Episode 5 of Season 3 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block’s Frank Chaparro and Dan Morehead, CEO of Pantera Capital. 

This episode of The Scoop is brought to you by Blockset. With Blockset, companies gain access to tools such as:

1. A highly scalable API that supports Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, and other top chains 2. AML/KYC data expediting time to market by complying with legal requirements 3. Leading custody solutions using modern multi-party compute (MPC) technology 

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Pantera Capital's CEO Dan Morehead says initial coin offerings (ICO) aren't dead, but the investment world is shifting toward a narrative dominated by Bitcoina nd Ethereum.

"Crypto as a market is so volatile that the narrative changes," said Morehead on this week's episode of The Scoop. 

That narrative lately has been all about bitcoin's growing adoption. From Microstrategy to Stone Ridge Holdings — and maybe soon the city of Miami — big players are allocating to the top cryptocurrency.

But as the money flows towards bitcoin adoption, ICO's aren't over, according to Morehead. Pantera is still pitched one every two to four months, and the firm's initial coin offering (ICO) fund ended 2020 up more than 500%. 

Still, that's a sharp decline from the 50 pitches a week Pantera sifted through in 2017, and its bitcoin fund closed 2020 up nearly 300%. The crypto narrative for investors is trending towards Bitcoin amid institutional adoption, Morehead told The Scoop.

"We’re really seeing an inflection point with more coming into the market over the last couple of months.... I think the reality is they’re looking for managers that manage multiasset funds sometimes both tokens and venture and they ultimately want that all to be within a handful of managers," he said.

Lately, Morehead is fielding calls from endowments, putting the industry at an intriguing inflection point. Driving the interest in bitcoin is the current macro backdrop as well as bitcoin's block reward halving last year—which the firm said could play a role in bringing its price to $115,000. 

Morehead broke down what that means for the coming year on this week's episode, along with:

Disclosure: Pantera was an investor in a past funding round for The Block.

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Now is the age of cryptocurrency, and no comparison shows that better than the two charts you are about to see side-by-side.

Bitcoin was designed by Satoshi Nakamoto as the first form of peer-to-peer digital “cash,” but also sought to give the cryptocurrency several traits of of a commodity such as rarity. This was achieved through the asset’s 21 million BTC hard cap.

The cryptocurrency creator’s early comments showed a distinct fascination with gold, and appears to have been attempting to create a digital representation of the hard money standard.

Related Reading | Stablescoins Act As “Rocket Fuel,” Propels Bitcoin To Another ATH

The term gold standard is used to describe a time when all fiat currencies were pegged to the shiny precious metal, and it was a time that was much more prosperous and wealth gaps weren’t nearly as wide.

The evolution of the dollar and all fiat money into what it is today, did away with the gold standard decades ago. As a result, the price per ounce of gold skyrocketed form around $30 to $2,000 this past year.

At the gold bull market peak, however, a passing of the torch took place. The moment gold topped in August, coincides with the moment hedge funds and public companies began buying BTC.

From that moment forward, Bitcoin has been in its most powerful uptrend yet and spiked from $10,000 to $50,000 with not even a trillion in capital to show for it. Gold outflows began to rise the same time Bitcoin trading volume and futures open interest started to climb to previous highs.

Related Reading | Altcoins Bleed After Tesla Bitcoin Buy, BTC Dominance Hints At Deception

The chart above shows exactly when the deviation took place, and gold’s downtrend began. Prior to that, both assets initially performed well as a safe haven post-pandemic, however, the digital currency has completely taken over since.

The digital gold narrative has been effective, and now Bitcoin is ready to set it sights on replacing the dying dollar instead.

Bitcoin was once following a gold fractal closely for years, which has thus far benefited the young cryptocurrency well. But now that the torch has been passed, will Bitcoin soon be the asset to catch up to?

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You have probably already heard about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and how it is helping people across various industries in many daily activities. According to JPMorgan, nowadays, 90% of trading is run by computers, algorithms, and passive managers. This means that if you want to invest, you will need equivalent trading tools to compete.

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From research so far, fundamental and manual forex trader’s account is about 10% of Forex Trading Volume, so how do you compete against super-fast trading systems with humans or manual trading system? With the use of AI trading, anyone in the world can trade efficiently and increase the chances of achieving above-average forex returns, regardless of the level of trading experience.

The dynamics of the market have changed, and we must agree that we need machines to do many things better, especially in the field of the forex trading market. From this point of view, the providers of manual forex signals and analysis are no longer a great choice. AI is the best forex trading solution.

Unlike humans or other technological resources, AI can make an enormous number of accurate decisions in a fraction of the time, down to milliseconds. These skills make AI an enormously powerful tool for use in forex trading.

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NM Partners represent articles published in paid partnerships with corporate organisations. They include press releases, targeted content, and other forms of corporate communications on behalf of our Paid Partners.

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I do alot of financial reads on Nairametrics. But guys, it’s safer to always do your due diligence on every information especially before you make financial decisions. Always look before you leap!

How do I get the robot installed on my phone

Remitano P2P crypto exchange is an escrowed marketplace where crypto buyers meet crypto sellers.

It’s no longer news that the Central Bank of Nigeria popularly called CBN has placed a ban on cryptocurrency in Nigeria. With this ban in place, it is no more possible for Nigerians to buy Bitcoin from their usual exchanges with their debit cards or directly from their Nigerian bank accounts. What’s worse is that a lot of crypto traders now have their assets stuck in their exchanges as they can no longer withdraw directly to their Naira account. This sudden move by the CBN put the Nigerian crypto community in a state of frustration.

