"FIAT = politics for growing your own currency and its dominance at the expense of others.
BITCOIN = a movement for growing a currency and its dominance at the expense of no one else, but through synergy and spontaneous emergence.
They are not the same.
They are the opposite."
― Arnold Hubach
🧡Bitcoin news🧡
➡️El Salvador offers 5,000 free passports to highly skilled scientists, engineers, doctors, artists, and philosophers from abroad.
This will grant them full citizen status, including voting rights.
Nayib Bukele, President of El Salvador:
'We're offering 5,000 free passports (equivalent to $5 billion in our passport program) to highly skilled scientists, engineers, doctors, artists, and philosophers from abroad.
This represents less than 0.1% of our population, so granting them full citizen status, including voting rights, poses no issue.
Despite the small number, their contributions will have a huge impact on our society and the future of our country.
Plus, we will facilitate their relocation by ensuring 0% taxes and tariffs on moving families and assets. This includes commercial value items like equipment, software, and intellectual property.'
➡️On-chain data from GlassNode reveals that approximately 1.876 million Bitcoin, or 9.5% of the total supply, have been acquired above $60,000.
➡️ 'The satoshi millionaires continue to gain ground, now holding over 17% of the total supply. Stay humble and stack sats.' - Wicked
➡️Bitcoin has been a profitable investment 99.92% of the days since its launch on January 3, 2009.
This means there have only been a tiny handful of days, just six to be exact, where investing in Bitcoin wouldn't have turned a profit.
➡️Bitcoin miner Bitfarms invests $240M to acquire 28,000 Bitmain T21 miners.
➡️Talking about mining.
'In the last four years, emission intensity has fallen by 348g/kWh.
That's 29x faster than the banking sector is greening its emission intensity.
No industry has ever dropped its emission intensity so fast. It happened primarily because Bitcoin sustainable energy mix rose 56%.' -Daniel Batten
➡️Kingdom of Bhutan to increase mining capacity 6x ahead of the Bitcoin halving to 600 megawatts.
➡️On the first of April:
'Exactly 11 years ago, Bitcoin broke a $1 billion market cap for the 1st time.
1000x later, economists are still "mystified".
Mainstream economists are mystified because they can’t deal with reality most of the time.
At $1.3+ Trillion, Bitcoin's market capitalization exceeds the top 4 largest banks in the world, COMBINED. No wonder banksters are afraid.
➡️"Financial planning firm Burkett Financial Services, reported owning 602 shares of BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF as of March 31. This kicks off what is expected to be a HUGE month of SEC filings by firms that own
Bitcoin ETFs."- Bitcoin Archive
➡️Coinbase integrating Lightning.
Bitcoin on lightning rails isn't just the future - it's here! Coinbase has over 100 million users. Better late than never Coinbase, it only took them like 7 years. Oh well, it's great news to see more adoption of the Lightning Network.
➡️"The State of Louisiana (with a unanimous 103-0 vote) Passes a Bill To Protect Your 'Fundamental Bitcoin Rights' out of the State House.
Louisiana is taking decisive steps to safeguard the freedom of Bitcoin-related activities within the state.
Upon enactment, this legislation will explicitly ensure protection for:
-The guaranteed right to purchase Bitcoin.
-Your freedom for Bitcoin mining.
-The right to self-custody of your digital assets.
-The freedom to operate a full node." - Dennis Porter
➡️$932 Billion asset manager DWS launches physical Bitcoin ETC in Germany.
DWS partners with Galaxy Digital to offer the "Xtrackers Galaxy Physical Bitcoin ETC" in Germany.
The product is 1:1 "physically backed" utilizing two cryptocurrency custodians, Zodia Custody and Coinbase
Source: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/markets/900-billion-dws-launches-physical-bitcoin-etc-in-germany
Not sure about the 'physically backed' part, but still kinda bullish.
Bitcoin ETF news:
➡️Eric Balchunas reports that BlackRock has updated its Bitcoin ETF prospectus, adding Citadel, Goldman Sachs, UBS, and Citigroup. This marks a major shift: big firms are now eager and comfortable with public association with Bitcoin.
➡️Australia's first Bitcoin ETF to go live this year, says asset manager Monochrome
➡️Morgan Stanley and UBS Reportedly Competing to Launch First Bitcoin ETF.
Reports suggest that Morgan Stanley appears poised to edge out UBS in this race, with insider sources indicating that an announcement could be imminent.
➡️Korea to approve Bitcoin ETFs if pro-Bitcoin opposition wins election in 4 days – Bloomberg
"We're going to allow the ETFs, domestic or overseas."
More than 6 million South Koreans — over 10% of the population own Bitcoin or crypto.
