2020’s grip on humanity is in its last throws with tomorrow beginning the last month of a year and an optimism in the strength of the American economy, with $9 Billion being spent online, up 22.6% from last year on Black Friday, reports CNBC. In 2004 I attended a seminar for a company called Market America, (An Amazon, before Amazon) the time and tech were not ready but in the present the pandemic Tech companies have soared, Bezos up $48 Billion, Elon up $17 billion, and Ballmer $15 billion. We endorsed Zoom and Eric Yuan has made $2.5 billion since March, but what BTC?
If you haven’t been an early adopter of crypto currency there is still time, with BTC hitting an all- time high today of $19,666 USD per coin, up 158% year to date. Currently there have been 18.4 million coins mined with 2.6 million and 120 years to go, totaling 21 million coins, ever minted; so to speak. In late March, I wrote an article singling a buy on BTC when it crashed like all investments, recording a low of $3,596 for brief period. My prediction of 20k by the end of the year has manifested.
Last week BTC was flirting with all-time highs and quickly lost 3k in value over 48hrs. I suspect whales pulled capital which signaled the loss but there are signs of a Bull Run. Institutional firms and publicly traded companies are hedging against the market buying BTC and hedging of not having BTC has surged its value. (See the list at bottom) Although, the crypto market has been anticipating corporate adoption, the consumer retail market has surged, growing 25% in the past month at crypto lender BlockFi reports Zac Prince, CEO. Combined daily volume for Coinbase, Bitstamp, Kraken, Gemini and ItBit was at $1.5 billion as of press time Monday, much higher than the $488 million average of the past six months, reports Daniel Cawrey, from Coindesk.
If you really want to get the greed gland goosing, “Our thesis is that bitcoin is gold 2.0, that it will disrupt gold, and if it does that, it has to have a market cap of 9 trillion, so we think it could price one day at $500,000 of bitcoin,” Tyler Winklevoss said on CNBC. His twin rowing brother follows with, “A lot of people are realizing that bitcoin is the best defense and offers the opportunity for an asymmetric return of something like 25 to 40x from here, and I don’t think there’s an asset in the universe that can credibly offer that kind of potential and protect against inflation,” said Cameron Winklevoss. I found this point to ring true in the article, Tyler Winklevoss explained that “no one uses gold to buy coffee,” and yet the precious metal has a market capitalization of $9 trillion because investors use it as a store of value. Bitcoin will grow to be a better store of value, particularly because it’s more durable and easier to transport than gold.
If you take anything from this article, take the idea that perception is reality. If the public chooses to have faith in BTC than it will grow, be adopted, and open up society with a medium of exchange recorded on the block chain, not printed from thin air, or be manipulated. There’s freedom in an ability to finance one’s own growth, instead of paying institutions the pleasure to pay interest on nonexistent cash. Inflation has hid its ugly face, but I read an interesting piece on CNBC that predicted a 20% drop in value of USD after a vaccine would be available, which didn’t make sense. In any case, hedge with BTC, why, because we never dreamed of a cashless society when I was growing up, but today, it’s all ones and zeros on a screen. We pay bills online, through our phones, and rarely pay cash for anything.
In November 2016, India banned cashed. Since then, 800 million transactions per month among 140 Indian banks with consumers only needing their smart phone number to request or send cash from Bank A to Bank B. If we take cash out of the equation, we disrupt a lot of black market business and make it mandatory for a citizen to jump through government bureaucracy in order to function in America. If you think this is unlikely, you haven’t seen the USD coin on Coinbase, the number one exchange in the US. It was speculated that the digital token would be used to disperse stimulus payments faster but it has yet to be activated. My worst fear would be a reset of the greenback to the digital coin. For example, if the Congress bans cash and the 10k you had the bank is now $7.5k USD token.
BTC is a hedge against this institutionalism. It’s already out the box and people are accepting it as payment. Its adoption by Big Tech, the players in the new economy, singles its strength. Why do think Congress shut down Mark Z on that Libra currency so fast? Because FB has too much reach in, not just the West but emerging markets, the power of the smart phone, innovation of Block Chain, and limited access to credit and banking in the 3rd world is something the FED does not want to miss.