In compliance with the crypto ban, Nigerian commercial banks have begun to freeze the bank accounts of people that are associated with crypto. This ban on crypto placed by the Central Bank of Nigeria has indeed affected the people’s ability to buy bitcoin in Nigeria. A lot of people have now resorted to buying Bitcoin the old fashion way, offline purchase.  Unfortunately, many of these people have been scammed of their hard-earned money simply because they had to deal with some unscrupulous few who set out to defraud those who want to buy Bitcoin. It’s like being stuck between the devil and the red sea!

So the question on every Nigerian crypto lover’s mind is – “How do I buy bitcoin safely without getting my bank account blocked or getting scammed?” Well, the answer to your question is – “Remitano P2P exchange!”

Simply put, Remitano P2P crypto exchange is an escrowed marketplace where crypto buyers meet crypto sellers. With Remitano P2P, you can sell and buy Bitcoin in Nigeria from anyone without fear of being scammed or fear of your bank account being frozen. This is because Remitano acts as an escrow between the seller and buyer to ensure a smooth transaction process.

Remitano P2P is currently the leading P2P platform in Nigeria, South Africa, and several other countries. After being in existence for quite a number of years, Remitano has continuously evolved over the years to provide the perfect marketplace for both crypto buyers and sellers thereby creating a high level of trust in the crypto community.

Remitano is so confident in their ability to deliver that they guarantee all transactions are completed within 15 minutes of initiation. In the event that a transaction is not completed, compensation of 50% of the transaction fee will be refunded to the user.

In addition to this awesome service, Remitano offers the simplest and easy-to-use user interface that anyone with or without computer knowledge can interact with. Remitano also has a responsive and friendly customer service available 24/7 to provide help to buyers and sellers whenever needed.

It takes only a few steps to buy Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies on Remitano. All you need to do is to choose a buyer you would like to buy Bitcoin from, send the Naira equivalent to the seller’s bank account. Once receipt of payment is confirmed, Remitano releases the Bitcoin into your Bitcoin Wallet.

Remitano is a product of Babylons Solutions Limited based in Seychelles. Remitano’s purpose is to offer a robust, quality trading experience to all users as a fast-moving marketplace. With necessary safety standards in place, buyers and sellers can come together, store, trade, and withdraw assets, thus avoiding issues common to other crypto exchanges.

Launched in 2014, Remitano is a global cryptocurrency exchange serving international markets, such as Malaysia, China, Nigeria, Vietnam, Australia, Cambodia, and Indonesia.

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At a time when African investors are pursuing global opportunities to improve their bottom lines and deliver greater value to their shareholders, their intentions are increasingly frustrated by the limited access of the Nigerian passport in regard to global travel.

Among other West-African passports, the Nigerian passport is restricted in its reach to only 54 visa-free destinations, many of whom are other African countries like Ethiopia. This modest number falls short next to that of Ghana, Cameroon and even Côte d’Ivoire, who have visa-free access to 73, 61 and 67 destinations respectively.

But it gets worse– when the Nigerian passport’s visa-free listings are viewed through the lens of La Vida’s Passport Value Report which combines metrics of GDP and international travel popularity to ascertain the true value of each country’s passport, it makes for even grimmer viewing as the access value is only a meagre 2.1% of the world’s GDP and 3.1% of the world’s international travel popularity.

For Africa’s most populous country preparing itself for a future without oil by leading the continental charge to export technology and talent globally, these numbers are simply unacceptable.

One instance of the myriad opportunities that exist beyond the continent for Nigerian business executives and buttresses the need for global travel is remittance. According to global Audit Firm, PWC, there are an estimated 15million Nigerians living in the diaspora whose remittance is projected to hit $34.8bn in 2023 with 40% of these remittances coming from 5 European countries alone.

This presents one of the greatest opportunities to set up banking and technology infrastructure across the EU to help more Nigerians and Africans send money back home, which even at a modest 0.1% margin could add around $17m in revenue to their bottom line.

To achieve this however, executives would need to jet in and out of Europe to set up, conduct business and oversee operations. But the limitations of the Nigerian passport mean they will require visa approvals to travel, which may not only delay the speed of execution, but also bring with it the possibility of their requests being outrightly denied.

Enter the need for a second passport and visa-free travel through Citizenship By Investment Programmes.

As African countries grapple with insecurity, inflation and currency devaluation, the need for second citizenships have never been more apparent, especially as a ‘Plan B’ to hedge against whatever may come. And as the continent’s affluent middle class are becoming wealthier, their needs are evolving, from global business mobility, better visa-free travel to high-quality education opportunities abroad for their children.

It is at this juncture that the opportunity offered by La Vida Golden Visas to acquire a Grenadian citizenship through investment in the soon-to-be-completed Kimpton Kawana Bay Resort serves to transcend this existing gap and provide the much-needed hedge African HNWIs and executives need to expand and safeguard their earnings, businesses and families.

Upon acquiring Grenada’s lifetime citizenship, the combined value for the Nigerian passport grows to 58.7% of the world’s GDP; with the Grenadian passport granting visa-free access to over 163 countries and territories including the UK, EU Schengen zone and uniquely China and Russia. At once, African HNWIs and leading execs gain unrestricted access to the countries at the forefront of global development.

“Grenada’s Citizenship by Investment (CBI) programme offers several added attractions that many of its competitor countries do not”, says Chief Executive Officer of La Vida Golden Visas, Paul Williams, in a recent interview. “The application takes only 60-90 days, has low family fees, and no interview, education, language test or management experience is required. There is no residency requirement and dual citizenship is permitted as well. Grenada also does not tax worldwide income, wealth, gift, inheritance or capital gains- which make it more attractive to business elites”.

Grenadian citizenship can be obtained by investing in Government-approved real estate at a minimum of $220,000, as is the case with title deeded studios in the island’s prime project—Kimpton Kawana Bay Resort, the new beachfront 5-star luxury resort currently under construction in Grenada by True Blue Developments—a company with an impressive 20-year record in development.

