Author: Dale Warburton

Dale is a former attorney turned passionate Bitcoiner with an interest in investments, macro, geopolitics, innovation, tech, nature, wildlife, MMA and Bitcoin (of course).

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Crypto News Superannuation

Australian Super Funds Urged to Think About Crypto Exposure

With global crypto adoption up 880 percent over the past year and up to 70 percent of multinational institutional investors planning to invest in the sector in the coming 12 months, Australian superannuation funds are being urged to consider exposure or risk being left behind.

Different types of institutional investors. Source: Finoa

Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees (AIST) 2021 Conference Talks Crypto

In a panel before the AIST, Genesis Block managing director Chloe White has argued that super funds that dismiss crypto risk underperformance and that crypto or blockchain-based digital assets ought to be viewed as an emerging asset class.

By failing to provide exposure to such assets to its members, super funds were at risk of falling behind:

It’s akin to asking in 1995 whether the internet should be adopted. It is something that seems very obvious in hindsight.

Chloe White, Genesis Block

At the same time, White acknowledged the challenge facing super funds and their position relative to innovation.

If you’re a super fund and looking at how you will be positioned 10 years into the future, it is very possible that your fund is going to underperform the market if you are the [only one] that is not providing any exposure or doesn’t have any exposure to this innovation at this stage of growth.

Chloe White, Genesis Block

Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) Innovation Hub senior adviser and lawyer Jonathan Hatch, who also spoke at the event, recognised how the industrial economy was shifting to a digital one where blockchain cryptocurrencies formed the underlying economic infrastructure.

Recognising that some digital assets were speculative in nature and prone to hype, he argued that there were also “some serious investments being made”.

This new technology [that’s only about] a decade old is the next-generation digital infrastructure for a global economy, upon which we can run financial systems, payment systems, identity managements systems, contracting systems and so on.

Jonathan Hatch, ASIC Innovation Hub senior adviser

Self-Managed Super Funds (SMSF) and Crypto

Earlier this year, a New Zealand-based pension fund, Kiwi Saver, disclosed that it had made an investment in bitcoin in October 2020. While its chief investment officer believes that most super funds in Australia will follow suit within five years, the reality is that Aussie super funds remain behind the eight-ball.

For most, the best way to gain crypto exposure is through an SMSF. While there are an array of different options in the market, Crypto News Australia has compared five of the best.

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Bitcoin Crypto News

Twitter Beta Testing Bitcoin Tipping Using Lightning Network

Twitter appears to be in the process of laying the foundation for allowing users to accept and tip in bitcoin through the lightning network.

Twitter – No Stranger to Bitcoin

Despite producing some of the most disruptive innovations of our time, most of Silicon Valley seemingly isn’t onboard with the monetary revolution that is Bitcoin – except for Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who recently started running his own Bitcoin node and who has always been a vocal public supporter.

We believe bitcoin will be the native currency of the internet. While there are many projects to help make the internet more decentralised, our focus is solely on a sound global monetary system for all.

Jack Dorsey, Twitter CEO

In an earnings call earlier this year, Dorsey said that Bitcoin was indeed a “big part” of the company’s future and that it could further transform future products and services.

One such product recently announced is ‘Tip Jar‘ – a feature that allows users to make and receive tips natively within the Twitter app using PayPal, Venmo and Square’s Cash App.

Against that backdrop, it made sense that the company would eventually move to include bitcoin payments within ‘Tip Jar’.

Now it appears to be close to a reality, according to the MacRumors website, which has reported that:

Twitter’s latest beta update introduces support for providing content creators with bitcoin tips using the ‘Tip Jar’ feature that Twitter introduced earlier this year.

MacRumors

Dorsey Embraces Crypto

Despite the persistent criticism of Twitter’s censorship policies, Dorsey has remained one the more popular CEOs among the crypto community. His other company, Square, famously added US$50 million worth of bitcoin to the company’s balance sheet last year and in Q1, the company enjoyed US$3.5 billion in bitcoin-related revenue.

But Dorsey’s involvement within crypto doesn’t end with bitcoin. Twitter also recently announced that its decentralised social media project, dubbed ‘Blue Sky’, was progressing well following the recruitment of a project lead who had previously worked on privacy coin Zcash.

