Oddbean

🧠Quote(s) of the week: ‘Nearly 1,000 firms have invested since January's launch. Owning $3.5 billion worth of Bitcoin ETFs as of last Thursday. By the May 15 filing deadline, we could see a total AUM nearing $5 billion.’ First, they said it's only crazy internet people who own Bitcoin or it is for criminals. Then they said it's only retail that owns Bitcoin. Now they see over 500 massive wealth firms, banks, & institutional investors bought Bitcoin in the first 2.5 months of ETFs. A majority (52%) of the US's largest hedge funds are betting on Bitcoin. I wonder what they will say next... 🧡Bitcoin news🧡 This is an extended Weekly Recap version (6th of May - 20th of May). I hope you enjoy it. 6th of May: ➡️'South Korea's new government will vote to allow spot Bitcoin ETFs in June.' - Bitcoin Archive ➡️$130B wealth manager Hightower just reported owning $68m of Bitcoin through 6 ETFs. ➡️'The US government holds ~212,847 Bitcoin as of April 2024' - Bitcoin News MicroStrategy, after their latest purchase, now owns more Bitcoin than any country in the world. 7th of May: ➡️Bitcoin exchange inflow hits lowest level since 2015 at 20K BTC. You might wonder if this all has to do with the offramps closing or if people just have 'diamond' hands. ➡️'$429 BILLION asset manager Susquehanna International just reported owning $831M Bitcoin across 10 ETFs! The biggest ownership of Bitcoin ETFs reported to date.'- Thomas Fahrer Their total ownership is ~$1.2 BILLION, including +$1b in GBTC. ➡️Arkham identified a new US government wallet containing 3,940 Bitcoin ($251M) seized from drug dealer Banmeet Singh in a January hearing. 8th of May: ➡️Argentina to mine Bitcoin using stranded gas with 1,200 Bitcoin mining machines - Forbes Bitcoin miner Genesis Digital Assets Limited partners with Argentina's YPF Luz to build a Bitcoin mining facility in Neuquén powered by wasted gas from oil fields. This is the first of its kind in Argentina and turns a pollutant into a valuable energy source. ➡️New research backs up every single major claim of the energy & environmental benefits of Bitcoin Bitcoin for methane mitigation: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4810964 Bitcoin for renewable buildout: https://www.mdpi.com/2078-1547/14/3/35 Bitcoin for grid balancing https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4634256 ➡️'Hong Kong firm Monolith Management, founded by ex-Sequoia China exec Cao Xi, revealed a $24M investment in BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF IBIT. This is their 5th largest holding, exceeding their Meta stake by double.' - Bitcoin News ➡️ Bankrupt FTX to pay customers $15 billion in recovered cash - CNBC 'FTX is not paying customers in "FULL" as reported. Bitcoin is up almost 4x since hitting a $15.5K low in the bear market and is now just above $62,000. FTX will compensate customers in US dollars at prices set during the bear market, not like-for-like in assets stolen.' -Radar 9th of May: ➡️The US House has voted to repeal the SEC ruling that blocks financial institutions (trusted custodians) from holding Bitcoin for their customers. ➡️Biden Admin would veto proposed legislation that would allow highly regulated financial firms to custody. Joe is completely out of touch and is driving entrepreneurs out of the US. Congressman Hill criticizes Biden for a veto threat that will effectively ban banks from holding Bitcoin for customers. “Holding reserves against the assets held in custody is NOT standard financial services practice.” "The Biden Admin's SAB 121 is misguided and should be nullified." ➡️European regulator considers allowing Bitcoin exposure to be added to the $12 TRILLION market for UCITS. UCITS are almost 2x bigger than US ETFs! ➡️$570B insurance giant MassMutual reported owning Bitcoin through the Grayscale ETF. MassMutual bought $100m Bitcoin for its balance sheet in 2021 and was founded in 1851. 