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China has just completed its first trade of liquefied natural gas (LNG) settled in yuan, the Shanghai Petroleum and Natural Gas Exchange said on Tuesday. The trade involved around 65,000 tons of LNG imported from the United Arab Emirates. The French supermajor, one of the world’s top LNG traders, confirmed to Reuters that the trade involved LNG imported from the UAE, but declined to comment further on the deal.
Tweets: @zhao_dashuai $Please tag @BTCNEWS_TODAY on Twitter to submit tweets.
Tweets: @NSmolenski @raypaxful @jimmyvs24 @lylepratt @ericyakes @DylanLeClair_ @ODELL @TuurDemeester @GonzaloLira1968 @lopp @MoheganBTC @w_s_bitcoin $Please tag @BTCNEWS_TODAY on Twitter to submit tweets.
Tweets: @DSBatten @arcbtc @Dennis_Porter_ @lightning @_tdudenhoeffer @saifedean @SeedSigner @PrestonPysh @ktreywalsh @IIICapital @kerooke @unusual_whales @danheld @jackmallers @WatcherGuru @utxoclub @saylor $Please tag @BTCNEWS_TODAY on Twitter to submit tweets.
Tweets: @TheCryptoLark @john_at_swan @MitchellHODL @veronikakuett @CoinDesk @PavolRusnak @nic__carter @luke_broyles @skwp @nic__carter @realtbast @VailshireCap @natbrunell @TheGuySwann @hodlonaut @ImNotTheWolf @RSync25 $Deutsche has been in trouble for years, much like Credit Suisse, with speculation about its survival swirling through the markets. If any major institution was going to lose the confidence of its investors during this crisis, it was always likely to be at the front of the queue. It remains to be seen what happens next. But the only real way out will be for the German government and the ECB to step in with a guarantee to backstop Deutsche’s losses and to guarantee that depositors will be paid in full. They could decide to nationalise it, or else arrange a quick merger with a rival, most probably Commerzbank, or possibly France’s BNP Paribas. Any fallout from a Deutsche bailout would hit the entire eurozone. A Deutsche collapse could bring the euro down with it. Unless the government and the central bank can shore it up over the weekend, very soon the entire currency will be in deep trouble.
$The impact of a bear market on the crypto industry can be significant. The crypto industry is heavily influenced by market sentiment, which can quickly shift from bullish to bearish during market downturns. This can lead to a vicious cycle of selling, as investors rush to exit their positions and lock in gains or minimize losses. However, the bear market is not all gloom and doom, there are also many benefits to a bear market that are often overlooked. First and perhaps most alluring to most is that a bear market can be an opportunity for investors to buy into the market at lower prices. Bear Markets can bring much-needed clarity to the cryptocurrency space. History provides countless examples of bear markets we can look to for reassurance. We only need to look back half a decade to examine two recent bear markets in crypto and how they impacted the industry.
$Please tag @BTCNEWS_TODAY on Twitter to submit tweets.
Tweets: @gladstein @lopp @JoeCarlasare @skwp @CoinCornerDanny @saifedean @Barchart @saifedean @gladstein @saylor @anilsaidso @alexbosworth @CoinDesk @wowbitcoinrocks @LN_Capital @BitcoinPierre @kerooke @real_or_random @VailshireCap @JAN3com @gladstein @BitcoinPierre @WatcherGuru @ApeDurden $The bitcoin standard would mean that central banks would and should hold bitcoin on their balance sheets. Perhaps this would mean that central banks would not be needed anymore, but like any government agency or quasi-government agency, that doesn’t necessarily mean they will go away. Central banks will hold bitcoin because it will give their countries an advantage over other countries where the central banks don’t. The more free that a country is, the stronger it is against other countries. Bitcoin is freedom. Bitcoin is freedom from financial oppression. Under bitcoin, the economy would move from a debt economy to a savings economy. The economy would also move back to being more about production than consumption because consumption and debt don’t grow economies.
Tweets: @TopCrypto_News @billwells $Please tag @BTCNEWS_TODAY on Twitter to submit tweets.
Tweets: @LynAldenContact @giacomozucco @francispouliot_ @VailshireCap @CaitlinLong_ @gladstein @WalkerAmerica @samcallah @DSBatten @hodlonaut @LynAldenContact @callebtc $Please tag @BTCNEWS_TODAY on Twitter to submit tweets.