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Australia Bitcoin Crypto News

Aussie Bitcoiners Launch Industry Body to Promote Bitcoin Only

“Bitcoin, not crypto” is the Bitcoiner maxim. Following hearings before the Senate Committee on Australia as a Technology and Financial Centre, Australian Bitcoiners have just launched the country’s first bitcoin-only industry body.

Bitcoin only. Source: Amber

Australian Bitcoin Industry Body Formed in the Wake of Senate Hearings

As Australian regulators seek to make sense of the burgeoning digital asset ecosystem, numerous participants within the sector have made submissions to the Fintech Senate Committee in anticipation of the final report due to be released in October. While some participants have focused their efforts on calling for greater regulatory clarity, Bitcoiners have always been weary of being lumped together with altcoins.

This was clearly reflected in an impassioned presentation before the Senate Committee by Ethan Timor, the co-founder of Aussie-based bitcoin only exchange Bitaroo.

Bitcoin not crypto. Bitcoin not blockchain. The fiat currency system is broken. It is an experiment that began only 50 years ago and it’s led to more booms and busts, more wealth inequality and more devaluation of currencies. The Aussie dollar for example has lost 90 percent of its value since then.

Ethan Timor, Bitaroo co-founder

When speaking in relation to other crypto assets, Timor noted that:

… most of them are useless, some of them are different shades of scams, others are securities. Greed, not ideals, led to the creation of most. There is only one true altcoin and that is bitcoin. Bitcoin is the altcoin to the fiatcoin.

Ethan Timor, Bitaroo co-founder

Rather than trying to regulate exchanges, Timor argued that users should instead be educated to store their own bitcoin on their own wallet – “not your keys, not your coins”. He called upon regulators and lawmakers to study Bitcoin and “see all that it has to offer”. This, he argued, “will surely lead to classifying it differently than all other cryptocurrencies”.

Recognising that government was largely only interacting with crypto advocates and not with Bitcoin only advocates, he continued:

Get Involved

The initial board members for the industry body were announced via Twitter and included some familiar names within the community:

Membership applications open soon and in the interim, you can follow the group on Twitter.

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Crypto News eToro Trading

eToro’s Q2 Crypto Income Skyrockets: Up 23X Compared to Last Year

Israel-based social trading and multi-asset brokerage company eToro has posted a set of strong Q2 results, which includes exponential growth in crypto-trading income.  

Breakdown of total commissions. Source: eToro Q2 results

Crypto Accounts for 73% of Trading Commissions

As noted in the illustration above, eToro’s year-on-year crypto trading commission increased from seven percent to 73 percent of total trading commissions. To provide some context, there were US$264 million in total crypto commissions, some 23 times larger than the US$11.27 million in crypto-linked charges in Q2 2020. While such growth is in itself impressive, it has no doubt been fuelled by the incredible growth in crypto adoption over the past year.

Cryptoassets drove total commissions in the second quarter of 2021, reflecting retail investors’ strong interest across the cryptos offered by eToro.

CEO Yoni Assia

Interestingly, Bitcoin represented only seven percent of total commissions in Q2, despite amounting to one-fifth of total trading volume and assets under administration. Such trading volume figures are likely a reflection of BTC’s relative underperformance of late, at least compared to some of the altcoins.

Commission by crypto asset. Source: eToro Q2 results

eToro Expands To Provide ‘Holistic’ Crypto Offering

In recent months, the company extended its crypto asset base to include 10 new digital assets, including memecoins such as Dogecoin and Shiba Inu. This brought the total number of crypto assets available across the eToro platform and exchange to 29.

In addition, the company noted it had launched ETH 2.0 staking, which is being rolled out on a country-by-country basis. The platform is designed to enable users who own ETH, ADA and TRX to earn staking rewards proportional to the amount of underlying crypto assets held.

While crypto has been a significant source of growth, eToro also posted large increases in other areas in Q2 as net trading income grew to US$291 million, up 136 percent compared to last year. In addition, its user base also saw an impressive boost, with 2.6 million new registered users, up 121 percent compared to Q2 2020.

