Picture-less
Daily Ramble
Ciao, Portland. You’ll still be here after we leave, but for the moment, you’re a spooked horse that needs to chow down on some grain and chill out before we’ll enjoy you as we did in the past.1 It’s back to the cranberry farm for us.
I was speaking with friends and family, and they reminded me that not only has Portland been through Antifa and BLM disturbances in the force, but a litany of severe weather experiences since the pandemic started: forest fires smoking citizens indoors for several days and weeks-long ice-induced power outages. So yeah, if you have faith in Portland’s long-term ability to rebound from being punch-drunk, it’s probably a good time to invest in some real estate here.
But for us, we’ll take the nearly 5-hour drive back to the cranberry farm in Bandon in hot-pursuit of open spaces and fear-less air, which is why, with the last minute travel shifts, I didn’t get my Corner out to you yesterday, and it’s coming early morning (Pacific Time) this morning.
I sometimes forget how much Bitcoin knowledge I’ve acquired over the years in studying it. It’s not until I have conversations with friends who are still kicking the edges of Bitcoin with mainstream garbage arguments that I get provoked enough to speak about the absurd change it’s delivering. The global warming change is particularly poignant for me since the mainstream media has done a good job of painting Bitcoin into the wrong corner of the room.
What am I talking about? Bitcoin is the best hope for humanity to avert climate change. If you think I’m crazy for saying that, I fully understand. You’ve read a lot of information saying the exact opposite, and I’m one of a scant few voices out there saying the opposite. Most of us move with the herd, whether we like to admit it or not, and the preponderance of hearing a message sway us to the message — something all good marketers know. That message, absorbed consciously or unconsciously, is that Bitcoin consumes a lot of power, and the only way out of our global warming predicament is to consume less.
But here is where that message is utterly absurd: we’re never going to get humanity to crawl into a cave and start rubbing sticks together to live. We’re going to use energy and continue to use energy to build out our societies. But we can use our energy more efficiently, and that efficiency needs to start with the foundational piece on which society is built: money. Money is the transactional medium lubricating the exchange of goods and services, propelling society into the future as market participants operate in their self-interests. When inflation is causing the money to melt in value like an ice cube on a skillet, people move the money faster and desire to save less. Inconspicuous consumption happens. The stench of this amoral behavior is now beginning to rise into most of US society's nostrils as the inflation on common goods and services becomes unignorable — like the price shock I experienced from purchasing a $9 loaf of bread this week.
Bitcoin stands in stark relief to the inflationary pressures of the Federal Reserve. And indeed, if I were to price any common product on the shelves, it costs loss in BTC than it did this same time last year. And not by a small margin. That $9 loaf of bread would have cost me 82,000 satoshis (fractions of a Bitcoin) last year, and this year it costs me 19,000 satoshis. Those are pretty hard numbers to ignore. Why is this important? Because Bitcoin harnesses the most powerful force on the planet: human self-interest, aka greed.
When billions of people realize they can hold Bitcoin and increase their future purchasing power, they are incented to decrease their consumption today. Since individual consumption in the aggregate is the driver of greenhouses gases causing global warming, changing individuals' behavior in the aggregate is our best hope to avert it. I’ve now watched decades of governmental handwaving and scientific hand-wringing occur as the top-down approach is tried. But I’ve not seen anything meaningful happen to avert the coming catastrophe, despite how shamed and distraught people have become about the situation. On the opposite side, I have seen a dramatic reduction in consumption from almost every person I have watched adopt Bitcoin. Sometimes that reduction in consumption occurs within weeks — especially when a bull market drives the message home.
So if you care about this beautiful blue marble floating through the universe that we collectively share, and you’re not sold that Bitcoin can cause humanity from turning Earth into Mars, take a moment to ask Bitcoiners about their spending behavior. I will not be surprised to discover you becoming pleasantly optimistic about the future of the dirtball we tromp around on. And you might even begin to shame the media for not covering it.
Bitcoin Price Prediction
Today: $46.7k - $49k
Tomorrow: $46.3k - $51.8k
Yesterday was make-or-break-it for the bulls as they erased the price drop the bears had decisively made the prior day. As a result, we’re seeing the bulls pushing into the $49k resistance that’s haunted them the last 5 weeks. A close over $49k would likely push us to rechallenge $53k, the latest high, quickly. More importantly, it would set the stage for a push into the previous all-time high at $65k. But I’m getting ahead of things at this point. The first stop is $49k, where I anticipate resistance and a couple of days of grinding with a day or two of pullbacks. The severity of that pullback, should it occur, will be telling. The bearish case would unfold more strongly if it’s a serious pullback. But here, my bias has gone back to being a bull — if you couldn’t tell!
Bitcoin Q & A
Q: Why are so many mainstream news articles on Bitcoin negative and often in bad faith?
A: I don’t know.
In the nearly 6 years since I’ve been tracking Bitcoin, the number of mainstream news articles that I’ve read offering a fair take on Bitcoin, let alone an optimistic take, has been vanishingly small. I don’t know why and I don’t think anyone could conclusively tell you why. But it is not surprising — Bitcoin’s incentive structure stands opposed to the incentive structure propelling the legacy system. It would surprise me more if there were no friction.
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Me? I offer personal and corporate Bitcoin Implementation Strategies: custody, investing strategy, security, tax management, and inheritance. Contact me for a free initial consultation.
Thanks to Gabe D for the metaphor