BTC Recovers, Forms “Golden Cross”
Litecoin? C’mon man.
This week started off with a bang as the Litecoin official Twitter account tweeted out on Monday that “Walmart Announces Major Partnership With Litecoin (LTC).” In response to this hilarious headline, the market surged led by LTC which instantly popped up over 30% — we’re still so early. The cops showed up at the Litecoin party as soon as it started and shut it down as we saw a sharp correction back to previous levels as Walmart said the announcement was fake. In response to reality striking after a jolt of euphoria, the whole market pulled back and there was a lingering feeling of uneasiness knowing that regulators would surely point to this event and shout “market manipulation!” I would never expect to be writing about Litecoin at 5am but here we are…
What we saw at the desk
Not much to report on here as it was a pretty average week at the desk. Although Monday was very volatile, we didn’t notice a big spike in trades — I like to think it’s because our clients are less affected by seemingly bogus headlines. Also, the sharp move up on LTC and the near immediate move back down didn’t give our LTC holders a chance to make a move. Overall, we saw more buys than sells led by BTC and then ETH.
Aside from trading volume, new client onboardings are consistently strong. This is a great sign as I like to think about our platform as a microcosm of the ecosystem in that what we see is a great, conservative representation of the space overall — especially since we don’t advertise. New entrants are pouring into crypto everyday and in our case, in a big way.
Boots on ground: A temperature check on El Salvador
If you’ve been paying attention to what’s going on in El Salvador post Bitcoin officially becoming legal tender, you might think that things aren’t going so hot. The headlines have been about protests, and we even saw this week that a Bitcoin ATM was burned down. It’s hard to know what’s what anymore since the media are all about the “clicks” but thankfully, we have a team with boots on ground that we met with yesterday to get the real scoop.
It’s actually a lot less exciting than portrayed (shocking, right?), both on the positive and negative side. The Chivo Wallet — El Salvador’s government Bitcoin wallet — has had a pretty bad rollout to say the least. Although the $30 BTC airdrop was a success, the government placed rules and restrictions around how that Bitcoin could be used/spent. Apparently, Salvadorans had to move the BTC a few times within the Chivo system before they could turn the BTC into cash and there was also a minimum transaction size of $5 USD which made it increasingly tough to use.
I kind of see what the government was trying to do here…get people to use BTC so that they see first hand how it works and can be used successfully as a medium of exchange, as opposed to just cashing out at an ATM for a free $30 USD. However, introducing a new payments technology to millions of already skeptical Salvadorans by way of a buggy mobile wallet with a bunch of restrictions is probably not the best way to do it either.
I do not blame the government at all. They are the first country to do this so it only makes sense that there are hiccups — this is very much an experiment.
Our friends in El Salvador let us know that since there is a general lack of trust in the government, private wallets and point-of-sale terminals are becoming increasingly adopted over Chivo. Transactions are growing expeditiously and there is a really good shot that this experiment will work, especially once we can better understand the numbers around remittances in the coming months.
If you have any doubt that Bitcoin can make a planet full of people free from arbitrary actions by governments and central banks, please take a few minutes to watch this video:
El Salvador might’ve been the first domino to fall, but it will not be the last.
Pretty cool: Hungary just debuted its statue in honor of Bitcoin’s creator, Satoshi Nakamoto.
In case you missed it…
- Fidelity pushed for a Bitcoin ETF in private meeting with SEC https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/fidelity-bitcoin-etf-sec-private-meeting-delayed-decision-matured-market-2021-9
- Microstrategy buys an additonal 5050 BTC https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/microstrategy-buys-5050-more-bitcoin-now-holds-over-%245.1-billion-worth-2021-09-16
- HF Billionaire Steve Cohen’s son convinces him to get into crypto https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/steve-cohen-throws-himself-crypto-004126108.html
- Coinbase applies to trade crypto futures https://cointelegraph.com/news/coinbase-applies-to-trade-crypto-futures
- Ray Dalio almost gets it
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/15/ray-dalio-says-if-bitcoin-is-really-successful-regulators-will-kill-it.html - Hungary debuts Satoshi statue https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/hungary-debuts-statue-in-honor-of-bitcoin-creator-satoshi-nakamoto-2021-09-16
- More institutional money flows into crypto https://www.forbes.com/sites/rebeccaszkutak/2021/09/14/jump-capital-raises-350-million-and-doubles-down-on-crypto/
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Satstreet serves private Canadian clients including some of the largest Bitcoin mining operations, institutions, and high net worth individuals. Satstreet has raised initial funding from Round13 Capital and several prominent investors.