➡️ Bitcoin spot ETFs have siphoned over 4% of the total supply of Bitcoin since January 11, according to analysis from IntoTheBlock.
💸Traditional Finance / Macro:
What can you expect this week in the traditional financial market?
Main highlight ahead:
In the US, we have CPI, the FOMC minutes, and PPI. In Europe, it’s the euro area Sentix, ECB policy meeting, and UK GDP. And in Asia, we have the China and India CPI and RBNZ meeting.
👉🏽 'The US stock market now accounts for a massive ~45% of total global market cap.
Since 2008, the US share has risen by ~15% to its largest since 2004.
The US equity market size is now larger than India, China, Australia, Switzerland, Germany, Canada, UK, France, and Japan COMBINED.
US stocks also account for almost 65% and more than 70% of the MSCI ACWI and the MSCI World indexes, respectively.
To put this in perspective, Nvidia, alone exceeds the GDP of all but 11 countries in the world. The top 10% of S&P 500 stocks now account for 75% of the index's market cap.
This is an even higher percentage than the peak of the Dot-com bubble.' - TKL
👉🏽Gold price surged over $2300 an ounce, a new record high.
Since February 14th, gold is up an incredible $300/oz or 15% in less than 2 months.
Even as 3 interest rate cuts have been removed from market forecasts, gold is pushing higher.
Geopolitical tensions and renewed inflation worries have been the primary drivers.
🏦Banks:
👉🏽no news
🌎Macro/Geopolitics:
👉🏽"This week, France reported a 5.5% budget deficit for 2023 and that it won't be able to push the deficit to below 3% of GDP until at least 2027. Italy will post a 7% deficit for 2023, not declining to less than 3% until at least 2026. In the US, the budget deficit for 2023 will be over 6% and remain above 5% until 2027, after which it will start to increase again.
Meanwhile, there is no recession, economic momentum (using the Citi global economic surprise index as a proxy) is improving, and global #nflation remains nearly two percentage points above the pre-COVID average.
And yet, central banks around the globe are ready to cut rates. Imagine what will happen when we do get a recession, inflation drops and governments accumulate even more debt. Or will this time be different?"
As Lyn Alden would say: Fiscal dominance.
Fiscal dominance at the end of a long-term debt cycle. We are accelerating debasement to offset the deflationary effects of technology on debt markets.
And will it be different this time? No, I don't think so. Do you really think they can bring down deficits? Why will they be able to do so in 2026 or 2027? As always they will kick the can down the road.
Explanation of Fiscal Dominance:
The Fed has no choice. If rates (more on that below) are not cut we get a financial crisis. There is too much government debt!
We now live in an era of Fiscal Dominance.
The term "fiscal dominance" refers to a situation in which the government's fiscal policy (Deficits of 6% and Debt to GDP at WWII levels) significantly influences or dominates the monetary policy set by the central bank.
This occurs when a government's debt level is so high that it restricts the central bank's ability to control inflation through monetary policy tools, such as setting interest rates.
If rates don’t come down, and the value of the USD does not come down then there is a very high probability that the US will experience a failed bond auction.
Or....they can cut government spending but we all know that's not going to happen, innit?
Now scroll back up and read that part again on France & Italy's deficit.
Remember what I shared last week?
The last time France didn't have a budget deficit: 1974
👉🏽Last week I already mentioned that the US debt outlook isn't looking good and rather unsustainable.
(please read that part again in last week's Weekly Recap)
On the 1st of April after finishing that Weekly Recap Bloomberg released an article with the title:
A Million Simulations, One Verdict for US Economy: Debt Danger Ahead"
Bloomberg Economics ran a million forecast simulations on the US debt outlook. 88% of them show borrowing on an unsustainable path.
''In the end, it may take a crisis — perhaps a disorderly rout in the Treasuries market triggered by sovereign US credit-rating downgrades, or a panic over the depletion of the Medicare or Social Security trust funds — to force action.''
Remember the Treasury chief (Janet Yellen) herself acknowledged in a Feb. 8 hearing that “in an extreme case” there could be a possibility of borrowing reaching levels that buyers wouldn’t be willing to purchase everything the government sought to sell.
Even with a miracle, they get it done in the treasury market, but they still won't fix the deficit. (again read last week's Weekly Recap - segment Macro/Geopolitics)
'Medicare is $79 trillion underfunded & Social Security $15 trillion underfunded. With another $29 trillion in various other underfunded liabilities, for a total of $123 trillion. Plus $34 trillion of debt.
That's not enough to cause a panic & force action?'
These are just the facts.
https://usadebtclock.com
Please read the full article here: https://archive.ph/lOvx6
👉🏽Talking about the treasury market:
Federal Reserve's Jerome Powell says no interest rate cuts until inflation improves.
