Cryptocurrencies

[wachtwoord]

On 1/31/2024 at 10:42 PM, TwoCitiesCapital said:

 

Ah, interesting! Hadn't caught that. 

 

Is there a reason FTX bankruptcy is paying out dollar denominated claims as opposed to the underlying crypto? BlockFi paid back depositor claims in the respective crypto that was deposited. Celsius hasn't paid back yet, but it's supposed to be some denomination of BTC/ETH and equity in the surviving subsidiary - not some $ based claim as far as I've followed. 

 

Why is FTX doing $ claims and being treated differently than the other bankruptcies in the space? 

 

Appearently US bankrupcy law (?!). Everything is valued in US Dollars at the petition date and that is what debtors get to claim and not a penny more.

 

Celcius is the same. They may pay out in part in Bitcoin and Ethereum (and equity in some crazy "mining corp" that also retains a bunch of equity in Ethereum to "stake", utter nonsense as debtors are forced into an investment ran by incompentents) but everything is valued by the the Dollorized value at petition rate. That's why the recovery rates look so good (the only ones winning are the law firms that got to handle the bankrupcy, but I reckon that's nearly always the case).

 

PS: the Celcius CEO is also such an obvious scammer you can smell from a mile away.

[TwoCitiesCapital]

48 minutes ago, wachtwoord said:

 

Appearently US bankrupcy law (?!). Everything is valued in US Dollars at the petition date and that is what debtors get to claim and not a penny more.

 

Celcius is the same. They may pay out in part in Bitcoin and Ethereum (and equity in some crazy "mining corp" that also retains a bunch of equity in Ethereum to "stake", utter nonsense as debtors are forced into an investment ran by incompentents) but everything is valued by the the Dollorized value at petition rate. That's why the recovery rates look so good (the only ones winning are the law firms that got to handle the bankrupcy, but I reckon that's nearly always the case).

 

PS: the Celcius CEO is also such an obvious scammer you can smell from a mile away.

 

Mayhaps. I'll know more when I get my payment due Celsius, but my cousin was in BlockFi and was made whole on his entire Ethereum stack - not the USD value on the date of their filing. So there definitely IS a difference somewhere. 

Edited February 2, 2024 by TwoCitiesCapital

[TwoCitiesCapital]

The most recent 'What Bitcoin Did' podcast with Preston Push was interesting IMO. 

 

Two accompanying slides stood out to me 

 

The first showing $ cleared on-chain versus payments cleared by Visa/MasterCard. This doesn't reflect Lightning Network Transactions which I think is the more apt comparison, but definitely goes to show that Bitcoin is a force to be reckoned with in terms of clearing value. 

 

 

The second showing price and time both in log-scale which is a new representation I haven't yet seen. Not sure I quite grasp the intention behind the log of time, but it's an interesting visualization of the tops/bottoms on the cycle, when it provides good value (like now), and the accompanying 'mooning' after the historical halvings. 

 

[TwoCitiesCapital]

Just got my Celsius distribution today. Had a hair over 0.5 BTC there and ~4k of stable coins. 

 

My distribution today was for 1.6 ETH. 85% loss in nominal terms compared to what the crypto would be worth today had I just held the BTC and stable coin in my wallet 

 

No idea what the value of the private mining co is ,or when I'll get my shares and it'll IPO, but that is supposed to be the bulk of the recovery. 

 

clawvacks from on going litigation could add a few more %, but it's looking ugly so far in comparison to my cousin was made whole in BlockFis bankruptcy 

[TwoCitiesCapital]

In other news, it has begun....

 

No shock that Fidelity is first to incorporate it for model-type portfolios 

 

Edited February 7, 2024 by TwoCitiesCapital

[james22]

38 minutes ago, TwoCitiesCapital said:

In other news, it has begun....

 

No shock that Fidelity is first to incorporate it for model-type portfolios 

 

 

Boom!

[james22]

On 1/17/2024 at 4:05 AM, james22 said:

When does Fidelity add a 1-2% FBTC allocation to their Target Date Retirement Funds?

