2021W25 - WTF has happened in bitcoin this week?
Bitcoin is an open monetary network.
TLDR: El Salvador explains Bitcoin legal tender execution plan, Miners shut down in china, Tanzania and Paraguay show interests in following with Bitcoin regulations.
Hey there niblings, it’s 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.
An amazing week. Uncle Bam is feeling bullish and specifically feeling hopeful. Hopeful that we can see a better future, a better world where people will have the basic tools for human freedom. Bitcoin is a tool for global financial inclusion for all the people regardless of their passport, race, or social class.
In a country where 70% of the population don’t have access to the financial system, Bitcoin helped changed this through technology. This week the president of EL Salvador, gave a presentation in national TV and via facebook, explaining to it’s citizens step-by-step the new Bitcoin Law, how to use bitcoin, announcing the new wallet Chivo (which means ‘cool’), and giving $30 usd in bitcoin to every citizen that dowwnloads the app, which would work for everyone without an internet plan.
(Find out the full presentation)
The President addressed the main concern of “forcing bitcoin into the population” which is definitely not the case. With this new app and infrastructure, everyone will be required, if having the technology, accept bitcoin or dollars.
What about the people that don’t want to have bitcoin? Well the app allows the FREEDOM to choose. One can accept bitcoin without every holding it, since the app will immediately convert it to dollars, and the other way around.
This is fantastic, because it interoperates with any other bitcoin wallet, meaning any tourist can arrive to El Salvador and does not need to worry which is the local currency, or how to pay with a “certain app”, if all the need is to use their bitcoin wallet, and the people for el Salvador receives the currency of their choice.
This is the beginning of a new world era of monetary interoperability, monetary inclusivity, and of course monetary freedom.
And this is how the week started.
0. Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, gave a detail presentation on the execution plan to make Bitcoin a legal tender, while offering $30 usd. in bitcoin to its citizens by downloading the app “El Chivo”.
1. The Bitcoin Lightning network continues to grow despite the largest price drop of the year. There are now more than 1,600 bitcoins moving in the lightning network.
2. Paraguay's Universidad Americana will begin accepting cryptocurrencies as payment starting in August, according to its general director, Camilo Jiménez Agüero, writes Andrés Engler for CoinDesk
3. Financial institutions of all sizes now can enable consumers to buy, sell and hold bitcoin through their bank accounts via an integration between Fiserv and NYDIG. The First Foundation Bank is already working to enable the usage of Bitcoin.
4. In an interview with CNBC, Thomas Farley, former NYSE president, says Bitcoin could become a $10 trillion market. "It's an up and to the right trend."
5. Stronghold Digital, a bitcoin mining company, has raised $105 million to convert waste coal into energy for Bitcoin mining.
6. Gemini has purchased $4 million in carbon credits, nearly 350,000 metric tons of carbon, to offset its emissions.
“As bitcoin emerges as a dominant store of value, it’s imperative that we incorporate sustainability for future generations. We are proud to team up with Climate Vault to offset our exposure to non-renewable mining and contribute to the decarbonizing of bitcoin,” said Tyler Winklevoss, CEO of Gemini.
7. Paraguay, in its attempt to follow El Salvador’s lead”, announces to push a bill to regulate cryptocurrencies. There seemed to be a misunderstanding and people believing he was pushing a bill to make bitcoin a legal tender.
8. Grand Rapids Drive are now the second team in the NBA G to accept bitcoin for tickets and merchandise and the first to accept BTC via the Lightning Network.
9. CME group announced its clients have now traded more than 1 million micro bitcoin futures contracts since May. One micro bitcoin future is one-tenth of a bitcoin.
"We've seen more institutional volume than we anticipated." - Tim McCourt, CME Group Global Head of Equity Index and Alternative Investment Products
10. Tanzania's central bank confirmed it is investigating Bitcoin and cryptocurrency at the request of President Samia Suluhu Hassan.
"In the financial sector, we have witnessed the emergence of blockchain technology or cryptocurrency..I would like to advise the central bank to start working on those issues. Just be prepared.” - Samia Suluh Hassan
11. Jack Mallers is now known as “Jack Baller”. Well, the truth is the truth, and he is a brave young guy, fighting for financial inclusivity and basic human freedom. Respect Jack.
As a summary note..
People are freaking out about the price, so lets talk about it..
Bitcoin is oscillating around the low ~$30,000, even dropping under and reaching the lowest price in 2021. This basically mean that anyone who started buying bitcoin in 2021 is probably sitting on a loss and has generated many new bitcoiners to capitulate, or sell their position. Many are wondering what will the price do on the next weeks? As we have been hearing about 90% of Chinese miners getting shut down in less than a week.
Well it does not matter in the long term, Bitcoin continues to produce block by block. The network operates seamlessly, and in fact, this for now removes the attack vector of having “all miners concentrated in China”. Now miners will be moving to friendlier jurisdictions and continue the battle for finding cheap energy (often times off-grid), with the incentive to be profitable, while benefiting the whole ecosystem. This is the way Bitcoin works, a resilient beast, it is unstoppable. This is exactly the reason why it is needed that hard money runs over a fully decentralized network, to continue to operate 24/7 while providing monetary freedom to the citizens of the world.
Will the price come back up? Definitely. Is it a guarantee? No. But if we just think in terms of probabilities and risk. There is probably more risk to hold your wealth on an infinite stable depreciating currency, than in a scarce volatile appreciating one.
So “should I buy the fucking dip?”. This is a topic I would like to approach in detail in another time. In general NO it is not about buying every dip, with all you have thinking the opportunity won’t come again. Don’t risk your present and mental health, Bitcoin is a savings account, if you believe and have conviction on bitcoin, just average your price in by determining a weekly/monthly allocation. The truth is, as much conviction anyone has in the space that Bitcoin will appreciate in the long term, wild moves in the short term are more than expected.
Just remember, “Education drives conviction which leads to higher allocation.” - Bam
I love you niblings.
Stay humble & stack sats.
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Reference:
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2. https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/paraguay-university-will-accept-bitcoin
3.https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210623005650/en/Financial-Institutions-Can-Now-Provide-Consumers-Easy-Access-to-Bitcoin-via-Fiserv-and-NYDIG
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5.https://www.coindesk.com/stronghold-digital-mining-raises-105m-to-turn-waste-coal-into-bitcoin
6.https://coindigitalnews.com/gemini-purchases-carbon-credits-to-decarbonize-bitcoin/
7. https://www.trtworld.com/business/paraguay-not-looking-to-make-bitcoin-a-legal-tender-lawmaker-47849#:~:text=Paraguay%20is%20in%20no%20hurry,not%20make%20them%20legal%20tender.
8.https://www.grmag.com/people-places/grand-rapids-drive-accepting-cryptocurrency-as-payment/
9.https://finance.yahoo.com/news/micro-bitcoin-futures-surpass-1-182400521.html
10.https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tanzania-cbank-says-working-presidents-111325058.html