“The resort, which is 79% sold out, is ideally positioned on Grand Anse Beach, voted by CNN and Condé Nast Traveller as one of the world’s best beaches. The hotel will feature an infinity-edge pool overlooking the turquoise Caribbean Sea, state-of-the-art gym and spa facilities, exquisite fine dining restaurant, roof-top bar, beach bar, lounge with terrace, and, water sports facilities,” says Tom Scott, Managing Director of Kimpton Kawana Bay.

The resort, heralded by forbes as one of the most anticipated luxury openings in the world is set to open in 2022 and will come under the operation of the internationally recognised hotel brand—Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants, part of the InterContinental Hotels Group, one of the largest in the world.

The nature of the real estate investment also allows for personal accommodation usage for up to 2 weeks, while generating a projected rental income of 3-5% through the transparent revenue-sharing model. The investment also provides the option of recouping the initial investment after 5 years without effect to the acquired Grenadian citizenship.

In further providing global access, an investment in Kimpton Kawana Bay Resort would grant citizens access to live in the UK for up to six months every year, as Grenada forms a part of the commonwealth. Another peculiarity is the E-2 Visa option, which is a secondary application open to Grenadian citizens who want to live and work in the US.

At a time when African investors have their sights firmly trained on the opportunities existing beyond the borders of the continent in search of growth and starring roles in shaping the present and future of global business, technology, medicine and so on, Kimpton Kawana Bay is finely positioned as the bridge between hopeful thought and ground-breaking reality.

For once, African investors are finally equipped for expansion and global domination. The rest of the world better take notice.

Every week there’s usually at least one article in CoinDesk, a blurb in a newsletter and several charts in the Twittersphere about bitcoin’s correlation with something or other.

This week, we were told that the 60-day correlation between gold and bitcoin (BTC) had reached all-time highs. Last week, our monthly report featured a chart of BTC’s correlation with the DXY dollar index. A few weeks before that, the correlation with the S&P 500 was in the headlines.

If you feel dizzy from the rapid turns in attention on which correlation metric matters, you’re not alone. But, you had better get used to it because the fascination with BTC’s correlation status is unlikely to fade any time soon.   What this reveals about bitcoin is intriguing. It’s not so much the correlation measures per se – they are fun to watch go up and down, but they’re not the deeper story. The deeper story is why it matters so much to us.

When we point to BTC’s increasing correlation with the S&P 500, gold, avocados or whatever, we are searching for a handle on its prevailing narrative. We hope that correlations will give us a clue.

BTC is a difficult asset to pin down. It is a scarce asset like gold, yet with a harder cap. It can be used for pseudonymous transactions, as can cash. It is a speculative holding for many, like equities. It is a bet on a new technology, like a growth stock. It is a hedge against a dollar collapse, a way to spread financial inclusion, an investment in financial evolution, a political statement. It is all of these, or none of these, depending on your intellectual leanings, economic philosophy and mood. 

The narrative we choose for bitcoin matters, though. Not only does it form our investment thesis around the asset, but it also influences our valuation methods. Do we extrapolate its potential price using the size of the gold market? The payments universe? Transaction fees? Something else entirely?

So, faced with such a slippery narrative, we look to correlations to tell the story. If it’s highly correlated with gold, then the market views it as a safe haven. If it’s more closely correlated to the S&P 500, then it’s a risk-on investment. If bitcoin’s correlation to the dollar index plummets, then it’s a hedge. 

We look to the market to tell us what bitcoin’s narrative is. But this creates a feedback loop (Follow gold! Follow Nasdaq!) that helps to perpetuate bitcoin’s momentum-fueled volatility, and which is often thrown off course by the evolving nature of markets. 

Make it a good one

BTC’s 60-day correlation with the S&P 500 has been coming down recently. That must mean it’s no longer a risk-on asset. Its increasing correlation with gold corroborates that, putting BTC back in the safe haven story.

But wait. You’ll have heard that BTC has not had a good run over the past few days. You’ll probably also have heard that Tesla has had a particularly bad time this week. I wonder if they’re correlated.

What do you know, it looks like BTC’s correlation with TSLA is increasing! BTC is now more correlated to TSLA than to the S&P 500. That must mean that bitcoin is now being seen as a tech stock. No wait, it’s being seen as a proxy for market hype. No wait, I mean it’s being seen as a moon shot. 

Obviously, I’m kidding, but point I’m trying to make is that short-term correlations can tell a good story, but they’re not that meaningful.

Correlations are based on price movements, which, especially in these crazy times, do not always respond to common sense. Prices have, on the whole, become untethered from fundamental factors and are being pushed around by sentiment. Sentiment fuels momentum, which we often mistake for a trend; it also perpetuates the directionality of prices, which can exaggerate correlations.

Yet, sentiment can turn fast when investors are jittery, and there’s plenty to be jittery about. The story changes again. 

This grasping for data to back a story reveals our very human need to put bitcoin in context of things we’re already familiar with. If it goes into a certain mental box, it’s easier to understand and easier to make decisions about. Boxes are comfortable. Yet, in the long run, they are unsustainable.

In the short run, too: These markets are nuts, and boxes are being smashed all over the place. Bitcoin, which never did belong in any box that we know, is hopping from one story to another, as told by correlation metrics.

I like a good chart as much as anyone, probably even more so (after all, I am an analyst), and I plan to continue to watch the numbers stories with interest. But rather than use return relationships as a narrative crutch, I’ll be keeping an eye on what they say about what investors are looking for. 

For short-term market movements, what we think bitcoin’s narrative is doesn’t matter as much as what other people think bitcoin’s narrative is. Other people move the market, so we should know what asset framework they’re using. The correlation stories are useful for that.

For long-term market movements, correlations matter more for portfolio diversification than for anything else. In the not-too-distant future, markets will hopefully be less confusing and even short-term covariance and other relationships might be steadier, and easier to use for planning purposes. By then, even bitcoin’s correlations might start to matter less for the story and more for the allocation calculations.