Tweets: @LynAldenContact @SheilaBair2013 @DzambhalaHODL @MikeIppolito_ @FatManTerra @dougboneparth @CaitlinLong_ @BanklessHQ @PeterContiBrown @mattyglesias @DoombergT @itsLIRAN @lopp @JoeConsorti @robustus @KobeissiLetter @AP_Abacus $While we should never discount a sitting governor fighting for economic freedom (or mentioning Bitcoin), there are questions to ask about what these bills could mean for Satoshi’s innovation, and the looming presence of a CBDC. It needn’t be stated here, but Central Bank Digital Currencies would be indelibly harmful to economic and personal freedom, and thankfully, the Bitcoin Policy Institute has a healthy archive of articles that both examine and reiterate this reality. But considering two rising GOP stars — and rumored presidential hopefuls — are using their state executive authority to presumably quash CBDCs, it’s worth examining what they’re specifically addressing. In a sense, it’s an upgrade to existing commercial law that would allow Bitcoin to be used as collateral for all future financial contracts. It’s “not your keys, not your coins” in commercial law. Not only would this bill protect your Bitcoin in any commercial transaction, but it would also better define and protect ownership of your Bitcoin in a bankruptcy scenario like FTX, Voyager, or BlockFi.
$"Understanding the distinction between the commodity futures markets and the underlying commodity market is critical to understanding the current regulatory environment for digital assets, such as bitcoin. As it stands now, like all other commodities, the CFTC regulates the trading of bitcoin futures contracts. But the CFTC does not regulate bitcoin itself or the bitcoin spot markets, which are akin to the cattle auction houses and livestock stockyards in my cattle example. Unlike in my cattle example, there is currently no federal regulator of bitcoin or bitcoin spot markets." - Summer Mersinger
$It is worth remembering that Bitcoin was born from the ashes of the last major banking crisis. “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks” is the message that Satoshi inscribed in Bitcoin’s genesis block. Since that time, Bitcoin has become recognized as both a technical marvel and an economic expression, yet it has not been tested in a major banking crisis until now. Bitcoin has fared well so far, but the journey ahead of us is likely long. The root issue of flighty deposits and unrealized losses on assets caused by a rising rate environment has yet to be systematically addressed. It may not always be obvious why Bitcoin is needed, but it is times like this that remind us.
$If banks were “money warehouses” that simply hold your deposits for you, the financial system would be far more stable than it is today. Throughout most of human history, banks were just “money warehouses” that stored money and charged customers a fee for the service. What we think of as banks today – both a lender and a depository together – is comparatively new. Why? Because both storing and lending the very same customer money is inherently an unstable proposition – its stability could be fleeting because it rests on the idea that not all customers will want their money back at the same time. Such a system inherently is prone to periodic crises, the amplitude and frequency of which tend to increase over time.
Tweets: @twobitidiot @JacobRobinsonJD @kudzaikutukwa @JacobRobinsonJD @CaitlinLong_ $Please tag @BTCNEWS_TODAY on Twitter to submit tweets.
Tweets: @JoeConsorti @ODELL @ByKyleCampbell @JasonPLowery @IIICapital @skwp @callebtc @TXMCtrades @BTC_Archive @GRDecter @luke_broyles @DylanLeClair_ @TheVladCostea @DzambhalaHODL @JoeConsorti @balajis @sthenc @lylepratt @bitcoinoptech @ODELL @skwp @cz_binance @nikcantmine $Based on the current situation, markets are bracing for higher rates and banks continuing to tighten credit availability – a scenario generally favorable to risk-off assets. Ethereum is considered a more risk-on, higher beta than Bitcoin, suggesting it will underperform versus the leading cryptocurrency going into a risk-off environment. The percentage change in total ETH addresses has decreased over the past five years, dipping below BTC last month. The Merge narrative led to bullish price drivers in the switch to Proof-of-Stake and deflationary tokenomics. However, more than six months on, ETH continues to lose against Bitcoin. The ETH/BTC ratio is currently at 0.0635, less than half that during the 2017 peak. Since the banking crisis, a notable drop off in the ratio occurred, suggesting the market overwhelmingly favors Bitcoin in these uncertain times.
