Bucky
Sunday Ramble
If it’s not one adventure, it’s another living in the jungle. This last week’s confirmed that the itchy heads we’ve been experiencing were head lice. Rounds of chemicals, essential oils, laundry runs, and lots of prayers that we got the suckers have now happened. We’ll know soon enough if we can claim victory, but I can’t say this has been my favorite jungle adventure.
Victory does not seem to be coming anytime soon in the unfolding Ukraine v Russia saga. It’s a horrible situation for both sides without considering the strong possibility of it sucking in more nation-states. Russian citizens have been economically cut off from the rest of the world while the Ukrainians defend their sovereignty from the Russian invasion. Enough misinformation and disinformation are floating around to choke the Major League Eaters. I fell prey to it myself with the tear-jerking video I posted in last week’s Ramble. I thought it was of a Ukrainian going off to war — it turns out it was a Russian soldier saying goodbye to his family. Despite the screw-up, a friend asked how I was getting solid info these days, and I told him it was via citizen journalism on Twitter. After witnessing the pandemic debacle (did it get canceled?) and the underhanded attacks on Bitcoin for years, I’m convinced my three-year-old has a better handle on the news than the mainstream media. At least she’d look at me cluelessly instead of trying to re-write my mental landscape.
Where am I going with all this? Institutional collapse. Perhaps not actual destruction of institutions but an overwhelming loss of faith from all camps in the ability for institutions to care about the collective good of the constituents they serve. It’s part and parcel of the times we live in. Every 80-100 years, dating back 500 years, there’s been a Crisis period. It’s a period when faith in institutions becomes abysmal, and humanity is brought back together by some catastrophic event giving rise to institutional rebirth. If you’ve been around these parts long enough, you’ll know that I’m paraphrasing from The Fourth Turning, a book written in the 1990s that accurately described we’d be living through a Crisis period RIGHT NOW.
The how’s and why’s of this occurring are beyond this evening’s Ramble, but I keep coming back to what happened 500 years ago to start this shindig off. So I’ll give you the answer: the printing press democratized once-sacred knowledge to the masses. The ideas proliferating across Europe at that time led to the Protestant Reclamation, which led first to the separation of church and state and then the birth of the nation-state. That’s right; the nation-state has not existed in perpetuity. It’s a relatively recent phenomenon dating back to the 18th and 19th centuries. To summarize: new information spreading via the printing press gave rise to civilizational transformation.
As I wrote last week, I believe we’re living through the era of separating money and state. Just as the printing press gave rise to the mass understanding of ideas guarding power structures, Bitcoin is today’s invention that is pulling back the curtain on today’s carefully guarded power structure — the money printer. Heck, just six years ago, when I started this journey, the word “fiat” brought derision and car jokes. Today, there’s broad comprehension that fiat means government-created money without backing. That’s an incredible knowledge leap for humanity!
Why is monetary knowledge necessary? Because it is behind the gasping breaths of an old power structure collapsing. Russia, the US, and China are vying for the top dog status on the fodder of human lives. All are using their propaganda machines to maintain the illusion of control domestically while relying on their war machines to keep their external enemies at bay. Yet all three are hollowing themselves internally via their money printers to pay for their propaganda and war efforts. It’s not the local people in any of these nations who support these aims — almost everyone everywhere wants to enjoy life with the people they love.
The good news is that I don’t see how this can continue much longer. By much longer, I mean for another decade at most. Like a sprout germinating under an impenetrable sidewalk, Bitcoin has poked its way through the concrete jungle and is growing into a sturdy tree. The once invincible surrounding buildings are slowly tilted off their foundations as the roots from the Bitcoin tree raise the earth. Individuals are coming from far and wide to try and understand what this new emergent digital creature is. Once they’ve arrived, they don’t leave and instead turn, share their knowledge with newcomers, and protect the Bitcoin tree by converting their fiat into bitcoin.
I realize I’m waxing hyperbolic here, but I’ve not met anyone who’s come to a different conclusion after spending time with Bitcoin. Even in these dark times, those that have are the most optimistic people I have come across. Why? Because they see a path forward for humanity to reach a brighter future. Not in the broken halls of rotten and decaying institutions but in a public good that thrives despite the institutional rot. It’s not wrong to call Bitcoin the first digital institution for the common good. Lord knows we need one — an institution unyielding to psychotic power structures hell-bent on subjecting humanity to an inhuman future.
I’ve quoted it more than once in my Rambles, but it never stops being true —
“You never change something by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” — Buckminster Fuller
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Bitcoin Price Prediction
Weekly Range: $28k - $44k
Volatile is right. Last week, Bitcoin’s price went well above my predicted range of $40k, reaching as high as $44k before ending the week at $38.4k — not much above where it started the week $37.7k. Although it was a substantial rejection of the weekly highs, the fact that the bears couldn’t push the price down further suggests an inkling of sellers’ exhaustion. The lively price action was amidst Ukraine and Russian conflict, causing global markets to gyrate. That backdrop doesn’t appear to be changing any time soon, which leads me to believe the volatility will continue. If this week closes below $36k, the bears will have the upper hand, while a weekly close above $44.4k will show the bulls do. Despite leaving an $8k price range between $36k and $44k, the best odds are for us to continue inside it this week.
Bitcoin Q & A
Q: Is Bitcoin a safe haven asset?
A: It depends on who you’re asking.
Per Admirals Market, a safe haven asset is expected to hold or increase in value during economic uncertainty and market turbulence periods. Investors seek safe haven assets in such times to limit their exposure to possible downturns in the market. Globally, most people don’t think of Bitcoin as a safe haven asset. Still, there has been a substantial uptick in adoption in markets where the local currency is experiencing extreme devaluation. As a result, individuals see being in Bitcoin, and outside their government’s control, as a safer alternative. Most recently, this has been seen in Russia and Ukraine, but the behavior has also occurred in Turkey, Venezuela, Argentina, and Lebanon.
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