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Crypto News

MicroStrategy is at it Again, Buying $177 Million Worth of Bitcoin

MicroStrategy, the undisputed king of bitcoin balance sheets, has further entrenched its position with the acquisition of another 3,907 bitcoins. Michael “GigaChad” Saylor, the company’s charismatic CEO and founder, took to Twitter to share the news with the cyber hornets:

MicroStrategy Edges Towards 1% of Total Supply

Following the announcement, MicroStrategy now holds 108,992 bitcoin on its balance sheet at the remarkably low average entry price of US$26,769.

These holdings push the company over 0.5 percent of bitcoin’s entire hardcap supply of 21 million. In reality, it is likely that the actual figure is closer to 1 percent since up to 19 percent may be missing forever. Although the company owns less than 1 percent of total supply, it has the highest amount of bitcoin holdings of any public company.

MicroStrategy Stays True to its Macro Strategy

This news shouldn’t come as a surprise at all, given that Michael Saylor has repeatedly said his company will continue to buy and HODL bitcoin.

There will never be more than 21 million bitcoin, and we feel like there’s a land grab right now to acquire as much as you can.

Michael Saylor, CEO, MicroStrategy on a July earnings call

In a recent interview with CNBC, Saylor shared the news that MicroStrategy’s Q2 earnings had seen an increase of 13 percent, its best Q2 in six years. As long as it would be “accretive to the company’s shareholders”, Saylor suggested he would continue buying bitcoin. Speaking to the company’s bitcoin holdings, he again reiterated his view that it was digital real estate and further commented on how it had boosted the company’s brand:

Bitcoin has elevated our brand by a factor of 100.

Michael Saylor, CEO, MicroStrategy

MicroStrategy – A Proxy for Bitcoin Exposure

Unlike other acquisitions which have been funded with the company’s free cashflow, debt or stock issuance, MicroStrategy raised close to US$177.5 million following the sale of common stock in Jeffries, an ATM facility.

Given the company’s strategy, numerous institutional investors have viewed it as a bitcoin investment proxy – not only do you get the benefit of a profitable cash generative business, but you also gain leveraged exposure to bitcoin since much of the acquisitions have been funded through debt.

Interestingly, the top ten shareholders of MicroStrategy illustrated in the chart below include the likes of Blackrock and Morgan Stanley, both of whom have expressed negative sentiments about bitcoin. Rather than listening to what they say, it is best to instead focus instead on what they do.

MicroStrategy Top 10 Holders. Source: CNN Money

Thus far, MicroStrategy’s strategy has proved to be successful. Whether this turns out to be the greatest macro strategy of all time remains to be seen.

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Bitcoin Crypto News Market Analysis

Bitcoin Hits 3-Month High, Breaking Key $50,000 Resistance Level

Bitcoin has extended its recent stretch of positive returns by cracking the all-important US$50,000 psychological barrier. As user growth continues to skyrocket and investors find themselves firmly in positive territory, bitcoin bulls appear confident of a strong surge in the remaining months of 2021.

Within the past 35 days, bitcoin has bounced back some 70 percent from its lows. One of the main reasons offered by analysts relates to growth in long-term HODLers.

Record Levels of HODLers

On-chain data suggests we are now seeing record numbers of long-term HODLers. According to lead Bitcoin analyst at Ark Invest, Yassine Elmandjra, the number of short-term bitcoin holders is at an all-time low – a record 84 percent of bitcoin’s supply has not been moved in over three months.

Bitcoin supply last active. Source: Glassnode

A potentially more intuitive visualisation of this trend is outlined in the chart below. Notice the precipitous decline in long-term holders from November 2020 to May 2021 when the price went from around US$15,500 to US$58,000.

Total supply held by long-term holders. Source: Glassnode

Bitcoin’s Next Moves

Should the pattern outlined in the chart above repeat itself, we may be looking at a bitcoin price between US$150,000 and US$200,000. This would be more or less in alignment with Pete Humiston of Kraken Intelligence’s assessment:

Another approach to consider is the weekly moving average convergence/divergence (MACD) indicator for BTC/USD, which has now flipped from red to green. Historically, this has been a reliable indicator of the trajectory of an asset.