10th of May: ➡️Boston-based Bracebridge Capital owns over $307 million worth of Ark’s Bitcoin ETF. In total, they owe $433m in Bitcoin through ETFs. ($100m Blackrock, $26m Grayscale). They went wild basically. ➡️PNC Bank has $10m in Bitcoin ETF exposure across 6 ETFs, per SEC filings. PNC is the 8th biggest bank in the US. 12th of May: ➡️An old Bitcoin wallet from 2011 just moved $30 Million worth of BTC. The owner of the wallet hodled all the way from $2 to $61000. ➡️Over 2,000 investors from mainland China attended the Bitcoin Asia conference in Hong Kong. Total attendance: 5,500 - South China Morning Post. 13th of May: ➡️Japanese public company Metaplanet released a white paper on their Bitcoin corporate treasury strategy. ➡️Switzerland's biggest bank UBS owns the BlackRock Bitcoin ETF - SEC filing ➡️El Salvador released a new website that tracks their Bitcoin Treasury. This allows users to view the Salvadoran government's BTC transactions and holdings in real time, enhancing transparency and enabling public auditing of these investments. El Salvador is buying 1 BTC every day. DCA strategy is the way. Find El Salvador's bitcoin treasury information here: https://bitcoin.gob.sv/nl/ Survival of the fittest and game theory are well underway. Just imagine if we had this kind of transparency to all government treasury. https://btctimes.com/el-salvador-reveals-website-to-monitor-360-million-bitcoin-treasury/ More on El Salvador: They mined nearly 474 Bitcoin worth $29 million using volcano-fueled geothermal power in the last three years, Reuters reports. ➡️'A solo miner just mined a block worth 3.319 Bitcoin ($203,000) The odds of this happening are less than 1 in 1,000' - Thomas Fahrer ➡️'On the 13th of May two Bitcoin wallets, which had been dormant for over 10 years, transferred a total of 1K BTC ($60M). These wallets originally purchased Bitcoin in September 2013 at $124 per Bitcoin.' -BitcoinNews ➡️Ethereum has spent three years above 0.05 BTC. It's currently breaking down and ETH/BTC is testing its lowest levels in three years. Gotta love it! ➡️'Vanguard and Blackrock have increased their MSTR (MicroStrategy) positions in Q1 2024 by 619,550 shares (28.5% increase over Q4, 2023). Watch what they do, not what they say!' -Jeff Punter 14th of May: ➡️A Wisconsin State Pension Board announces a Bitcoin ETF purchase. They bought $99M of IBIT Bitcoin ETF and became the first state institution to go public with spot Bitcoin ETF holdings. Believe me, things are warming up! It's only a matter of time before every single state pension fund makes the same move. Michael Saylor: "There are thousands of pension funds in the United States managing ~$27 trillion in assets. They are all going to need some Bitcoin. To put this in perspective, the ~27 trillion in assets is more than 2x bigger than Blackrock or roughly equivalent to all the USD in the world. Why this is important: Industry paper "Pensions & Investments" interviews Bloomberg's Eric Balchunas on Wisconsin investing into the Bitcoin ETFs: “Pensions are probably the hardest investor type to land,” who likened it to “landing a sailfish.” Pensions are “very picky, they have access to everything and usually it takes a while for them to bite," “And so, the fact that (they) bit that quickly, is just a good sign,” he said. ➡️Oklahoma has become the first State to codify the rights of its citizens to run a node, to mine, and to self-custody their Bitcoin. Gov. Kevin Stitt put Oklahoma at the forefront of Bitcoin legislation by signing HB3594 into law. (Picture 1) https://decrypt.co/230962/bitcoin-self-custody-right-law-mining-oklahoma or read the following note/tweet by Dennis Porter: https://twitter.com/Dennis_Porter_/status/1790529917199003836 15th of May: ➡️@21bitcoin , a great app to buy Bitcoin with, has acquired an additional 1.00295 BTC for ~€57,000 using proceeds from its operational business & excess cash for ~€56,605 per Bitcoin. ➡️Bitcoin reserves at Coinbase gets drained, currently at ~267k, down from 418k early 2024. ➡️Morgan Stanley reporting to have $243M in Bitcoin Spot ETF. Source: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/895421/000089542124000355/0000895421-24-000355-index.html ➡️Toronto Dominion Bank has Bitcoin ETF exposure, per SEC filings. Canada's second-largest bank! 16th of May: ➡️'Cornell's BTPI announced a $1M project to research the relationship between Bitcoin and financial freedom across multiple countries.' -Lyn Alden https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2024/05/btpi-will-research-relationship-between-bitcoin-and-financial-freedom ➡️The world's largest futures exchange CME Group, to launch Bitcoin trading. ➡️'Top Bitcoin ETF Holders of Q1 (updated): 1. Millennium Management ($1.8B) 2. Susquehanna ($1.1B) 3. Bracebridge ($404m) 4. Boothbay ($303m) 5. Morgan Stanley (~$251m) Bitcoin ETF holders bought $10 billion in Q1. Nearly all of that was in the USA' - Thomas Fahrer (Picture 2) ➡️'Bitcoin ETFs bought 11,188 BTC, ~5x more than estimated mined Bitcoin.' -BitcoinNews 