Spring Fever
Daily Ramble
I was dismayed to discover that one of my favorite villages in Portugal has been discovered and blasted across US News as the top destination for retiree relocation. Like any quality conservationist who’s discovered his corner of paradise, I want to keep life here completely unchanged from my discovery. Stupid internets going and spoiling it. No, I’m not going to give you a link to see which village.
But I will do my best to spoil my backyard by sharing this shot I took on a recent contemplative hike on the headlands above Praia Grande in Sintra. There was enough wind that a paraglider had his wing out for some weightless exploration of the terrain. Naia is enthralled with paragliders, which I’m hoping is only a passing fancy. The thought of becoming an anxious parent calming another anxious parent doesn’t excite me.
All this is just a warm-up to the meat of my point. The Spring Equinox tore out the final page of winter last weekend, and I know I’m not the only one feeling the spring spirit fill the air. The browning faces of all the kids in our little downstairs pre-school are becoming near impossible to coral indoors any longer — not that we want to. The paths that I used to walk meditatively in winter’s silence are being (re)discovered, and the sounds of birds and bees buzzing through the air makes the best of music to accompany my clicks on the keyboard. It’s here. Spring. And I couldn’t be more happy to watch Winter recede in my rear view mirror.
Here’s to a great spring weekend for everyone in the Northern Hemi. ‘Til Monday, I’m going to do my best to keep my head in the sun and out of a screen and encourage you to do the same. It’s just good medicine.
Favorite Thing on the Interwebs Today
An utterly disorienting perspective.
Bitcoin Price Prediction
Yesterday: $49.5k - $56k
Today: $50.5k - $56k
Weekend: $48k - $60k
I’m back to being cautiously optimistic that our pivot is complete. That means we’re more likely than not to have found the low in the pullback that started 12 days ago. It will need a couple more days to solidify, but assuming we hold the $50k boundary heading into next week, we should be good for moving up again. Why? The weight of the options mentioned yesterday is lifting. That should allow the price to resume a more natural course, i.e., one driven by the price of people buying and selling Bitcoin directly, not derivative products like options, futures, or perpetual swaps.
What do I anticipate for price movement? We’re likely to see the price bounce around the recent lows at $50.5k, maybe even sweeping below them briefly, before moving up. If we clear the $56k region, we’ll have almost certainly confirmed the low. Each of the last three times we had substantial options volume expire, like we are today, the price has jumped substantially in the following days. That’s to say, going into the weekend, there’s precedent for a substantial price move this weekend.
Bitcoin Q & A
Q: Why do Bitcoin miners create new blocks?
A: Because they earn Bitcoin from the block reward and the transaction fees.
Bitcoin miners receive both the block reward and transaction fees for being the first to generate the next block in the blockchain. How they generate the next block is a subject for another Q&A. But once they generate the block, the Bitcoin network deposits all the fees from the transactions contained in the block and the block reward into the miner’s wallet.
Transaction fees are determined dynamically based on the supply and demand of transactions in the network. The more transactions there are, the higher individuals price their fees to be included sooner than later in a block. The miners are then incentivized to pick up the transactions with the highest fees.
The block reward is determined by the Bitcoin protocol and was defined when the network launched in 2009. It is how new bitcoin come into existence. In the beginning, each block reward was 50 Bitcoin. Every four years, the reward is cut in half, also called the halving. Currently, the block reward is 6.25 bitcoin. This explains how 18.6M of the 21M has been mined.
Thanks for reading,
Kent
Have you got questions or a “Favorite Thing on the Interwebs”? Comment below or reply and drop me a line!
If you’re not on the email list, subscribe now — just this newsletter, no advertising.
Me? I offer personal and corporate Bitcoin Implementation Strategies: setup, investing strategy, security, tax management, and inheritance. Contact me for a free initial consultation.