š» Bitcoin isnāt going to $1 million (yet)
Plus, which bank is next to collapse?
GM friends, weāve got a big week ahead of us. Interest rates are continuing to hike and banks are continuing to go down. Where does Bitcoin sit in all this? Right at the center of it. We may not be hitting $1 million Bitcoin yet, but we certainly need it more than ever.
Me and the fellas paying our respects to SVB, First Republic, PacWest, and every regional bank after they got wacked by the Fed
— litquidity (@litcapital)
May 4, 2023
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In this issue:
š£The big story of the week. Bitcoin isnāt going to $1 million (yet). Balajis ends the Bitcoin to $1 million bet early, but not all may be lost.
šBullish news. Sui mainnet launches successfully, Bitcoin NFTs reaches 3 million inscriptions and Amazon NFT marketplace is set to launch in the coming weeks.
š»Big, bad FUD. Biden administration wants to tax Bitcoin miners 30%, BUSD stablecoin is down bad and Coinbase is shutting down its Bitcoin Borrow program.
š£The big story of the week
Bitcoin isnāt going to $1 million (yet)
You may recall about a month ago, a little $1 million Bitcoin bet went viral among the crypto community.
The BitSignal
How do you ring the fire alarm on the internet?
How do you show itās not a false alarm?
I am putting up the BitSignal.
$1M in BTC to alert us to the stealth financial crisis.
$1000 per tweet, for the best 1000.
Reply with your charts, graphs, stats, memes!
Bringā¦ twitter.com/i/web/status/1ā¦— Balaji (@balajis)
Mar 16, 2023
Bitcoin is going to $1 million in 90 days! This was the bold statement that Balajis was betting on.
At that time, Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank had just collapsed, and several other banks were at risk of following the same path. An obscene amount of money was being printed to rescue these failing banks and Balajis made the bold prediction that as we enter into hyperinflation, Bitcoin would reach $1 million in 90 days.
In fact, he was so bullish on it that he publicly placed a bet with two individuals wagering on Bitcoin to hit $1 million in 90 days, or he will send $1 million in USDC.
I will take that bet.
You buy 1 BTC.
I will send $1M USD.
This is ~40:1 odds as 1 BTC is worth ~$26k.
The term is 90 days.
All we need is a mutually agreed custodian who will still be there to settle this in the event of digital dollar devaluation.
If someone knows how to do thisā¦ twitter.com/i/web/status/1ā¦— Balaji (@balajis)
Mar 17, 2023
Well, only 30 days in and the bet has been closed at under 97% of his $1 million target price. Sticking to his word, Balajis donated $1.5 million (more than the original bet) of his own money to Bitcoin core developers, a non-profit for poverty and James Medlock, one of the betters Balajis lost to.
I JUST BURNED A MILLION TO TELL YOU THEY'RE PRINTING TRILLIONS
The million dollar bet is now closed out by mutual agreement. I made $1M+ in provable on-chain donations, which you can verify by clicking the links below:
1) $500k to Bitcoin Core development via Chaincode:ā¦ twitter.com/i/web/status/1ā¦
— Balaji (@balajis)
May 2, 2023
Thatās a hefty bet to lose, but according to Balajis, not all was lost. Instead, he sees it as a necessary sunk cost to sound the alarm that something is wrong with the economy because we canāt rely on the public sector to warn us.
āI spent my own money to send a probably costly signal that thereās something wrong with the economy and that it's not going to be a āsoft landingā like Powell promises ā but something much worse.ā
Good guy Balajis.
Bitcoin may not be hitting $1 million (yet), but Balajis is on to something. Banks are continuing to plunge with PacWest Bancorp as the next target to get axed following First Republic Bank earlier this week.
JUST IN: Regional bank stocks are plunging with multiple stocks down 20%+ in a matter of minutes.
PacWest Bancorp, $PACW, now down 29%, stock halted.
Western Alliance Bank, $WAL, now down 25%, stock halted.
Metropolitan Bank, $MCB, now down 24%, stock halted.
Buckle up.
— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter)
May 2, 2023
Itās a mess and itās only going to get worse as bank deposits continue to fall and more money gets printed.
In the wake of SVB's collapse, the Fed implemented the BTFP, an additional facility to help banks improve their liquidity.
First Republic Bank took $13.8bn from the BTFP & failed anyway.
Why? The BTFP treats the symptom, not the disease.
As long as deposits keep falling, bankā¦ httptwitter.com/i/web/status/1ā¦p
— Steven Anastasiou (@steveanastasiou)
May 1, 2023
Bitcoin is the only way.
šBullish news
šĀ Much anticipated SUI blockchain launches to mainnet successfully.Ā Developed by former Meta employees, this new L1 chain is said to be a āSolana killerā that is designed for speedy transactions and reduced delay in smart contract deployment. Recently, it raised over $49 million from 100,000 users and Binance users staked over $4 billion worth of crypto to farm SUI tokens.
šĀ Bitcoin NFT reaches 3 million inscriptions. There are now over 3 million NFTs tied to the Bitcoin blockchain. Most of them are text-based, which costs less than digital art. Looks like Bitcoin NFTs are here to stay!
šļøĀ Rumor has it that Amazon NFT marketplace is launching on May 15th.Ā Amazon has been quite tight-lipped about the details, but what we know so far is that users will be able to easily purchase NFTs with their credit card and that there may be a mix between physical and digital. Regardless, this is huge news and win for mass adoption!
š»Big, bad FUD
š°ļøĀ Biden wants Bitcoin miners to pay a 30% US federal tax. In a blog post published by the White House, the Biden administration proposed that Bitcoin miners should be taxed 30% for their high energy consumption. They even go on to argue that crypto doesnāt drive significant economic activity. Okay then.
šĀ Binance USD stablecoin is down bad. BUSDās stablecoin supply use to be over $23 billion, but it now sits at just over $6 billion. This comes after the heavy regulatory scrutiny against Binance. So who's in the lead now? Tetherās USDT.
šŖ¦Coinbase is shutting down their Bitcoin Borrow service. Starting May 10th, Coinbase will stop allowing users to borrow Bitcoin using cash due to continued regulatory uncertainty. But Bitcoin Borrow isnāt the only thing the SEC has its eyes on. Coinbase staking, Coinbase Prime and Coinbase Wallet have also been under question.