19th of May: ➡️Someone just moved 16,445 Bitcoin (over $1.1 billion worth) on a Sunday for $7.32. Mempool tags the transaction as "Overpaid 2x", meaning they could have gotten into the block for only $3.66 in fees.' -BitcoinNews ➡️'17.38% of all Bitcoin has not moved in over 10 years. This is up from 16.1% at the start of 2024.' -BitcoinNews 💸Traditional Finance / Macro: 8th of May: 👉🏽 The following thread is a good one by Sam Callahan: https://twitter.com/samcallah/status/1788015909497385409 'According to Nasdaq's Global Financial Crime Report, $3.1 trillion in illicit funds flowed through the traditional financial system last year alone. As in good old-fashioned dirty fiat flowing through dirty banks.' 3 things out of this report: https://nd.nasdaq.com/rs/303-QKM-463/images/2024-Global-Financial-Crime-Report-Nasdaq-Verafin-20240115.pdf 1. $3.1 trillion illicit through the traditional financial system. 2. Bitcoin is not even mentioned in the report as an issue. 3. KYC/AML policies have no measurable impact on stopping illicit transactions. There is a lot of bluster from policymakers about the effectiveness of KYCL/AML. Does anyone know what's the process to implement metrics to measure the effectiveness of these KYC/AML policies? Anyway, Bitcoin is the problem in our 'financial' world...right? 👉🏽Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon Web Services used 90 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2022, which is more than the country of Colombia - JPMorgan Chase But noooo, Bitcoin is using way too much energy, innit? 👉🏽'MSCI just announced it is adding Microstrategy, Pure Storage, and Emcor to the MSCI ACWI Index along with a bunch of other adds/drops. Pretty big deal as ACWI has a little over $4T benchmarked to it. Popular with institutions.' - Eric Balchunas 👉🏽Salim Ramji will be the new Vanguard CEO. He used to head up BlackRock's global ETF business. First time ever Vanguard hired an outsider as CEO. Every other one was an internal star and former Bogle assistant. Remember when we were assured that firing an old CEO had NOTHING to do with Bitcoin? You don't change Bitcoin, Bitcoin changes you!" 👉🏽‘The Big Short’ Michael Burry has bought a physical Gold ETF, which, at 7.4%, is now the 5th largest holding of his portfolio. Number six is Block (formerly Square), which recently announced a DCA program to boost its Bitcoin holdings further. You see where I am going, right?' - Jeroen Blokland 🏦Banks: 👉🏽Goldman Sachs has appointed Robert Kaplan, the former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, as its vice chairman. Kaplan made multiple million-dollar trades in individual stocks and options in 2020. Then, the Fed slashed interest rates and launched lending and liquidity programs that helped prop up the financial markets. He quit due to the trades and the conflicts. After, the Fed itself instituted new trading rules that prohibit officials from owning stocks, bonds, and crypto.' -Unusual Whales Really! They must abolish the FED as they are not government entities. The Fed speeches are an orchestrated propaganda campaign designed to sustain confidence in a money system backed by nothing but confidence. Just one big revolving door of club members, good old business as usual. 👉🏽The GFC bailout looks like just a blip on the radar vs what the Fed is doing today to support the banks with liquidity via loans/facilities. And we wonder why the market is up. This chart blew me away. (Picture 3) Ergo: The banking system broke in 2023 🌎Macro/Geopolitics: On the 6th of May: 👉🏽'Most people have never seen this chart before. The S&P 500 grows with the global money supply. The S&P 500 is a way to concentrate wealth with the wealthy.' (Picture 4) 👉🏽Big Mac went from $0,50 to $8 and lost 40% of its since from 1980 - 2024. 'Further evidence that inflation is accelerating: US labor costs in the last quarter rose by the most since Q1 2023. The employment cost index is a broad measure of labor costs closely watched by the Fed. The index surged by 1.2% in Q1 2024 after a 0.9% increase in Q4 2023, beating all expectations, according to the BLS data. Labor costs are rising at a comparable pace to mid-2022 when inflation in the US was above 9%. Wage pressures are accelerating.'