the hype. The platform's inability to control this is a problem for Musk, who claimed to have made dramatic improvements in scam detection. In both cases, the scams are not just a threat to individual investors, but to the crypto community as a whole. They undermine the trust and credibility that are crucial for the mass adoption of cryptocurrencies. If platforms like X can't get their act together, they risk becoming a breeding ground for scams, further alienating an already skeptical public. If you're thinking the problem of scams is limited to individual platforms like X, you're missing the bigger picture. Even our representatives on Capitol Hill are grappling with the complexities of crypto, albeit from a different angle. Stick around. This next segment could signify a tectonic shift in how crypto is governed. And hey, if you find value in what we're doing here, don't forget to like and subscribe.
The Breakdown
A highlight from Visa Goes Deeper on Stablecoin Settlement
"Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW. It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world. What's going on, guys? It is Wednesday, September 6th, and today we're talking about big news from Visa. Before we get into that, however, if you are enjoying The Breakdown, please go subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation, come join us on the Breakers Discord. You can find a link in the show notes or go to bit .ly slash breakdown pod. So yesterday's episode started with a very brief discussion of a nominally big thing for Solana that didn't push the price at all. What we're going to do today is talk about that thing, which is much bigger than just Solana, and also talk about what it says about the general state of the cycle that we're in. The specific news was that Visa has announced an expansion of their stablecoin settlement to include the Solana network. Visa will now settle some cross -border payments using USDC on Solana. The payments company began experimenting with USDC for treasury operations in 2021. The pilot began with Crypto .com's crypto -linked Visa cards issued in Australia. Visa set up a cross -border settlement channel with Crypto .com, which allowed the exchange to finalize customer purchases using USDC over Ethereum. The expansion of the USDC settlement pilot is being done in collaboration with merchant acquirers WorldPay and Nuvei. This will allow merchant customers to select USDC stablecoin settlement as an option instead of receiving fiat currencies. Now the upgrade to Visa's systems is entirely a back -end improvement, and it's designed to cut settlement times and costs. In a statement, they explained that at the moment, quote, But what they don't see is that the funds used for their purchases need to move between their bank, the issuer, and the merchant's bank, the acquirer. This is where Visa's treasury and settlement systems enable the clearing, settlement, and movement of billions in transactions a day, making sure the correct amount in the preferred currency is received from the issuer and sent to the acquirer, end quote. Now currently cross -border card payments rely on the SWIFT system, which can take several days to finalize. By switching to crypto rails, merchants can receive cleared payments much faster, which is obviously a huge boon when it comes to cash flow management. Visa head of crypto Kai Sheffield said in a Twitter thread, WorldPay and Nuvei enable card acceptance for a diverse set of merchants across the world, including a growing number of merchants interacting with the blockchain and crypto economy who may prefer to use USDC within their corporate treasuries over traditional fiat banking. Visa can now settle these payments to WorldPay and USDC, enabling WorldPay to more flexibly manage their own treasury infrastructure and route the USDC directly to their merchants with less worry about wire cutoff times and bank holidays. It's still early days, but Visa has already settled millions of dollars of USDC over the Ethereum and Solana blockchains between our clients. We are committed to continuing to innovate around how we move money and provide our clients modern options for settlement, end quote. Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire noted that the paradigm shift enabled by using USDC as a settlement currency and not just a payments currency. Also on Twitter, he wrote, One of the things that I am most excited about regarding this new expanded use of USDC by Visa is the fact that USDC is being used as a core settlement layer within the Visa network, a more real -time, global alternative to traversing SWIFT and various ACH rails. More often than not, everyone focuses on the purely retail uses like the Shopify USDC plugin. When in reality, USDC is a generic digital dollar protocol that spans from retail to wholesale across commerce and finance. Our existing mental models for payment systems are dated. An internet -native digital dollar and stablecoin network protocol scales from tiny micropayments in P2P transactions to multi -hundred million dollar capital market transactions, end quote. Now, while Visa has been experimenting with faster USDC settlement on the card issuer side of the business for some time, this pilot extends that functionality over to the merchant settlement side. Now, to bulls, this move seems like a significant step forward in the adoption of crypto networks as a global public and neutral end -to -end value transfer system. Visa currently settles $11 .6 trillion in global payments annually and this settlement use case is precisely what research firm Bernstein envisioned when they made their call in August that stablecoins could become a $2 .8 trillion market over the next five years. So in terms of community reactions, obviously for the Solana bulls, this was a huge deal. Anatoly Yakovenko, the founder at Solana Labs said, I want Solana to be so cheap that it saves Visa money to use it over its own in -house infrastructure. And I want Solana to be so fast that it improves the user experience as well. Lily Lu, president of the Solana Foundation said, We've had a long -standing thesis around payments being only possible on Solana. Fifteen years into the conception of cryptocurrencies and the gradual progression of this use case from forum post to proof of concept to DeFi adoption, Solana meets users where they are today. Click a button, something happens immediately and with infinitesimal cost. This is going to be demonstrated at scale with Visa building on Solana. Now, others focused on the significance from the Visa side of things. Terry Angelos, who formerly worked on crypto at Visa said, Visa is an authorization network and not a payment network. Merchants pay for real -time authorization, security and guaranteed payment. Settlement post -transaction is when Visa moves dollars from issuers to merchants and that can happen on Wires, ACH and now crypto rails. Nick Carter writes, This is a huge deal. Writing on the wall, stables would become de facto interbank settlement solution via card networks. Even my non -crypto fintech friends are fired up about this. This is one of the most important news items of the year. Caitlin Long puts it even more catchily saying, Visa debanks the banks by going around them to settle US dollar payments outside the US banking system and outside traditional USD payment rails. Pilot programs for now, but… Dennis Porter, the CEO of the Satoshi Action Fund wrote, Bitcoin -only people will hate this but it needs to be said. Stablecoins will play an important role in the next wave of financial technology. The dollar isn't going anywhere anytime soon. In fact, stables will strengthen the dollar. Banks will adopt quickly. Now I could and maybe will at some point do an entire show about why Bitcoin and stablecoins aren't at least in the short term competitive. One offers an improvement on the system that exists. The other offers an opt -out of the system as it exists. In other words, they are far from incompatible. Finally, Mert, the CEO at Helios Labs says, The Visa news today isn't just good for Solana, it's awesome news for all of crypto. Slowly the Overton window is shifting and more financial activity is moving on chain. So this must have caused a huge price run up, right? I mean, this is big news. Nick Carter called it one of the biggest pieces of news of the year. Alas, Solana was up just 2%. Crypto trader Gumshoe wrote, In a bull market, Solana would have jumped over 100 % with all the crazy news of the past two weeks lol. The other news that he's referring to was Solana Pay integrating with Shopify two weeks ago. Trader Horse writes, The sole response is a good indication of the current market environment. Imagine what this post would lead to during any other point. Instead, price is listless. This is not a supply issue. We just don't have any buyers. The news should excite long -term investors, however. Teams that are still grinding in the bear get rewarded in the bull. Now I weighed in on this yesterday as well, tweeting, People looking for prices to move up on good news right now are totally missing the part of the cycle we're in. Until new buyers come in, it's sideways or down only. Doesn't mean good news isn't still good. It's just not going to show up in price. Now in the particular case of Solana, there is a general and specific context. The general is what we just talked about and where we are in the cycle. The specific is that Solana is dealing with the overhang of the FTX estate having $1 .1 billion worth of Solana in their coffers right now. That's something like 13 % of the total supply. Reinforcing the contrast between news and energy, even as all this was happening, Solana's daily active addresses fell to around 204 ,000 at the end of August. That's the lowest level for the metric since the block began tracking it in late 2020. Rebecca Stevens, data analyst at The Block Research, put the reasons pretty crisply saying, The Solana ecosystem was already seeing a decline in active users prior to the collapse of FTX, but the fact that the blockchain had such strong ties to the exchange and Alameda Research hurt its reputation a bit. The SEC alleging that Sol is a security also hurt the token's price and has caused it to be delisted in the U .S. on several platforms like eToro and Robinhood. Now overall, the block's monthly exchange volume measurement hit its lowest point so far during this cycle in August. Just $423 billion in volume was moved through centralized exchanges last month, falling below other recent low points in May and December. The lack of trading on exchanges was punctuated by Binance falling below $200 billion in monthly volume for the first time since November 2020. Now this lack of activity extends to Bitcoin as well. Dylan LeClair tweeted, As a percentage of circulating supply, Bitcoin moved in the last 30 days is at an all -time low of 5 .4%. Meanwhile, spot volumes are at levels not seen since 2019. Saying this market is thin currently is an understatement. Reflexivity Research co -founder Will Clemente writes, Crypto aggregated trading volume is the lowest that it's been since 2020. Google's search trends for Bitcoin and crypto at multi -year lows. Realized volatility, implied volatility, weekly Bollinger Bands, all near record lows. This is exactly what apathy looks like. Now Kaleo pointed out that although this is brutal, it's not necessarily out of sync with the cycle. He wrote, Centralized exchange volumes haven't been this low since December 2020. Daily average volume is down from $164 billion at peak to around $13 billion now, a 92 % decline. For reference, the peak in the 2017 bull market was around $28 billion, with an average of $2 .5 billion per day six months prior to the 2020 halving, a 91 % decline. So after all of the centralized exchange trauma we've seen over the past year, we're still in line with a similar trend to what we saw last cycle, despite how rough it may feel. Still, I think it's worth noting comments from Kobe given during the height of the bull market. On the Up Only show, he said quote, You need to have the same level of interest when everything is really boring. The main way you have to make it is to try to perpetuate your interest through the boring bit. The boring bit is where the opportunity is. Now of course, one of the things that people anticipate could bring some new blood in is that fabled Bitcoin spot ETF. So an update on that front as well. After winning a comprehensive victory in court last week, lawyers for Grayscale have written to the SEC to ask them to get moving. According to Grayscale, the court ruling was so comprehensive that the SEC has quote no grounds for treating the Grayscale Bitcoin trust differently to Bitcoin futures ETFs. They wrote quote, Now the letter anticipates a change in tactics from the SEC who may choose to introduce new reasons to prevent Grayscale from converting GBTC into an ETF. The letter stated that quote, Grayscale pressed home the importance of resolving this conversion in a timely manner given the number of rival products clamoring for approval. The letter noted that the SEC may have now exceeded the time allowed to refuse an application, reserving their right to argue in court that the conversion should now be deemed approved. Grayscale argued that quote, Finally, they requested to meet with the SEC as soon as possible to discuss the path forward. James Safart, ETF analyst at Bloomberg said, Now even as the ETF situation works to be resolved, there is clearly some jockeying for positioning as it relates to renewed or new institutional interest in the crypto space. As a for example, Coinbase has launched a new crypto lending service aimed at U .S. institutional clients. The service looks to fill in the gap left by the Genesis and BlockFi bankruptcies. An under -the -radar SEC filing made last week disclosed the program already has $57 million in client funds. According to a person familiar with the service, clients can lend out their crypto assets on an over collateralized basis to Coinbase. The firm can then extend those crypto assets as loans to institutional trading firms. This is essentially the same business as prime brokerage in the traditional finance space. Now, unlike the canceled Coinbase Lend program, retail customers are explicitly excluded from this service. By catering exclusively to accredited and institutional clients, Coinbase is able to offer the service under less onerous regulatory requirements. Honestly, one of the big takeaways is just what a big gap has been left by Genesis in the U .S. institutional environment. However, as you'll hear in an interview coming out later this week or maybe even later today with Hani Rashwan from 21Shares, that institutional interest may be far less gone than it might currently seem. However, that is going to do it for today's episode. I appreciate you listening as always, and until tomorrow, be safe and take care of each other.