$Just days after the fallout from Silicon Valley Bank and the establishment of the Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP), there’s been a significant rise in the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet after a full year of decline via quantitative tightening (QT). The PTSD from extensive quantitative easing (QE) is causing many people to sound the alarms, but the changes in the Fed’s balance sheet are a lot more nuanced than a new regime shift in monetary policy. The key takeaway is that this is much different than the QE spree of asset buying and the stimulative easy money with near-zero interest rates that we’ve experienced over the last decade. This is about select banks needing liquidity in times of economic distress and those banks getting short-term loans with the goal of covering deposits and paying the loans back in quick fashion. We’re likely far from the end of the chaos and volatility this year,as each month has brought new levels of uncertainty in the market. This was the first sign of the system needing Federal Reserve intervention and swift action. It likely won’t be the last in 2023.
$Please tag @BTCNEWS_TODAY on Twitter to submit tweets.
Tweets: @DSBatten @tom_honzik @bamthemexican @QLD_HODL @balajis @FossGregfoss $Please tag @BTCNEWS_TODAY on Twitter to submit tweets.
Tweets: @LynAldenContact @stephanlivera @caprioleio @ShaunEnergy @purugyl @TomerStrolight @BTC_Archive @ecb @RufasKe @LynAldenContact @RSync25 @real_vijay @paoloardoino @RufasKe @ChaseTheTruth @RegulatoryJason @DocumentingBTC @CaitlinLong_ @DylanLeClair_ @saylor @jameslavish $For ~15 months, we’ve been waiting for the Fed’s unsustainable rate hikes to break something in the financial system and disabuse the Fed of their delusional fantasy that they could actually implement quantitative tightening (QT) without causing calamity. Well, something finally broke. Ironically, it’s the same thing that broke in 2008, just for different reasons – banks’ balance sheets. In 2008, it was heavy exposure to risky mortgage-backed securities. In 2023, it is heavy exposure to long-dated US Treasury bills – supposedly the least risky asset on the planet. After ~15 months, quantitative tightening is dead. And now, we’ve just begun the 5th era of quantitative easing (QE5).
$It's the dawn of a new era in the history of European and world finance. An era marked by the disappearance of a bank created 167 years ago, but which was weighed down by repeated scandals. Credit Suisse, once a Swiss and European financial flagship, will be swallowed up by its rival and compatriot UBS, the Swiss government announced. The deal is valued at more than $2 billion. Earlier, the FT had indicated that the deal was for $1 billion but Credit Suisse was pushing back, saying the offer was very low and would hurt its shareholders and employees who own deferred stock, according to Bloomberg News.
$Please tag @BTCNEWS_TODAY on Twitter to submit tweets.
Tweets: @LynAldenContact @LynAldenContact @PsychedelicBart @MartyBent @TheVladCostea @LayahHeilpern @100trillionUSD @DylanLeClair_ @CaitlinLong_ @100trillionUSD @MartyBent @Leishman @stephanlivera @DocumentingBTC @RufasKe @100trillionUSD @Mandrik @jameslavish @GRDecter @w_s_bitcoin @markets @stackhodler @KobeissiLetter $Bitcoin has been operating fairly smoothly for fourteen years at this point, but like most of us, it doesn’t look quite the same as it did in 2009. As Bitcoin has gained adoption, new updates have been added that either make it more reliable or provide new functionality. Thanks to its decentralized nature, these updates need to be agreed upon and accepted by the community at large. However, this has begun to create a new challenge known as ossification. It’s a well-known principle, but it is one that stands to have major implications for Bitcoin and its users.
Tweets: @lopp @lopp $Please tag @BTCNEWS_TODAY on Twitter to submit tweets.
