"The 2020s decade is shaping up to challenge a lot of worldviews on money and energy.
Like, if someone is wrong in their view about the properties of money or energy, the consequences for that will be big. This is true both on the personal level and national level.
During times of abundance, worldviews don’t get tested very strongly and people are shielded from the consequences of being inaccurate.
It’s during times of scarcity that reality reasserts itself and filters out the workable from the unworkable worldviews.
To avoid being caught offsides as an investor, policymaker, or just in your own life, researching money and energy, and frequently re-assessing your own beliefs and understandings on those subjects, will be important.
There's always more to learn." - Lyn Alden
🧡Bitcoin news🧡
See picture ECB down below.
Schnabel is categorically wrong. If she thinks Bitcoin doesn't fulfill the characteristics of money, either she doesn't understand Bitcoin, or she doesn't understand money, or, and that's even worse, she doesn't understand either one of them.
The EURO will lose purchasing power against Bitcoin. I love how based community notes are and how the ECB got slapped in the face with this note for lying about their CBCD. Bitcoin is people's money!
➡️The following tweet by Peter Mccormack can be placed on every EU - global regulations tyranny:
"State of UK regulations -
If you want to buy Bitcoin you have to answer a massive list of questions on any exchange you want to use and potentially be rejected.
If you want to bet on any sports, you can download hundreds of apps and start betting immediately."
Opt out and buy your Bitcoin on platforms like Relai, Peach Bitcoin, 21 Bitcoinapp, Bisq, and Robosats.
➡️Last week I already shared some staggering stats regarding Bitcoin mining. If you haven't read last week's Weekly Recap, I highly recommend the Bitcoin segment of that blog post. More on Bitcoin mining:
"61.5% of all Bitcoin mining companies use sustainable energy.
Overall sustainability stat is lower (still >50%). Even so, this is a startling statistic. I've not seen numbers this high in any industry." - Daniel Batten
(foto)
➡️"New all-time high: off-grid Bitcoin mining reaches 30% of total hashrate.
Cambridge does not measure off-grid mining, resulting in an underestimate of total Bitcoin sustainable energy use.
The BEEST model measures both on-grid and off-grid mining" Daniel Batten
Source: http://Batcoinz.com/BEEST
➡️"Bitcoin emission intensity (emissions per unit of power) is now 269.6 g/kWh.
Emission intensity comparison (g/kWh)
Bitcoin: 269.6
Banking services/fiat: 464
Gold: 679
TLDR: increasing evidence Bitcoin is not only the soundest money, but it's also the greenest" - Daniel Batten
➡️ "only needs to rise 13% to $52,868 for MicroStrategy's holdings to reach a valuation of $10 billion" - BitcoinNews
➡️ Bitcoin setting new ALL-TIME HIGHS in:
- Turkey
- Argentina
- Egypt
- Lebanon
➡️Now for the people who want to know more information on the Bitcoin ETF, read the following bit. I am not going to share the shitshow at the SEC about how their Twitter account got hacked. Nor am I going to share the news that the ETFs went live. By now everyone has read or heard that.
To sum it up:
- SEC fumbles the announcement, validating government incompetence.
- Money managers (Vanguard, Merrill Lynch) blocking people from buying ETFs, proving that trusting your money with trusted 3rd parties is a risk.
"Vanguard issues a statement: “Spot Bitcoin ETFs will not be available for purchase on the Vanguard platform. Our perspective is that these products do not align with our offer focused on asset classes such as equities, bonds, and cash, which Vanguard views as the building blocks of a well-balanced, long-term investment portfolio.
Vanguard CEO, Tim Buckley adds on why he doesn’t believe Bitcoin should be in his client’s portfolios.
- No intrinsic value
- No cash flow
- No long-term potential"
Imagine steering clients away from Bitcoin.
"The Vanguard Group owns 8.2% of MicroStrategy, the 2nd largest of all holders. Somehow they find issues with Bitcoin ETFs.
What this tells you is worse than Vanguard not liking Bitcoin. It tells you that they are either liars, charlatans who haven't done their research, or both" - Gabor Gurbacs
Oh by the way one more stat on Vanguard. They run a $75bil ETF with 30% exposure to China, but you’re not allowed to invest in spot bitcoin ETF. Fuck 'em.
Check out the following clip - Michael Saylor on when Merrill Lynch refused to help him buy Bitcoin:
https://twitter.com/TheBTCTherapist/status/1746566835418321097
Meanwhile, Fidelity is LIGHT YEARS ahead of Vanguard and Merrill Lynch.
On the 12th of January, they called existing customers who were already exposed to Bitcoin-related securities (like mining stocks, etc.) to address any questions about the Bitcoin ETFs. That is how you treat customers.
Let's dive into some stats and the ramifications of that.
➡️Cathie Wood says "We are talking to state pension funds and state treasurers about investing in the Bitcoin ETF"
➡️BlackRock CEO says Bitcoin is "no different than what gold represented for thousands of years. It is an asset class that protects you."
➡️On Saturday after two days in the books, the nine ETFs took in +$1.4b in new cash, overwhelming $GBTC's -$579m of outflows for a net total of +$819m. $IBITnow leading the pack with/ half a bil, Fidelity is a close second though. The newborns' $3.6b in trading volume on 500k individual trades (1.2m incl $GBTC) is very impressive as is the 20bp avg prem.
https://twitter.com/BitcoinNewsCom/status/1746943732736311536
➡️Blackrock's Bitcoin holding reaches 11,500 BTC in ETF's first 2 days of trading
At current rates, Blackrock will own more Bitcoin than Microstrategy by February 1st.
Either current rates slow down, or Bitcoin price goes up.
