4 things to know regarding BTC at the start of this week

1. Guggenheim Partners filed with the SEC last week in preparation to invest up to 10% of assets (or, $500 million) in BTC. They will do so through Greyscale, an institutional supplier of investment services that has, of late, been buying lots of BTC in order to service such clients. (Link)

2. Greyscale, Square, and Paypal together are consuming more BTC than is being produced each week, and have for several weeks now. Paypal’s CEO says the company is betting BTC becomes a more regularly used form of payment in the future; they have  over 300 million people in their user base. Square has made it easy for newbies to buy, store, and sell/trade BTC on its platform, but not to withdraw BTC to an off-site wallet (for technical and regulatory reasons yet to be resolved). (Link)

3. Observations from two people I follow regularly for their insight into the crypto sphere:

a. Raoul Pal (former hedge fund manager, now CEO of RealVision) has moved 75% of his liquid assets into BTC, now, as he considers this a one-off opportunity. He says he knows a lot of people in the investment world and they’re being “crushed” by the family offices, hedge funds, high net worth individuals, endowments, etc. that are recently eager for exposure to BTC (via a proxy like Greyscale), or for direct ownership. (Link)

b. Pierre Rochard (strategist for Kraken, an exchange that this summer received the first banking license under Wyoming’s new laws for special custody banks that can bank both dollars and cryptocurrencies) says he thinks this BTC price run up could last as long as 3 years, rising to well over $200,000 – perhaps as high as $600,000 – given all of the huge moneyed interests that now want to get some BTC, and the many more who will be entering the space over the next 18-36 months. (Link)

4. Here’s an article on what’s changed (and why) in how corporations and institutions look at cryptos — including what’s changed in the regulatory environment this year and what institutional services have been developed — that make it easier and safer for corporations, funds, etc., to enter the crypto sphere. (Link)

Upshot: this cycle’s upward price action is not driven by retail investor FOMO, but by institutions and high net worth individuals with long term capital preservation and asset appreciation perspectives. That difference promises a much more stable cycle this time. We may have just seen that difference in the quick turn-around from last Thursday-Friday’s price retreat. It is a retreat that neither went as low nor lasted as long as similar retreats at similar points in previous cycles. Of course, such smoothing out of volatility is yet to be confirmed, but it is an early sign of changes observers have anticipated would come with institutional adoption.

At current prices the Guggenheim purchase would be 27,000+ BTC. There are only 900 mined in a day.

As Mike Saylor said ” who is selling me my BTC?”

Had a long talk with a friend last night. I had told him about BTC when it was $90. Had spoken with him over the years and he never got any. He just opened a Coinbase acct. It takes awhile for some people to figure it out.

This morning I see on Raoul Pal’s Twitter feed a bombshell announcement that he’s selling all his gold today to purchase BTC (80%) and ETH (20%):

Raoul Pal
@RaoulGMI · 11h

Ok, last bomb – I have a sell order in tomorrow to sell all my gold and to scale in to buy BTC and ETH (80/20). I dont own anything else (except some bond calls and some $’s). 98% of my liquid net worth. See, you can’t categorize me except #irresponsiblylong Good night all.

MM, regarding your friend:

Dan Held
@danheld · Nov 24
Everyone buys Bitcoin at the price they deserve.

Bitcoin still has a mining algorithm that was never designed to advance science. This means that Bitcoin attracts low quality organisms to its network. Bitcoin is built using lousy cryptography.

The nicest thing I can think of to say about you is “you are an idiot troll” SHA256 is military grade encryption. It has never been broken on the BTC network.

BTC was not designed to advance science. That is your delusion. It was designed to advance money and finance. It has accomplished the goal splendidly. BTC solved the Byzantine Generals problem and created triple entry bookkeeping .

https://news.bitcoin.com/triple-entry-bookkeeping-how-satoshi-nakamoto-solved-the-byzantine-generals-problem/

Now consider your sorry ass owned. You are not advancing science.

I regret to inform you that SHA-256 is not an encryption algorithm.  SHA-256 is a cryptographic hash function. There is a difference between these two things. Furthermore, I am not criticizing SHA-256 as a cryptographic hash function, but Bitcoin mining is not using SHA-256 as a cryptographic hash function. Bitcoin is using SHA-256 as a cryptocurrency mining algorithm, and that is problematic.

“you are an idiot troll”-Please calm down. By insulting me, you are only demonstrating that you are a low quality organism.

“Now consider your sorry ass owned.”-Please calm down. By insulting me, you are only demonstrating that you are a low quality lifeform. But I am not surprised. After all, Bitcoin has a mining algorithm that was never designed to advance science, so Bitcoin does no attract the best of the best. Bitcoin simply attracts people who like get-rich quick schemes more than science.

Here is a tip for you.  If you persist in trolling crypto posts the moderator will be notified. You will lose your posting privileges.

The ball is in your court.

Hmm. You seem to confuse FACTS with trolling because you hate facts and science.  On the other hand, you are completely oblivious to how your name calling and vitriol is itself harmful. You do not seem like a very sensible specimen. Please seek psychiatric help.

Of course, I would not expect anything better from the Bitcoin/Ethereum/etc community. After all, Bitcoin and Ethereum have mining algorithms that were never designed to advance science, so these networks attract specimens who do not care about science at all but just want to get rich quickly.