By then, we will hopefully no longer need to put bitcoin in a pre-conceived box. It will have found its own narrative, understandable by all. 

Investor activism comes to crypto. Technically it’s not the first time, but as far as I know it’s the first initiated by an institutional investor, which pushes it into a more public arena with potentially far-reaching consequences. 

California-based hedge fund manager Arca is stepping up its campaign to overhaul decentralized exchange and prediction market platform Gnosis, which raised $12.5 million in a 2017 initial coin offering (ICO). Arca’s complaint is that the project has seen its initial ICO proceeds and therefore its balance sheet multiply simply due to the increase in the price of ETH, and yet has not produced any products that accrue value to the token holders.

Arca insists Gnosis should at least trade at the net asset value of its treasury, which is at current prices $139 per GNO (the platform’s token, which at time of writing has a market price of $67), and that the mispricing is due to poor decisions on the part of management.The investor has suggested to management that it use the bulk of its treasury to make a tender offer for all outstanding GNOs. This would value each token at approximately $90, providing a decent return for early investors. Since the report of Arca’s proposal came out last week, GNO has increased 34% in price (at time of writing), while bitcoin has fallen 4% over the same period.

The interesting part is not the potential flip for investors as they crowd out the upside. What’s important about this is how it changes the conversation around token investments, on so many levels.

First, it will unleash a healthy discussion around responsibility. Token sales, especially those issued in the heyday of 2017, are lightly regulated if at all, with no clearly defined lines of obligations. This discussion could professionalize the field and encourage other institutional investors to take an interest.

Second, it could refine the definition of “token.” Is it like a venture investment, where investors are expected to help their portfolio companies in exchange for greater potential returns? Yet venture investments aren’t liquid, and tokens to some extent are. So, is it more like equity, in which case, do token holders have stakeholder rights? Arca CIO Jeff Dorman believes his firm’s holding is like an interest-free loan, which comes with the expectation that lenders are kept informed of the borrower’s progress and plans for the proceeds.And, third, it could influence investment strategies. We’ve seen the price of GNO jump over the past few days, presumably in the expectation that management will listen to Arca’s demands. Will we see activists intentionally accumulate tokens in order to influence a company’s direction? 

Finally, this could trigger some governance innovations. Apart from investors collectively insisting on more transparency and accountability, we could start to see some protocol or algorithm adjustments. What could investor activism look like on staking networks, where the amount of tokens you hold programmatically determines the say you have in certain governance issues? What if an investor wants to leverage that position to influence more than the protocol had contemplated? How can a project protect itself against predator stakes?

Given the scope of the problem and what it means for the evolution of token issuance as a fund-raising mechanism and as a value proposition, this situation is worth keeping an eye on. Arca’s initiative will most likely end up being about much more than a fair return on an investment. 

As the relentless growth in COVID-19 cases around the world shines greater focus on the bumpy road to a vaccine, uncertainty in the timing of an economic recovery seems to be spilling over into stock market valuations. The S&P and Nasdaq look on track to have their second week of declines, for the first time since March.

Amidst the growing uncertainty, BTC also had a down week, significantly underperforming gold and equities and giving a boost to its 30-day volatility.

While it may feel like stock market volatility is back with a vengeance, the VIX is still well below its June level, and about where it was in December 2018. In other words, this isn’t too unusual. 

Both the latest U.S. unemployment and consumer price index figures came in slightly higher than expected, adding to the overall unease. As renowned investor Stanley Druckenmiller re-ignited the heated debate between those that expect inflation and those that expect deflation, expect greater focus on bitcoin’s narrative as an inflation hedge.

My colleague Nathan DiCamillo shows how we can follow the initial public offering of INX, the first registered offering of security tokens in the U.S., and gives more insight into how the issuance will work. TAKEAWAY: This is an eye-opening peek at the transparency of a security token offering, vs. a normal security offering. You can actually watch the securities move, in real time. That, plus the innovative business model behind them, and the evolution of capital markets they represent, and the fact that it’s the first token sale to register for retail distribution with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, make this issuance worth following. 

Another issuance worth watching is that of Diginex, the Hong Kong-based company behind the newly launched EQUOS.io crypto exchange. This week it announced that it has raised $20 million from four family offices and a hedge fund, ahead of an anticipated Nasdaq listing later this month via a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC). TAKEAWAY: This will be the first crypto exchange to publicly list in the U.S., as well as an indication of public interest in crypto market infrastructure. For investors, it’s a listed play on the growth of the ecosystem. For analysts, it’s a welcome peek at the accounts of a market infrastructure participant, which could be even more interesting as rumors of a Coinbase listing continue to circulate.

Options market data shows an upward trend over the past couple of months in the traded volume of ether (ETH) puts vs. calls, which hints at a growing fear of a price drop. TAKEAWAY: The bitcoin (BTC) put-call ratio is flat over the same period, which implies that the hedging is specific to ETH. This could indicate greater concern about the fragility of the recent inflows into some decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms, and the potential impact on the network’s congestion and token price. 

The recent growth in bitcoin “accumulation addresses,” or addresses with at least two incoming bitcoin transfers in the last seven years and no spends, could indicate growing support for bitcoin in spite of lackluster price performance. TAKEAWAY: That we can even extract this metric is an example of the unique data sets available to crypto asset investors. Imagine having this level of information with traditional assets.

Investment management firm Wave Financial has received its first round of investment from clients for the Wave Kentucky Whiskey 2020 Digital Fund, which it plans to tokenize in a year or two. TAKEAWAY: I include this as an example of how interesting the tokenized security field will soon get. It should be clarified that holding a fund token does not give you access to the whiskey. It does allow you to share in the profits when the whiskey is eventually sold to wholesalers. Yes, this could be achieved without tokenization. And it remains to be seen how comfortable investors will be with this concept. The investment so far is still relatively small, but will be worth watching.