Tweets: @DylanLeClair_ @DylanLeClair_ @BloombergUK @twobitidiot @TXMCtrades @TXMCtrades @paulg @CryptoHayes @AutismCapital @Leishman @biancoresearch @DylanLeClair_ @balajis @NeilJacobs @balajis @AltcoinPsycho @biancoresearch @FossGregfoss @NeilJacobs @ramahluwalia @balajis @biancoresearch @EpsilonTheory @zerohedge @gladstein @NeilJacobs @RoboSats @arcbtc @jeetsidhu_ @fiatjaf $At its core, Bitcoin is a transaction database. Every 10 minutes, a new collection of such transactions, called a block, is queued up on Bitcoin, immutable for all eternity. Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious mastermind behind the first and most popular cryptocurrency, created that first transaction block themself. But Bitcoin is also a political project — at least, the idea behind it was and always will be political. Nakamoto inserted a message into the code that still forms the start of the decentralized Bitcoin database: “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.” This political message is as relevant these days as it was in early 2009 when a global financial crisis seethed anger and enraged people worldwide. The banks whose recklessness caused this crisis were not punished, but rewarded with taxpayer money. Governments have claimed since then to have learned their lesson.
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Tech & Dev
For a fourth year running, regular Bitcoin Core contributors received a survey to surface priorities and ensure that people feel that they can contribute effectively. This blog post is a summary of the results in a format similar to last year’s survey.
$Multisig solutions are not new to bitcoin. The concept was first pioneered and formalized into the standard Bitcoin protocol as early as 2012 but only started getting traction in 2014 after the shutdown of the Silk Road and the collapse of the bitcoin exchange Mt.Gox. The two adverse events urged developers to promote a better way to obtain maximum security against hacks and confiscation by authorities. If you get past the inconvenience of setting up a multisig wallet and the technical learning required, multisig can help you achieve greater peace of mind with your bitcoin by adding an extra layer of security to your holdings.
$RGB and Taro are two new protocols that enable token issuance on Bitcoin, and are therefore expected to bring stablecoin transactions on Lightning. RGB, with its ambitions as a smart-contracting layer on top of Bitcoin (i.e., not just for tokens), has a robust on-chain protocol to execute off-chain state transitions. Careful design has resulted in superior privacy, on-chain scalability and versatility, at the cost of conceptual complexity. On the other hand, Taro seems to be more focused on off-chain use, such as on the Lightning Network, specifying methods for multi-hop payments and token exchange. However, among the practical shortcuts Taro has taken in favor of conceptual simplicity is its neglect to standardize at least one basic building block of its on-chain protocol.
$Bitcoin introduced a cryptographic peer-to-peer version of money that allows online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution. Many recent studies evaluated and criticised Bitcoin’s energy consumption through its Proof of Work (PoW) consensus mechanism without evaluating its efficiency compared to classical electronic payment system. Based on physics, information science and economics, the paper computes and compares the energy consumption and define what is the energy efficiency of both the current monetary payment system and Bitcoin cryptopayment system. The paper demonstrates that Bitcoin consumes at least 28 times less energy and can run today with 60 times less energy than the classical system. At a single transaction level and with total volumes accounted for, Bitcoin produces equivalent energy efficiency rates or better. When Bitcoin Lightning is compared to Instant Payment scheme, Bitcoin gains exponentially in scalability and efficiency, proving to be millions of times more energy efficient per transaction than Instant Payments.
$BOLT, which stands for "Basis of Lightning Technology", refers to a set of technical specifications or protocols that define the rules and procedures for how the Lightning Network should operate. BOLT was first introduced in 2017 by a group of developers working on the Lightning Network, and since then, it has undergone several updates and revisions. The protocols are open source and available to anyone who wants to use or develop Lightning-related applications and services. There are several layers to BOLT, each of which defines a specific set of rules and protocols. Overall, BOLT provides a comprehensive specification for the Lightning Network, allowing different implementations to interoperate with each other seamlessly.
$While Secure Elements sound like a fantastic place to store something like a Seed Phrase, they’re also closed source, proprietary chips that cannot be openly verified due to NDAs the manufacturers force everyone to sign. So if you want your Hardware Wallet to be entirely FOSS (Free and Open Source Software), you can’t use them. Many of the top Hardware Wallets out there all use the same STM32 microcontroller, which becomes a problem because now you have the vast majority of Hardware Wallets all using the same product from the same manufacture: STMicroelectronics.
$Nostr is a revolutionary protocol for social media because it provides a decentralized, monetizable, incentive-aligned, market-driven, and open-source platform for social interaction. Nostr has the potential to create a new era of social media that prioritizes user sovereignty and free market competition.
