2021W11 - WTF has happened in bitcoin this week?

Bitcoin is going mainstream

Mar 20, 2021

TLDR: Bitcoin is becoming mainstream, adoption is increasing in second layers, and NFL players become advocates.

Hey there niblings, its uncle Bam again, with a summary of the most insightful events in the Bitcoin space. Back at it again digesting all the important news for you.

By looking at the price, one might argue it was a boring week, but guys, the price settled even after crossing new highs of $60,000 last week. In any case, this week doesn’t disappoint. Even though it started in a slowed pace, suddenly big news started to drop like bombs! One of my favorite ones is CashApp allowing transferring bitcoin to other users for FREE.

Why is this so important you might ask? Well for all the viewers who, like me, are not from the U.S., CashApp is basically a second layer in the financial system. It has allowed users to send and receive money to other users or even entities instantly. By adding this new feature, they are basically becoming a centralized second layer for bitcoin, allowing it to transact for free within the CashApp realm.

This second layer news from CashApp is huge in terms of adoption. In a way, I would never encourage anyone to leave their bitcoin with a custodian, but this feature allows people to have even more confidence in the asset, and possibly increase their exposure. Why? Well, the reason is two-fold:

1. Now you can basically spend bitcoin anywhere by using CashApp. Yes, this is hard for bitcoin naysayers who love their arguments ”But it can’t scale.. but you can’t spend it” .. Well why would we spend it if its increasing its value at such a rate? But if needed, it is possible now with Cash App.

2. It decreases the relevance of the dollar. Instead of having dollars in the app, you could store your day-to-day money in bitcoin. If you can have an asset that appreciates long term and you are able to use it for spending without having to worry whether the recipient accepts it or not, then I would of course choose to use that one as my store of value, and medium of exchange.

It is true that this would only be useful within the app members, but well it is a step forward in terms of adoption. In any case I still encourage you to take custody of your own bitcoin. As we hear often: “not your keys, not your coins”.

And this is how the f*#$ing week started:

0. Michael Saylor didn’t buy bitcoin this week.

1. Colombia integrates bitcoin services through Banco de Bogotá, the country’s oldest and largest commercial banking institution. They will start a pilot allowing some customers to buy and sell bitcoin using the national currency, the peso, as a trading pair.

Chairman Oscar Bernal Quintero, said: “One of our great motivations is to be an active part of the transformation of the country and we consider it valuable to participate in the construction of the possible regulation that would enable the exchange of crypto assets within the Colombian regulatory framework.”

2. The Oakland A’s are the first professional sports team to price tickets in bitcoin. They are offering a six-person suite for the 2021 home season for the price of 1 bitcoin.

3. Investing Legend Howard Marks Changes his mind on Bitcoin. The billionaire and cofounder of Oaktree Capital Management, had already dismissed the value proposition of bitcoin in 2017. Now he changes his mind and recommend the people to buy the asset or the companies invested on it. The main properties he quoted was bitcoin’s limited supply and 24/7 availability, and confidentiality.

4. Visa CEO claims cryptocurrencies could become “extremely mainstream” in the next 5 years. He said says they're working to “enable the purchase of Bitcoin on VISA credentials” and “working with some wallets to allow Bitcoin to be translated into a fiat currency.”

5. Visa plans to enable bitcoin payments at 70 million merchants. The main plan of the company is to have bitcoin accepted everywhere where visa is.

6. NYDIG, a leading technology and financial services firm dedicated to Bitcoin, partners up with Morgan Stanley to help their clients to access the asset.

7. Morgan Stanley becomes the first big U.S. bank to offer its wealthy clients access to bitcoin funds. Morgan Stanley is only allowing its wealthier clients access to the volatile asset: The bank considers it suitable for people with “an aggressive risk tolerance” who have at least $2 million in assets held by the firm. This will be done through the funds NYDIG and Galaxy Digital.

8. CashApp is now allowing to instantly send bitcoin to other $cashtags for free, right from the app. In addition, they are giving out $1 million in bitcoin.

9. The Pakistan government is planning to build two hydroelectric-powered pilot Bitcoin mining farms. The country also formed a federal committee to formulate a new policy for bitcoin regulation.

10. Brazil becomes the second country in Americas, following Canada, to approve a bitcoin ETF.

11. Purpose Investments Bitcoin ETF crosses $1 billion in assets under management after just one month since inception.

FUNDAMENTALS

12. William Clemente showed us the second largest daily bitcoin supply lock up in over 3 years. This basically means that buyers are taking their bitcoins out from the exchanges. Retrieving such large amounts, one might argue they are institutions taking up supply. Having no mention in the news of a corporation doing so, we might find out soon.

13. Willy Woo shows us the growth of bitcoin entities, or addresses. At this point we are seeing 35,000 new users per day arriving on-chain. With this information, he concludes that probably we are seeing at this point of the cycle, ~100,000 additional users joining exchanges per day.

As a summary note…

Adoption doesn’t stop. Institutions have been making it easier for the average Joe to have the possibility and confidence of joining the bitcoin network, the revolution.

Hearing that every week a new institution joins the network is great but seeing NFL players accepting getting paid in bitcoin via Strike, and displaying laser eyes in their profile pictures, is a different thing, it is inspirational. The NFL is even hosted a wealth management seminar for its players with a session on bitcoin led by Russel Okung.

NFL players are beginning to see the value of storing their wealth in a hard asset, sound money, in bitcoin. A list was shared in twitter with the profiles of some of the NFL players who are bitcoiners now:

@RussellOkung (Panthers)
@MattBarkley (Bills)
@RSherman_25(49ers)
@BangTimeBurk (Packers)
@saquon (Giants)
@culkin22 (Chiefs)
@VinceBiegel (Dolphins)

by @Anilsaidso

All in all, progress is being made. The network effect of bitcoin continues to grow, and here at WTFBitcoin, we remain bullish. Have a great weekend niblings.

Bitcoin is artificially designed to appreciate forever.
Stay humble & stack sats.

…
You want to contribute to WTFBitcoin?
Feel free to donate. But more importantly, share this with your friends and family..