Podcast episodes worth listening to:

Bitcoin has become extremely popular in 2020, on the back of the store of value, safe haven asset, and digital gold narratives. The digital gold story has taken center stage recently, as the precious metal’s bullish momentum fizzled out and the cryptocurrency market took off.

But one self-proclaimed contrarian investor with a focus on bullion, says that digital gold makes little sense, and compared it – ridiculously – to “digital steak.” Here’s why Simon Mikhailovich’s comparison itself doesn’t make sense.

Bitcoin was designed by Satoshi Nakamoto to share several key attributes with gold and other precious metals, chiefly, their scarce supply. The cryptocurrency creator borrowed other commodity-related concepts, such as mining.

Unique from gold, however, certain attributes of a currency were also added, such as decimal places for unit of account, and the ability to send the asset digitally.

The “digital gold” narrative that has emerged since Paul Tudor Jones said that Bitcoin could outpace the then trending shiny yellow metal, has taken the forefront and even managed to capture the imagination of high wealth investors. Many are reallocating gold into Bitcoin, for the sake of putting capital where it is expected to perform the best.

However, one self-proclaimed contrarian investor, claims that the narrative makes as much sense as a “digital steak.” Is his comment a well-done retort, or is he wrong about the rare, digital-only asset?

According to The Bullion Reserve founder Simon Mikhailovich, the Bitcoin as digital gold narrative doesn’t make sense. Or it “makes about as much sense as ‘digital steak.'”

TBR is a private bullion asset manager, so clearly Mikhailovich could be biased about the cryptocurrency that is heavily eating into his business model and revenue.

The comparison is definitely a strange one. As Bitcoin supporters swarmed the investor on Twitter, he began to add more insight to his thought process.

Approached with sarcasm, some users questioned if he was this skeptical over “digital mail” –  a nod to the fact there was once a time when pundits thought email was unnecessary. He said in that case, emails transfer information and not actual paper, referencing fiat money and ignoring the fact that paper money gets digitally transferred endlessly all day long via debit cards, PayPal, Venmo, and more.

He also explained, that “throughout history, private challenges to sovereign currencies have been deemed an existential threat to sovereign power and treated as such. “Everyone can draw their own conclusions,” he added.

There is always a chance that governments could view it as a threat, but the asset was made to be decentralized and operate outside of the reach of state actors. And the argument is weak from someone who knows gold well enough to be aware that US citizens were once banned from holding the precious metal under Executive Order 6102, and could just as easily be at risk.

The only reason why Bitcoin would be targeted by the government when gold hasn’t in decades would be due to the cryptocurrency being viewed as much more dangerous of a threat to fiat currencies that are used to control the world.

But any government banning BTC would be at risk of a catch 22 like situation. Being the odd man out could let other countries garner a larger share of the limited supply, leaving whatever nations late to catch on at a disadvantage if it becomes the global reserve currency.

The analogy about digital steak is incredibly poor, but email is the ideal example. The best technologies are the ones you don’t need until they become commonplace, but once they are, they become everyday staples.

So perhaps the digital gold narrative is wrong, but solely due to the fact that nicknaming it after the precious metal, despite decades of the gold standard, would be selling the cryptocurrency a few coins short.

The bad, tragic news is ….. there’s a flood coming: This flood of fiat is spewing forth from every central bank in the world. It’s going to be a massive all engulfing flood. In fact, the flood is already here, but it’s going to get a lot, lot worse. But the good news is, we have an Ark that anyone with foresight can climb aboard to avoid the flood. That Ark …. is Bitcoin. While others are drowning in the flood of currency, I have faith that the Bitcoin Ark, made from math and science, will float and save me from the flood. And, because you’re reading this post, you probably \also have faith in the Ark. But 99.9999% of the world either doesn’t know there’s a flood, or doesn’t care about the flood, or doesn’t think there’s anything they can do about the flood. And interestingly, the more people who get on the Ark, the stronger and more resilient the Ark becomes. As more people get on the Ark, w’ll not only survive, but we’ll thrive. So it’s in our collective best interest to help as many people as possible appreciate that the Ark exists, and that it will ensure they survive the flood. Before this post, I referred to “appreciating the Ark” as “seeing the crypto light”. on June 29th, 2017. I became of the belief that crypto was the biggest thing to happen in the history of humanity, even though I didn’t deeply understand it. So, in a manic state, I started feverishly writing about crypto because: On October 8, 2017, I wrote “” to create a framework for myself, and to help others understand crypto. It was the most read piece on crypto on Medium for three days, but it was totally ineffective in helping people see the crypto light. On May 8, 2018, I wrote “.” It highlighted the problems, but didn’t propose any solutions. On March 6, 2019, I wrote “.” That helped me appreciate that we don’t see the world as it is, but as we are. “” was my latest attempt at creating a Bitcoin narrative (published on 4/9/20, 4 days ago). I focused on “faith” as a narrative. We believe in a lot of things we can’t see or understand, because we have faith. And I have faith in Bitcoin. It was a small leap to go from “faith” to the Ark narrative, which really speaks to me. Will it speak to others? I’ll keep you posted. But also that there is no “best” Bitcoin narrative any more than there’s a best flavor at Baskin Robbins or a best religion ( ). There’s only what we believe in, what we like, what speaks to us, works best for each of us. So I’m going to start collecting Bitcoin narratives. Because I believe if we have more narratives, we’ll have more ways to help people understand Bitcoin, and more more people will get on the Ark. So please clap for this post (up to 50 times!) so more people see it, and please post a narrative below if there’s one that speaks to you. I’ll see you on the Ark! Written by

The CEO of the world’s largest digital asset manager, Grayscale, says that the demand from institutions has only accelerated in 2021. He also said that the narrative for large corporations to jump on the Bitcoin bandwagon has shifted from “why” to “why not.”