Tweets: @lopp $The only Bitcoin spending conditions in widespread use today are simple single-sigs and simple multisigs, even though Bitcoin Script, the language used to encode spending conditions in Bitcoin transactions, is much more powerful than that. The reason for this is that Bitcoin Script, while appearing to be a simple stack-based language on the surface, is actually very difficult to use in practice. For every new spending condition a developer might want to create, a lot of time has to be spent making sure it is correct and sound under all circumstances, which can be hard to reason about.
$Bitcoin is an open-source project that is permissionless, meaning anyone can join the network and become part of the network. While Running a bitcoin node can help secure the network for all users, ensure faster transactions, and contribute to a decentralised economy that exists without a centralized server, it does require some operational and security practices. This article is essential if you plan on running a node or run one and want to ensure you’re plugging some of the possible gaps for an attack.
$BIP-300, which enables a feature called Drivechains on the Bitcoin network. Normally, one would hope that the author of a BIP is not very central or relevant to whether or not it gets attention, but as Sztorc seems to be the major voice continuing to push for Drivechain after being essentially rejected or ignored on the forums and mailing list, it might be worth knowing this brief background & motivation. Sztorc is no intellectual slouch, and he's very open about his conviction that the success of Bitcoin is fully dependent on its adoption of Drivechain. Drivechains fundamentally change the transaction validation mechanism from “all spends must provide cryptographic proofs” to “some spends do not require cryptographic proofs”. It fundamentally changes the ability to attack the network from “the attacker must acquire 51% of the hash rate” to “the attacker must propose a transaction and fight out ownership in meatspace”. It fundamentally changes attack response from “move hash away from the bad actor” (e.g., out of a pool, or by adding more honest hash) to “convince all the miners or nodes to do a UASF in favor of one party over another”.
Tweets: @barackomaba $It's great to see Bitcoiners joining Nostr, the decentralized social network. This is a good, short post from ConsentOnChain blog that all Nostriches should read.
Tweets: @jack @pleblira @jb55 @andreneves @cameri @melvincarvalho @derekmross @JeffBooth @yeg0rpetrov @pippellia @notgrubles @cameri @jameslavish @SovrynM @vishalxl @fiatjaf @fiatjaf @CaptFrancisDank @nitesh_btc @spiralcrunch @shukla @nvk @shukla @nvk @resistancemoney @BTCNEWS_TODAY $Podcasts
| Date | Name | Episode |
|---|---|---|
| 2023-03-31 | Bitcoin Magazine Podcast | Bitcoin, Binance, and The Banking Crisis w/ Dylan LeClair |
| 2023-03-29 | Bitcoin Magazine Podcast | Bitcoin Energy Systems, & the State w/ Lyn Alden & Natalie Smolenski |
| 2023-03-29 | Hidden Forces Podcast | Does the Fed Have Any Idea What It’s Doing? | Jeff Snider & Brent Johnson |
| 2023-03-21 | Odd Lots / Bloomberg | Where Stress Is Showing in the $20 Trillion Commercial Real Estate Market |
| 2023-03-19 | Economics Explained | Modern Monetary Theory Explained |
| 2023-03-19 | Swan Signal - A Bitcoin Podcast | Dylan LeClair & Joe Consorti | Bank Runs, Bitcoin, and Self-Custody |
| 2023-03-19 | Stephan Livera Podcast | An Unsustainable Fiscal Path with James Lavish |
Longform
Over the past decade the crypto asset ecosystem has exploded in size and complexity. While the overwhelming majority of projects are arguably scams or simply shitty ideas, one in a hundred does manage to innovate and find product market fit. Bitcoin maximalism has evolved as a result, but it has also become more complex as schisms have appeared. Bitcoin is inherently counterculture. It is an adversarial environment. We should not expect that everyone will get along. Bitcoin is for enemies. Bitcoin maximalism itself is neither good nor bad; it was born as a rational pushback to flawed narratives used to perpetuate scams and poorly architected projects. What we’ve witnessed over the past decade is an evolution and fracturing of folks who hold maximalist views. Some have chosen more nuanced paths while others have remained absolutists. Bitcoin maximalism is neither dead nor is it dying. It is alive and well, though perhaps it’s suffering from an identity crisis as a result of some folks trying to make it a more exclusive subculture.
