1/ The #Bitcoin bear case has two two components:

The macro, and the miners.

THREAD 👇

2/ On the macro side, if the dollar reverses its major downtrend and/or real rates turn positive, that will hurt $BTC considerably.

I don't expect either to happen in 2021, but have to pay attention to these.
3/ On the miners side, one has to consider the miners' cycle.

It works like this 👇
4/ Miners' hashrate (the aggregated bitcoin computing capacity) is directly tied to mining difficulty, which is the main variable in the bitcoin cost of production

=> the more capacity installed, the higher the difficulty, and the higher the cost.
5/ In a bull-run, miners' hashrate lags price, so as price takes off and moves higher, miners' profitability explodes (as price goes up but production costs don't as much).

These are the happy times.
6/ Higher profitability drives miners to increase capacity, and attracts new miners.
7/ Around major tops you will see people who don't understand bitcoin pull online calculators --which ignore other costs such as cooling, pool fees, warehousing, security, and personnel-- and imagine they are going to become wealthy mining bitcoin. Then go buy overpriced miners.
8/ It's important to understand that Bitcoin mining presents a perfect Prisoner's Dilemma.

Here's an old thread on that topic. Mind that the bitcoin produced a month is now 27,375, or about 900 a day. This quantity halved in May.

https://t.co/PPPtXM6hOB
9/ Higher profitability drives increasing mining capacity, but this new capacity can take months to install.

That's why hashrate increases lag price increases.
10/ Currently, and due to chip shortages related to technological changes and covid supply chain disruptions, delays are in the order of 6-10 months.
11/ While miner profitability moons, miners are capable of hodling more: they can reduce sales to take advantage of rising prices in a bull market.

This adds to reflexivity and helps prices further up.
12/ Eventually hashrate catches up with price. Happy times end, and miners have to increase their selling volumes to pay the bills.
13/ There's another game theory component: if you are a miner and know that other miners will soon be forced to increase their selling volumes, you may want to sell before and front-run them to get better prices.
14/ This increase in selling can be augmented by prior hodling, resulting in a perfect storm.

Miners did hold inventories back late 2020, but their selling volumes have already increased in 2021, with price in the 30s-40s.
15/ Finally, consider that at current prices the dollar amount for new bitcoin produced is considerably larger than it was prior to the halving.

1800 bitcoin/day * $10,000 = $18,000,000/day

900 bitcoin/day * 35,000 = $31,500,000/day
I remain bullish, but it's important to keep the bear case in mind. Miner flows make sure price can't move in straight up lines for too long, and are the reason one should not be too bullish later in the year. At some point miner excesses must be rinsed out.
For those asking where to find miner data, there are three main sources:

@cryptoquant_com
@glassnode
@thetokenanalyst

All require a subscription unfortunately.

I mostly use CryptoQuant: https://t.co/AaOPJjxt7h

Their founder @ki_young_ju shares very useful data on Twitter.

More from Bitcoin

Ok, so what is the significance of the @lagarde statement on bitcoin?

We were offered a very open insight (but slightly flawed analysis) into top level policy perspective behind the crack down on selfhosted wallets.

https://t.co/1LTzrxHbgs 1/32


'It is a speculative asset, by any account. If you look at the price movements... '

It starts with an economic price perspective and we can learn that ECB is closely monitoring this price movement as one of the many indicators.

So we are in the classic central bank frame 2/32

'Those who thought it would turn into a currency. Sorry, it is an asset not a currency.'

