Fire Hydrant of Freedom

Grayscale lost money yesterday, 95 mill exit, but in the scheme of things a small number

https://twitter.com/i/status/1745807824351879530

BlackRock wants you to read the below

BTC compared to the biggies, SPY and QQQ Very commendable for Day 1 !!

From X

"When the dollar collapses, a #Bitcoin ETF will entitle the holder to infinite cash, not bitcoin."

I personally dont expect the $ to crash for the next 7-8 years.

So now the US is supporting multiple wars:
- Ukr
- Gaza
- Syria
- Houthis,

Just need one more war in Taiwan and we should be good for 2024. In the meantime the Sec of Defense is getting serious surgeries and the Prez was not even informed.

Good to point out that much of this is interrelated and there are many circles within circles with offshoots of cause and effect. So the US decided to bring down Russia by supporting Ukraine (US proxy) and froze their funds. Russian response was to support Gaza, who launched an attack on Israel (US proxy). Israel bombed Gaza to smithereens, and Russia/Iran activated the Houthis.

End result is that Russia is a commodity exporter, they are doing reasonably well considering the entire west is against them. The problem is that Europe has been destroyed, the economy of their star performer Germany is in recession, the US is not doing great either, debt is 34 T $, with the blockage of the red sea, inflation will rise world wide and in the USA and its only Jan.

Elections in Russia, by May 2024, Putin needs to show some action...

From X
'Almost everyone expected #Bitcoin to either rip, or to sell off on the ETF news. But BTC managed to deceive almost everyone, once again. 👇

What’s behind the muted price response?

Turns out that compliance departments at brokerage firms often take weeks to several months to add new products to their internal “approved products list” for advisors to sell.

In addition, several large broker dealers including  Citi, Vanguard, UBS and Merrill Lynch have either restricted or disallowed their retail clients to buy any spot Bitcoin ETFs. There may be other brokers who blocked these sales as well for ideological reasons. They don’t believe in Bitcoin. I didn’t expect this at all. They’ll lose customers quickly with this strategy.

There are also reports of people rotating out of bitcoin ETF proxies, like BITO and mining stocks, in order to redeploy that capital into a better proxy, like any of the spot ETFs. That would also mildly suppress the amount of ETF inflows.

This may take several months to sort out before the floodgates open. I hope this is the case, as I need to stack more! We all do."

This pattern is similar to what happened with Gold ETF, the first few months were slow/down before it went on a tear. There is also a lot of people with egg on their face, or very salty like Gensler, Eliz Warren, Jamie Dimon etc which affects the policies of banks etc. Those who were hoping to buy the ETF are lucky to have this extra time to stack sats.

Having said that, BTC did touch 49K yesterday...

1 whole BTC is now becoming increasingly unaffordable for most people. Infact, by the end of this year 1 BTC will be unaffordable to most. People will need to start thinking in satoshis. 1 BTC=100 million satoshis. Its a bit like, buying gold, one does not need to buy a kg of gold, you can buy it in small ounces and fractions of ounces. This is where the ETF's come in, they remove unit bias. Investors will be buying 1/1000th of a whole BTC (my estimate, to be determined).

See the BlackRock ETF Price


Below are some factors which will impact BTC (collated from Twitter).
ETF ad campaigns: Super Bowl ads coming, as well as a barrage of high quality ads
Nation-state adoption : Jan3 CEO has been working on nation state adoption of BTC. Small nations are looking into it.
The Halving: This decreases supply by 50 %, come April
Veblen Effect: BTC gets more desirable as the price increases, BTC is a veblen good.
118x Multiplier: The exact multiplier is unknown, but each $ in BTC multiplies the price by an X factor, Bank of America said its 118!.
Recursive Demand Shock™
Low $BTC supply on exchanges
Max Pain Theory
Renewed QE: Fed may ease rates or increase liquidity in 2024
FASB: This is an accounting standard change, which allows companies to hold BTC and account for taxes in a simpler way. This is HUGE.

Here's the SEC's Gary Gensler

GBTC, ETF or BTC For educational purposes only, I cannot predict the future, nor do I have any finance training!, so pl. do your own research.