Tech Path Crypto
A highlight from 1239. Bitcoin ETF Approved By October? Bloomberg Intelligence INTERVIEW
"All right, so today we're going to dive into some interesting stuff. I think you guys are going to like it. It'll be breaking down some of the ETF news that, of course, we heard last week and, of course, some of the interesting aspects around what was going on with BlackRock. We'll break all that down today. I think you guys are going to love it. My name is Paul Baron. Welcome back into Tech Path. Joining me today is Eric Balshunis, who is a senior ETF analyst over at Bloomberg Intelligence. Great to have you on the show. Great to be here. Thank you. Hey, Eric. So a couple of things I wanted to kind of touch on. Obviously, some of the things that everybody was looking at last week was, of course, the delays. The letters started coming in on Friday. We saw all that happening. There was a little bit of a slowness of the BlackRock news. Just your opinion. Why do you feel like that was happening in the way that it was happening? Yeah. I don't understand because BlackRock was up after some other people, or before them, rather. And so it didn't appear as though the delays were chronologically rate -based. It didn't appear as though the delays were based on size. There was no rhyme or reason. It seemed random. And BlackRock came a little later. And the weird thing is, on the site where they consolidate all of them, BlackRock was never added. Yet, on a different place, they did delay BlackRock. So I've long equated what I'm doing here to Jim Garrison, played by Kevin Costner in the movie JFK. There's all these things that could be something, like did Lee Harvey Oswald act alone? And in the movie, he uncovers all this, some legit, some not legit, circumstantial evidence that there was multiple shooters and a conspiracy. So this reminds me of one of those things that probably means nothing in terms of that. That said, just the fact that BlackRock filed is big, and that does mean something. And obviously we can get into that, but certainly BlackRock getting delayed and Fidelity, it shows that they just delayed them all. For a minute there, there was a thought that would delay some of the smaller ones and just approve BlackRock and or Fidelity. But again, we had thought all along this was going to be delayed, because this lawsuit happened like two days before. So it was not a surprise. If they're going to put them out, I think they need more time to work with the issuers and develop some kind of a game plan and make sure all of the T's are crossed and the I's are dotted. So that would not happen in two days. So no biggie. All right. So you mentioned, obviously, the fact that BlackRock is filing in the first place. That's really the huge news here. When you look at BlackRock's position of filing, along with other major proponents, we'll just use there Fidelity as well. And you look at the likelihood with this, obviously, they have a very low ratio of losses when it comes to our non -confirmed ETFs that they've filed. What would make, first of all, what would make BlackRock to have this much confidence to go ahead in this market, the way that this market has been evolving with Chair Gensler and everything that's been happening with the SEC, it's not, it doesn't feel like it's a slam dunk. Why would BlackRock go out on a limb? Yeah. So we have a couple of theories. The best, I mean, BlackRock is a publicly traded company. They're looking to make money. Larry Fink has to appeal to his board that he's doing new things. And it does feel like BlackRock was full on into ESG. That kind of has died a bit. And it seems like this might be taking its place in terms of something BlackRock can do to grow its business, because you cannot make money battling Vanguard in terms of selling like cheap beta ETFs, because even at three basis points on $100 billion, it's not a ton of money and it's not a high growth area. It's growth for assets, but not necessarily for revenue. So we think they're obviously motivated by having a new area they can launch in. Vanguard will probably never launch a Bitcoin ETF, so they're worried about Vanguard there. They could charge a decent fee and they can make it have a new revenue stream. So I think that's largely their motivation. I also think Larry Fink, in my opinion, has heard some back channel that he thinks the U .S. is losing the sort of global battle to be a leader in the crypto space. And I think that frustrates him to a degree. So I think those are two reasons. Back to the revenue, though, think about this gold ETF GLD was launched in 2004, I believe. To this day, it's still the third highest revenue generating ETF, even though there's many cheaper ones. And the reason is, if you could be the big one that has all the liquidity or a lot of it, that gives you pricing power. You don't ever really need to lower your fee because there's just so many investors who just prize liquidity above all else. So we think BlackRock thinks they have a shot to be the one, the GLD of Bitcoin, and that that's going to be a nice little business for them. And we were talking, if it had the same assets as GLD, it would be, again, top five revenue generating ETF. GBTC, by the way, which isn't even an ETF, if it were, it would make the same money as GLD. So like two, GLD and GBTC are in the top five if you ranked all ETFs by revenue. And so I just think that's their primary motivation. I think they also like, what they tell you publicly is they're in the business of sort of democratizing investing and bringing down frictional costs. And I do believe they believe that and they would do that in this case. That said, I think revenue is definitely a motivator. Yeah, for sure. OK, so a couple of things you mentioned there. One, of course, is Larry Fink's position around ESG. He has been a very strong proponent of sustainable governance throughout the last few years. You know, in his letter to his investors over the past couple of years, that's been a big part of it. Now you move into Bitcoin. Bitcoin often accused as one of the most non -friendly carbon neutral tokens and projects out there. But yet at the same time, you have BlackRock potentially on the lead position here for an ETF. How do they balance that out? I get it that they've kind of backed off the ESG message. But how do you balance that out to the investors? Look, I mean, I'm just going to be frank. A lot of ESG, if you get too moralizing when it comes to ESG, it's tough because guaranteed you do something that makes you a hypocrite. It's just the way it is. So I think they backed off a little. And ESG ETFs haven't really sold that great. Even BlackRock took money out of its own ESG ETF from its models. Let's just face it. All this evidence is pretty strong that the term ESG is under pressure and ESG investing, I think, is also going to face some headwinds for like, what are we really doing here? How does it actually impact anything? It just, you know, I've seen this happen. This trend gets a little ahead of its skis. The media love this story. They really hyped up ESG. It's going to save the world. The millennials are into it. And then, boom, it started underperforming and it got political. And so reality set in and it's now going to be probably relegated to a very niche status in the ETF world. One to two percent market cap of the total. I mean, I look at it just in the sense of, hey, it's a capitalist market. Capitalists are going to do things that capitalists do, and that is find where the market flows. And this is obviously what's happening right now. A couple of things you had mentioned around the potential of this ETF going through. I know your percentage right now with you and James has been climbing. Have you changed your position since last Friday before the holiday in terms of percentage of approval? No. Seventy -five percent factored in the delay on Friday. We assumed that. We'd be shocked if they approved them. That said, we went from 65 percent to 75 after Grayscale. And the reason for that is in our 65 percent, we had a 70 percent chance likelihood that Grayscale would win based on our senior legal analyst. So the fact that they won gave us a little extra juice. The other thing is it was three to oh in terms of how that lawsuit was, the ruling came down. Two of the judges came from Democrats. That's really important because there are political workings here. Gensler has a Democratic boss. He is a Democrat. And if enough Democrats start to just move over on this issue and shift to the middle or to the crypto side, it makes Gensler's position more politically untenable by the minute. And so he could keep moving the goalposts legally, I think, as long as he wants. But it's going to begin to look more and more desperate and he's going to face more backlash. And this is a big deal for us. So we thought it was the decisiveness of the ruling, the language, like everything you said has to go out the window. Your whole reason for denial is vacated. And the fact that two Democrats signed on to that, huge. Then the second part was the media attention. Once every six or seven years, do I see ABC News or CNN have an ETF in the headline? I know this because ETFs are in their own little underground. Every now and then, though, something big happens. And ETFs were all over mainstream news. New York Times, ABC, Washington Post. This also matters because the headlines were like, SEC loses, paves way for spot Bitcoin ETFs. Well, now people are just sort of thinking this is going to happen because the New York Times said it and people on Capitol Hill read this. They don't necessarily read crypto trade publications. mainstreamness So the of the media attention and how they were presenting it also made us think that the pressure would increase. And our senior litigation analyst looked at the legal side and determined the SEC has very little wiggle room. That was his words. So when you add the PR aspect to the legal aspect, that's where we upped it a little bit to 75%. That still leaves 25 % for this theory, which is that Gensler being potentially a stubborn guy and or just truly, truly not feeling this should ever happen, even though, again, the stuff that's come out is way more dangerous, 2x Bitcoin futures, come on. Anyway, what he might do is he might lock into some other reason, like custody. I don't know what the custody is safe, then he might start to look at how custody could delay these further. And he may make that the next denial. Like I said, it's going to look more and more desperate every time they latch on to a new issue, but it's possible. And that's why we leave the 25 % opening for that. I want to jump over and onto the Grayscale side of things. From an analyst position, and you look at Grayscale's current scenario playing out, obviously there's a little bit of lead time here. Maybe they do some changes in the way they submit a spot ETF. What is in the future of Grayscale's potential of getting into the ETF game? So Grayscale is going to be tricky. We have this phrase that Grayscale may win the case and lose the race. I'll make some of those things rhyme if you're a headline writer. But anyway, Grayscale is a private placement trust that was just for accredited investors. We've never seen anything like that just, boom, become an ETF. We've seen mutual funds convert to ETFs. I think one closed -end fund converted to ETF, separate accounts, but I guess it's possible. It's just unprecedented. And given you just embarrassed the SEC, it's possible the SEC says, let's make you refile and get in the back of the line, and we'll prove all the other ones first. So this has been somewhat of our theory all along in why BlackRock filed. BlackRock saw a scenario where, I doubt the SEC told them this. That would be a little, I think that's illegal, but let's just say BlackRock thought of this whole scenario, which is, you could see this is a pretty viable thesis. Hey, let's file, because if the SEC loses to Grayscale, you know they're going to be pissed off at Grayscale pursuing them and embarrassing them. And maybe if we're sitting there waiting, just, oh, hey, by the way, SEC, if you want to use us and our new surveillance sharing agreement that we put in here, which is kind of novel, as an excuse as to like why you never approved Grayscale, and you can make them wait, and you can leave this whole thing with the adults in the room of BlackRock, right, you know we're not going to mess this up. I could see that appealing to the SEC, and I could see BlackRock seeing how that would appeal to the SEC. So you get to save face and kind of enact a little revenge on Grayscale in the process. Now, possibly Grayscale could sue them again for that, I don't know. But I see how that would possibly be one of the reasons BlackRock thought they had a route to approval first. Interesting. Well, I think in that kind of scenario, I mean, it makes sense in the essence of this being such a political landscape as it is right now, because you're right, it's all really kind of a card game right now, especially around the issue of ETFs. I want to get into the potential of the impact on the market. And I remember in a podcast you had mentioned potential here around $20 billion in the first couple of months, $150 billion in the first year or two. When you look at that market, do you feel like that is where this, this I'm assuming with BlackRock leading the way as kind of the premier ETF? Yeah, if you have a BlackRock ETF, okay, that's prime time. I mean, we have a saying on the team that BlackRock and Vanguard ETFs are the new IBM. And what I mean by that is if you're a 65 year old financial advisor and you were a broker 30 years ago, it used to be said, you could never get fired for buying IBM. It's just, it's just too good. It's like all American company. No, none of your clients are going to be like, what did you get me into? Now it's, you can't get fired for buying a BlackRock or Vanguard ETF. It's just, it's too good a deal. It's just too bulletproof. Whereas if you went into some crazy hedge fund and stuff, they make it mad, right? But BlackRock and Vanguard ETFs, solid. So once you put it into a BlackRock ETF, it sort of goes into this, it elevates it, I think, for the financial advisors who are like maybe willing to use as a hedge or an alternative, or they have younger, you know, their, their clients' kids are into it. And they're like, ah, now, now I feel comfortable, safe and willing to do this because I use ETFs in the rest of my portfolio. I trust BlackRock. I certainly don't want to custody it myself. They're going to do it. I feel safe with them. The fee's not that bad. It costs one basis point to trade, to trade. I think that's very powerful. And so when I come up with the 150 billion, here's the math, right? One is that's about how much gold ETFs have. Two is if you take advisors and wealth managers, they have $30 trillion that they run for the rich boomers of America, basically. If only 0 .5 % of that comes over, that is 150 billion. So that's, I think, pretty fair because I think you have some advisors who might allocate 2%, but then some that just find it to be repelling and do nothing. So I think 0 .5 to me seems like a pretty fair number. Even it could be low. That's how I get to the 150 billion over time. And gold is about there. So GBTC has 20 billion. So I think you could, let's just say that moves over instantly. That's where I get to the 28 billion pretty soon because either the people move or it just converts over. And then you get BlackRock Fidelity, you're adding to that. And I think also they'll steal some business from the exchanges, frankly. I think if you're in a crypto exchange and you're charging 30 to 150 basis points per trade, this ETF trading on NYSE at one basis point is going to be appealing. So I also think