Here she summarises a classic debate on what is currency and what is needed for that. Based on the holy three: unit of account, means of payment, store of value. 3/32

The summary is classic, but too narrow and does not incorporate the wider financial history viewpoints on money, currencies and the way we pay. 4/32

ECB overlooks the de facto unit of account role of bitcoin, having been used to 200 years of having cash around whic is both the unit of account and a means of payment. 5/32
I have a different take on bitcoin, tether, and dollars

Can also speak with authority on nation state violence

"Nothing makes you feel more free than taking another person's freedom"


and @profplum99 concerns with tether, bitcoin, and decentralization make sense yet I remain long BTC

They are correct on force, I worked in decentralized societies, they are dangerous because the state does not have a monopoly on violence

For those in the first world who have never seen a milita ride out of the desert, kill and enslave farmers, and the government cannot stop it because the 21st century slave trade pays better than the UN, the reality of decentralization is might equals right

I know, that isn't the decentralized future Buterin talks about while wearing a t-shirt with a cat fighting space invaders on it (love those shirts)

But we need to be real, disrupting the global centralized economy won't be like Uber putting taxis out of work

It will be war and faminine level disruption as old empires come alive again

For decentralization to rise the centralized global power of the last 70 years (US Hegemony) has to weaken

Yes we will be rich, but as the Big Short says,

"you can be happy, just don't fucking dance"
Another #FreeLoveFriday. So far, I’ve covered Bitcoin, Mastercoin/Omni, and last week ChainLink and the importance of decentralized oracles. Today, let’s talk about one of the most fascinating projects in crypto - @MakerDAO


In my thread about Mastercoin, I briefly touched on the vital role fiat-backed stablecoins play in crypto markets, but there’s a catch with them:

The counterparty risk of a third-party holding fiat in reserves.

Enter MakerDAO, which set out to create a decentralized, collateral-backed cryptocurrency, DAI, that would be “soft-pegged” to the U.S. Dollar using the power of algorithms. In crypto tradition, its supporters said trust game theory, not operators.

In 2017, MakerDAO published a whitepaper describing a system where anyone could create DAI by leveraging ETH as collateral to create Collateralized Debt Positions. Essentially, you take out a digital USD loan against your crypto.

The game theory of the system is structured such that DAI issuance is controlled to keep the price pegged to $1.00. In essence, it buffers the fluctuations of the underlying collateral to create a synthetic dollar bill.
1/ #Bitcoin FUD-busting time!

claim: bitcoin ownership is heavily concentrated.

@business published an article claiming "2% of accounts control 95% of all Bitcoin" 🤣

truth: the facts, my friends, simple don't line up. let's dive in!

2/ interrogating on-chain addresses is tricky.

address =/ account.

one person can control multiple addresses.

one address can hold bitcoin belonging to multiple ppl.

exchanges and trading firms will have addresses with large balances that represent client funds.

3/ the fine folks @glassnode published an excellent analysis of on-chain address balances in January

the ownership distribution of bitcoin among wallets is actually much more diverse than one might expect.

full piece here:
https://t.co/n5IdIQdNoA


4/ 31% of BTC is held in addresses not identified as exchange wallets.

these are likely institutions, funds, custodians, and OTC desks.

our analysis at @CoinSharesCo indicates >15% of all bitcoin is held in third party custody, including @coinbase and our own @KomainuCustody

5/ in fact, between asset managers @Grayscale ($36B in BTC) and our @xbtprovider ($4B in BTC), 4% of bitcoin is locked up by fund providers and asset managers!

our @CoinSharesCo research team publishes an EXCELLENT weekly report on fund flows and AUMs -

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I’m torn on how to approach the idea of luck. I’m the first to admit that I am one of the luckiest people on the planet. To be born into a prosperous American family in 1960 with smart parents is to start life on third base. The odds against my very existence are astronomical.


I’ve always felt that the luckiest people I know had a talent for recognizing circumstances, not of their own making, that were conducive to a favorable outcome and their ability to quickly take advantage of them.

In other words, dumb luck was just that, it required no awareness on the person’s part, whereas “smart” luck involved awareness followed by action before the circumstances changed.

So, was I “lucky” to be born when I was—nothing I had any control over—and that I came of age just as huge databases and computers were advancing to the point where I could use those tools to write “What Works on Wall Street?” Absolutely.

Was I lucky to start my stock market investments near the peak of interest rates which allowed me to spend the majority of my adult life in a falling rate environment? Yup.