***My service provider, Substack, continues to have technical issues that may or may not affect your audio. If the embedded audio narration isn’t working properly or doesn’t sound good, tap this button to switch over to the podcast version.***
Happy Sunday!
A lot of people want to buy crypto, but aren’t doing it. I can tell from the migration of stablecoins to exchanges over the past week and a pile of buy orders stacked below $33,000 across all exchanges.
Do you have a bid that low, too?
Our drop below $40,000 confirmed a macro downtrend and sent bitcoin’s price below a key level. As a result, people calling for a bear market finally have a point. After years of saying “bear market” without actual evidence of a bear market, they now have evidence to back up their claims.
The question is, for how long?
Premium subscribers know what I’m doing and what I’m looking for. If you didn’t catch my most recent update, do it now.
I’ll have two updates this week, one for altcoins and another for bitcoin and the wider market.
Last week’s poll asked “is crypto in a bear market?” It was a split vote:
Yes—37%
No—32%
I don't know—31%
My answer?
Let’s see what happens when the market turns up again. The next rally will clarify things. When will it come? How high will it go? What will people do with their crypto as prices go up again? Can we break $70,000 on the next go? And if we do, will anybody still consider this a bear market, as some people did the last time we hit a new all-time high?
Here’s another poll, plus an article and podcast you may enjoy. I’ll have a longer rundown next week!
Poll: when will bitcoin's price make a new all-time high?
Banks form consortium to mint USDF stablecoins
Bottom line: small US banks banded together to create a stablecoin for instant settlement of transactions within their network and anybody who chooses to join it.
My take: people spend a lot of time and effort talking about central bank digital currencies, which will take many years to create and may not even work. Meanwhile, a consortium of banks figured out how to make stablecoins that come with deposit insurance, digital wallets, and compliance with anti-money laundering rules. One more way Wall Street will co-op crypto for its own benefit. I’m interested to see whether entrepreneurs and developers create better open source alternatives that can outcompete them.
Why we care: banks will not get “blockbustered,” they’ll adapt and innovate as they always have. As I discuss in Bitcoin or Bust: Wall Street’s Entry Into Cryptocurrency, legacy finance is far more nimble, savvy, and well-connected than you give them credit for. And they have a massive incentive to make crypto work for them. Just wait until governments around the world force you to use a regulated custodian for all crypto transactions. Who better than a bank to fill that role? Do you think their employees can’t learn how to use Uniswap, build an app to connect it to their customers’ wallets, then offer that service as a convenience (possibly for a small fee)?
DeFi may seem lame compared to NFTs and metaverses, but it’s no less valuable.
On a recent episode of The Defiant podcast, Kain Warwick, founder of Sythetix, talked about building in DeFi. Listen to the episode for a deep insight into the challenges that DeFi projects face as they build out their platforms.
Relax and enjoy the ride!
Weekly Rundown - January 30, 2022