Fundamentals Report #68 - 12/20/2019

Ansel Lindner -

12/20/19  |  Issue #68  |  Block 609,007  |  Disclaimer
~145 Days Until Halvening
.775 on the Mayer Multiple

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This week’s podcast

TOP STORIES

Themes of 2019

Layer 2 building

  • Lightning grew >3x in it’s first big year of mainnet support
  • Several very important features added, the latest being Multi-part payments
  • Lightning added to Bitfinex, adoption continues
  • Liquid is getting attention as a privacy layer and as an ICO platform

Mainstream/Institutional adoption

  • Bakkt physical bitcoin futures subsidiary of ICE
  • CME volume increases
  • ErisX a well connected regulated exchange launched bitcoin futures
  • (don’t forget Bitmex is regulated through the Seychelles)
  • CryptoFacilities acquired by Kraken
  • Binance acquires FTX

Regulated Custody

  • Fidelity
  • Coinbase/Xapo
  • Bitgo/Kingdom Trust
  • Swiss bank Vontobel

Central Bank Digital Currencies and Libra

  • Facebook announces Libra
  • IMF, ECB, US, and BIS all vocal against Libra and interested in CBDCs
  • Stablecoins jumped front and center, while ignoring the elephant in the room

Altcoins and Blockchain Die

  • The altcoin bust continues
  • People are trying to figure out why every altcoin is failing
  • “Blockchain” is being slowly abandoned, in favor of CBDCs
  • Ethereum broke support at 0.025 btc and again at 0.020 btc
  • Ethereum has embarked on Ethereum1.x and 2.0, with no clarity
  • The altcoin space has moved to centralized tokens and stablecoins

END OF YEAR SNAPSHOT

This is what is under development in bitcoin. Great medium post from Luccas Nuzzi.

PRICE

Weekly BMI | 2 : Bullish 

Price has made a strong recovery over the last few days. Bearishness is the overriding tone. Nocoiners are taking to twitter like @mark_dow to rip on bitcoin’s recent price declines. The altcoin sector is totally annialated adding to bearishness. Things were looking very bleak. But this last jump has cemented some bullish divergences now on the chart and the halvening is only 145 days away. I think the lows are in or very close to be certain.

If we can pop over $7400, I think we’ll see the price try for the top of the channel. Don’t get FUDed out here.

Check out more price and fundamentals analysis on the member newsletter.

ALTCOINS

Quote from the Ethereum blog with no comment (emphasis added):

“Our story begins with a realization by core developers that the final phase of the Ethereum roadmap, “Serenity”, would not be ready as early as originally hoped. With potentially many years before a full “Ethereum 2.0” roll-out, the current chain would need changes to ensure that larger problems that wouldn’t render Ethereum in-operable before a comprehensive protocol upgrade could be delivered. Hence, “Ethereum 1.x” – research into smaller, incremental upgrades to current Ethereum (1.0) – was born with the task of prolonging the life of the chain for at least another 3-5 years, before a more dramatic upgrade to Serenity (Eth 2.0) arrives.”

MACRO

The Fed has added over $100 B to their balance sheet every month in the last 3 months, with $500 promised for the few days around the end of the year. They are panicking to control something. Watch for fireworks and grab your popcorn!

MISCELLANEOUS

In this article by Charles Edwards from Capriole Investiments, they present an idea that the value of bitcoin can be derived from the cost of energy used to mine it. They are not the first to do it, but they provided an interesting chart that we thought we would share. This is another indicator that is predicting the bottom is close to being in.

Have a Merry Christmas,

A