TLDR: Brazil tax discount with Bitcoin, Mining Facility in Costa Rica, Argentina getting onboarded with Strike, Athletes accepting bitcoin as salary, Miners Accumulating heavily..
Hey there my beloved niblings, it’s uncle Bam again, I know it has been a while, and I even thought about stopping this weekly issue, but then again, I feel some sort of bliss by expressing my opinion after taking a second look at all the good news coming out related to Bitcoin each week. If anything I say is being read, and some are able to take some value out of it? Then that is enough for me, so here comes 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.
The sentiment on the last couple of weeks has been rather grim with price not jumping into new highs as many expected, wishing for bitcoin to reach $100,000 by end of 2021. Just about a year ago, the last week of 2020, I decided it could be a good idea to keep track of all bitcoin news as there was what it seemed like a wave of institutions and investors taking notice of it as an asset class, after MicroStrategy decided to go full rampage into a bitcoin standard for its company’s balance sheet, and it seemed 2021 was about to get interesting, and even when we did not reach those high prices, well it has been a fantastic year in terms of Development of the Space, and in terms of Price:
Development
On the development front, we have
Bitcoin ETF rollouts in multiple countries (Canada, Brazil, US..)
Tesla buying $1.5 billion in bitcoin for their balance sheet. (Yes, they sold a bit)
Bitcoin becoming legal tender in El Salvador, they put bitcoin on reserves and even started buying the dips.
US and global Politicians advocating for bitcoin.
Athletes accepting bitcoin as part of their salaries
Bitcoin Mining companies went public and built big bitcoin positions
Mining becoming more decentralized as China let go its leading position by banning it. (Hashrate recovered before end of year, your loss China)
Lightning Network enters mainstream stage with more than 3,300 bitcoin offering liquidity for immediate payments. About 200% increase in capacity compared to end of 2020.
Increase of Home Bitcoin Miners.
And many, newcomers and bitcoiners finding or increasing conviction to accumulate periodically by dollar cost average.
Price
On the other hand, we have the price which people only remember declining from $69K on the last couple of weeks. Lets not forget that 2021 still yielded around 60% return outperforming EVERY OTHER SINGLE ASSET CLASS.
But now, as the price corrects, people are scared, while a year ago they were all euphoric, given the price was exactly the same..
Same same, but a little different. At least this is a good sign that bitcoin oscillating around $40,000 is normalised, prices which were unimaginable 2 years ago, are now causing people to be fearful of a further plunge.
Just remember there will only ever be 21 million bitcoin, get ahold of some just in case.
And this is how the week started.
1. Bitcoin turns 13 years old, and the network is more secure than ever.
2. South Korean presidential candidate Lee Jae-Myung now accepting Bitcoin for campaign donations
3. Rio de Janeiro mayor announces 10% discount on taxes paid in Bitcoin.
4. $13 million Costa Rican electricity company now mining with 100% excess renewables.
5. Bill Miller's, the legendary value investor, discloses his portfolio allocation confromed by: 50% bitcoin and 50% amazon.
6. Joe Rogan: "I have a lot of hope for Bitcoin."
7. NBA players Klay Thompson and Andre Iguodala will take a portion of their next salary in bitcoin and donate $1 million in BTC each to fans.
8. Fidelity, the Canadian investment manager, adds bitcoin exposure to traditional ETFs seeking to improve the two funds’ risk-adjusted returns in the future.
9. Bitfarms, Canadian public Bitcoin Mining company, has purchased $1,000 bitcoin, increasing its holdings by 30%. The firm currently holds 4,300 bitcoin in its treasury.
10. Hut8, a public Bitcoin Mining company, secured a $30 million loan with Trinity Capital.
11. Luxor Technology Corporation launches Bitcoin ASIC trading desk, they would purchase and sell rigs on behalf of its team and miners and investors on its network.
12. CSI, Giant digital banking platform, to allow customers to buy, sell, and hold Bitcoin.
13. Block, Jack Dorsey’s bitcoin company, is hiring to develop the next-gen Bitcoin Mining ASICs.
14. Strike launches in Argentina, “giving hope” to a population suffering from hyperinflation.
15. Satsback V2 launches, a cashback and loyalty rewards platform that allows their users to receive their money back in Bitcoin through the Lightning Network when shopping online.
16. Jack Dorsey to launch a legal defense fund for Bitcoin, to minimize legal headaches that discourage software developers from actively contributing to Bitcoin.
17. Arkansas will pay you $10K in Bitcoin to move there, in hopes to attract talent.’
18. An individual miner is the second in two days to take the full coinbase reward of $265K for himself after adding a valid block to the Bitcoin blockchain.’
19. Latin American real estate agency La Haus, announced to have sold an apartment in Mexico for 5.78 bitcoin.
FUNDAMENTALS
Hashrate is back to all time high, demonstrating how resilient the Bitcoin network is, independently of “state attacks” such as the China ban, or the energy blackout in Kazakhstan.
Additionally, there has been an unprededented addition to bitcoin miners balance sheet, as they not only decide to keep their mineed bitcoins, but also accumulate for their balance sheet as just mentioned above.
As long as there is a group of people wanting to mine, buy and hold bitcoin, the price is engineered to go up as the demand meets the asset’s scarcity.
As a summary note..
Last year has been a great for bitcoin, with the current numbers of inflation, it has become undeniable that there is a need of a safe store of value. As of now, it seems that not even gold has outperform inflation, in a world where issuing money has 0 marginal cost, Bitcoin is the only alternative to not get your value worth debased by external factors, while allowing you to hold and transact the bearer asset at the speed of light.
Have you tested the Lightning Network yet? Let us play a little game, you help me out, and Uncle Bam will send some beautiful sats your way.
Download Muun Wallet.
(Or any other bitcoin wallet such as Breeze, BlueWallet, Wallet of Satoshi)Help me out by signing up to Noah.
And post a picture of your waiting list and an invoice of 600 sats in the following thread.
(You could also comment in this substack post with your waiting list number and your invoice!)- #Bitcoin giveaway on ⚡️! Register to @Noah_HQ using my referral link 👇🏼 They are building an app/bank with the vision of bringing financial inclusion Rules: 1. Like 2. Subscribe noah.com/?referral=aKzw… 3. Send proof of subscription 4. LN QR invoice for 600 Sats
Get ready for an even more amazing year niblings!
Stay humble & stack sats.
How to buy bitcoin? (With Relai through Revolut)
If you are in Europe, I made a pretty simple guide with 3 steps, which avoids you having to set up an account on an exchange, give them all of your personal information, plus custody of your funds.
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I appreciate the hard work, always an enjoyable and informative read 👌