The Cryptocurrency Trading Journal

[johnarb]

Its definetly positive for BTC but I worry about the Novogratz 2018 mistake. He said 'institutions are coming' and he was about 2.5 years too early. Countries/Central Banks might be coming but they are probably even slower moving than institutions, they have elections to worry about, laws to deal with etc. But this will be a great case study, they will be using lightning so if the underbanked really gets banked and the country makes a bunch off their BTC holdings, then in a few years lots will want to copy it. But it might be a few years instead of months

I don't live in El Salvador but if I were living there and I had a small shop selling ice cream, for instance, I would have 2 wallets, a non-government version and a regular wallet that supports bitcoin lightning

So, let's say I sell $2 worth of ice cream and that's going to be enough to feed my family, those I will use the government version that allows me to convert to US $

The rest of the sales for the day, I will use the regular bitcoin wallet and that will be my family's investment savings account

If a day is slow or if we have emergencies, I can use the bitcoin savings to cover the shortage in funds, since every business must accept it as legal tender

But now, everyone, even the person who sells ice cream or sells fruits can have an investment account and if bitcoin doubles or 10x, they have the ability to increase their wealth by the same amount [edit: of course like any investment, they can also lose value]

 

[Daal]

But now, everyone, even the person who sells ice cream or sells fruits can have an investment account and if bitcoin doubles or 10x, they have the ability to increase their wealth by the same amount [edit: of course like any investment, they can also lose value]

That's the danger, the average person is a complete moron and Bitcoin will make them even more moronic. As a result, instead of these businessed having a responsible amount of Bitcoin in their balance sheet (5-10% rebalanced regularly) they might have an extreme amount as a result of greed. So their business will become very pro cyclical with the crypto markets. When crypto bear markets occur, lots of these business will go under or they will layoff like crazy. The case study could show its not a good idea for businesses to do that. So, you got to worry about that as well

 

[Daal]

Just so much possibilities, if they encourage all kinds of crypto-centric businesses such as mining firms, it could turn El Salvador into a Silicon Valley blockchain incubator, but as the brother of the president said, it's just the beginning, and they are looking at each step carefully

Absolutely. The best thing they could do would be to start implementing crypto friendly business laws, like Wyoming is doing. Lots of business would move there and other countries would start to do that as well (like the tax havens just copy whatever Cayman/BVI does and try get a piece of the action). If that happens, then the whole 'governments will ban BTC' thesis will be severly tarnished because all any fund needs to do to own crypto would be to open a crypto business in a country that is friendly to it and its game over. To this day they still cant stop Big US business from saving money in taxes in the havens and its a battle big governments have been for decades

However, I do think US policy markers are aware this would happen and that's why they will regulate crypto and not ban it. So far the ban train has been more present in nocoiner tweets than in the real world, at least as far as the US and EU goes

 

[Daal]

https://cointelegraph.com/news/reports-suggest-blockfi-seeks-to-raise-millions-at-a-valuation-of-5b

The idea that BlockFi is worth $5B and BitGo only $1.2B has to be one of the most ridiculous propositions about crypto currently

 

[Specterx]

I dunno, I have been seeing so many articles like the following
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...more-than-5-in-renewed-cryptocurrency-selloff
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...eing-possible-drop-toward-20-000?srnd=premium
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...oss-as-chartist-backdrop-darkens?srnd=premium
https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-price-nears-30k-as-estimates-reveal-19k-support-floor
https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitc...-trader-s-20-crypto-crash-forecast-comes-true

Its becoming consensus among these price callers to say the price will go to $20K or whatever

I don't see these as markers of bearish sentiment - e.g. in the last article the "bear" says he plans to starting buying at 28.5k to catch the next bull phase, which is barely below the recent range. A genuinely bearish article would be something like: "bitcoin may never reclaim previous highs", "bitcoin may languish below 30k for many years", "with the huge threats of regulation and a Tether collapse bitcoin could easily fall below $10k, or much lower", and so on. Certainly there would be no mention of buying.

There is also the following fact. After the $19,000 peak in December of 2017 the price didnt go straight down to the -80% level. It only decisively broke the $6,500 support level in November of 2018, nearly one year later. The avg price of the entire 2018 was actually around $7,300 even though the bottom was $3200 in December of 2018, and there were plenty of rallies to $9-$10K.
I dont think there will be a 80% drop because the excesses of the price never reached the levels of 2017 but even if somehow that were the case, it doesnt mean its going to do that straight away nonstop for 2 months after the peak. That's wishful thinking by the bears and the more they stick their neck out to call for more, the more I think they are getting confident they can predict the price which tells me what they expect will not happen because most of them have no timing skill

Bubble-crashes tend to exhibit symmetry, which suggests we might have 3-5 more weeks of chop in the 30s before an attempt to break lower - if one is to occur.

 

[Daal]

I mentioned I have an account with Euro Pacific Bank, Peter Schiff's bank. Yesterday I tried to wire $8,000 from my account to Transferwise so I could receive it in Brazil for personal expenses. It was rejected today due lack of documentation. Schiff shits on crypto and then thinks the future of finance is him bending over to bureacrats so people have to provide papers to spend their own money, and he calls himself a libertarian. Lmao
The second Binance or a major exchange offers me a crypto card, I will be done with banks. Coinbase has for US and Binance for Europe and I think Asia, no South America just yet but when it happens I will start to move to crypto all the way

Looks like Shiff's bank lost their USD correspondent bank relationship

"
Hello XXXX,

Please be advised that there is a delay in processing the USD wire transfers provoked by our correspondent bank. It may now take between 10 to 20 business days to deliver the the payments in this currency.

If you prefer not to wait that long and send the wire in other currency not affected by the delay (EUR, GBP, etc), please advise us so that we could cancel the payment.

We are truly sorry for this inconvenience.

Best regards,

Client Services"

Now I will have to pay 1.5% to convert into EUR and another 1.5% to convert to my local currency (plus wire fees) not to mention the fact that I lost 2 weeks in this effort. Oh, and the FX transfer is made via a help ticket, there is no button for it. That's the future of finance according to Peter Schiff

 

[Daal]

 

[Daal]

https://seekingalpha.com/news/37058...k-3&utm_medium=email&utm_source=seeking_alpha

 

[Daal]

Excellent video on PoS, PoW and BTC vs ETH

 

[Specterx]

From ZH:

...earlier today MSTR CEO Michael Saylor confirmed that the transaction had been consummated with the company buying 13,005 bitcoin at an average price of $37,617 for a total of $489 million.

The transaction has cemented MSTR's status as the largest corporate hodler of bitcoin, with a total of 105,085 bitcoin acquired for $2.741 billion or an average price of $26,080...

MSTR is already down $60 million on this position as of now, another $6k fall in BTC and they're in the red since inception. The presence of large numbers of underwater margined longs is probably the single most bearish factor that can exist in any market.

IMO BTC, and by extension the crypto universe, is in a very dangerous position at the moment - combining extremely negative price action with lingering bullishness and lots of trapped whales below that 45-48k level. A number of coiners on ET added to their positions a few weeks ago, and here we are challenging the recent lows again. If we drop into the 20s then the Tether blowup scenario is also suddenly in play. And then, e.g. how willing is Elon Musk to let plunging crypto prices trash his quarterly numbers for TSLA?