 

Earlier than I'd thought.

[TwoCitiesCapital]

4 hours ago, TwoCitiesCapital said:

Just got my Celsius distribution today. Had a hair over 0.5 BTC there and ~4k of stable coins. 

 

My distribution today was for 1.6 ETH. 85% loss in nominal terms compared to what the crypto would be worth today had I just held the BTC and stable coin in my wallet 

 

No idea what the value of the private mining co is ,or when I'll get my shares and it'll IPO, but that is supposed to be the bulk of the recovery. 

 

clawvacks from on going litigation could add a few more %, but it's looking ugly so far in comparison to my cousin was made whole in BlockFis bankruptcy 

 

Just updating here: 

 

Received a second separate distribution of 0.1055 BTC. 

 

Not sure how they decided the make up of BTC and ETH for the recovery, but I wasn't expecting two separate payments. 

 

Better than what was implied by my original post but still a far cry from the crypto lost

[wachtwoord]

13 hours ago, TwoCitiesCapital said:

In other news, it has begun....

 

No shock that Fidelity is first to incorporate it for model-type portfolios 

 

 

Love it's in the portfolio they label conservative. It's branded as inherently risky in most people's heads way too much. But that risk (volatility based) is just one of the aspects of risk, while for some other aspects it's just about the least risky thing in the world.

 

Diversifying across "risk classes" is  yet another form of diversification (downwards protection) so the allocation seems very reasonable to this type of portfolio even to those agnostic on Bitcoin.

[james22]

14 hours ago, james22 said:

Earlier than I'd thought.

 

Not quite here yet, actually.

 

1% of $168M, not $4T.

 

Fidelity Canada. And this allocation has been around for years and Canada has had a BTC spot ETF for three years now.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1ala1yi/fidelity_allocating_1_to_spot_bitcoin_in_their/

 

Still, so fidelity has been able to hold people's btc safely for 3 years without issues? promising

 

[wachtwoord]

12 hours ago, james22 said:

 

Not quite here yet, actually.

 

1% of $168M, not $4T.

 

Fidelity Canada. And this allocation has been around for years and Canada has had a BTC spot ETF for three years now.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1ala1yi/fidelity_allocating_1_to_spot_bitcoin_in_their/

 

Still, so fidelity has been able to hold people's btc safely for 3 years without issues? promising

 

 

Thanks for actually reading

 

I guess I should have guessed it from the "Canadian equities" item. Seemed too fast too as you said in your earlier comment.

[TwoCitiesCapital]

14 hours ago, james22 said:

 

Not quite here yet, actually.

 

1% of $168M, not $4T.

 

Fidelity Canada. And this allocation has been around for years and Canada has had a BTC spot ETF for three years now.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1ala1yi/fidelity_allocating_1_to_spot_bitcoin_in_their/

 

Still, so fidelity has been able to hold people's btc safely for 3 years without issues? promising

 

 

Good call - hadn't realized it was already in the Canadian models either so I suppose still good news to me, but certainly less impactful. 

 

That being said, hard to say it won't be a road map for US models now that the ETF is approved. 

 

 

[james22]

BlackRock's portfolios might be getting more bitcoin in coming years.

 

Rick Rieder, BlackRock's chief investment officer of global fixed income and head of global allocation, said the world's largest asset manager currently has a very small exposure to bitcoin. But he said that could change along with public attitudes.

 

"Time will tell whether it's gonna be a big part of the asset allocation framework," Rieder said on WSJ's Take On the Week podcast. "I think over time, people become more and more comfortable with it."

 

BlackRock recently launched a spot bitcoin fund that holds more than $3 billion of the cryptocurrency.

Rieder oversees a wide range of portfolios that manage the money of government pensions and retirement funds.

 

More from Rieder:

 

- "If there is more and more receptivity, now we have more vehicles that people can utilize to get more comfortable with owning it and buying it and selling it and liquidating it."

 

- "As you get more and more people that adopt it as an asset, we think the upside potential is real, which has been recognized recently."