institutions could get into it, especially the one that becomes very liquid because I wrote a book called The Institutional ETF Toolbox. And institutions don't need ETFs generally. They can get everything on their own in separate accounts for almost cheaper than ETF. And they like it private. They feel like ETF is kind of like the dirty public pool down the street. That said, what the ETF does have is even an institution can't resist this liquidity. And it's also anonymity. So if an institution wants to get short or long crypto quickly, it would use this most liquid Bitcoin ETF as a way to put that trade on. We see that happen with GLD all the time. If you look at GLD or SPY, these are things that institutions can get. But the liquidity in them is great because they can go in there with no contracts, anonymous. They don't move the market and they can just get that into their portfolio quickly. So the most liquid spot Bitcoin ETF, I think, will even draw big fish in. So you add a lot of that together and I think you're looking at that much money. Now, let's say there's another FTX that could delay some of this. But I was pretty impressed at how quickly Bitcoin, how resilient Bitcoin was to FTX. It was in the gutter both PR and price wise for a little bit, but not that long. Like I said, Bitcoin, even though I don't understand every aspect of it, I respect its resiliency. It just keeps coming back. Yeah, it's one of those that has made its way finally into the mainstream. Now, I think a lot of this has been legitimized with companies like BlackRock obviously getting involved. But to your point, before we go on to other ideas around this, because there are other components key here that might make sense for how successful BlackRock might be. I wanted to go to James Saffert's post here, one of your colleagues there. Some of the key dates that, let me zoom in on that, you're going to look at a couple of dates here. You've got iShares coming in on 10 .17. There's quite a few coming up right here in the middle of October and even early October with GlobalX. They've got a refiling, I think, coming in. Anyway, when do you think the next potential timing would be for a lot of these potential ETFs to maybe get a green light, if there was a window here? Yeah, so I've got to be honest, I like October because, I don't know, first of all, it gives the SEC two months to work this out, roughly. October is when the Bitcoin futures ETF launched. We're also going to have a whole slew of Ether futures ETFs in October. As you get closer to Christmas, I think maybe the odds go down a little because the holidays hit. October is just a very vibrant month in general, and you've got a slew of deadlines coming up in October. But I sometimes put the deadlines aside and I think that, because if we're going strictly on deadlines, and they want to punt, punt, punt, the first deadline is ARK in January, final deadline where they have to approve or deny. And I don't know if they want to put ARK out first, and that'd be two months ahead of anybody else. They'd be playing Kingmaker. And I think after Bitto, they let Bitto out first like a week before Valkyrie, and Bitto has 95 % of all the volume assets. So I don't think they want to play Kingmaker here. So my guess is they're going to scrap the timeline and we're going to wake up one day and hear probably going to be a scoop or from Coindesk Wall Street Journal or something, or Bloomberg hopefully, that the SEC has decided to say okay to these and they're going to work it out. They'll launch in two weeks. That's my gut. I just don't know if they punt in October and they keep punting and they get to January and they actually deny ARK. I don't know. That makes it feel like just every other denial that's ever existed. So I don't know. I'm leaning towards we're just going to wake up one morning and we're good. I could be wrong. How does this play out, Eric? If that were the case, let's go the absolute negative side of this and they do punt and they finally go to the deadline. They don't push out ARK. They basically do a denial. What does that look like on BlackRock's record? Does BlackRock even worry about that at all or are they like, hey, this is getting out of hand here? You mean if BlackRock's denied in October again? No. I mean, look, what can they do? There's not a ton they can do. Well, if they approve others and let BlackRock, that would upset them, I think. But as long as they're in the group, their main goal is to be outburst. I think their goal is to be one of the ones launched on day one. So as long as that happens, whether it's in October or frankly next year, I'm sure they're fine with that. Now, I think the longer you wait, the longer you get into the situation of what I think also bothers Larry Fink, which is the US is behind the rest of the world in this big time. They've got spot Bitcoin ETFs all over the world and they work fine and they have less liquidity from big time market makers like we have here. So if they can work well during overseas a period like FTX and the percent premiums are pretty tight, they're going to work here. And this is why ETFs are so good. They allow arbitrage. And so I think by releasing the ETF in the US sooner rather than later, it just makes a lot of sense in terms of that race with the rest of the world. But again, Genzer clearly is tough. But the last SEC guy is Jay Clayton. And he said on CNBC after the Grayscale ruling that they have to approve them. It's inevitable. JP Morgan, my colleagues in the sell side, who I'll just say this. I feel we stick our necks out a little more and we're trying to be progressive. JP Morgan now finally after Grayscale says, yeah, they're probably going to approve them like, well, OK, well, welcome to the club. We've been here for a little while. Yeah. Very conservative position. Yeah. And Bernstein said the same thing. But again, as you get these bigger banks actually coming out, again, the narrative then becomes the SEC is approving them. And so, again, it's almost like a self -fulfilling prophecy at some point, especially, again, as you see headlines in The New York Times, it paves way, paves way.
Coin Stories with Natalie Brunell
A highlight from News Block: Grayscale Victory, ETF Delays, Binance Troubles, Cost to Own Home Skyrockets
"Welcome to the CoinStories news block. I'm Nathalie Brunel and in the span of just 10 minutes, roughly the same time it takes to mine a new Bitcoin block, I'll provide you with concise, insightful updates on Bitcoin and the global financial landscape so you're well informed on the week's top stories. Everything you need to know, in one place, in one block. Let's go. The biggest news of the last week came out of Washington, D .C., when the U .S. Court of Appeals sided with Grayscale in its battle against the SEC. This case is all about potentially converting the Grayscale Bitcoin trust into a Bitcoin spot ETF. Better known for its ticker GBTC, the Grayscale Bitcoin trust is the world's largest Bitcoin investment fund. Today, it holds more than 600 ,000 Bitcoin, around 3 % of Bitcoin's circulating supply. Last Tuesday, the court ruled that the SEC was wrong in its decision to deny Grayscale's ETF application. An ETF, or Exchange Traded Fund, is similar to a stock. It trades on a stock exchange, but it tracks an asset or collection of assets like stocks, bonds or commodities. A spot Bitcoin ETF would make buying Bitcoin as easy as buying shares of a company. If you recall, the SEC approved multiple Bitcoin futures ETFs back in 2021, so the regulators' denial of Grayscale's spot ETF conversion confused a lot of people. Bitcoin futures ETFs allow investors to invest in paper Bitcoin contracts that settle in dollars. No actual Bitcoin is bought in the process. In the case of a spot Bitcoin ETF, a fund would have to buy and hold actual Bitcoin, and the performance of the ETF would be directly tied to the underlying asset. When the SEC denied Grayscale's spot Bitcoin ETF application, regulators argued it didn't meet investor protection standards and was prone to market manipulation. Grayscale sued, essentially saying, hey, if you're worried about market manipulation with a spot ETF, shouldn't you also be worried about manipulation with a futures ETF that tracks the same underlying Bitcoin? If so, then why did you approve one and not the other? Well, the court agreed with Grayscale. The judges called out the SEC, stating that the agency's denial was arbitrary and capricious and fell short of the standard for reasoned decision making. So where does that leave things? Well, the SEC has 45 days to decide whether or not to challenge this ruling. If regulators choose not to appeal, then we could see a spot Bitcoin ETF hit the market sooner than we thought. But the ball is in the SEC's court. The SEC can come up with a different argument for denying Grayscale's conversion, or they can agree with the court's ruling but instead choose to remove the futures ETFs. This seems unlikely given their size and popularity. So although this ruling doesn't necessarily mean that GBTC will be converted into a spot Bitcoin ETF, it certainly does increase the odds. Bloomberg ETF analysts Eric Belkounis and James Saifert have increased their odds of a spot Bitcoin ETF approval this year to 75 % in the wake of the Grayscale victory. On CNBC, former SEC chair Jay Clayton said that an approval of a spot Bitcoin ETF is inevitable. As you may know, Grayscale isn't the only player in town vying for a spot Bitcoin ETF. Large institutions like BlackRock, Fidelity, ARK Invest and Invesco are all waiting for their spot Bitcoin ETF applications to get approved by the SEC as well. We got an update last Friday when the SEC announced that it will delay making any decision on all of these ETF applications until at least mid -October. A spot Bitcoin ETF approval would mark a milestone for the industry. Not only would it be a signal of approval from regulators, but it would also make it easier than ever before for investors to gain exposure to Bitcoin, potentially bringing in a flood of new demand. Michael Saylor tweeted the approval of a spot BTC ETF will mark a crucial inflection point in the history of Bitcoin adoption. Whereas some investors appear optimistic about a potential ETF approval, others are taking a different stance. Investors podcast host Preston Pish tweeted, What Preston may be alluding to here is that Binance is still very much a looming shadow over the industry. If the SEC's main concern revolves around market manipulation, then perhaps it won't be approving any ETFs until Binance's market share of trading volume takes a serious dip. For perspective, Binance isn't just big, it's massive. Recent data shows that as of the end of July, Binance accounted for nearly half of all Bitcoin trading volume. Half. This doesn't bode well for the ETF chances given that Binance was recently accused of market manipulation and fraud in a recent SEC lawsuit. On top of that, Binance is currently under investigation by the Department of Justice in connection with potential money laundering and sanctions violations. Now here's where things got super interesting last week. The SEC took the uncommon step of filing sealed documents in its lawsuit against Binance. Filing a court document under seal means the SEC wants to keep sensitive information from going public. Former SEC chair John Reed Stark tweeted that the SEC would only take this action for two reasons. One, it doesn't want to interfere with an ongoing DOJ investigation. And two, it wants to protect companies or individuals involved with the investigation. This sealed motion raised eyebrows given that it hints that the SEC has submitted potentially incriminating evidence against Binance related to the DOJ's investigation. The developments surrounding Binance will continue to unfold. Whether or not the SEC will wait until there's some resolution there before approving a spot Bitcoin ETF is purely speculation right now. But given the serious charges of market manipulation against Binance, if more trading volume flowed away from Binance and into more regulated exchanges, it would likely help ease some of the SEC's concerns and potentially lead to a spot ETF approval. All of this uncertainty with Binance only reinforces how important it is to learn how to take self -custody of your Bitcoin. The whole point of Bitcoin is that you don't have to trust any exchange or third party to own it. The best time to take self -custody of your Bitcoin was yesterday. The second best time is today. As regulators and investors remain focused on Bitcoin ETFs and the activities of crypto exchanges, more and more Bitcoin miners are coming online, causing Bitcoin's hash rate to grow relentlessly in 2023. The hash rate refers to the amount of computational power being used to process Bitcoin transactions. And recently it surpassed 400 exahash per second for the first time in history, up over 50 % just this year. If you took all the computational power of Amazon, Google and Meta combined, you still wouldn't come close to this figure. It means that more energy is being used to secure the Bitcoin network than ever before. So where is the hash rate coming from? A recent mining report from Galaxy Research suggests a majority is coming from miners outside the United States. This theory is supported by recent news that the oil -producing country of Oman is investing more than a billion dollars in Bitcoin mining facilities. Oman government officials stated that these mining facilities will be used to make its stranded gas flares profitable to help develop new hydropower projects and to stabilize its electrical grid. Oman joins other nation states like Bhutan and El Salvador, which have also publicly announced their investment in Bitcoin mining. Finally this week, as Bitcoin's hash rate is going up, U .S. home affordability is in a freefall. The U .S. average 30 -year mortgage rate recently touched 7 .5%, the highest in 25 years. That rapid climb, a direct result of the Federal Reserve hiking interest rates at one of the fastest paces in history. According to the Cabeza letter, the monthly cost to own a home is up 90 % since 2020, and the median income earner is now spending 40 % of their monthly take -home pay on mortgage payments. That's the highest in history. This is a topic I discussed more in depth on my latest Coin Stories episode with Danielle DiMartino Booth. And to take it one step further, property taxes, homeowners insurance, and the cost of materials for maintenance have all increased as well due to inflation. This nasty combination has moved U .S. housing affordability to the lowest level in nearly four decades. And to make matters worse, according to recent data from the U .S. Census Bureau, more than 40 % of U .S. homes are owned by someone who does not live there. This means wealthy individuals that bought second homes or turned their property into Airbnbs, and large institutions like BlackRock that have been buying up whole neighborhoods for investment purposes. Real estate has now become the primary way investors save because the dollar doesn't hold its value over time. This drives up real estate prices, making the dream of owning a home more and more unattainable for families. What was once a staple of the American dream has grown almost completely out of reach, especially for younger generations. This is why so many are turning to investing in Bitcoin as a form of digital property, one with no maintenance or upkeep costs that you can carry with you wherever you go. And unlike a home, you can buy just a fraction of a Bitcoin to start saving for your future today. That's it for the News Block, your weekly Bitcoin and economic news update. I'm Natalie Brunell. Make sure you're subscribed to Coin Stories so you never miss an episode. Until next time, keep stacking.