Tweets: @aantonop @lopp @lopp @lopp @lopp @aantonop @lopp @stephanlivera @lopp @bradmillscan @brian_trollz @lopp $When you broaden your perspective of bitcoin from a currency and payment system to that of a secure historical ledger, it becomes clear that these properties, in conjunction with each other, can enable powerful applications. Some of bitcoin’s properties are difficult to describe comprehensively. While permissionlessness (anyone can use the system without asking permission or fear of being censored) and transparency (anyone can audit the ledger) are straightforward, trustlessness and immutability are more complex. With a strongly anchored blockchain to use as a foundation, an ecosystem of many chains can develop. As such, bitcoin can be the “one chain to rule them all“ while simultaneously fostering a diverse array of blockchains. If you need a strong proof of your service’s data integrity, don’t choose second best – anchor to the most trustworthy chain.
Tweets: @random_walker @lopp @lopp @martindale $This article details why the incumbent global financial system is irreversibly broken, how it got to this point, and what the world will look like coming out the other side of the present crisis. It uses the frameworks presented in Ray Dalio’s Principles for Navigating Big Debt Crises along with author's own analysis to contextualize the global economic landscape, and details how the emergence of bitcoin as a global monetary asset will serve as a release valve.
$It's easy to see how early adopters of real estate on some forbidding frontier earned their wealth, even if it was only by being early and willing to risk ruin. We also have little trouble celebrating early investors in Amazon or Google or Apple for their foresight and daring to bet on a bold vision of the future. And yet, many people seem unwilling or unable to grant the same recognition to early Bitcoin adopters. When it comes to Bitcoin, the broader public is quick to label early adopters as somehow lucky for the riches they didn’t seem to earn. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether you think Bitcoin’s wealth distribution is fair or not. All that really matters is whether you decide to secure some acreage for the benefit of your family and its future generations, as Juan Camarillo did.
Tweets: @Beautyon_ @Croesus_BTC @marcrjandrew $In the United States, the banking system as a whole has $22.9 trillion in assets and $20.7 trillion in liabilities. The problem, of course, is that their assets are riskier and less liquid than their liabilities, and so they face both liquidity risks and solvency risks if things aren’t managed well, or if they face external shocks that are larger than they can deal with. The majority of bank liabilities are deposits for individuals and businesses, and these deposits currently total $17.6 trillion. That’s what you and I consider to be our “money”. They offer very low interest rates, especially for checking and savings accounts. Banks currently have just $3 trillion in cash to back up their $17.6 trillion in deposits. The majority of this cash is just a ledger entry with the U.S. Federal Reserve, and so it is not tangible. Somewhere around $100 billion of it ($0.1 trillion) is held by banks in the form of actual physical banknotes in vaults and ATMs. So, the $17.6 trillion in deposits are backed up by just $3 trillion in cash, of which perhaps $0.1 trillion is physical cash. The rest is backed up by less liquid securities and loans. Regulators want banks to be reasonably safe, but not “too safe”. They want all banks to be leveraged bond funds to a certain degree, and won’t allow safer ones to exist.
$Open commerce requires the transfer of both information and value. Therefore, both open monetary networks and open information networks (and their actual usage rather than merely their existence) matter for the study of economics, geopolitics, and various long-range investment outcomes. In general, any jurisdiction that is attractive in the sense that people and capital want to come to it, and information can be shared freely within it and with the rest of the world, should welcome such technologies. Open monetary and information networks, especially if their usage spreads around the world in ways that are hard to prevent, enable and accelerate more value flowing into these freer jurisdictions from elsewhere. Borders become less relevant from an economic point of view. On the other hand, any jurisdiction that is unattractive in the sense that people and capital want to escape it, and information is restricted within it and with the rest of the world in order to protect the rulers, should fear such technologies. Open monetary and information networks create more leaks of capital and information into and out of their jurisdictions, empowering their people, or forcing more expenditure by their rulers to increase the existing restrictions to maintain their isolation.
