Another Bart Simpson of a week was triggered by a series of mishaps. With the WTE Mnuchin package laying the backdrop, the CFTC dropped a landmine filing indictments, John McAfee got detained, Trump caught COVID and was also called out on his claim of having paid millions in income taxes… NOT true; all contributing to $BTC pulling away from the elusive $11,000 handle- a level that it has yet to prove it is capable of holding. Yet, the inklings of a completely new segment of demand is starting to emerge as Square deploys $50M into Bitcoin. It’s the second high profile injection in as many weeks (see MicroStrategy) from the fifteen trillion plus global corporate cash stockpile and for Square this may be a mere one percent of the company’s total assets but clearly, this is just the beginning. What’s the alternative for these mind-boggling cash piles stacking up against near zero and increasingly, negative yield bearing deposits?
So there was some reprieve from this joyous news offering a bounce back for $BTC to levels before the dip. Back on the upper end of the Bollinger bands with RSI approaching 65, expect a breather for now.
Rep. David Scheweikert introduced a bill to the House of Representatives that would make digital signatures on the blockchain legally binding and Senator Pat Toomey (Banking Committee member) has taken a somewhat brazen approach as he appeals to the digital currency community in his campaign to be the Committee’s next chairman all read like positive trends until the ugliness returned with recent actions by the CFTC — this time BitMex were caught in the cross-hairs.
It has to be said though, Bitmex has, without a doubt, played a massive role in expanding adoption. They have blazed the trail when a regulatory framework was non-existent. Being called out by one of their very own, it’s not difficult to see something is clearly amok. Year to date, we have seen Renaissance Technology (a pioneer of the very HFT/quant fund); Paul Tudor Jones (one of the GOAT hedge fund managers); Fidelity International (a $300bn asset manager); and Charles Schwab accumulating exposure through listed digital asset miners, hardware makers, and platforms like OSL’s (via BC Technology Group, HKSE 863). Regardless, the battle continues to be played out on multiple fronts as the IRS also has a $625K bounty out for anyone that can crack the privacy coin…