Bitcoin & Crypto Trading: Ledger Cast
A highlight from ETF is coming but market is bearish anyway
"Hello welcome and to Love Your Cast, my name is Brian Krogsgard, here. Josh Ulsovich, like always, and he's laughing at me, I don't know why. I wasn't sure you were gonna get the name right, I thought it was gonna be a botch job. On my own name? Yeah, on what the show was. I mean, you're a busy guy, you got a lot going on, you know? I don't blame you, I'm just... We got there though. Yeah. Flawless. Flawless, yeah. Flawless. I've heard you say it so many times, I was like, uh oh, what is he gonna say? These charts are not flawless, these charts are sad. These charts are a big, big uh oh, let me tell you what. But I've been preoccupied with drive chain drama, so... Drive chain? Drive chain drama, we'll talk about it later on in the show, but I've been so preoccupied with that over the past couple days, like I haven't really cared about price. That's the good thing about a governance debate, you can get down to the core and the fundamentals of why any of us are here in the first place, and I don't know, it's interesting, but we'll start off with price and macro, I guess. Drive chain. Drive chain, yeah. I mean, the altcoin people are gonna be like, whatever, who cares, we can already do this on our chain. No one, doesn't matter, guys, basically the altcoin people are gonna say, you're arguing over something that we've had for years, who cares, we don't care, we already have what we can do elsewhere. Anyway, we'll talk about it, we'll talk about it, let's talk about price stuff first though. Yeah. Because I'm fired up, baby. You have four charts up, so I'm gonna just put Bitcoin on here. Yeah, sure. Couple things that I noticed right away, Josh, after we had the SEC get the smack down, losing a ruling. GBTC Which is good. Market. We didn't want to root for Ripple, but you had to, at the end of the day, you had to root for GBTC, even though Barry is Barry and Grayscale is Grayscale, and the product is flawed, and the fees are insane, and it's a hostage situation, but anyway, yes, we won. Go ahead. The market whisperers, like the Bloomberg type of people that follow ETFs, changed their 23, 95 % for 2024. And there was a chance that they thought that they might just approve them right out, right out of the gate, because it was enough of a smack down from this whatever circuit court, I think, whatever, that it was a bad loss, bad beat. Well, if you're a bully and you get punched in the face, I don't think you just turn around and forgive, forgive whatever's going on or change your mind, you know, and that's... But nevertheless, it looks like a spot Bitcoin ETF is on the way. Yeah. Realistically, probably means also an ETH one, sometime in the year or two to follow. Here we go. It starts already. The alt people. And... Let me tell you why this is good news for something that isn't Bitcoin. Let me tell you. And the market liked it. The market liked it for a day. Why do we care about ETFs? I'll tell you why in a minute. The market liked it for a day and then retraced it fully. If you look at the weekly chart, a couple of things to note, 200 week, which it pierced right into, now getting rejected off of. Well, partially it was rejected because all of the pending ETF applications got delayed. Which I don't know if you said that, but... Not denied. They got only delayed. But also the 200 day got denied.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
A highlight from MARKETS DAILY: Featured Story | The Real Reasons the Grayscale Bitcoin ETF Decision Matters
"This episode of Markets Daily is sponsored by Kraken and Simpliras. It's Sunday, September 3rd, 2023, and this is Markets Daily from CoinDesk. Hi, I'm Michelle Musa here with your featured story. On today's show, we're taking a deeper look at what the grayscale Bitcoin ETF decision means for the crypto industry. And just a reminder, CoinDesk is a news source and does not provide investment advice. Today's piece comes from CoinDesk's Daniel Kuhn. We'll be using Wondercraft AI to read the story. The piece is titled, The Real Reasons the Grayscale Bitcoin ETF Decision Matters. The U .S. is one step closer to having a spot -market Bitcoin exchange -traded fund, ETF, the holy grail of white -glove crypto financial products. On Tuesday, a three -judge panel for the U .S. Court of Appeals delivered a crushing interpretation of the Securities and Exchange Commission's logic for denying an ETF, finding the agency acted capriciously and arbitrarily. Now that is what crypto folk have been saying for years. In particular, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals sided with Grayscale Investments, disclosure CoinDesk's sister company, in its pursuit to transition the massive grayscale Bitcoin trust, GBTC, into an ETF. More precisely, the judges granted Grayscale's petition for review, meaning the SEC will have to review Grayscale's previously rejected ETF application, and maybe come up with better reasons for denying it again. Crypto is salivating not only over the court's pro -ETF ruling, but also its anti -SEC comments. The top U .S. securities regulator fell, quote, short of the standard, made unexplained calls, and, quote, failed to adequately explain, end quote, its argument. In particular, the SEC didn't make a good enough case for approving some Bitcoin -related exchange -traded products, namely futures -based products, and not others. Further, the SEC seemed unwilling to listen to the facts, like that Spot and futures Bitcoin markets are 99 % correlated, and so the concerns it has raised to reject 100 % of Spot market ETF filings don't make sense. What this means for the existing round of ETF applications is unknown, which mostly filed in a rush after BlackRock unexpectedly threw its hat in the ring. For many, the idea the SEC's crypto policies are divorced from reality will be obvious. The agency has for years been unwilling to consider the merits of blockchain as it exists, and what decentralization means for standing U .S. laws. Not that skepticism over crypto's claims of decentralization isn't warranted at this point, but here is a clear -as -day ruling showing bias.
Markets Daily Crypto Roundup
A highlight from Featured Story | The Real Reasons the Grayscale Bitcoin ETF Decision Matters
"This episode of Markets Daily is sponsored by Kraken and Simpliras. It's Sunday, September 3rd, 2023, and this is Markets Daily from CoinDesk. Hi, I'm Michelle Musa here with your featured story. On today's show, we're taking a deeper look at what the grayscale Bitcoin ETF decision means for the crypto industry. And just a reminder, CoinDesk is a news source and does not provide investment advice. Today's piece comes from CoinDesk's Daniel Kuhn. We'll be using Wondercraft AI to read the story. The piece is titled, The Real Reasons the Grayscale Bitcoin ETF Decision Matters. The U .S. is one step closer to having a spot -market Bitcoin exchange -traded fund, ETF, the holy grail of white -glove crypto financial products. On Tuesday, a three -judge panel for the U .S. Court of Appeals delivered a crushing interpretation of the Securities and Exchange Commission's logic for denying an ETF, finding the agency acted capriciously and arbitrarily. Now that is what crypto folk have been saying for years. In particular, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals sided with Grayscale Investments, disclosure CoinDesk's sister company, in its pursuit to transition the massive grayscale Bitcoin trust, GBTC, into an ETF. More precisely, the judges granted Grayscale's petition for review, meaning the SEC will have to review Grayscale's previously rejected ETF application, and maybe come up with better reasons for denying it again. Crypto is salivating not only over the court's pro -ETF ruling, but also its anti -SEC comments. The top U .S. securities regulator fell, quote, short of the standard, made unexplained calls, and, quote, failed to adequately explain, end quote, its argument. In particular, the SEC didn't make a good enough case for approving some Bitcoin -related exchange -traded products, namely futures -based products, and not others. Further, the SEC seemed unwilling to listen to the facts, like that Spot and futures Bitcoin markets are 99 % correlated, and so the concerns it has raised to reject 100 % of Spot market ETF filings don't make sense. What this means for the existing round of ETF applications is unknown, which mostly filed in a rush after BlackRock unexpectedly threw its hat in the ring. For many, the idea the SEC's crypto policies are divorced from reality will be obvious. The agency has for years been unwilling to consider the merits of blockchain as it exists, and what decentralization means for standing U .S. laws. Not that skepticism over crypto's claims of decentralization isn't warranted at this point, but here is a clear -as -day ruling showing bias.
The Defiant - DeFi Podcast
A highlight from SEC Delays Bitcoin ETFs + Grayscale Ruling + Uniswap Class Action
"Okay, welcome everyone to another weekly recap with The Defiant. Thank you everyone for joining us. We're here with YYCTrader, our Head of News, Jeremy Nation, and Owen Fornow, our staff reporters, and myself, Kamil Russo, the founder of The Defiant. And we'll be going over all of the biggest headlines and news of DeFi and crypto this week. So some of the biggest topics we'll mark and erase all of the gains we saw this week. And Grayscale had won a legal challenge against the SEC, which had spurred those gains, but again, which were just erased. Uniswap class action lawsuit was dismissed. And Twitter gets money transmitter license hinting at potential payments app built on top of the social media network, crypto payments incoming maybe. So those are some of the biggest headlines we'll be covering. YYCT, why don't you start us off with the market action? Sure. So after a summer of very low volatility, we've seen quite the roller coaster over the last 10 days or so. So early on in the week, we got some great news in the form of Grayscale winning a legal challenge against the SEC. Basically what the case was all about was that the SEC denied Grayscale's application to turn GBTC from closed -ended exchange traded product of some sort into an ETF, which would be able to be more freely traded with daily rebalancing and essentially trade closer to its net asset value. That's one of the biggest problems with GBTC is that it's been trading at a discount to its nav simply because there's no way to redeem the shares for the underlying Bitcoin. Anyway, so the SEC denied that and so the SEC so Grayscale sued them and the judge came out and said yes, the SEC acted capriciously and especially given the fact that they did approve two Bitcoin futures based ETFs last year or was it this year? It was last year. It was last year, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So based on I believe the judge said that the SEC should review its decision and that's basically it. It didn't say that the SEC needs to approve it or anything beyond saying that it should be reviewed and that the SEC just denied it in contravention of whatever regulations. So markets cheered that. We rallied. Bitcoin was up 7 % in a matter of minutes. I'd say that's one of the biggest green candles we've seen in a long, long time. And so, yeah, so sentiment was all bullish. You know, it's like, oh, yeah, ETFs are coming. I believe there were some analysts who put the odds of approval in 2023 at 75 % or something. Right. And which might still happen. I mean, the year is far from over. Right. And yesterday, the SEC basically came out and said we need more time. And the decisions on the ETF applications from BlackRock, WisdomTree and Vesco, like a bunch of big investment management firms which were supposed to be decided on, I believe it was on the third or fourth of September was the deadline. They've now put that by another 45 days to mid -October at the earliest. I mean, this is the SEC. They can delay and, you know, do it again if they want to. I mean, the law is on their side. There's no compulsion for them to act within a specific period of time.