$One of the more misunderstood topics in the world is banks. How they work, how they succeed, and how they fail are all things that are typically described with some mix of factual accuracy, factual inaccuracy, deliberate obfuscation, and straight up confusion so profound it is neither correct nor incorrect, but rather so incoherent it seems like it originated from another dimension. To that end, in light of the current Silvergate situation, I am going to endeavor to do three things with this post: 1. Describe a deliberately oversimplified model of how a bank works 2. Describe how banks typically fail, in light of this model 3. Apply points one and two to the current situation at Silvergate
Tweets: @CampbellJAustin @nic__carter @CampbellJAustin $As Powell and the Federal Reserve are emboldened to tighten policy into a global slowdown, with the dollar strengthening to new highs on a weekly basis and energy prices skyrocketing around the world, we view it as increasingly likely that something breaks in a massive way over the next six months. Six months may even be too generous of a timeline. Given the Fed plans to begin quantitative tightening next month, reducing its balance sheet to the tune of $95 billion per month, we expect something under the surface will crack in financial markets. With this being said, we think what “breaks” is liquidity in the U.S. Treasury market, as a soaring dollar, skyrocketing energy prices and subsequently contracting global productivity lead to a sell-off in dollar-denominated assets. There still is a massive implicit short dollar position around the world (USD-denominated debt). We still have yet to see the blow-off top short squeeze in the USD. In that environment only two places are safe, volatility (as an asset class) and dollars. Everything else sells. Bitcoin won't be insulated, nothing will. When that time comes, the Fed will be forced to print into an inflation spike. This is when bitcoin comes back with a vengeance.
$Bitcoin mining is currently one of the most competitive and fragmented industries in the world. Our Porter’s Five Forces analysis indicates that the bitcoin mining industry will remain ultra-competitive and fragmented. The industry has exceptionally low barriers to entry, meaning there will be a constant flow of new entrants into the sector. The low barriers to entry are great for decentralization but put pressure on the profit potential of existing players. The ultra-competitive nature of bitcoin mining has two implications. Firstly, the industry will likely stay decentralized, and secondly, only the lowest-cost operators will survive and thrive over the long term.
Tweets: @JMellerud $While bitcoin’s usefulness as a store of value and medium of exchange is becoming more widely appreciated, those choosing to adopt it tend to cluster into stages. These stages are: Learn, Insure, Save, Allocate, Commit, and Endure
Tweets: @unchainedcap @unchainedcap @unchainedcap @unchainedcap @unchainedcap @unchainedcap @unchainedcap @unchainedcap $“Bitcoin” encompasses two related but distinct concepts. First, individual bitcoins (lowercase b) are units of (fiat) digital currency. Second, the Bitcoin protocol (uppercase B) governs the decentralized network through which thousands of computers across the globe maintain a “public ledger”—known as the blockchain—that keeps a fully transparent record of every authenticated transfer of bitcoins from the moment the system became operational in early 2009. In short, Bitcoin encompasses both (1) an unbacked digital currency and (2) a decentralized online payment system. Whether Bitcoin becomes a bona fide money is still an open empirical question, but at this point—since Bitcoin is already a medium of exchange—Mises’s regression theorem doesn’t have any bearing on the outcome.
$Transcript of the 24 Risks of Equities with Michael Saylor from the Bitcoin Layer Podcast. Michael covers the following risks: #1: Governance Risk #2: Operational Risk #3: Strategic Risk #4: Financial Risk #5: Competitive Risk #6: Technology Risk #7: Political Risk #8: Facilities Risk #9: Regulatory Risk #10: Employee Risk #11: Vendor Risk #12: Customer Risk #13: Reputational Risk #14: War Risk #15: Currency Risk #16: Tax Risk #17: Weather Risk #18: Customs Risk #19: Legal Risk #20: Tort Risk #21: Patent Risk #22: Health Risk #23: Lifecycle Risk #24: Dilution Risk
$Nostr is for developers. It’s an open-source project for builders that serves as a broadcast platform and content hub aggregate. From the architecture alone, we can start to differentiate it from Twitter or any other existing platform. This protocol is newly, actively developed — so while it tugs at the root of topics like free speech and privacy, the tech itself is in its nascent stages. Nostr aims to decentralize private communications and data while allowing us to interact in new ways. For all of those reasons, we should learn about it — perhaps in the same way some of us should have learned about Meta products before dishing our credentials.