A couple of years back, the cryptocurrency community was celebrating the fact that some hedge funds are talking about Bitcoin, eagerly anticipating their decision to finally join the BTC bandwagon and buy Bitcoin as part of their portfolio.

Over the past year or so, this narrative has shifted immensely. Major public companies, the latest of which being none other than Elon Musk’s Tesla, have already put Bitcoin on their balance shift. Large hedge funds and billionaire investors are on board, allocating certain portions of their portfolio to buy Bitcoin.

This has been perhaps mostly reflected in the tremendous growth in the assets under management of Grayscale – the world’s leading digital asset fund. Just recently, CryptoPotato reported that they’ve managed to top $30 billion in AUM – a record for the company. Now, the CEO, Michael Sonnenschein, says that the demand is nowhere near decreasing. In fact, he said that it’s only accelerating in 2021, despite 2020 being a massive year for Bitcoin’s institutional adoption.

— Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) February 10, 2021

In addition, Michael Sonnenschein revealed that the narrative for companies to buy Bitcoin has changed from “why” to “why not,” indicating that the merits of the cryptocurrency have become more than apparent.

This doesn’t come as a surprise in the current Bitcoin landscape. Just a few days ago, CryptoPotato reported that Bill Miller’s fund, Miller Opportunity Trust, has filed a document with the SEC that reveals its intentions to invest in the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust.

Moreover, it’s not only Bitcoin that the trust has been hoarding. Last week, Grayscale also added a massive $38 million worth of ETH after having halted its Ethereum Trust for more than a month.

If the running joke of the late 2017 bitcoin price surge was the image of families discussing crypto around the Thanksgiving dinner table (“Grandma, you should buy litecoin!”), the theme of the late 2020 run has been Wall Street hedge fund runners and billionaire investors going on television to say some form of, “I was wrong.”

Since its inception, the bitcoin market has always been fueled by narratives.

After events like the FBI shutting down Silk Road in 2013 (an online black market site that used bitcoin as its payment) and the theft of 850,000 bitcoins from Mt. Gox in 2014 (an early bitcoin exchange that filed bankruptcy shortly thereafter), bitcoin was for years dogged by a stigma that it is unsafe, subject to theft, and favored by hackers and scammers.

Wall Street investment firms pumped a total $5.75 billion into crypto funds in 2020, up 660% from 2019, according to a crypto inflows report from CoinShares. That flood has boosted Grayscale Investments, the largest crypto asset fund, to $20 billion in assets.

But with maturity comes regulation.

Wall Street firms may welcome regulation as a sign of seriousness, but regulation is at odds with the original appeal of bitcoin to its earliest adopters (many of whom were libertarian): that it’s outside government reach and control, unregulated, no middleman. This push and pull is yet another narrative that will continue and intensify in 2021 and beyond, as the bitcoin investment market matures.

Daniel Roberts is an editor-at-large at Yahoo Finance and has covered bitcoin since 2011. Follow him on Twitter at trong>Read more:

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Apr 16, 2020 07:00&nbspUTC; | Updated: Apr 16, 2020 at 07:00&nbspUTC; Crypto Narrative Confront Reality By Rajat Gaur eToro, an investment platform released a State of Digital Assets report for the first quarter of 2020. The document consists of 50-pages that tours an in-depth market insights, macro trends, and community sentiment. As this document is far lengthy and can take much of your precious time, we have come up with the key findings and every information of the report in detail. Key Findings: With the start of the report, the report covers that over 35 percent of eToro users have Bitcoin, whereas over 97 percent of users are on the assets. In the report, there is Twitter data combined by eToro partner TheTie. Furthermore, it states that this is a positive investor sentiment as Bitcoin-related tweet volume has reached 47 percent in the very first quarter of 2020 with over 60 percent of positive cases. This recent market turmoil results in the widespread coronavirus pandemic across the globe. With this sudden fall of the economy, Bitcoin’s foundational narrative as digital gold is has also resulted in negative within its first major test. So the report covers that, Bitcoin started this current year as the worst global financial crisis since the fall of central bank monetary policy. Considering social media reports, the analysis among Bitcoin acolytes is narrative enough with the sound. Moreover, from the sources of TheTie’s data, sentiment correlations between Bitcoin and gold have escalated majorly from the last month of the previous year. Whereas sentiment correlations between Bitcoin and the S&P 500 index have been minimum. If we come in the real market world, market data narrates that Bitcoin’s correlation with the S&P 500 has reached a new all-time high. Moreover, gold’s correlation and Bitcoin seems positive but it has a lesser degree than its correlation with the S&P 500. Most of the assets are in trend and moving in the same direction due to the stability in dollars. The report covers that with the beginning of economic downturns, most of the major investors are expected to flock to cash and hold across the board. Daniel Larimer Hints At His New B2B Project Without Tokens READ MORE 7 hours ago Four Million Quidd User Login Credentials on Sale on Dark Web READ MORE 12 hours ago Kansas City Fed on Correlation of Bitcoin READ MORE 14 hours ago BitMEX Donates $2.5 Million Towards COVID-19 Crisis READ MORE 14 hours ago Bitcoin’s Mining Difficulty Implies Return of the Miners READ MORE 15 hours ago Facebook’s Stock Drops 4.5% READ MORE 16 hours ago AVA Launches First University worth $50K READ MORE 16 hours ago

Consider this – At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s dominance was up from 60 percent to 61.4 percent. As for the market’s altcoins, double-digit growth for Polkadot, Cardano, XRP, BNB, LTC, and BCH, etc. has been the norm lately. Nearly all top metrics point to an extended price rally for Bitcoin.