The Breakdown
A highlight from SEC Punts ETF Applications Till October
"Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW. It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world. What's going on, guys? It is Friday, September 1st, and today we are catching up on crypto, on macro, on all the things. Before we get into that, however, if you are enjoying The Breakdown, please go subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation, come join us on the Breakers Discord. You can find a link in the show notes or go to bit .ly slash breakdown pod. Well, friends, the end of the summer, the beginning of the fall is here. We are kicking off the best season of the year with tons of catch up across both macro and crypto. And we're going to start with a follow up on what is obviously the biggest story and theme of the week, which is Grayscale's defeat of the SEC in their lawsuit and the implications for Spot Bitcoin ETF approval. Now, somehow, apparently some people thought that just because they lost in court, the SEC was likely to turn right around and approve an ETF. That of course was not the case, and the SEC have in fact deferred their decisions on approving Spot Bitcoin ETFs until at least October. On Thursday, the agency filed to defer decision making across all seven ETF applications that were filed in June, including applications from BlackRock, VanEck, and Bitwise. Now, even though they didn't make the decision now, that Tuesday publication of the court order delivering victory to Grayscale was widely viewed as moving the needle on the likelihood of an ETF approval. In the wake of the decision, Bloomberg analysts had bumped up their odds of an ETF approval by the end of this year to 75%. Still, they cautioned that their expectation was, of course, that the SEC would defer decision making this week. Markets reacted pretty dramatically to the Grayscale order on Tuesday, with Bitcoin pumping more than 7 .5 % on the news. That move has now been completely retraced on the delays, with Bitcoin back trading at around 26 ,000. One small subpart of this story that some have been interested in is that the dumping began around 11 .40am on the East Coast, but the SEC's first decision wasn't released until 3 .20 in the afternoon. Coincidental, or did someone have advance information? That seems like a great thing to speculate about on Twitter. The next decision point for the SEC will be on the week of October 16th, when all seven ETFs have another chance to be approved or delayed. Remember that the SEC is able to delay each application up to three times before making a final decision. If the SEC drags this out to its conclusion, they will have a total of 240 days to make their call, bringing us to mid -March next year for this cohort of ETF applications. Now, in practical terms, we're likely to have a better idea about how this will all play out by January 10th. That's the final date for the SEC to either approve or deny the ARK and 21 shares application, which was filed two months earlier than the others. The pattern is certainly for the SEC to delay. During the Grayscale application to convert GBTC into an ETF, the SEC took each opportunity it had to delay their decision making. Still, analysts appear convinced that the Grayscale decision leaves little wiggle room for the SEC to deny the current crop of ETFs. Three appellate judges found that the SEC had indeed acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner in denying Grayscale. They pointed out the hypocrisy of approving futures -based ETFs while denying spot -based claiming that the two markets had a 99 .9 % correlation. The judges further said that the existing surveillance sharing agreements with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, which operates the Bitcoin futures market, quote, are identical and should have the same likelihood of detecting fraudulent or manipulative conduct in the market for Bitcoin and Bitcoin futures. And so now, although the SEC has been ordered to reconsider Grayscale's application, the timeline for that happening is still extremely unclear. Indeed, in an interview with Bloomberg on Wednesday, Grayscale CEO Michael Sonnenshine said he didn't even know exactly how this process would work. Grayscale isn't even clear on whether it needs to submit a new application. Now after this ruling, the SEC has the next 45 days to appeal the order. And after that time, the court can provide more detail on how Grayscale's application should be dealt with. When it comes to markets, they are showing an increased conviction that GBTC will successfully convert into an ETF. On Tuesday, the GBTC discount closed to 17%, which is the slimmest margin since late 2021. Since then, the gap has widened by a few percentage points, but it's still a long way from the deepest discount of over 48%, which occurred in December of last year. Moving on to catch up on the latest FUD from Binance, yet another senior executive has resigned. Leon Fung, Binance's Asia -Pacific head, has parted ways with the exchange. Fung's resignation was initially leaked to Bloomberg before being publicly disclosed, and a Binance spokesperson declined to elaborate on his departure other than confirming the resignation. Fung had been responsible for Binance's recent push to expand into Asian markets, including Thailand, Japan, and South Korea. But since he maintains no active social media presence, it's unclear when he joined and left the exchange. Now, one thing we haven't mentioned recently as we've talked about Binance's various issues is that they have actually seen a fairly significant decline in market share over the past six months. In February, Binance enjoyed 63 % market share and spot crypto trading volume, but by August that number had slipped to 45%, with the shift mainly being captured by Huobi and Poloniex. Over in the world of BUSD, its days are numbered, with Binance winding down the white -label stablecoin. In a statement released on Thursday, Binance confirmed that support for the token would end in February of next year. BUSD was of course kneecapped by New York regulators at the beginning of this year, when Paxos was ordered to cease and desist, minting the stablecoin. Until now, Binance had not officially commented on the future of BUSD, which was still available on the centralized exchange and Binance Smart Chain. The decision to end support for BUSD in February is in line with Paxos' commitment to end redemptions at that time. In a statement, Binance encouraged users to convert their BUSD into other stablecoins ahead of the sunset date. The exchange promoted conversion to FDUSD at no cost and at a one -to -one peg. FDUSD is a new stablecoin issued by Hong Kong -based trust company First Digital that was launched in June and is featured in other Binance promotions since then. Staying on the theme of markets, Bitfinex launched a perpetual futures contract for Binance's BNB token on Thursday as well. And over the first day of trading, BNB fell by more than 4%. Investor Travis Kling tweeted, BNB has been trading for nearly six years and Paolo and the gang at Bitfinex waited until today to launch a perp on it. Cryptoskeptic CryptoHippo says, Tether is getting ready to obliterate CZ, an unbacked infinite money printing machine versus the biggest wash trading volume crypto exchange in the world. I'm going to put my money on Tether winning this fight. Expect sudden price drops on the Bitfinex BNB perp. Now the biggest mystery of this week was a sealed filing that showed up on the court docket of the SEC's lawsuit against Binance late on Monday night. We have, it should be clear, no information about the contents of the filing. Speculation on Tuesday covered a wide range of theories. Some thought the filing could simply be related to a dull procedural issue regarding discovery. Others thought the filing might involve sensitive material gathered by a criminal investigation conducted by the DOJ. Andrew at AP Abacus says, Update, sources state that the sealed Binance motions this week are riddled with heavy, heavy claims. One source said, Given the natures of the issues here, surprised that we, the SEC, are taking this on, should be in the hands of the DOJ at this point. Andrew adds that he was instructed to go back and look at Bizlato claims and indictments and then add scale. Bizlato was, of course, a tiny unknown exchange that engaged in money laundering for Russia dark web markets. Some evidence revealed ties between Bizlato and Binance. When the indictment was unsealed, the DOJ treated Bizlato as their crowning achievement with a flashy preannounced press conference. This caused, of course, widespread confusion within the crypto community, who basically, without exception, had never heard of the obscure exchange. Now, also on Thursday, the old lawsuit between the New York Department of Financial Services and Tether and Bitfinex also saw some action. This is the case which was brought by the regulator in April 2019, with allegations that Bitfinex had manipulated Bitcoin markets and Tether's reserves were lacking. The matter was settled in February 2021, with Tether agreeing to publish quarterly reserve attestations over the following two years. The court retained jurisdiction in case the matter needed to be reopened at a later date. This week, the regulator filed a heavily redacted motion with sealed evidence attached. Because the filing is secret, we only have a vague idea of what it relates to. Unredacted parts of the motion appear to relate to accounting irregularities and deficiencies, as well as a lack of clarity around loans between the two firms. The regulator has requested that Bitfinex prepare an unknown witness for testimony. Knapp -Jenner tweets, Now, of course, Sam's involvement as a potential witness against Tether, against Binance, are likely going to be part of the rumors surrounding all of these issues, right up until the moment it's either proven true or proven not true. Still, with that, let's shift over for a moment to the macro side of the house. Tuesday's Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed cracks beginning to open up in what has been a surprisingly robust labor market. Nick Timaros, the chief economics correspondent at the Wall Street Journal, wrote, This is a JOLTS report the Fed will be pleased to see. Basically, this July, JOLTS report indicated that job openings across the US had decreased to 8 .8 million from 9 .17 million in June. This marks the sixth month of declines in open positions over the past seven months and the lowest level since March of 2021. Compounding the story of a softening labor market, June's job openings number was massively revised. When first reported, the data showed almost 9 .6 million open rolls across the labor market. That means the Fed is now looking at data that shows around 800 ,000 fewer job openings than the data available last month. Importantly, job openings has been frequently referenced as Fed Chair Jerome Powell's favorite metric for gauging the tightness of the labor market. The collapse in job openings over this year and accelerating into the summer should give the Fed some confidence that their policies are beginning to bring supply and demand for workers back into alignment. There are now just 1 .5 job openings for every unemployed worker. That ratio peaked above two during May of last year. This means that by this metric, the labor market is now at its weakest point in almost two years. Now this morning, we also got the non -farm payrolls report for August, and Bloomberg summed it up with an article titled US Jobs Report Signals Smooth Downshift in Labor Market. TLDR, employers in August added 187 ,000 jobs, slightly higher than the 170 ,000 anticipated. In addition to that, hundreds of thousands more joined the labor force, with a growing number unable to find work right away. As Bloomberg puts it, quote, combined with wage growth running at the slowest pace since early last year, the data illustrate why Americans are a little less upbeat about the job market. While hiring and incomes are still firm enough to bolster consumer spending, job openings have retreated and layoffs are picking up. This Bloomberg says gives the Fed room to pause interest rates later this month while keeping their options open for another rate hike before the end of the year. And that's basically what traders are anticipating, at least when it comes to September. Over in GDP land, US GDP for Q2 was revised on Wednesday down to a fairly middling 2 .1%. The second GDP estimate report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis trimmed the forecast down from 2 .4 % in the advanced estimate. Both household spending and gross domestic income rose for the quarter, with GDI reversing a negative trend over the previous two quarters. This metric typically tracks GDP closely, but a pretty significant gap has opened up over the past three quarters. Now, while the GDP number isn't stellar, it's also far from the recessionary conditions that were forecast for this year in late 2022. An almost consensus opinion among economics had the US hurtling towards a recession in the latter half of this year. So far, there are few signs that a recession will actually materialize. One of the most telling data points that indicates the US may be on track to avoid a recession has been the Atlanta Fed's GDP Now forecast. The estimate has Q3 GDP coming in at a blisteringly hot 5 .6 % currently, which is far above the blue chip consensus forecast, which was last reported at 1 .7 % in early August. Now, pretty interestingly, some economists believe that blockbuster entertainment consumption has provided a significant boost to Q3 GDP. Bloomberg economists wrote in a note this week that the combination of tours from Taylor Swift and Beyonce, as well as the dual hit movies Barbie and Oppenheimer, are believed to have added 8 .5 billion to GDP this quarter. Still, the note recognized that the economic strength driven by these cultural phenomenon is short -lived. The note said, A large chunk of the strength comes from temporary factors. These factors create a mirage of resilient consumption when in fact it's running out of steam. So, overall, it feels like the data are showing a leveling off across the board. Nothing is great, but nothing is also dramatically bad. The big question is whether this is moderation into a soft landing or something more of an inflection point. From the Fed's perspective, it certainly doesn't suggest anything alarming that would justify another September hike, but also nothing that would knock them out of the pause stance into actually considering cuts. The bigger questions are what happens in Q4, as things like student loans restart, employer retention credit might get repealed, and of course, Taylor Swift leaves the country. Just some of the things to watch as we move into this fall season, but for now, I am going to send you off into Labor Day weekend, full of brightness, optimism, and all the possibility that September brings.
Tech Path Crypto
A highlight from 1234. Bitcoin ETF CountdownBlackrock vs SEC
"All right, so ETF Super Bowl might be upon us, we're going to be breaking down what the ETF probability is today in today's video, and really what will be the scenario that plays out, because there's a lot of different working parts that hopefully we'll be able to break down for you guys and give you some insights on all that good stuff. My name is Paul Beran. Welcome back in the Tech Path. Before we get started, if you guys are not part of our Diamond Circle, jump in. Now, we actually have three different ways that you can get into our programs. You can get in as a free member just with Diamond Circle. You can jump into our Crypto Power Index where we do a little additional analysis. That's where you get our charts, all of our stuff on our tokens, and then you can also get into our Direct Mastermind group where we do a lot of research, additional data, and we also do immediate drops anytime we do an update for our CPI. So early access to other aspects only for members, including early videos and podcasts. So check it all out. You guys, it might make sense for you. I want to jump over to a few tweets here. We will be taking some questions, so make sure and drop a few over there on the comments side. We'll try to get to as many as we can at the end, and we'll try to maybe look at some charts before the day is over as well. James Saffert. James has been on our show before. This is one of the Bloomberg analysts that breaks down ETFs. And here's his statement. We have at least six decision letters coming in from the SEC this week on spot Bitcoin ETF applications likely tomorrow. What are the letters going to say? This is 77 % saying we're going to see a delay. Now remember the Grayscale case recently, just now this week, won to an extent the amount of slam down that this judge has put upon the SEC. I don't know if they're licking their wounds, if they would look at maybe more of a strategic approach on this, but I mean, I feel like there's a possibility we still could get an approval at the same time. It's almost one of those things where would the SEC do this with this most recent loss that they just came off of against Grayscale? I think that's the big question right now. There are some other experts out there kind of talking about this, the odds of a spot Bitcoin ETF. This is more of a overall odds for, you know, just in general, I don't think they give timelines here, but it's 80 -20 and increasing. This is the CEO of Marathon Mining, who I would say is pretty much in on the understanding of what's happening in the D .C. landscape and also in the regulatory landscape that frames up how the SEC behaves. Because remember, this is one of those things, a lot of people, I don't necessarily think they realize that all of what our regulatory bodies do in D .C. is essentially translate what Congress and the laws are for the land. And that's the overreach that has been occurring. And that's why we're seeing so much pushback, so many issues that are, of course, rising up within the ranks of our regulatory and lawmakers, where they just don't like what Gensler has been up to. Here was Watcher Guru kind of reporting on that Grayscale is now closer to a spot a Bitcoin ETF more than ever, winning its lawsuit against the SEC. This is a clip I'm going to play for you guys real quick. Let's just pop to this clip. Now after the U .S. court sort of gave you some runway to be able to launch a spot Bitcoin ETF. What do you do now? Yeah. So thank you so much for having me. Let's be clear about yesterday. So yesterday was the culmination of more than a year worth of litigation. The SEC denied GBTC's conversion to an ETF. We immediately filed a lawsuit. Fourteen months later now, we finally got a decision from the D .C. circuit and a panel of three judges unanimously voted and agreed with Grayscale. And that actually vacates the SEC denial order. Huge win for Grayscale, huge win for our investors and really the crypto and investment community is as a whole. But there's a process here to the point that you're making. And there is a chance that the SEC looks to broaden this out, potentially fight the decision, bring this in front of a larger array of judges. And so if you're thinking about that potential process ahead, do you have any concerns that the race to bring an ETF to the market will leave you behind? Well, so today is day one of a 45 day period during which the SEC has the ability to request a rehearing. Ultimately, at the end of that 45 day process, you could expect a final mandate from the court with operational next steps. Now, of course, in the interim, our attorneys are going to be working proactively with the SEC to try and make this conversion as expeditious as possible.
Tech Path Crypto
A highlight from 1233. Bitcoin ETF Odds Increase to 75% Coinbase Lawsuit Over!