GBTC  In my opinion, holding GBTC is not advisable over the long term (> 1-2 years). Their fees are 1.5 % at the moment. The problem with GBTC is that if you sell to take your money out, you will incur a taxable event. So if it is a long term gain, you might have to pay 15-20 % tax + any state taxes, + the 1.5% fee. So think carefully. If its a short term capital gain, it may not be worth taking out the money until it becomes a long term gain.

ETF vs BTC is discussed above. BlackRock, Fidelity, Ark/21, Vaneck in this order are reasonable ETF choices. These 11 ETF's hold trillions in Assets under Management. Over the next several months the biggest marketing blitz that you have ever seen will be unleashed and they are all competing for your attention and funds.

So tomorrow when the markets open, the institutions will compete amongst themselves. If you have capital to deploy through ACH via an exchange, buy the BTC tonight before market open, for once the exchange opens the ETF's go live, this will impact BTC price. Many exchanges, eg Coinbase allow you to purchase BTC up to a certain limit using ACH even though the transfer is not instant (with the caveat you cant withdraw until the money is transferred).

If you want to buy the ETF, its going to be wild and no one knows what will happen. I personally would wait for a pullback before buying, but note that a significant pullback may not occur for weeks.

I will be posting a series of BTC related posts tonight, should anyone be interested.

There is a video released by the Indian Air Force (IAF), thats gone viral. It shows the IAF landing a C-130 plane near the Pak border in mountainous terrain using terrain masking at night to make the big plane undetectable, without any runway lights, and the plane was full of Garud (airforce) commandos. The message is that they could land it also at Skardu in Gilgit Baltistan (POK) which is close to the border to capture the air-strip. At the very least, it shows capability to land troops near the border in an undetectable manner.

The red circle on the left is Gilgit Baltistan (POK) and the arrow marks the air strip.

Yes, its going to be very volatile. Anything is possible. BTC approval is near certain and the ETF's will start working a few days after that. 2024 is going to be great...

Some rumors of ETF approval by Jan 2-3.

Soon

Myanmar is not quiet. Lots of internal strife happening.

No its a bit different, the technical terms are "cash create" and in-kind". Gensler is pushing for cash create, which means the ETF can only be purchased with cash (US $). It has nothing to do with digital dollars. The in-kind is to purchase with BTC, but the SEC is not allowing that since the source of BTC is hard to verify. The in-kind is what is customer friendly and what the big companies want, but they have been asked to tow the line with using cash US $, which can be better tracked. Also you cannot withdraw in BTC, only in cash.

Between Jan 8-10, expect the following BTC ETF's to be approved. These create the demand shock. 401K's can now invest in it.

The most interesting man in the world below. Over the next year, BTC will be marketed to the US population like never before. BTC ETF approval is near certain. Enjoy the ride.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1736755061127020794

Inflation is not going away.

Yesterday, breaking news from India. The Indian Supreme Court held that the removal of Article 370 from Indian Kashmir was valid and that Kashmir is a regular part of India.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/landmark-judgment-supreme-court-upholds-abrogation-of-article-370-says-it-was-temporary-provision/articleshow/105889393.cms

Under article 370 the money from the central govt would go to certain Congress affiliated political parties who had ruled Kashmir for decades, Kashmir had semi-independent status and Pak was able to create a lot of nuisance and terrorism. Naturally, the opposition was against removing article 370. Now after removal of art 370, there is massive development in Kashmir, terrorism has practically died down.

Corollary of this decision is that it applies to the whole of Kashmir, including POK. This ruling allows India to take back POK.

Comments from X https://twitter.com/KesariDhwaj/status/1734141418170663260

Samson Mow is CEO of Jan3 a company specializing in nation state BTC adoption. He helped El Salvador do that and is working with multiple countries. He presents a key insight, he is not talking about investing in BTC for a 2-3X, but in changing the financial system completely. Samson is one of the OG's in the field.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1733263699803066546

Steven Lubka, incharge of high net worth individuals at Swan Bitcoin..

"Had a call with a financial advisor and asked him why his clients haven't bought Bitcoin yet if the ETF is obvious:

"They don't want to buy the Bitcoin they just want to buy the ETF. No one with substantial wealth has the time to figure out the asset itself"

Bullish"

Some of you may identify with the sentiment.