 

https://archive.ph/hQnt8#selection-4073.0-4139.136

[james22]

[james22]

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2024/02/14/bitwise-matt-hougan-dacfp-ric-edelman-growing-adoption-of-spot-bitcoin-etfs.html

[james22]

On 2/14/2024 at 7:04 PM, james22 said:

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2024/02/14/bitwise-matt-hougan-dacfp-ric-edelman-growing-adoption-of-spot-bitcoin-etfs.html

 

Thought there'd be more reaction to this?

 

RIAs manage $8T.

 

75% of them plan to allocate an average of 2.5% to the bitcoin ETFs.

 

That's $150B demand.

 

And doesn't include the wirehouses, regional broker-dealers, or institutions (Blackrock alone manages $9T).

 

 

 

 

 

 

[TwoCitiesCapital]

18 minutes ago, james22 said:

 

Thought there'd be more reaction to this?

 

RIAs manage $8T.

 

75% of them plan to allocate an average of 2.5% to the bitcoin ETFs.

 

That's $150B demand.

 

And doesn't include the wirehouses, regional broker-dealers, or institutions (Blackrock alone manages $9T).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think its going to take years. How do you get $200+ billion into a market cap that is only $1 trillion? You either drive the price to the move massively by hitting every bid and then risk having no liquidity if you need to sell OR you slowly accumulate while waiting for that $1 trillion market cap to grow to $5-10 trillion. 

 

I think most of these allocations occur AFTER the next exponential step-wise move in BTC. Unfortunate for those guys - great for me to continue to accumulate. 

Edited February 16, 2024 by TwoCitiesCapital

[james22]

4 hours ago, TwoCitiesCapital said:

I think its going to take years.

 

Once investment advisors are cleared to recommend making bitcoin an allocation, there won't be a race to secure their clients that allocation?

[TwoCitiesCapital]

1 hour ago, james22 said:

 

Once investment advisors are cleared to recommend making bitcoin an allocation, there won't be a race to secure their clients that allocation?

 

I think plenty of them will be cautious to buy if it has just gone up 50-100%. Also, plenty of firms/advisors are still not 'for' it despite the approval of BTC. It's a pipe dream to expect the company I work for to allocate to it any time soon. 

 

And as far as those with advisors, people don't tend to be as greedy when allocating others' money then when trying to resist the pull of greed on their own so will be more cautious as the price rises I suspect. 

Edited February 16, 2024 by TwoCitiesCapital

[james22]

19 minutes ago, TwoCitiesCapital said:

I think plenty of them will be cautious to buy if it has just gone up 50-100%.

 

I'd think they can't risk sitting out if it goes up another (well-publicized) amount?

 

As long as the music is playing, you've got to get up and dance.

 

19 minutes ago, TwoCitiesCapital said:

Also, plenty of firms/advisors are still not 'for' it despite the approval of BTC.

 

75% is more than sufficient.

 

But they'll ultimately respond to what their customers want. One way or another.

 

[TwoCitiesCapital]

19 hours ago, james22 said:

 

I'd think they can't risk sitting out if it goes up another (well-publicized) amount?

 

As long as the music is playing, you've got to get up and dance.

 

 

75% is more than sufficient.

 

But they'll ultimately respond to what their customers want. One way or another.

 

 

I agree. I think it'll just take more time. 

 

The company I worked for was asked a question about BTC during an educational conference with our advisors 2 years or so ago. They laughed it off And basically said our clients were better off not owning it after the rapid drawdown we'd just seen. There was no intellectual honesty about it being the best performing asset over 3- and 5- year periods even after that drawdown. 

 

Now that's it's gone up 2-3x from those amounts, there's still no one really talking about, or recommending it. 

 

I'm sure over time more and more clients/FAs will push for us to allow it and have guidance on it - especially with the ETFs now available. But it's going to take time. We're not chomping at the bit to add it just because it's up 300% from the lowd and I imagine other firms are similar which is why you're seeing them block clients from owning it at this time. 