"All right, so let's get into the ETF probability case today. I think you guys are going to like this one. We'll break down some things around, of course, the win against the SEC from Grayscale, just off the heels there, and then also what this might mean for the rest of the ETF squad out there that is out there trying to get this done. We'll break all that down for you guys. It's going to be a good one. My name is Paul Baron. Welcome back in to Tech Path. Let's get into it today. Before we start, I want to thank our sponsor, and that is iTrust Capital. If you guys are looking at long -term holding, this is one of the best places to do it. You can go into Bitcoin, ETH, also take a look at even precious metals over there. So there's a lot you can do with a crypto IRA by just going to the iTrust Capital website. Click the link down below. Make sure and use our link. It will give you a chance to get a $100 funding reward. So if you can do that, it helps the channel out. And hopefully you guys can look at a crypto IRA. Let's get into a couple of news topics here. I want to go to the first story. Just in, US GDP data is announced. Here's some of the details and also the reaction, I guess, from Bitcoin itself. Second quarter of the year, US gross domestic product, basically this is the growth of the country. Data was announced today, and of course that came in at 2 .1%. We thought we were going to see a 2 .4. So this was a little bit of a adjustment down. And I think this is one of those macro headwinds that continues to pace here in the United States. The real question is, are we going to continue to see more push from places and things like CRE, etc. Obviously a longer cycle around interest rates, higher interest rates. All that is still playing into the macro picture. The ETFs will be the real question is to see whether or not we actually get market movement if and when an ETF, which I think it's when an ETF gets launched. But US GDP data is defined as a measure of total value of goods and services produced by the U .S. over a time period. Most important indicators of companies economic performance and prosperity. Everybody looks at GDP growth. We've shown this many times of not only us, but also China. And then you can even compare this to BRICS nations. Higher than expected data is to interpret as good for the U .S. dollar, while a lower than expected data is interpreting bad for the U .S. dollar. If you're following the Dixie, the DXY, you probably have already started to see that fall off here, obviously in wake of what we're seeing here around GDP. Other things that are going on is interesting. This is Ripple's chief legal officer saying that the SEC is getting battered in the court. Of course, this is just continuing to see loss after loss for the SEC. I'm still on the fence as to whether or not, and this was Stewart Aldarati who was the XRP attorney, SEC is getting battered in court. It's our case has been proven wrong since called it hypocritical, lacking faithful allegiance to the law, fine for discovery abuses, et cetera. They're doing a lot of things that are not right and they are getting slammed in the courts. This is, of course, I think showing a very bad look for the SEC. It's something we've talked about here on the show quite a bit. But the real question is whether or not this is going to really cause the SEC to change their ways. And that is the question I think everybody's asking, because if they do change their ways and they come to an agreement with something, whether it's with BlackRock or others, to launch an ETF, maybe we are ending the cycle of this notion that the SEC is really against the crypto curious and the crypto crowd. But there's more news behind that. I want to go over to a first clip. And this one, of course, is John Deaton talking about why and how they've been losing. Listen in. Arbitrary and capricious. It is a very high standard. They only have to basically reasonably explain why they made the decision that they made. Even if the appellate judges disagree with the decision of the SEC. Even if they think the SEC was using poor judgment in its decision, as long as the decision is one that can be reasonably explained in a coherent manner, then the SEC wins. And that's the real question mark right now with the SEC is why were they not able to do that? I mean, this is a litigation powerhouse, or you would think, why were they not able to be able to defend that out within the grayscale case? Is there something else happening? This is a continued question that I think a lot of people are asking. John Deaton also talked a little bit more about the appeal process and what that might look like. Listen into what he had to say. I think the appeal was never really on the table because, you know, in order for this to really be appealed, the SEC, Gary Gensler, would have to go to the Solicitor General of the United States and say, this is what the federal government should get really worked up about over the next 18 months. The worst case scenario for the Biden administration is that this ends up in front of the Supreme Court, the entire administrative state, not just the SEC, but the EPA and pretty much every other administration that have regulations works underneath this umbrella of Chevron deference, which is an old Supreme Court case, which basically says, you know, administrators can make rules and then enforce those rules. Do you want to die on this hill? And any Solicitor General that reads that opinion and they look at the other decisions every single time the SEC is in court, they get their ass kicked in crypto. That's a fact. They just lose. They just lose. Right. All right. So this goes back to the whole point is, is there another agenda here? Is there something else that's causing - why would you do this? Why would you as an SEC or even as a corporate strategist, there are some times where you intentionally go into a battle knowing that you're going to lose for the effect of another issue that may play out. And that's the real question mark here. I want to play a clip by Grayscale and their chief legal officer about the response to their win. This also kind of starts to set up some questions. Listen in. Can I just ask you straight up, do you see this as an approval? So yesterday is a big win, but it does not mean that GBTC will become an ETF today. It's important to note there is still a 45 day process where the commission has time to review the decision and decide if they want to appeal. But then going back to the SEC where they can really have three decisions they can make. Approve GBTC as an ETF, which obviously we believe is a decision they should make with other spot Bitcoin ETFs. They can come up with another reason for denying spot Bitcoin ETFs, although unclear what that really would be given yesterday's outcome. And then thirdly, they could also undo the futures based ETFs. I think that's not the right decision either, because that would really cause even more disruption and harm, potential harm to investors, given that these products are trading out there with AUM and so on. We know about the trade fire giants like BlackRock and Fidelity, their applications to spot Bitcoin ETFs. Does the result yesterday, does it change that timeline and your opinion on that timeline? Because you said you want it all to be given the go ahead in one go because anything else would be unfair. It's difficult to speculate on timelines. I'm really focused on GBTC. Of the other filers, we're the only one with an actual product. Is there any world in which you reach out to the SEC instead of the SEC reaching out to you in the next 45 days? There's prescribed channels for how we engage with any regulator. Everybody knows that process. And so we really do have to first wait and honor this 45 day window and then we can focus on re -engaging with the commission. All right. So a 45 day window here, a lot could happen in those 45 days. So strategically, this could be maybe a win for Grayscale, maybe not. Depends if BlackRock actually gets an approval. And we'll know something this Friday if we get another push or if we actually get an approval coming in. And I think there's a lot of people that have kind of pointed to the potential here. One thing that was kind of interesting around the Grayscale scenario, this was Ryan Selkis. He says basically Bitcoin exposure boosts 60, 40 portfolios 100 percent of the time. According to Bitwise, 100 percent. In any three year period of the past decade, this is what the SEC is protecting investors from. So basically what they're saying is, in these last three years, we've continued to see investors win. So are they really protecting anyone from a gain, especially around the ETFs? And with this most recent lawsuit win, this could change the dynamics around it because the optics are clearly there. I want to jump over to another clip that is talking about Cathie Wood. And it's very interesting. You have to remember this clip is coming from much earlier. She actually did this well before this lawsuit. Listen to what she had to say about Grayscale.
Markets Daily Crypto Roundup
"gbtc" Discussed on Markets Daily Crypto Roundup
"Now we've talked about this and the BIS on the show before, so I'll be brief. This position is only unsurprising, it's also completely incorrect. It's not surprising because crypto threatens to decentralize central banks, and that's not so fun for those in power. It's completely incorrect because you can just look at one counterexample of crypto financing real economic activity, even if it is an edge case that's still financing quote, real economic activity. The example I'll microgrids in rural Kenya by mining Bitcoin. These are areas which didn't have electricity before the Bitcoin powered microgrids made their appearances. There will be a link in the show notes to a coindesk .com profile on the company. There are also other examples, but you get the point. Crypto is financing real economic activity. So just say what it is that is bothering you, you are upset that a decentralized money system is coming up that may just unseat you as a centralizing force. Coindesk's Jack Schickler reports. And that's our show for today. Thank you for listening. For those of you still with us, we'd love to hear what you think. You can email podcasts at coindesk .com with the subject line markets daily. I'm George Klutis and this episode was produced and edited by Eleanor Paul with executive production by Jared Schwartz. And just a reminder, Coindesk is a new source and does not provide investment advice. I'll see y 'all tomorrow.
What Bitcoin Did
"gbtc" Discussed on What Bitcoin Did
"Accept right away after 40, I don't know exactly what the days are, but it's 240 total and there's like five steps in between or four steps in between and they either extend or approve. And then at the end of 240, they either approve or deny. And then they deny the only active application right now for spot Bitcoin ETF is arc Kathy woods arc and 21 shares, which launched a bunch of ETFs in Europe. So they have a ton of crypto ETFs across, across Europe, primarily in Switzerland. So they just filed not that long ago. So that's the only active spot Bitcoin application. There are, there is a 33 act ETF, which was critical in the lawsuit that grayscale brought against the SEC. I don't know if I'm good. I don't want to get two in the weeds here, but essentially the first spot Bitcoin ETS were approved and basically they leaned on the fact that it was a 40 act product instead of a 33, but then there were already filings for a 33 act Bitcoin futures ETF that came due in March of 2022. So the, the, the SEC basically was forced to approve that. Cause like, what were they going to say? Oh, one's a 40 act, one's a 33 act. So they approved the futures ETF under the 33 act. Basically it's all these issuers whittling away at all these different reasons for them denying. So they're now, so two Korean was the one that filed that and they ended up selling it to a company called Hashtex who's there in the U S but primarily in Brazil. And they bought that ETF. So now there's a 33 act Bitcoin futures ETF DeFi. Theoretically they could alter things. And if, if they allow for spot Bitcoin ETFs, that might be the first spot Bitcoin ETF because it's already a 33 act. And so the, theoretically they could alter things in their prospectus. I'm not a hundred percent certain of that, but I think they could alter it to, to a five spot Bitcoin. But I, I don't know how long it would take.
What Bitcoin Did
"gbtc" Discussed on What Bitcoin Did
"So going out and suing them in federal court is definitely like, there's a give and take that usually happens with these regulators. So like going out and suing them in federal court, isn't like the most, the smartest business move, but they're kind of out of moves in my opinion. Uh, I forgot where I was going with the judges. Oh, the judges. So we listened to it. And then the second judge came in and it was just hammering the SEC lawyer. Like, and we were like, okay, well they got two. They might, they're probably going to win this now. Like within like the first 15 minutes, I was live tweeting it. Actually. I was like, this is crazy. It's the three judges total. It's three, it's a three judge panel. And then the third judge came in and that we thought was no shot started asking hard questions of the SEC that like, we're in line with our thinking. So we're like, okay, the downside is so my, our base case. So he's flipped from 40 % chance Grayscale went to 70 % chance of Grayscale went after that or the oral arguments as they're called, which we should get some time, it could happen before June, the end of June, but likely two Q three Q and we should get the ripple case, which is irrelevant to you. Yeah, I'm, I'm, I kind of view them as view it as a security, but at this point I just, anyone, anyone's against the SEC I'm all for. Oh, listen, I can, I can hate report XRP and want them to be the SEC at the same time. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That's where I sit right now for the most part. Um, apart from Hester purse, we like Hester. Yeah. Hester's great. Yeah. She is awesome. Um, it's really Gary. It's, it's mostly Gary Gensler to be very clear. Yeah. I want Hester to get Gary's job. Yeah. Um, but, but so now it's like, we think 70 % chance. The problem here is that the SEC, I mean, not the SEC, the judges might issue a ruling that says like, you violated the APA, like you did not treat like situations alike and then say, go back to the drawing board.
What Bitcoin Did
"gbtc" Discussed on What Bitcoin Did
"It's a tax. It's a non taxable event. And it makes sure that NAV and price are always in line. Now, normally it's not people like, oh, this is deviated a little bit. I'm going to go hand in the shares and do this. Mostly, it's just part of day to day trading. There's people trading. There's authorized participants. There's people out there just making markets in the ETF and it keeps things in line. But there are times where if things get really out of whack, somebody will come in and be like, there's an opportunity here to make, I don't know, three basis points. And if I can do that on a million dollars, that's a decent amount of money in one trade. OK, so they're basically super efficient markets. Yeah. So like the way to think about it is like a stock, right? You have a fixed supply of shares for the most part. Obviously, companies issue and buyback shares, whatever. But like demand is what drives the price. Right. As demand goes up, the price is going to go up because the supply is fixed. Right. With an ETF, when demand goes up or goes down, you can change the supply. So you are moving the supply, not you, but the market itself and authorized participants, market makers, Wall Street, if you will, are making sure that supply is always in line with demand. So if you just think about it as two bars, basically, it's just the market constantly moving that supply bar up and down to keep in line so that NAV and price are the same, which, again, is what's missing from GBTC. And you can also create some quite exotic products with the baskets of, you know, you could, like I say, you could, I want to invest, say, in Bitcoin miners, public Bitcoin miners, you know, to save me having to go out to every single miner and buy shares, you could just create a basket of all public Bitcoin miners. You can hedge yourself if you think right.
