Unmasking the Deceased Programmer Who Donated 28 Bitcoin to Capitol Hill Rioters. https://t.co/EOrIu7x4J6

French far-right hacker Laurent Bachelier aka "pankkake"

Tulips, the #Bitcoin of the 17th century

How a pandemic, FOMO, and speculation made a flower worth the same as a mansion

/THREAD/

1/ During the beginning of the 1630s in the Netherlands, tulips were difficult to cultivate and preserve.

This made them a luxury good reserved for the rich and affluent of the upper class living in mansions with big gardens.

2/ The tulip market was not organized nor regulated, as other trades, which made it easy for professional growers to enter it.
Due to the international trade expansion, the growers starting cultivating rare varieties, to achieve higher prices.

3/ The biggest change occurred when florists used tulip bulbs as speculative assets.

The market expansion led to forward bulb-purchase contracts, thus enabling trading during the entire year, and not just during the summer months when tulips bloom.

4/ Easy loans and credit for forward contract purchases led many to enter the market since not much capital was required.

People from the lower economic class (maids, servants, craftsmen) could not resist the temptation for some quick profits and entered the speculative market.

1/ Don’t Fear Tether

Whenever Bitcoin has a bull run, naysayers try to cope with missing the boat by rationalizing why it will fail through FUD. Most of these are completely unsubstantiated, but annoyingly persist as negative narratives Bitcoin must fight against.

As it's yet again been one of those light news weeks for #Bitcoin, let's get down to brass tacks. Bitcoin is now the 6th... largest... currency in the world. ✊ It's 7th if you include gold. This is quarterly update #11.

2/ For 12 years the world's been trying to understand #Bitcoin, forget Bitcoin, legitimize Bitcoin, criticize Bitcoin, love Bitcoin, hate Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a protocol, it does what it does. But if you want to speak of its value as money, you gotta understand the monetary base.

3/ What follows isn't a lesson in stimulus or bailouts, whatever the world faces. It's an attempt at painting the monetary landscape around the globe. This is an exercise in perspective. The dollars, euros, and yen we're all familiar with, collectively, are worth $27 trillion.

4/ As many know, the response from governments worldwide to Covid-19 has been drastic, so expect big moves in the data.

5/ Gold & silver is base money of the past. Government fiat is base money today. It comprises both physical cash, *and* a digital cash component. Bitcoin may be base money of the future. Before we show the charts, it's important to clarify exactly what basic money is.

1/ @Square buys $50M of #Bitcoin w/ its balance sheet 🚀

let's untangle what corporate treasurers do and why this matters...

the role of corp treasurer didn’t exist until the 1970s, when co's faced high inflation and financial uncertainty

2/ in this environment, companies with no cash management or treasury strategy were losing 10-12% / yr to inflation

modern corporate treasury is typically focused on cash management and managing the opportunity cost of capital

holding cash is *not* a strategy

3/ when i worked in corp treasury, we mostly traded the overnight and short term rate markets

we could earn a nice 3-5% return in these very low-risk assets w/ time preference

treasurers today are living in a radically different world!

RATES ARE 0

TARGET INFLATION IS >2%

4/ faced with this new reality, corporate treasurers (and all investors) are looking at alternatives

#Bitcoin is a highly liquid asset that trades 24/7 in an increasingly regulated and structured global market - and its an effective portfolio diversifier!

5/ Square’s willingness to hold bitcoin on its balance sheet as a treasury asset speaks to:

(1) the changing landscape that treasurers must navigate, and;
(2) their ability to manage the operational, risk, and compliance requirements of holding bitcoin directly