Bitcoin has had a really bad couple of weeks, falling from about $90,000 at the end of January to about $70,000 today. We talked about this on Thursday, and I pointed out that what makes a crypto crash different from a stock-market crash is the lack of fundamentals.
We stopped trading bitcoin at 125k because... we got bored? (#1429032, #1429909)
This sort of rhymes with my “Boredom Markets Hypothesis,” which says that the prices of speculative assets vary inversely with how many other fun things there are to do.
Elsewhere, someone emailed me to point out that Bitcoin’s price seemed to be pinned near $69,420 at various points over the past few days. (69 and 420 are meme numbers.) “Who could 1) be that immature and 2) have that much capital,” my reader asked. I know the answer he was looking for, but the actual answer is “every single Bitcoin whale.”
I noticed that 69,420 as well on my blockclock. FUNKY.
TETHER, A SILLY PLACE FOR YOUR MONEY?
You could, I thought, keep your money in a bank or a US dollar money market fund; those are regulated by the US government, hold your money in relatively safe and transparent places, and will let you use it for pretty normal payments. Or there was Tether, which put its money in truly insane places back in the day. Why would you want that?
NOW? "Now Tether keeps its money mostly in reasonable safe places, has a certain amount of transparency, is buddies with regulators" and does AML compliance (linking to a story where Tether helped Turkish gov to find some "illicit income"
Shaaa-dyyy.
Also really funny AI story in there. Good newsletter today
archive: https://newsletterhunt.com/newsletters/money-stuff-by-matt-levine
<raises hand>I'm pleased because I've been able to add a few more $69420 screenshots to my already excellent collection from last time we passed by.
"passed by" like we're astronauts passing a planet
To the moon!
Back to the moon!
To the moon!
Back to the moon!
The moon:
Ikr
I think this set of assumptions about US banks is shaky. Perhaps Tether is worse, but I think many people in the US, especially those who are on the lower side of the socioeconomic sale do not exactly have feelings of warmth and confidence when they think of their financial institutions.
Precisely. I bet Levine never had his (overstuffed??) bank account suspended eh