The 10-year note yield is now trading at its highest level since November 2023, at 4.39%
Stronger-than-expected inflation data and rising oil prices have added to inflation worries over the last month.
The 10-year note yield is now just 11 basis points away from crossing 4.50%.
Meanwhile, less than 3 interest rate cuts are now expected in 2024.
Higher for longer has quickly returned.'- TKL
In plain English: It is forecasting extended inflation and possibly stagflation.
The Fed knows that lowering interest rates leads to the re-steepening of yield curves, which leads to recession and stock price drawdowns.
So they wind down QT (and possibly restart QE) to kick the can until after the election. (I have discussed this scenario now for a year, and it looks like this will be the playbook.)
Higher for longer, until something breaks. In the meantime, stocks, assets, and Bitcoin will rise.
👉🏽Now that we know that the rates will remain higher what could go wrong?
'Currently, there is roughly $6 TRILLION of Commercial Real Estate (CRE) debt in the US.
Banks hold a whopping $3 trillion, or 50%, of this outstanding debt.
This year, ~$929 billion, or one-sixth of this debt is set to be refinanced, according to Goldman Sachs.
Rates on these loans are set to double or even triple since they were taken.
All while many of these CRE projects are bankrupt or cash flow negative.' (Picture 2)
Ergo: There's simply too much debt all around, and all of it arising from too many years of easy monetary policy. Let's see which regional bank or market player will bite the dust next.
What do I mean by there is simply too much debt all around?
'U.S. debt always goes up. The only time it decreased in the post-war era was for an 18-month stretch around 2009. That's when private debt growth slowed down and public debt growth took over.
It's almost at $100 trillion.' - Lyn Alden
(Picture 3)
👉🏽"Total wealth held by the top 1% of Americans is now at a record $44.6 trillion.
This means that the top 1% of Americans now control 30% of all wealth in the US.
In Q4 2023 alone, the top 1% saw their net worth increase by $2 trillion as the stock market soared.
Since 2020, the wealth of the top 1% has risen by almost $15 trillion.
That's a ~50% increase in just three years all as affordability has hit record lows.
The wealth gap is widening."- TKL (picture 4)
To the extent the stock market and other assets rising in price creates this wealth gap (since a small percentage of Americans, but also here in Europe, own stocks and other assets), Fed intervention meant to support the price of these assets is a large part of that wealth gap. Sound money is essential to defending freedom. If you look at the chart...please compare that with the chart of the US debt chart. I will give you a hint, it is almost as vertical.
Our world is quickly being divided into those who own assets, and those who pay asset owners. In general (our history) that's not a good thing, as inequality continues to rise.
👉🏽Eurozone inflation cools, setting the stage for June rate cut: Headline CPI slowed to 2.4% YoY in March from 2.6% in Feb below the consensus forecast of 2.5%. Core CPI slowed to 2.9% from 3.1%, again below economists' expectations to reach the lowest level in >2yrs. But there were signs that inflationary pressures have yet to ease in labor-intensive parts: Service Price inflation +4.0% YoY, same as the 4 preceding months. (via DJ)
👉🏽The US Dollar is down 11% against gold and down 40% against bitcoin in 2024.
👉🏽All of the headlines focused on how the "US added 303,000 jobs in March."
However, if you dig further into the data, ALL of the job gains came from part-time jobs, according to ZeroHedge.
Last month, the US added a whopping 691,000 part-time jobs while LOSING 6,000 full-time jobs.
The worst part?
Over the last year, the number of full-time jobs is DOWN 1.347 million.
Meanwhile, the number of part-time jobs is up by 1.888 million, according to ZeroHedge.
To make it even worse: 71,000 govt jobs were added. 0 manufacturing jobs added.
Now ask yourself in a well-functioning economy do people hold one or more than one job?
What we see overall is a massive disconnect between data and reality.
🎁If you have made it this far I would like to give you a little gift:
"We constantly hear from politicians and pundits that Bitcoin has no use case. In the next video, Peter McCormack & Alex Gladstein cover *dozens of specific, critical Bitcoin use cases* across global commerce, human rights, and energy.
They discuss:
- Bitcoin for commerce, freedom, & power
- Broken money for billions
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TI3Xcei8d_I
“If you take savings, commerce, freedom, and power, that’s the bedrock of civilization; so if you don’t have these things…you’re living in a very poor country.” - Alex Gladstein
Only invest in Bitcoin what you can’t afford to have gradually stolen from you by the government.
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.⠀⠀⠀⠀
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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#zap 🧡 #weeklyrecap #nostr #plebchain #BTC #Bitcoin #grownostr #stacksats #bitcoineducation #adoption