What Bitcoin Did
"gbtc" Discussed on What Bitcoin Did
"God damn it, Steve. You're shit -coined. I'm going to have to have a chat with him about that tonight. No, I didn't know he'd filed that. So basically, related to all this, Grayscale, they filed for three ETFs, a privacy ETF, which is going to invest in Zcash, BS, all this stuff, and then a Bitcoin composite ETF, which is like, I kind of think it's a middle finger to the SEC for them not allowing GBDC to convert because they're basically saying, we're going to invest 40 % in international spot Bitcoin ETFs and then 60 % in Bitcoin miners. And I think it gets under most of the SEC rules. They can still deny it and force them to withdraw it. But they're just saying, here's spot Bitcoin ETFs that exist everywhere else in the world. We're going to invest in those and then allow US investors to get access to them. That's what they're trying to do. So they're trying to basically create spot ETFs by basketting international spot ETFs, Bitcoin ETFs, and lumping some miners in for a little bit of leverage. Yeah, exactly. Cool product. Yeah. And then they also filed for an Ethereum Futures ETF, and then we've seen literally five or six issuers in the last week file for an Ethereum Futures ETF. It's all related to this big GBDC situation because it's all a fight with the SEC. Yeah. Well, there's a lot we can get into, man. We could sit here for three hours and probably not cover everything. So well, we will do our best. Let's see what we can get through. OK, so to set it for you right now, me and Danny were talking about this beforehand. A couple of years ago, if you asked me about Bitcoin ETF, I've been like, yeah, let's have it. Let's bring it. Yeah, definitely bring it. I'm now, it's not even that I'm ambivalent to it. I kind of think they are ultimately bad for Bitcoin, ultimately bad, and we'll come to that.
What Bitcoin Did
"gbtc" Discussed on What Bitcoin Did
"Judges might issue a ruling that says, like, you violated the APA, like, you did not treat like situations alike, and then say, go back to the drawing board. And then the SEC could then just deny for other reasons. Grayscale might win the case, and then still not be able to convert to an ETF. Hello there. How are you all? I am back in the UK. I am back in Bedford, the home of Bitcoin. It's good to be home. I had an amazing time in Miami, and I just want to give a big shout out to my entire team. They've worked so hard to pull this all together. I really appreciate everything they've done. Anyway, welcome to the What Bitcoin Did podcast, which is brought to you by Iris Energy, the largest NASDAQ -listed Bitcoin miner using 100 % renewable energy. Today on the show, we have James Safar. Now James came highly recommended from my good friend Steve McClurg. He told us he is the man on ETFs, and as always, Steve was right. We've covered GPTC a few times on the show, but clearly people have very specific views. We've got Sun and Shine's perspective, we've had David Bailey's perspective on the other side, so it's great to have James on the show, someone who is a journalist who looks at it from more of a centrist position. Now I think you're going to love this one, but hit me up if you have any questions or feedback. My email is her at whatbitcoindid .com, and also for you Aussies down under, I'm coming. I'm coming to see you. I'm coming to see the kangaroos and koalas. You can keep your spiders and your snakes, but we're coming down. Me, Danny, we're going to come and make a live podcast. It's going to be in Sydney, September the 9th. If you want to grab a ticket, head over to whatbitcoindid .com and
What Bitcoin Did
"gbtc" Discussed on What Bitcoin Did
"Find out more, please head over to big casino IO the first Bitcoin casino to win an EGR ward that is bit casino IO, which is BIT, CAS, INO dot IO, and please remember to gamble responsibly. I thought about very a lot. I've met him and I met him a while back and he seemed like a good guy and I had no idea only this fuckery was going on. But I was saying nothing right. Was he the mastermind behind this? Trying to figure out like some grand scheme, or is it people within the structure of what he's got, have come up with these ideas and people who are running the loan book at genesis of thought, well, we could do this and I don't know how intrinsically involved he was in because it could be that someone is a big mastermind who comes or it could be just a chain of stupid decisions of trying like genesis are trying to get as many loans as possible. GBTC, they're trying to grow the trust enough. But I always come back to the fact that, well, there has to be a link between the two because of those loan agreements. There has to be a link. Well, so yeah, I mean, I can buy in that perverse incentives lead people to make bad decisions. Where the line is crosses when you realize that you've made bad decisions and that there's a lot of victims and that there's something you can do to make good to the best of your ability on those victims. You choose not to do that. That's where now there is no like, oh, I didn't know what was going to happen. Now it's like, you know you're hurting people. And you don't care. You care more about your own self interest than you do about fucking a million people, or 2 million people. And that's exactly what I said to sunshine in the interview. I said, you can do something about it. And he said, I'm working tirelessly for the shareholders. We're suing the SEC. I'm so brave and suing the SEC. I'm the bravest guy to do that. And I think now you're full of shit. You can do something right now. All these people that you owe money to, you know, and I'm not even worried about the people who've got 10 million in their fight. There's people in there who've got thousands. There's even Gemini customers. They've got thousands in there. But that's all they've got. Or is it a really meaningful amount to them? And there's so many people who are being fucked to protect a few people who are super rich and at pisses me off. It's everything we're trying, it's the opposite of everything we're trying to do. A 100%. And GBTC, it was sold as a product built by the adults in the room. And it was sold into people's four-o-one-ks and IRAs. And we've gotten 4000 investors have now reached out to us. We've gotten hundreds of messages of retirees that are wiped out that are like, I believe in Bitcoin, I still believe in Bitcoin. But I bought this thing under premium.
What Bitcoin Did
"gbtc" Discussed on What Bitcoin Did
"So they used this financing tool to flood free Bitcoin into the hands of Ponzi schemes on the condition that those Ponzi schemes part to the money back with them in a different vehicle where they knew the Bitcoin could never come back out. And the end result is the only did they flood the market with shares, which is caused this massive discount. But the creditors at genesis who are now flogged and have lost all their money, okay, well, where did their money end up? It ended up inside of grayscale. So really, it's like. He defrauded the genesis customer base. He used y'all's Bitcoin. He laundered it through a Ponzi scheme. We had the Ponzi scheme give it back to him in a different vehicle, and he still has the Bitcoin. It's still sitting in grayscale's trust. So, and he's making keys off of it. So it's kind of a sick thing that happened there. And if you compare what happened with FTX and Alameda, there's a lot of parallels. No FTT is their GBTC token. Alameda is their DCG. It's their slush fund where all the profits get spent on whatever they want to spend them on. And genesis is their FTX is where the customers get lowered into the posit their funds. And I then get sucked right back out to go into the other parts of the empire. So these loans that were happening from genesis to all of these illustrious characters, like they were never disclosed to at grayscale. And for the longest time, if you ask Michael Shawn and saying, hey, what about these loans? That's genesis. I have nothing to do with that. Okay. If you go to the exactly. If you go to the bottom of those master loan agreements, his signature is on every single one of them. Grayscale has to approve the transfer of those restricted shares, et cetera.
What Bitcoin Did
"gbtc" Discussed on What Bitcoin Did
"And there are certain deals that could be struck with the shareholders at grayscale that would benefit Barry. Maybe give him cash in the short term and would benefit shareholders where there could be a win win and both of us could solve part of our problem. There's so much upside in taking the discount from 40%. You're doubling your money as shareholders. So there's so much room to work with, you would imagine some sort of deal could get struck. But so far that's been not fruitful. So those are the kind of three different buckets. The one that's maybe the most interesting from just like the timeliness of this conversation is genesis, like what's going to happen at genesis because there's a very real possibility that genesis could end up the JSS creditors can end up becoming the new owner of DCG. In which case, we don't need to strike a deal with Barry to bust open this trust. We need to strike a deal directly with genesis creditors. Who are going to be setting the future path of the DCG estate. So, but yeah, there's litigation that's happening now. I can talk about all the different litigation that's happening. But yeah, just to back up a minute, there's a million shareholders of GBTC alone. Some of these shareholders are some of the biggest financial institutions in the world. There are vultures. And I don't want cold vultures with vultures as a mean connotation. There are sharks, okay? These guys are very smart. Have a lot of resources circling the whole DCG situation. And they have the best law firms in the country. They have all the capital you could possibly need. And they are probing this thing in every way possible to figure out where the weak points where we can bust open this $30 billion and unlock all of this value.
What Bitcoin Did
"gbtc" Discussed on What Bitcoin Did
"The first off, I just want to say like, you know, we are connected to all the, I guess, the different groups involved in this. Your podcast that you did. I don't know how many emails I got with people clipping your podcasts and sending me parts from it. The entire GBTC community saw it. You did a great job and kudos to you. And I know that's awkward to do. But dude, it needed to be said. So kudos. There was no plan to it. It was funny. During a Danny thought I'd soft boredom. There was no plan. When we sat down, you know, we got a beer and we had a chat and I just started asking about the background. And as I was doing it, I was hold on. If you knew that, you should have known this. So we just walked through it, and then by the end, I was like, hi, I don't believe you. And so there was no plan to it. It just happened the way it was. I would still sit down with him again. He did exactly what I thought you would do. And I think what you had to do, but at the same time, I didn't believe him. Well, you know, I've invited him to speak at the Bitcoin conference, we're having a shareholder we're calling a shareholder meet up because we can't call a shareholder meeting legally. It's the trust documents forbid us from doing that. So we're having a shareholder meet up and there's a bunch of GBTC shareholders that are going to be there. We have content about the trust, what's being done to bust the trust. And we've reserved time for Michael to speak to the shareholders. And it's the largest gathering as far as we're aware of shareholders in one place. So if he wants to speak to his customers, he wants to speak to his shareholders, we have a spot for him.
What Bitcoin Did
"gbtc" Discussed on What Bitcoin Did
"All right, I think we've got to talk GBTC, right? Yeah. The first off, I just want to say like, you know, we are connected to all the, I guess, the different groups involved in this. Your podcast that you did. I don't know how many emails I got with people clipping your podcasts and sending me parts from it. The entire GBTC community saw it. You did a great job and kudos to you. And I know that's awkward to do. But dude, it needed to be said. So kudos. There was no plan to it. It was funny. During a Danny thought I'd soft boredom. There was no plan. When we sat down, you know, we got a beer and we had a chat and I just started asking about the background. And as I was doing it, I was hold on. If you knew that, you should have known this. So we just walked through it, and then by the end, I was like, hi, I don't believe you. And so there was no plan to it. It just happened the way it was. I would still sit down with him again. He did exactly what I thought you would do. And I think what you had to do, but at the same time, I didn't believe him. Well, you know, I've invited him to speak at the Bitcoin conference, we're having a shareholder we're calling a shareholder meet up because we can't call a shareholder meeting legally. It's the trust documents forbid us from doing that. So we're having a shareholder meet up and there's a bunch of GBTC shareholders that are going to be there. We have content about the trust, what's being done to bust the trust. And we've reserved time for Michael to speak to the shareholders. And it's the largest gathering as far as we're aware of shareholders in one place. So if he wants to speak to his customers, he wants to speak to his shareholders, we have a spot for him. So far, he has not responded to our offer. So, you know, if you could put in a good word for us, please do.
What Bitcoin Did
"gbtc" Discussed on What Bitcoin Did
"Did dot com. David Bailey, how are you, man? Good. Thank you for having me on the show. Anytime, anytime. I fly into Miami tomorrow. Okay, I like it. Yeah. Building the hive. And what I'm going to go to the F one. Nice. And then I'm going to have a week off, I haven't had a holiday every year, and then a good place to do it. All hard on the conference. When are you going to come visit Puerto Rico? Do you know what me and Danny have been talking about? There's a lot of post conference. Yeah. We want to see you and we want to see Peter Schiff and we want to see Logan Paul. We think you're the three for three big hit as a Puerto Rico. Dude, there's a crew down here. There's a crew, but yeah, I think Peter Schiff and Logan Paul they got the dorado, the dorado scene unlock. Well, dude, thank you for having me on your podcast. If I remember correctly, the last time we did this was like, I think I had a Bitcoin 2021. I think it's been a good minute. I think I was in El Salvador when we did that.