➡️For more insights and data:
https://twitter.com/jameslavish/status/1746950978174370156
James, sorted through all the X noise of the past week to bring us a well-read easy to comprehend thread with everything we need to digest in one place. Enjoy!
➡️Great work by Satoshi Action Fund & Dennis Porter:
"The State of Indiana has officially introduced legislation to protect fundamental Bitcoin Rights!
This bill will DEFEND:
👉🏽Your right to access #BTC
👉🏽Your right to self-custody
👉🏽Your right to mine #BTC
👉🏽Your right to run a node
The bill will also:
👉🏽Eliminate Cap Gains (under $200)
👉🏽Exempt miners/nodes from MTL
This legislation (HB 1388) marks a significant step in affirming your fundamental right to engage with
Bitcoin, countering efforts by figures like Senator Warren to limit self-custody and mining rights." - Dennis Porter
➡️"Bitcoin has settled over 100 trillion dollars of value in the last decade, and people still want to debate whether it works." - Thomas Fahrer
➡️The average cost of production per Bitcoin post halving will be $37,856, according to CoinShares
➡️"Argentina marks its first Bitcoin-denominated rental agreement. A landlord and tenant in Argentina's 3rd biggest city Rosario, have sealed a rental agreement to be paid in Bitcoin each month. The tenant will settle monthly payments of $100 worth of Bitcoin to the landlord, via Fiwind national CEX.
Payments will be made to a designated address during the first five days of each month."
This is a notable development. Vamos Argentina!
💸Traditional Finance / Macro:
Last week I shared the following bit...
"Wealth concentration. Just simple, raw data:
https://twitter.com/LynAldenContact/status/1741960890134475090
While Wall Street celebrates, Main Street mourns.
To make it even worse I will quote Aaron Layman:
"The part Lyn left out is that the top 1% accounted for 53.9% of this wealth coming out of the pandemic, a record high. The gap between the middle class and the top 1% has grown wider over the past decade.
This is the essence of the Cantillon Effect in the Fed's trickle-down wealth inequality machine. It's also why you see several Fed apologists among the Fintwit ecosphere.
To put things in context, the Federal Reserve is still in cover-up mode when it comes to the self-dealing and trading by some of its former members who are part of that 1% (or 0.1%) club.
Congress continues to ignore the self-dealing by many of its members as they front-run legislation and line their own pockets."
bingo!"
Just to add additional information on top of that:
The top 13% of people have 85% of the world's wealth: https://www.ubs.com/global/en/family-office-uhnw/reports/global-wealth-report-2023/exploring.html
🏦Banks:
👉🏽no news
🌎Macro/Geopolitics:
👉🏽 Zerohedge: "March will be lit:
1. Reverse repo ends
2. BTFP expires (allegedly...it will be extended)
3. Fed cuts (allegedly)
4. QT ends (allegedly)"
5. Bitcoin Halving event in April.
One thing is for sure, volatility is coming!
👉🏽"Since the Fed started raising interest rates in March 2022, money market funds have seen massive inflows.
Total assets held in money market fund went from $4.5 trillion to $6 trillion in 2 years, a 33% increase.
Now, the Fed is expected to begin cutting interest rates.
With record levels of capital on the sidelines, we could see a widespread rotation out of these money market funds.
If this capital goes back into the equity market, the recent run is far from over.
Never has there been more capital on the sidelines." - The Kobeissi Letter
👉🏽 "The current max drawdown in temporary help services employment was only seen in prior recessions ... in fact, the depth of today's decline was not even reached in the early 1990s recession." - Liz Ann Sonders
👉🏽 Talking about recessions. Please read the following tweet by Luke Gromen:
https://twitter.com/LukeGromen/status/1745829824029917546
For me, this is the most insightful post of 2024, and Luke is a must-follow macro resource. Just imagine the deficit when there is a recession/crisis. If it takes this large of a deficit to keep GDP positive....yikes!
👉🏽With Milei’s decree deregulating the housing market, the supply of rental units in Buenos Aires has doubled - with prices falling by 20%.
Source: https://www.cronista.com/negocios/murio-la-ley-de-alquileres-ya-se-duplico-la-oferta-de-departamentos-en-caba-y-caen-los-precios/
Now what are the short & long-term effects?
"Short term: more supply, lower prices, longer-term: a sustained supply of long-term rentals with price increases accompanying salary increases." - BowTiedMara
👉🏽https://twitter.com/Schuldensuehner/status/1746092930102641031
It becomes a problem when real GDP also declines, which is currently the case.
Please read the bit on Germany in last week's Weekly Recap.
🎁If you have made it this far I would like to give you a little gift:
We can learn a lot from the 40-year history of email and the many decisions that prioritized corporate server admins over the autonomy of individual users. Centralization is a slippery slope of convenience against which we must remain vigilant. Great historical read on SMTP (email protocol):
https://blog.lopp.net/death-of-decentralized-email/
Free knowledge! And remember:
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana.
Credit: I have used multiple sources!
My savings account: Bitcoin
The tool I recommend for setting up a Bitcoin savings plan: @Relai 🇨🇭 especially suited for beginners or people who want to invest in Bitcoin with an automated investment plan once a week or monthly. Hence a DCA, Dollar cost Average Strategy. Check out my tutorial post (Instagram) & video (YouTube) for more info.
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Get your Bitcoin out of exchanges. Save them on a hardware wallet, run your own node...be your own bank. Not your keys, not your coins. It's that simple.
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Do you think this post is helpful to you? If so, please share it and support my work with sats. #zap 🧡 #weeklyrecap #nostr #plebchain #BTC #Bitcoin #zap🧡 #plebchain #grownostr #stacksats #bitcoineducation #adoption
