E30: Bitcoin Highs, Ver Lows
Bits and Pieces
Trending Topics bitcoin price increase, Circle, ECB/Euro, Fed Hikes
Circle is dropping bitcoin buying and selling
This was a bit of a surprise to me, but now that it’s happened it’s pretty obvious. Circle stopped allowing buying and selling bitcoin in their wallet, instead starting a preferred partnership with Coinbase. This is good news for Coinbase, but they are having troubles, too, with the IRS coming down on them, and there just isn’t that much volume for KYC’d bitcoin purchases. People that use a lot of bitcoin uses Localbitcoins or ATMs, not Circle or Coinbase.
Wikileaks and bitcoin effected the US elections
Wikileaks has swayed the largest election in the world, the President of the US.Bitcoin has played an important role in bankrolling wikileaks in their time of need. So we can say that bitcoin itself played a pivotal role in geo-politics right here. It’s the first time that bitcoin has played such a big role, and I think it will continue to get more and more important as we progress in the currency wars.
Bitstamp Restricts Washington State
Bitstamp is my preferred price standard for USD after the Bitfinex hack. I was a trader on Bitfinex, but currently don’t trade on Bitstamp. I like that it’s a non-margin exchange, making it’s price less volatile from my perspective. I also believe that the USD market is the dominant influencer of price right now despite the CNY and JPY volumes. I reached this conclusion because the dollar price was very sensitive to the highs in price put in during June. The CNY and JPY prices show little concern for previous resistance and support levels.
Bitstamp has cut service to Washington State, effective 20 Dec, 2016 due to regulatory concerns. Bitstamp is also trying to raise more funding. They haven’t said why, but I suspect that they are running short on money considering they don’t offer margin trading. I really like Bitstamp so I hope they figure out their revenue model.
The Great Debate – Lombroso/Petrov/Potter/Ver hosted by Whalepool.io
I play an extended audio clip from the podcast when Phil Potter asked Roger Ver why he won’t endorse Segwit. It’s a pretty funny segment. You can listen to the whole thing here. Subscribe to Whalepool on Youtube.
Phil Potter of Bitfinex brings up some great points and totally leaves Roger grabbing at straws. Roger’s argument is that his feelings were hurt by a few of the people at Blockstream so he’s going to try and politically overthrow them. Plain as day, right out in the open he can only make his case from a political stance. He keeps talking about bitcoin businesses. Who wants to tailor bitcoin’s main consensus layer to central third parties and their business models? No one. This was a huge turning point for segwit.
Altcoinville
Blockchain Technology and the Law Aren’t Enemies, They’re Allies
ConsenSys wrote a piece for futurism.com talking about how dApps (decentralized applications) can work with regulators. DAPPS can’t be decentralized and government compliant. First of all, if you use a blockchain, if that’s even possible, they will be government resistant. If they are compliant with changes to regulation, they can’t be decentralized. It’s that simple. They can’t be both. It’s best to just drop the snake oil blockchain/decentralized pitch deck and make a centralized smart contract platform in a friendly juristiction.
Featured Article
FOMC Meeting
All news is good news. People are waiting for the FOMC interest rate decision today. I’m updating my previous call from a tenative “no hike”, to “they have to hike”. I’ve been watching the surge in stocks the last 10 days and am at a loss to explain it with the public information and expectations for a rate hike. I think that there has been some market priming, due the reaction to the last hike. The Plunge Protection Team is out in full force, buying this market up, hoping to create a cushion for this hike. I’ll have see how it goes, but I think it’s in a very precarious bubble top right now.
Flash Point
Global Trade Wars are Continuing to Heat Up
Faulty economic and monetary policies by governments lead to recessions and depressions, depressions lead to trade wars, trade wars lead to worse depressions, and finally there is war. In this segment I talk about the status of the threating rhetoric from all over the world in regards to trade wars. I quote extensively from MishTalk.