Apart from the metrics that point to Bitcoin’s bullish narrative, behind the scenes of the spot and derivatives exchanges, institutions and crypto-trusts are locking up huge volumes of Bitcoin and Ethereum. As of 16 February 2021, the Grayscale Bitcoin trust had effectively removed 650,000 Bitcoins from the circulating supply, bringing the liquid supply down to 14 million.

Based on data from CoinMetrics, Bitcoin’s free float supply is a little over 14 million, against the current supply of 18.6 million. Though Bitcoin’s actual or native supply is 18.6 Million, the free float is available for trading on exchanges and for institutions. Of the top institutions with Bitcoin trusts, Grayscale has over $31 billion worth of Bitcoin. Furthermore, a huge portion of Bitcoin’s supply is held dormant for the long-term.

Less than 45 percent of the total Bitcoin supply has moved on the network since 2020. Despite the price hitting new highs of $50,000 on top exchanges, over 55 percent of Bitcoin remains dormant. While the percentage of active supply 5Y – 7Y increased significantly over the past few weeks, the number still remains low at 45 percent.

It should also be noted that the supply active for less than 1Y – 2Y dropped over the past three weeks, based on data from Glassnode alerts, with the same fueling the bullish narrative supporting the price rally.

Apart from the trust’s activity and dormant Bitcoin, CME Futures have offered institutional investors exposure to Bitcoin derivatives and this has opened up new avenues for institutional clients. They can opt for depositing BTC into the Grayscale Bitcoin trust and at the same time, short Bitcoin on CME. This would offer them free Bitcoin, basically the premium from Grayscale.

This may be one of the top reasons why Grayscale continues to attract institutional clients, as long as the premium remains relatively high. As exchange-traded volumes climb up on both spot exchanges and CME, the likelihood of an extended price rally increases in the current market cycle.

Bitcoin continues to be uncertain of its place in the global markets. The coin has been called a global markets hedge and been aligned to more of a ‘digital gold’, but at the same time, it has failed to impress as an anti-correlated asset, following the stock markets down on many occasions.

However, there are still arguments both way for the coin. There have been instances where a weakening US Dollar has seen the price of Bitcoin grow as it shows its potential as a hedge, and more recently, the potential end of the Covid-19 pandemic in sight has tanked the price of the coin.

This occurrence shows that Bitcoin is less suited to a world back on track and growing economies. The end of Covid-19 would mean a return to stronger markets and less need for a hedge, and this is shown in the Bitcoin price.

Whether this is enough to call Bitcoin a full hedge again remains to be seen, but its place, and price in a post-Covid-19 world will certainly have an effect on its direction.

On Monday, pharmaceutical company Pfizer, in collaboration with biotech company BioNTech, announced a breakthrough in its COVID-19 vaccine. Bitcoin fell approximately $1,000, over 6%, between on the vaccine news, from $15,800 down to a daily low near $14,815.

The vaccine, however, still awaits final approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration:

“Submission for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) planned for soon after the required safety milestone is achieved, which is currently expected to occur in the third week of November.”

The notion that Bitcoin is behaving more like an anti-correlated asset was further bolstered when, at this vaccine news, the rest of the global markets mostly rose. The S&P 500 spoiled up almost 4% in price at market open this morning.

At the same time, gold, another store-of-value asset, has fallen more than 5% and looks to be falling even more.

The news of a vaccine and the greater implications it could have on the globe and getting back to normal is even being felt across individual stocks.. Video conferencing platform Zoom watched its stock decline by approximately 19%, while Netflix fell almost 10%. Even e-commerce giant Amazon dropped more than 5%. This seems to add to the narrative that Bitcoin is good in a global crisis, unlike stocks and general markets.

Bitcoin’s growth story this season has been fueled by low Bitcoin supply on exchanges and high stablecoin supply. Historically, these two factors have been a recipe for a price rally. With Bitcoin’s exchange-traded volume up and dominance gradually resuming older highs, the altcoin craze is also on its way.

Consider this – At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s dominance was up from 60 percent to 61.4 percent. As for the market’s altcoins, double-digit growth for Polkadot, Cardano, XRP, BNB, LTC, and BCH, etc. has been the norm lately. Nearly all top metrics point to an extended price rally for Bitcoin.

Apart from the metrics that point to Bitcoin’s bullish narrative, behind the scenes of the spot and derivatives exchanges, institutions and crypto-trusts are locking up huge volumes of Bitcoin and Ethereum. As of 16 February 2021, the Grayscale Bitcoin trust had effectively removed 650,000 Bitcoins from the circulating supply, bringing the liquid supply down to 14 million.

Based on data from CoinMetrics, Bitcoin’s free float supply is a little over 14 million, against the current supply of 18.6 million. Though Bitcoin’s actual or native supply is 18.6 Million, the free float is available for trading on exchanges and for institutions. Of the top institutions with Bitcoin trusts, Grayscale has over $31 billion worth of Bitcoin. Furthermore, a huge portion of Bitcoin’s supply is held dormant for the long-term.

Less than 45 percent of the total Bitcoin supply has moved on the network since 2020. Despite the price hitting new highs of $50,000 on top exchanges, over 55 percent of Bitcoin remains dormant. While the percentage of active supply 5Y – 7Y increased significantly over the past few weeks, the number still remains low at 45 percent.

It should also be noted that the supply active for less than 1Y – 2Y dropped over the past three weeks, based on data from Glassnode alerts, with the same fueling the bullish narrative supporting the price rally.

Apart from the trust’s activity and dormant Bitcoin, CME Futures have offered institutional investors exposure to Bitcoin derivatives and this has opened up new avenues for institutional clients. They can opt for depositing BTC into the Grayscale Bitcoin trust and at the same time, short Bitcoin on CME. This would offer them free Bitcoin, basically the premium from Grayscale.

