Bitcoin’s Revenge

October 15, 2021

|In Weekend Recap

|By Osprey Team

With the recent rally, Bitcoin is again up over 100% year-to-date (YTD). This comes on the heels of a 400%+ gain for 2020.

Not too shabby.

Nevertheless, if you look at it relative to Ethereum or the other best performing altcoins for 2021, it pales.

Here’s a BTC and ETH comparison chart YTD:

ETH performance has crushed BTC. And if we added the likes of Cardano or Solana, it would look considerably more lopsided in favor of the alts.

But more recently a funny thing has happened. Here’s a one month chart with the 4 coins and lo and behold, BTC is the one doing the crushing.

Is this about the apparently imminent BTC Futures ETF? That’s the dominant media narrative for sure (See more below).

We have no idea, though we’ve learned to treat dominant media narratives as suspect.

Is it about regression, you know, just math?

This is certainly possible.

But maybe there’s something more happening here. For one thing, Bitcoin transactions are growing fast with payment networks like Lightning bolting ahead. And for another, it is Bitcoin. The bellwether crypto.

?? U.S. Bitcoin Mining Emerges

Following China’s ban, the U.S. leads the world in Bitcoin mining. 35.4% of the global hash rate falls within its borders.

Here’s the nice visualization:

China dominated until it didn’t. Oof.

Here’s the University of Cambridge with more.

? Dimon Says Bitcoin Is Worthless… Nobody Cares

JPMorgan Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon said,

I personally think that Bitcoin is worthless.

He continued,

I don’t want to be a spokesperson — I don’t care. It makes no difference to me. Our clients are adults. They disagree. That’s what makes markets. So, if they want to have access to buy yourself bitcoin, we can’t custody it but we can give them legitimate, as clean as possible, access.

Dimon dismissed Bitcoin back in 2016 and has been negative on it ever since.

Maybe he’s just salty he missed it?

See Jamie’s full CNBC interview here.

Meanwhile, billionaire Barry Sternlicht thinks Gold is kind of “worthless.”

Billionaires… lol.

? Coinbase NFT Marketplace Drop Hot AF

Things continue to accelerate in the adoption of NFTs. This week…

Coinbase announced Coinbase NFT, an NFT marketplace with a social twist.

Users will be able to mint, purchase, showcase, and discover what’s new.

It was a hot news drop as the company said >1M signed the waitlist in the first 24 hours and 2M sign ups as of Friday, October 15, 2021.

The preview photo has an Instagram feel. Have a look —

And click here to join the waitlist.

FTX also unveiled its NFT marketplace on Monday.

The crypto exchange supports existing Solana NFTs and plans to support Ethereum NFTs soon.

Users can mint new NFTs directly on the marketplace and list them in USD, SOL, or ETH.

See the press release here.

Phantom, a popular wallet for Solana NFTers, shared that it’s adding 100,000 new users per week.

Even SpongeBob secured it’s spot on the bandwagon.

And here’s our favorite NFT we stumbled upon this week:

An Electric Storm by Reuben Wu

The NFT owner will also receive a physical print which can be electrified via augmented reality.

Pretty sweet.

Here’s additional NFT news if you haven’t had enough —

Nigerian NFT artist first to use social tokens during a Christie’s event.

Crypto Billionaire Mike Novogratz Wants to Turn Tattoos to NFTs.

Sotheby’s announced Sotheby’s Metaverse, an NFT marketplace offering curated NFT collections.

Visa partners with NFT artist Micah Johnson to support the creator economy.

? Investor Product Series IV: Polygon

On Thursday, we published the fourth installment of the Investor Product Series titled, Polygon: Ethereum’s Expressway.

Here’s a preview quote:

Polygon (MATIC) is a Layer-2 protocol for building and connecting Ethereum-compatible blockchains.

It’s the only Ethereum-compatible side chain that offers lower fees and instantaneous settlement. Today, it handles ~6M transactions per day costing less than a penny per transaction.

Polygon looks to provide a scaling solution to Ethereum and become an Internet-of-Blockchains.

Download the paper here.

? Bitcoin Futures ETF Coming Soon…?

Thursday night, the SEC said a Bitcoin futures ETF will not face opposition in their upcoming decision. Bitcoin flew from 57,100 to 59,100 an hour after the news broke.

If approved, two Bitcoin futures ETFs may trade as early as next week.

Here’s Bloomberg with the full scoop.