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$23,100 at the moment. 111% over three months. Institutional investors crowding in. When does quarterly rebalance happen?

News Release 2021-2 | January 4, 2021

Federally Chartered Banks and Thrifts May Participate in Independent Node Verification Networks and Use Stablecoins for Payment Activitie

WASHINGTON—The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) today published a letter clarifying national banks’ and federal savings associations’ authority to participate in independent node verification networks (INVN) and use stablecoins to conduct payment activities and other bank-permissible functions.

“While governments in other countries have built real-time payments systems, the United States has relied on our innovation sector to deliver real-time payments technologies. Some of those technologies are built and managed by bank consortia and some are based on independent node verification networks such as blockchains,” said Acting Comptroller of the Currency Brian P. Brooks. “The President’s Working Group on Financial Markets recently articulated a strong framework for ushering in an era of stablecoin-based financial infrastructure, identifying important risks while allowing those risks to be managed in a technology-agnostic way. Our letter removes any legal uncertainty about the authority of banks to connect to blockchains as validator nodes and thereby transact stablecoin payments on behalf of customers who are increasingly demanding the speed, efficiency, interoperability, and low cost associated with these products.”

https://www.occ.gov/news-issuances/news ... 021-2.html

Visa and MasterCard block payments to PornHub, causing PornHub to go crypto-only for their premium membership.

bostonimproper wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 05, 2021 7:23 pm

Visa and MasterCard block payments to PornHub, causing PornHub to go crypto-only for their premium membership.

btc to $400k

I like to study past bubbles, and Bitcoin's most recent thrust reminds me of the 1979-1980 bubble in silver. Lining up their prices in the chart below, I had to share due to the striking similarity.

I shifted Bitcoin's price back exactly 41 years to the date, and scaled the y-axis in thousands of dollars for BTC vs. dollars/oz of silver:



I don't mean to make a prediction about future Bitcoin prices because I've seen similar comparisons in the past that don't have any real predictive power and mainly serve as propaganda to prove whatever point is trying to be made. So it looks like I am trying to "prove" that Bitcoin is a bubble that will crash in the next few months, and that feels like it has a good chance to be right to me, but I also know that a chart like this is no good at timing a top.

Having said that, if the chart did indicate that "history doesn't repeat but it often rhymes" and the BTC price pattern should continue to follow silver's, that would put the top on January 18th, 2021 (in 12 days) after another approx. 40% thrust.

Also, this chart seems more compelling than other charts where people force an alignment of prices, as not only are the X and Y axes the same scale (X) and same % change (Y), but the X is the same exact time of year and the Y is scaled by exactly 1000, and recent prices still line up almost perfectly.

So on the X-axis, this may be capturing a calendar effect, i.e. people looking forward to the new decade and a new high inflation regime in 1980 (thinking high inflation was going to keep going higher), and people now looking forward to the start of 2021 and the start of a new high inflation regime in 2021.

Both silver and BTC doubled from $8(k) to $16(k) in roughly 6 months. Then doubled again from $16(k) to $32(k) in about 1.5 months. A month later, silver's price had topped and was around the same range. Another month later, silver was again around the same price. After stalling out for a couple months, silver then dropped by about half over the next month.

If I owned BTC, I would be on the lookout for volatile sideways trading which would break its steep trend line rather than waiting for a drop to sell. I would also be looking to sell at least some of it around $49k since $50k may offer some serious psychological resistance. Silver only got up to $49.45 in 1980 so those looking to cash in at an even $50 got screwed by those who were just a little less greedy.

i'd update the 50k barrier to 100k based on current anchoring bias.

plus scott minerd going on bloomberg to proclaim 400k, makes 100 look "reasonable" regardless of actual value.

https://www.investopedia.com/guggenheim ... 00-5092899

I should also add that the silver spike in 1980 ended with a single wealthy family trying to corner the market, not so much mania over silver as an inflation hedge. If BTC surpasses $50k, I'd say it's probably a bigger bubble than ever experienced by silver or gold, or probably any other form of "money" in the modern world. It's hard for me to imagine it has much more life left (in terms of time, not % gains) before another crash.