This may be one of the top reasons why Grayscale continues to attract institutional clients, as long as the premium remains relatively high. As exchange-traded volumes climb up on both spot exchanges and CME, the likelihood of an extended price rally increases in the current market cycle.

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Ekta is a full-time journalist at AMBCrypto and her specialization lies in spot markets. Currently pursuing her MBA, she is passionate about trading, fintech, and everything decentralized.

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Despite the fact that Bitcoin has been long-touted as a “non-correlated asset”, there have been many instances when the largest cryptocurrency behaved similarly to the mainstream market. Altcoins undergoing another major pullback was occasioned with occurs not as drop significantly in the traditional markets and additionally in gold’s price which took a massive hit as markets opened. Amid rising fears of the pandemic, the US Stock market fell to a 2-months low with the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropping over 700 points in the afternoon trading sessions. tweet read, Additionally, data from Skew shows that the one-year realized correlation between Bitcoin and S&P 500 reached 52.9%. Commenting on the latest price movement, popular Podcaster, Lark Davis tweeted, Besides, the one-year realized correlation between Bitcoin and Gold was also hovering a little below its ATH. Notably, prior to 2018, the Bitcoin-Gold correlation was negative and hence the narrative was mostly dismissed. Similar was the case with other tech stocks or stock indices such as VIX. The recent trend could also potentially signal to the point Bitcoin has slowly evolved into a mainstream asset over the last two years and hence its correlations with non-crypto assets are important to gauge its price movement in the coming days. The coronavirus crisis has impacted every industry, from tourism to real estate, health care to manufacturing and the cryptocurrency industry is not exempt. While Bitcoin did start with an impressive streak in the first quarter of 2020, it hit a snag as the pandemic’s economic blow quickly affected all markets. Similar to the traditional market, the collective crypto market crashed by more than 50% from its February high. To keep track of DeFi updates in real time, check out our DeFi news feed Here.

The effects of Elon Musk’s tweets and Twitter bio update have been felt throughout the Bitcoin community, with the crypto’s price responding to the same in the last 72 hours. In fact, in a 24-hour period alone, Bitcoin’s price hiked by over 18 percent, a hike fueled by Musk’s tweets and institutional demand.

In response to the same, Bitcoin recorded over 1.25 million active addresses and $95.83 billion worth of Bitcoin transacted on-chain. Now, the critical question is – Was there any spillover into Ethereum?

Ethereum’s price rose by over 5 percent over the same timespan. What does this entail? Well, this suggests there was some spillover, with investment flows moving into Ethereum from Bitcoin. Further, in the context of the current Bitcoin rally, it is also worth mentioning that Ethereum’s active supply has continued to drop. In fact, the Amount of Supply Last Active 3y-5y (1d MA) fell to a 4-month low of 18.6 million ETH, based on data from Glassnode.

Though the active supply has been dropping for some time now, why does it signal a change this time around? Well, because investment flows are a critical component for an increase in volatility, trade volume, and the price of Ethereum, with the dropping active supply and shortage of supply narrative critical to Ethereum’s price rally.

The hike in institutional investment flows from Bitcoin traders and from the CME ETH Futures launch has given a boost to the trade volume and demand on exchanges. Additionally, just hours ago, the ETH mean fees paid hit an ATH of $19.95. It is metrics like these that indicate that Ethereum’s price is moving towards its next high after hitting the ATH of $1815.96.

Now, there is also the likelihood that resistance in crossing the ATH may contribute to Ethereum’s price being rangebound like Bitcoin. However, while the correlation between the two assets has dropped since the beginning of 2020, the narratives for both are nearly the same. Ethereum’s ATH came on the heels of Bitcoin recording its own ATH. If Bitcoin’s price continues to rally, investment flows may continue into Ethereum, and with the interest in Ethereum Futures on CME, it is likely that the top altcoin may hit a new ATH all over again.

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Ekta is a full-time journalist at AMBCrypto and her specialization lies in spot markets. Currently pursuing her MBA, she is passionate about trading, fintech, and everything decentralized.

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The financial and economic narratives surrounding Bitcoin (BTC) barely scratch the surface of what makes the digital asset so unique, according to Michael Saylor, CEO of MicroStrategy. 

In an exclusive interview with Austin Davis for Cointelegraph, Saylor calls Bitcoin “a masterpiece of monetary engineering,” and one that will likely go down in history as the world’s “first engineered monetary network.”

That “leak,” Saylor says, is inflation, something Bitcoin has been mathematically designed to resist.  

Saylor gave the interview in front of his now-famous 17th century Spanish Galleon, which was intricately crafted in the 19th century. Saylor described the model as a "work of art," and one that provides him with added motivation. The fact that such vessels transported gold across the ocean in days of yore is certainly not lost on him.

Bitcoin has become an $850 billion asset following its latest price surge, but that’s only the beginning of its market impact, according to Saylor. He explains why Bitcoin will eventually “subsume gold” to become a $10 trillion asset before reaching $20, $30, $50 and even $100 trillion in value. At that point, Bitcoin will be the “core of the monetary planet.”

Saylor recently pitched Bitcoin to 1,400 corporate executives, where he discussed strategies for incorporating the digital asset into treasury reserves. In his interview with Davis for Cointelegraph, Saylor had a few words of wisdom about what hodlers should do with their Bitcoin if they hope to achieve generational wealth.

"You should buy it and hold it forever," he opined. "My advice would be to borrow against it tax-free, never take capital gains, never take an operating income." 

Saylor's outlook reflects his own strategy of perma-hodling the digital asset as part of a deliberate campaign to adopt the Bitcoin Standard. His conviction is not only based on Bitcoin's underlying technology, but on the rapidly declining value of fiat currency. His now-famous analogy comparing fiat money to a melting ice cube appears to be resonating with his peers. 

Check out the interview to learn more.