Crypto Banter
"gbtc" Discussed on Crypto Banter
"So that has gotten its chances slightly buoyed over the last couple of days as they appeared to win the opening salvo in the court. So the judges basically sided with greyscale at least verbally sided with grayscale I'm saying that the SEC's arguments didn't make much sense and that grayscale essentially had a pretty decent case and all judges are expected to be aligned with grayscale at the current moment. Now this did result in a couple things. The first thing that resulted in was the GBTC discount absolutely collapsing. So we know GBTC. It's like a basically like a futures Bitcoin ETF. It traded at a huge discount because essentially there was no one to one redemption mechanism to get your Bitcoin back from the ETF. So there was a massive discount and they probably an eventual arbitrage that now is seeing play out because the discount is collapsing now sitting around like 30% from what was I think 45 to 50% like a few weeks ago. So basically people are expecting or the market now is pricing in the higher likelihood of a Bitcoin spot ETF after we got this grayscale news which means the path to GBTC futures Bitcoin holders actually exchanging their assets for the nav net asset values like much higher. So that's obviously going to be a positive thing because I mean for all those holders that they're finally going to make their money back if this does get approved, but it can also be a negative thing which is by point number two because although a Bitcoin spot ETF is very, very good long-term for crypto adoption. I think the negative thing is that there's billions of dollars held in GBTC currently that could be unlocked because there's people that were down like 40, 50% that are now going to take the opportunity to redeem their Bitcoin and get full value for their Bitcoin. So those people are going to potentially sell it as soon as they receive their Bitcoin. So this could add more supply pressures onto the market like in line with what we're seeing with the mount gox credit is starting to receive payments. I think tomorrow was the rumored date, but I think it will be a little bit later than that. But yeah, we could see potentially mount gox and grayscale hitting the market at once. The one thing I will say is this grayscale thing is going to take a long time to play out. This is simply the opening the opening argument essentially that's going to be many, many more months of this final decision. You know how to slow the chords, I could take like 5, 6 months, maybe three, four months, depending on if it's expedited. So in terms of the effect on the market, this is probably like a very delayed thing. So I wouldn't necessarily put in or price in the risk of BTC unlocks yet because we just don't know when they're going to be occurring and you can't like make a future plan based on an unknown date. It just doesn't make sense. So for me, I'm not panicking. I'm actually viewing this as a net positive because, I mean, a Bitcoin spot ETF is what we've wanted for so long, and that's going to give more people access to Bitcoin. Like it or not, I think it's a net positive because it's going to give like, let's say you're
CoinDesk Podcast Network
"gbtc" Discussed on CoinDesk Podcast Network
"The high cost of maintaining short term futures positions meant that the funds did not keep pace with the price of Bitcoin, decaying at between 5 and 10% annually. The ETFs refined for traders, but what most market participants seemed to want was exposure to spot Bitcoin through a convenient ETF wrapper. Jamie safe farted at Bloomberg intelligence said, quote, there is an appetite for a spot Bitcoin ETF, a spot Bitcoin ETF would be the preferred option for Bitcoin exposure for anyone using the traditional financial rails. It's the most efficient way to get exposure and will actually hold the asset. Now, bringing it back to grayscale. On the same day that pro shares debuted their ETF, grayscale filed their application to convert GBTC into an ETF. The plan was a long time coming with the trust having been initially launched in an appropriate legal structure, which had been successfully converted in the past by other companies. Remember, for many buyers of GBTC, it was their way to get Bitcoin exposure without having to work with crypto exchanges. In February of 2021, the long-standing GBTC premium had flipped into a discount. As a popular carry trade involving locking up Bitcoin to create new GBT shares over saturated the market. GBTC structure as a closed end fund meant that new shares could be created to capture the premium, but no shares could be easily redeemed to arbitrage the price back in line once it had fallen into discount territory. In an ETF structure, shares can be freely created and redeemed to collect the underlying assets by approved market makers. This means that theoretically shares a VTS tend not to drift far from the value of the assets under management. Anyway, when I mentioned that the specifics of this case hold relevance for the Bitcoin market as a whole, all in all, the popular trade around GPT C meant that the trust now holds more than 3% of all Bitcoin
Bankless
"gbtc" Discussed on Bankless
"Is that Bitcoin appeared however you want to characterize it. It appeared, it was retail only. It kind of grew and grew. There are plenty of good actors and some bad actors early on. That ratio is obviously changed dramatically so that they're very small tale of they're more bad actors in cash globally than there are in crypto I'd say, albeit crypto gets a bad name for this. But anyway, so that was kind of the progression and what happened was, I think the institutions, they looked at the bad actors and something that objectively speaking was intended to kind of disrupt their business and they just said, stay away, stay away, stay away. We're not going to focus on it. That allowed the regulators to not have to focus on because they didn't even really know who to focus on to regulate. And it was sufficiently small that crypto was just able to go through a variety of different cycles without a really strong regulatory focus. And certainly without a regulatory foundation, right? And so when we got into this last cycle, just on a total assets, the market cap of crypto. We've got very, very big, right? And so it dwarfed anything previously. And now it forced institutions to have to take it seriously, they had spent enough time there were enough people within their organizations that they started doing the work to understand, how could this really affect our business? Should we be investing in it? Not just the coins, but the technologies, like all of this stuff happened, but what was lacking was any kind of real regulatory foundation that would have happened if, for instance, financial innovation like CDOs. All these bonds that have been packaged. These mortgages that have been packaged in O 5 O 6 O 7, O 8, and then kind of blew up the financial world. As bad as those were in the financial industry, they still had to be traded in regulated entities. There still were some sane people who had been around the block, a number of times. And it still blew up, right? But now if you think about what happened in crypto with, say, three arrows or any other blow ups, there were no regulators. Most of the people who were prominent did not have a lot of experience at that level of market cap with that kind of leverage. And they're always going to be some people who just absolutely swing for the fences. So I don't know the three RO's guys well enough to have an opinion about why they made decisions they did. But I think you would expect in a essentially a non regulated market with people who didn't have decades of financial experience without the kind of the checks and balances that happen in a lot of these large banks, organizations, hedge funds et cetera. You would expect that they're going to be some really big blow ups. And it's just the market cap got so big that when they happened, they appeared catastrophic. I think if you had taken those CDOs, if you had taken those kind of packaged mortgage bonds and all that stuff, if that had started in the retail market in O 5 O 6 or 7 hadn't been regulated, there would have been catastrophic, maybe the bulbs would have been as big as had it been in retail relative to the Wall Street. But I think that they would have. Just because there's just no, there's no infrastructure for checks and balances. So again, who am I to say someone's made poor decisions? I mean, clearly three hours did. I just don't know what the motivation was, but it doesn't surprise me that you had these outcomes at all. Right. And we often say in the crypto world where speed running the history of money and finance and one of the things that we are learning here is that human psyche is hard to control, especially as it relates to markets that move very fast. One of the crazy things about crypto is that we go through an entire business cycle inside of four years. We see the highest highs and the lowest lows inside of four years and human emotions just can't really deal with that kind of speeds. And since crypto so young, we don't really have the guardrails up that are in the traditional finance world that came from raw experience that when you don't have these guardrails up, you let emotions take control. So I do definitely take the point that three hours capital started off as a totally legitimate prop trading desk. Like working the GBTC trade very legitimate and over time, like risk off trade. And same thing with Alameda research actually started off with these very reasonable trades that took on more and more and more risk because things always would go up in the first half of the bull market. And there were no guardrails to manage human expectations. I think that's a pretty safe claim to make, is that we just haven't learned how to self manage ourselves. And that's why our institutions aren't that big because they keep on blowing up because they don't have guardrails yet. And there's a philosophical, maybe philosophical is not the right word, but just like when I was asking you about FTT and Luna and FTX, you gave your thought process and it was very much an attitude of this doesn't pass the bar. This doesn't pass. And it's more of a conservative approach, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it's like you really don't want to be wrong as an institutional money manager. Whereas perhaps if I am trying to put myself into the three O's capital shoes, they were really trying to be right. They made very specific targeted investments and really wanted to be right. They seem to not want to miss anything. Yes, exactly, yeah. And so I think perhaps what it means to be an institution with guardrails up and processes and rules. It's more of an inversion to unknowns and really not wanting to be wrong, whereas perhaps the more immature industry, the more immature investors like, oh, I have to be right. I have to find the next alpha. Can you just see if I'm Tapping into anything here? Like, can you elaborate on this kind of philosophy of how you make investment decisions? Yeah. Some of it has to do with time horizon. So if you have a short enough time horizon, you can convince yourself even the most speculative investment or even a fraud if you could still be something where you could make money. If you've identified the market set up, the right momentum, this, that whatever. If you have a longer term time horizon which we tend to do, just not to say that we can't get into a trade and then reassess it because Powell makes a speech and you go, I think our premise was wrong and then we get out of it. But our time horizon tends to be longer term. And when we are doing something like constructing an index, our approaches, we want to construct an institutional index, which will serve as a benchmark for the institutions that we think are going to come into this industry, and it's important that many respects we kind of honor the way that they would think about it, which is the way we think about it, which is to do things like avoid assets where there's incredibly concentrated ownership. So it's not that we're trying to avoid being wrong, per se. I think that we're trying it's a good question. It's a difficult one to answer, but I think to answer it, I would say that when you invest and trade for, I don't know, I'm 34 years at this stage. You see so many things that are good and you feel that euphoria like I described that Italian lira trade that I had. I remember what it was like for my boss to pull me in the office and say, we have our largest client who wants to sell the literally almost to the million lira or whatever that you have. And you can get out. And I was like, if they want to sell, I want to sell more because if that's what's happening, it's going down. I am self aware enough to remember that it was euphoric to make that much money at such a young age. You know, I was in my 20s at the time. And I wasn't making, it wasn't making sand banquet free money, but for me, that was a really euphoric period. And I remember how wrong I was and how those instincts were, you know, were wrong. But you can't read that in a book. If you experience those things in those emotions and temptations in yourself and you can check yourself on that and you can somehow kind of navigate this very difficult pursuit for a lot of years, there are certain principles that kind of bubble up and I've mentioned some of them today. If you see people who make way too much money at a really young age, you
What Bitcoin Did
"gbtc" Discussed on What Bitcoin Did
"People from all over the world, not just the U.S. who have access to the U.S. securities market, can buy and sell shares of GBTC throughout the trading day at whatever the price is dictated by the market. in GBTC, though, is that the value of the shares sometimes has gone and been more valuable than the Bitcoin it owns. And sometimes like today, it's dipped below the value of the Bitcoin that it owns. Because it is not an ETF. In the ETF has an embedded mechanism that no matter what is going on in the market, no matter how many investors may be buying, no matter how many investors may be selling, there's always a mechanism that allows market participants to ensure that those shares go right back in line with the underlying asset it holds. It could be S&P 500. It could be gold, it could be oil or it could be Bitcoin. And so what does that mechanism? Is it because of redemptions? It's arbitrage mechanism. So you have market participants that can create more shares of the ETF or redeem or reduce the number of shares of the ETF in the market so that the supply demand dynamics of how many shares in the market always get the share price back to its net asset value back to the fair value of what it owns. And so because GBTC is not an ETF today, sometimes again, it goes to a premium, sometimes it goes to a discount. And so to the point you were making today, GBTC trades at about a 45% discount to its net asset value. So to certain investors, they may say to themselves, well, I could put a dollar into Bitcoin and I'll get a dollar's worth of Bitcoin, or I can put a dollar into GBTC and actually control more Bitcoin because I'm buying it at 65 cents on the dollar, right? And that's a trade that some investors may find attractive depending on their time horizon. Now, we can get into the next phase of this, although you might have a question, but we're still on a path to convert GBTC into an ETF, right? That's where we find ourselves today. My only question on that is, do you guys benefit from either a premium or discount or does it make no difference?
Tech Path Crypto
"gbtc" Discussed on Tech Path Crypto
"Which still that's a very strong move. When you look at that based on what's happening with GBTC, what's happening with genesis and DCG, which is kind of the one concerning factor right now. Does that worry you at all? Or do you feel like that's priced into the market? Definitely is a worry. I don't think it's priced in. Look, if we ask a week, I don't own any of it, but if they, if Barry and grayscale are forced to liquidate GBTC, which, you know, there's a bunch of shareholders that are kind of coming together to try to force that issue. Close down funds can get taken over by their shareholders and can be forced to liquid. Now, the bar is a little higher with GBTC as I understand it with the structure, like a lot of closed end funds, you'll only need about ten, 11% of shareholders to get a special vote. I think the number here is higher than that. Maybe even as high as 50, I don't know that number exactly. But even so, if, and that's capital I capital F if GBTC trust was forced to close and we basically sold 10 billion now probably closer to 11 or $12 billion of BTC. That's about 10% of available circulating supply, right? Not total supply. But remember, 65, 70% of Bitcoin hasn't moved in three years. It's not gonna move. So the free float is what we have to talk about and GBTC owns as I understand it about 10% of the free float. Now, if that were liquidated, it was horrible and it would be straight down. Well, remember, for every seller there's a buyer and I think there's a lot of money waiting to get back in. And so I think it would be bad short term, but I don't think it'd be a disaster. And I think we could handle it. Now, I also think Barry has said, you can take GBTC when you pry it from my cold dead hands. Okay, that's pretty strong. So I don't think it's going to get liquidated.