$On one side of this, a sharp and persistent increase in the broad money supply is the biggest quantifiable correlate with price inflation. On the other side, sharp changes in the supply of goods and services (e.g. a major boom or a major loss in productive capacity) also significantly affect price inflation. We can see this with long-term charts of several different developed countries as examples. These charts show the five-year rolling cumulative amount of broad money supply growth and consumer price index growth. Areas where money supply growth greatly exceeded changes to consumer price index were generally due to some sort of productivity boom. combination of high debt, high interest rates on that debt, aging demographics, geopolitical tensions, and tight energy supplies are likely to result in ongoing waves of inflation. For periods where we generally get inflation under control, it will likely be due to global demand suppression and economic stagnation, rather than what we actually want: global disinflationary growth.
$Computation is competition. While the quantum computing threat is not something we expect to be worth worrying about for many years, it is better to be proactive rather than wait for it to come for us. Security is the science of staying ahead. The very act of wealth preservation is comprised of staving off the many attempts to steal it.
$Abstract: In this piece we explore why Dapps are typically built on Ethereum rather than Bitcoin, which takes us all the way back to March 2014. We examine a debate about whether and how a Dapp protocol called Counterparty should use Bitcoin’s blockchain. This was sometimes called “The OP_Return Wars”. We explain the history of OP_Return usage and sidechains in Bitcoin. We conclude by arguing, whether one likes it or not, that it was the culture in the Bitcoin development community in 2014 and the negative view of using Bitcoin transaction data for alternative use cases, which played a major role in pushing developers of these Dapps onto alternative systems like Ethereum, along with other factors.
Tweets: @fiatjaf @resistancemoney @benthecarman @alexbosworth @brian_trollz @astridwilde1 @BitMEXResearch $Exasperated with a conversation, I asked my friend directly, "What do you think the probability is that Bitcoin hits $1M per coin?" My friend replied without hesitation, "0.001%." I laughed and said I put it at 80%. We had a conversation about my friend's skepticism, and I wondered if there was some information asymmetry, or if it was self-motivated beliefs. My friend group is full of people like this, highly intelligent and successful, yet resistant to Bitcoin. I've found it to be a topic of fascinated frustration. I believe that my friends are resistant to Bitcoin because of their trust in the current system, and see Bitcoin as a radical departure from it. In contrast, I see Bitcoin as a necessary response to the flaws in the current system and a trust-minimized store of value.
Tweets: @BitcoinAudible @sunny_satoshi @sunny_satoshi @epodrulz @stephanlivera @TheGuySwann @petermiyoung @jakeeswoodhouse $Many speculate that Bitcoin’s security will lapse with the end of the mining subsidy. But other factors will continue to incentivize miners. Two prominent and likely factors are: (1) Higher transaction fees due to base layer settlement activity for higher layers which in turn is the result of increased adoption and (2) Bitcoin miners can act as an auxiliary tool for other business practices, an example being the highly-overlooked development in the mainstream involving the Bitcoin miners’ incentive to pursue stranded, wasted or excess energy.
$After years of learning, I now devote a fair amount of my time trying to help others understand bitcoin better. While many people have referred to me as a “bitcoin expert,” I still consider myself a student – I have yet to determine how deep the rabbit hole goes.
$Some thoughts on FTX... Subprime meets Enron meets Madoff - on steroids thanks to altcoins... A recipe for disaster... Framing the conversation: Key challenges for Bitcoin... Potential negative impacts of the FTX collapse... Ultimately, the impact is very positive... Is regulation the answer?
$The IMF and World Bank do not seek to fix poverty, but only to enrich creditor nations. Could Bitcoin create a better global economic system for the developing world?
Tweets: @LynAldenContact @LynAldenContact @LynAldenContact @gladstein @gladstein @steve_hanke @reuters $I selected these quotes from this amazing book by Saifedean AMMOUS. They offer only a glimpse of the richness of the book that is an absolute must read.
$Sam Bankman-Fried is a con man and fraudster of historic proportions. But you might not learn that from the New York Times, CoinDesk's Chief Insights Columnist David Z. Morris writes.
Tweets: @jemenger $Bitcoin is a dangerous place. There is an endless list of hacks, scams, and thefts. Bitcoin promises a network with distributed trust. You know why? Because other bitcoiners exist.
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