- TKL Inflation and years in which your purchasing power is halved: 2 % 35 years (The goal) 4 % 17 years (Officially we here) 7 % 10 years 10 % 7 years 14 % 5 years (In truth) 17 % 4 years 20 % 3.5 years Inflation is theft. Bitcoin fixes this On the 7th of May: 👉🏽US manufacturing and services employment has simultaneously contracted for 3 consecutive months. Over the last 20 years, this has happened ONLY twice, during the 2020 pandemic and 2008 Financial Crisis. More than 800 companies from the manufacturing and services sectors claim that employment is falling. Meanwhile, according to US jobs data, the US job market has never been stronger. Data indicates that the US has added 100,000+ jobs in 40 straight months, the best streak in US history. Another disconnect between data and reality. 👉🏽'Within a decade European Union lost about 120 Billion $ in annual foreign direct investment and the US gained about 90 Billion $ per year, but hey let’s regulate AI and introduce a four-day workweek. What needs to happen for European politicians to wake up?'- Michael A. Arouet Remember this: regulation = uncompetitiveness = wealth migration Just for clarification, I don't mind having regulations for AI. A vast majority of key experts see existential risk in using AI. But as always the EU is overregulating. source: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/BX.KLT.DINV.CD.WD?end=2022&locations=EU-US-CN-GB&most_recent_year_desc=false&start=2022&view=bar More data on this topic. Germany's real household consumption per capita has not recovered from the pandemic and remains weak; household consumption in the US has grown much faster. Q4 2019-Q4 2023 : -3.4%; Germany +9.0% US On the 8th of May: 👉🏽US and Japan reportedly agree on FX intervention. Ergo: The Fed has to open a swap line and flood them (Japan / The World) with dollars. By doing that they will bail out nation-states and further increase global liquidity. For more info on this topic, I highly recommend the following article: https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/japan-now-caught-doom-loop 👉🏽Argentina to print its first 10,000-peso note as a result of hyperinflation. On the 9th of May: 👉🏽US net interest payments as a percentage of federal revenues are set to reach 34% by 2054. This means that a third of all government revenue would be spent only to service the national debt. Over the past 8 years, the percentage has already doubled to ~15% and is at its highest in 3 decades. Meanwhile, nominal annualized interest payments have crossed above $1 trillion for the first time ever. We could see $1.6 trillion in annual interest expense by the end of the year if the Fed leaves rates steady. The US government needs lower interest rates more than anyone. On the 11th of May: 'Shocking stat of the day: $2.1 TRILLION of excess savings have been wiped out of the US economy since August 2021. From March 2020 until August 2021, $2.1 trillion in excess savings were built up after $4 trillion of stimulus. Since then, US households have depleted these savings at a pace of ~$70 billion per month down to -$72 billion in March 2024. At the same time, US credit card debt has risen by $330 billion to a record $1.1 trillion. Meanwhile, savings rates in the US declined from 3.5% in February to 3.2% in March, the lowest since November 2022. Savings are now considered a luxury.' - TKL On the 12th of May: 👉🏽That‘s the most scary chart I have seen in a while. Unfunded pension entitlements in major European countries are between 300% and 500% of GDP. Mixed with collapsing demographics it’s a recipe for debt disaster. (Picture 5…Unfortunately I can’t share more than 5 pictures on Nostr via Primal, see the article on my website) 👉🏽Data shows that the number of people in the US working 2 full-time jobs is at an all-time high. On the 13th of May: 👉🏽'Official world gold reserves have reached 1,170 million fine troy ounces, the most since the 1970s. Over the last 13 years, world central banks' gold holdings are up roughly 21%. Global gold reserves are now even higher than just before President Nixon broke the US Dollar's link to gold in 1971. In 2022 and 2023 alone, world central banks bought 1081 and 1037 tonnes of gold, respectively. Meanwhile, gold is up 15% year to date and 85% over the last 5 years.' -TKL 👉🏽Janet Yellen admits that higher interest rates make the "fiscal challenge" worse. By fiscal challenge, she means the massive deficit, $34 TRILLION debt and it is (too) expensive for the US government to pay its debt at the current interest rate. FYI: Bloomberg reports the Treasury Department paid '$2 million per minute' in interest to debt holders in March. In the near future, this will be $2 million per second. Her colleague in Canada mentioned the following: 👉🏽The governor of the Central Bank of Canada, Tiff Macklem issued a warning of the financial collapse of the fiat system: “The valuations of some financial assets appear to have become stretched. This could increase the risk of a sharp correction that could generate system-wide stress.” 