Bull markets don't die of old age but unsustainable bubbly growth does. You never know exactly when, like when a person is dying of old age, but you know that the odds are greater if the person is 100 years old compared to 80 years old, for example.

yeah i have nothing to lose when the bubble eventually bursts. my tiny bet is all upside, no downside

The question is whether BTC will become a reserve currency, which is consistent with recent developments, but not yet certain. If so, will appreciate another factor 10, and could appreciate another factor 100.

Unlike shemp, I do not think this is ruled out by BTC's lack of state power. BTC may not be able to exercise physical force, but brute force cannot break modern encryption.

Encryption is a power that, like Pitt's tenant farmer in his hovel, "can bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown."

In any case the BTC purchaser must also be prepared for the significant probability that the value of his asset will go to zero.

Lucky C wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 06, 2021 3:15 pm

I should also add that the silver spike in 1980 ended with a single wealthy family trying to corner the market, not so much mania over silver as an inflation hedge. If BTC surpasses $50k, I'd say it's probably a bigger bubble than ever experienced by silver or gold, or probably any other form of "money" in the modern world. It's hard for me to imagine it has much more life left (in terms of time, not % gains) before another crash.

I forget where I heard the statistic, but I believe BTC is already highly concentrated with something like 90% held in something like 2% of wallets (maybe someone can correct me on this but I believe I heard it from a Raoul Pal interview).

Personally, I’m kicking myself a little for not getting some BTC when it was around $12k a few months ago (ultimately I decided to stick with gold). I believe there is much more upside, but at the same time governments will eventually step in to regulate or ban it outright, since it is a direct threat to their monopoly on currency.

The 1980 silver equivalent would be ~67% (or effectively ~67% through futures contracts) in one wallet (two brothers working together in the case of silver).
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/o ... others.asp

Bitcoin top wallets look like a more typical power law distribution:
https://bitinfocharts.com/top-100-riche ... esses.html

Lucky C wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 06, 2021 8:17 pm

The 1980 silver equivalent would be ~67% (or effectively ~67% through futures contracts) in one wallet (two brothers working together in the case of silver).
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/o ... others.asp

Bitcoin top wallets look like a more typical power law distribution:
https://bitinfocharts.com/top-100-riche ... esses.html

Good information. I think one wrinkle in calculating BTC concentration is that one individual or entity can own multiple wallets. I know there are a few countries that also may be holding BTC in government coffers (China, USA held by the FBI, Russia?).

i bought first via paypal and then moved to robinhood for the advanced orders. i don't have a "wallet" proper as i don't plan to ever subscribe to pornhub

I'm downgrading my BTC target from $49k to $39k (which is the current price) based on the recent accelerating parabolic price rise and a plethora of other signs and gut-feel that we've stretched about all we could out of this current episode of bullishness. Not trying to time an exact top, just saying that it feels like anything above $39k will be very short lived and not worth trying to chase - not that I chased it up until this point... and not that I know anything about BTC. Just throwing in my BTC 5e-7.

can one short it?

ertyu wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 07, 2021 12:10 pm

can one short it?

Yes, apparently: https://www.investopedia.com/news/short-bitcoin/

Is there any way to know the daily trading volume in #coins?

@jacob, No, wash trades skew the data.

I assume Ego is correct but interestingly there is volume shown on the BTC chart here (in dollars, not #coins?)
https://finviz.com/crypto_charts.ashx?t=BTCUSD

There is also GBTC which shows that volume is now around the same as the previous end-of-2017 peak
https://finance.yahoo.com/chart/GBTC

it's inching towards $40k where i assume people will take profits and drop again (maybe)

wait no, it already broke $40k for a moment. so further up it should go... i think?

it's the porn trade