 

I think we get one more cycle starting this halving. BTC may go up to 200-300k as the FOMO will be more widespread, but still not driven by the institutional adoption. Then we'll come back down to 50-100k in one last shakeout and from there the adoption curve will really take off as 2-3 years will have passed. 

 

Market cap will be sufficiently high to start accepting widespread inflows from retail and corporates. That'll drive the market high enough to allow for the entrants of countries/sovereign wealth/central banks. 

 

. 

Edited February 17, 2024 by TwoCitiesCapital

[james22]

1 hour ago, TwoCitiesCapital said:

I think it'll just take more time. 

 

Fair enough (shouldn't expect RIAs to be chomping at the bit in 60 days or whenever they can recommend an allocation), but a couple quarters of underperformance should encourage adoption, yeah?

 

 

Edited February 17, 2024 by james22

[james22]

1 hour ago, TwoCitiesCapital said:

I think we get one more cycle starting this halving. BTC may go up to 200-300k as the FOMO will be more widespread, but still not driven by the institutional adoption. Then we'll come back down to 50-100k in one last shakeout and from there the adoption curve will really take off as 2-3 years will have passed. 

 

Market cap will be sufficiently high to start accepting widespread inflows from retail and corporates. That'll drive the market high enough to allow for the entrants of countries/sovereign wealth/central banks. 

 

Why would institutional adoption be so much slower than (surveyed) RIA adoption? 

 

Especially the institutions that brought the ETFs forward?

 

Fidelity won't market its Bitcoin ETF as an advantage over Vanguard?

[Dave86ch]

12 hours ago, TwoCitiesCapital said:

 

I agree. I think it'll just take more time. 

 

The company I worked for was asked a question about BTC during an educational conference with our advisors 2 years or so ago. They laughed it off And basically said our clients were better off not owning it after the rapid drawdown we'd just seen. There was no intellectual honesty about it being the best performing asset over 3- and 5- year periods even after that drawdown. 

 

Now that's it's gone up 2-3x from those amounts, there's still no one really talking about, or recommending it. 

 

I'm sure over time more and more clients/FAs will push for us to allow it and have guidance on it - especially with the ETFs now available. But it's going to take time. We're not chomping at the bit to add it just because it's up 300% from the lowd and I imagine other firms are similar which is why you're seeing them block clients from owning it at this time. 

 

I think we get one more cycle starting this halving. BTC may go up to 200-300k as the FOMO will be more widespread, but still not driven by the institutional adoption. Then we'll come back down to 50-100k in one last shakeout and from there the adoption curve will really take off as 2-3 years will have passed. 

 

Market cap will be sufficiently high to start accepting widespread inflows from retail and corporates. That'll drive the market high enough to allow for the entrants of countries/sovereign wealth/central banks. 

 

. 

“All truth passes through three stages.

First, it is ridiculed.

Second, it is violently opposed.

Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”

 

Arthur Schopenhauer

[Cigarbutt]

6 hours ago, Dave86ch said:

“All truth passes through three stages.

First, it is ridiculed.

Second, it is violently opposed.

Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”

Arthur Schopenhauer

Take this as a humble request from a noob (refer to the question directed to you on November 11th 2023 about a topic brought forward by you in relation to cryptocurrencies and the Cantillon effect). Can you please simply explain (instead of providing a quote)?

 

BTW, the quote that you use is often used in virtual/online debates and, in itself, does not mean much. The quote can be used to support the 'truth' but can also be used in pseudo-science circles etc

Going quote for quote, here's a relevant counter example: "But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."

The quote is real and is from Carl Sagan, in Broca's Brain, page 75 (1980). Sagan was someone who supported open discussions, skeptical curiosity with respect and who was against suppression through authority (centralized or decentralized).

BTW, the quote that you use is often attributed to Schopenhauer but credible research supporting this is lacking. It appears that somebody at some point decided to attribute this quote to Schopenhauer and many just followed along without questioning the underlying fundamentals.

 

Please elaborate about the Cantillon effect and how this would benefit Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies in general?

Please elaborate (with in mind cryptocurrencies as a potential investment) how cryptocurrencies do not end up as creatures of the state?

 laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.