👉🏽The BLS, Bureau of Labor Statistics is a unit of the United States Department of Labor, is removing coffee prices from CPI inflation data. Since Q3 2023, coffee prices surged 78%. More fiat manipulation games are at play. Meanwhile Coffee is down 72% over 5 years in Bitcoin terms, and it is up 129% in dollar terms. Go figure! On the 15th of May: 👉🏽US core inflation came out in line with expectations, down to 3.6% y/y from 3.8% The last time Core CPI was 3.6% the Fed funds rate was 0.08% and a rate hike was a year out. Today it’s 5.33%. The US Inflation Rate has now been above 3% for 37 consecutive months, the longest period of high inflation since the late 1980s/early 1990s. 1. This means that these inflation numbers are building on multiple years of already inflated prices. 2. This means that overall prices are up over 19.5% in less than 4 years. 1. That is an average of 5.5% per year effectively wiping out ONE FIFTH of the US Dollar's purchasing power. Inflation is now building on previous years of inflation; we effectively have compounding inflation. In other words, one year ago, the inflation rate dropped to 3% and has averaged 3.3% since then. At this rate, the USD will lose 48% of its purchasing power over the next 20 years. That's all you need to know. Buy Bitcoin. 👉🏽Treasury bonds have experienced their greatest four-year loss in over 100 years from April 2020 through the recent lows. (Picture 6, Unfortunately I can’t share more than 4pictures on Nostr via Primal, see the article on my website) Are we shifting from inside money (treasuries) to outside money (hard money like gold or Bitcoin)? Central banks are buying TWICE as much gold as before. ETFs are buying 4.5x more Bitcoin than is being MINED/ It's the era of hard money, and there is no second best: Bitcoin 🎁If you have made it this far I would like to give you a little gift: "In modern times, our money has been broken, because it has been centralized, closed, and corrupted in 160 different ways If we’re going to fix it in the digital age, a powerful method would be to make it more decentralized, open, and transparent so that it can strengthen people as individuals while at the same time shattering the financial silos that separate us With open-source money, anyone can hold it, anyone can send it, anyone can bring it with them, anyone can build new technologies that make it better, and everyone across borders can be connected by it" Impossible not to be bullish on the future after watching Lyn's masterful video Fix the money, fix the world - Alex Gladstein Or to put it in Lyn Alden's words: 'I produced a half-hour animated overview of the Broken Money subject matter. It covers the history of money, the development of banking, and how new technology changes the way we interact with money over time.' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk_HWmmwiAs On top of that the latest newsletter by Lyn Aldens, discusses money-printing, price inflation, and the bond market's inability to forecast it. https://www.lynalden.com/may-2024-newsletter/ Only invest in Bitcoin what you can’t afford to have gradually stolen from you by the government. Credit: I have used multiple sources! My savings account: Bitcoin The tool I recommend for setting up a Bitcoin savings plan: @Relai 🇨🇭 especially suited for beginners or people who want to invest in Bitcoin with an automated investment plan once a week or monthly. Hence a DCA, Dollar cost Average Strategy. Check out my tutorial post (Instagram) & video (YouTube) for more info.⠀⠀⠀⠀ Get your Bitcoin out of exchanges. Save them on a hardware wallet, run your own node...be your own bank. Not your keys, not your coins. It's that simple.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Do you think this post is helpful to you? If so, please share it and support my work with sats. #zap 🧡 #weeklyrecap #nostr #plebchain #BTC #Bitcoin #zap🧡 #plebchain #grownostr #stacksats #bitcoineducation #adoption https://m.primal.net/IIwC.jpg https://m.primal.net/IIwF.jpg https://m.primal.net/IIwH.jpg https://m.primal.net/IIwM.jpg https://m.primal.net/IIwO.jpg