MACD indicator. Source: Trading View

The last time a bullish crossover occurred, BTC/USD saw a 5.5x price increase – from US$11,500 in October 2020 to all-time highs of US$64,500 just six months later. Should that play out again, bitcoin may end up over US$220,000 by the end of the year or early 2022.

The inimitable Bitcoin OG Max Keiser would seem to concur:

Of course when it comes to forward price projections, experienced investors generally advise those new to the space not to get overly focused on the short-term price fluctuations, both up and down. What matters, they say, is an asset’s long-term trajectory.

Notwithstanding, bitcoin bulls would be forgiven for being somewhat excited at present. HODLing through 2021 has certainly not been a walk in the park.

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Bitcoin Crypto News

US Mayor Wants to Give All Residents $1,000 in Bitcoin, With a Catch

The mayor of Cool Valley, a city in the US state of Missouri, is raising funds in order to give all residents US$1,000 in bitcoin. If successful, it would come with one big catch.

Jayson Stewart, Mayor of Cool Valley, Missouri. Source: Bitcoin Magazine

Mayor: Holding Bitcoin ‘Could Transform Town’

In a KSDK News interview, Mayor Jayson Stewart outlined his plan to provide all 1,500 residents with up to US$1,000 in bitcoin, suggesting that holding bitcoin could materially transform the town in years to come. In describing how he saw Cool Valley and its residents becoming “wealthier and wealthier”, he noted:

I have friends whose lives have been completely changed, like going from working a regular nine-to-five job to being worth over 80 million dollars in a matter of a few years.

Jayson Stewart, Mayor of Cool Valley

When asked as to how the project would be funded, the mayor said he had supportive donors who had agreed to match any funds that he personally was able to raise.

Get Bitcoin Into the Hands of Those Who Need It Most

One of Stewart’s concerns is that residents would immediately sell their bitcoin and then later, when it was trading much higher, regret it. To prevent this from happening, he was considering the idea of a vesting schedule where residents might not be able to get full access to their bitcoin for a period of five years.

We’re working on ideas like that because that’s my number one concern. If someone just sells their bitcoin to pay their car note, and then when bitcoin is sitting at like $500,000 all these years later, they’re going to really regret that.

Jayson Stewart, Mayor of Cool Valley

As part of the mayor’s plan, he stressed that residents would be given a crash course in cryptocurrency so they could securely store their own bitcoin.

Not Quite the First Free BTC Handout

While the mayor’s plans are undoubtedly progressive and would constitute a first in the US, it isn’t the first time the idea has been floated.

As reported by Crypto News Australia earlier this year, shortly after El Salvador adopted bitcoin as legal tender, the government announced a program whereby it would give US$30 in bitcoin to each of its 6.5 million citizens in exchange for downloading the government wallet.

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Crypto News Surveys

Report: Global Crypto Adoption Up 880% in Past Year

For those paying attention, it is self-evident that crypto has taken off over the past 12 months. Few, however would have predicted the sheer extent and velocity of adoption. According to a recent Chainalysis report, global adoption is up an incredible 880 percent over the past year.

Crypto adoption over past 12 months. Source: Chainalysis

Top 20 Countries Identified

Overall, Vietnam emerged as the clear leader in crypto adoption. It is worth noting that most of the eager adopters are developing nations, suggesting that crypto’s use case is perhaps more readily understood in such regions.

Top 20 in crypto adoption: Chainlysis

Three main trends were identified in the report.

Trend 1: Global Crypto Adoption is Skyrocketing

Adoption has truly skyrocketed since the beginning of 2020, as reflected in the quarter-by-quarter growth chart below. Interestingly, the report notes that the reasons for adoption differ around the world.

Emerging markets tend to turn to crypto to preserve their savings in the face of currency devaluation, send and receive remittances, and carry out business transactions. By contrast, in developed markets, it is driven more so by institutional investment.

Crypto adoption, quarter by quarter. Source: Chainalysis

Trend 2: Emerging Markets Embrace P2P Platforms

Several countries in emerging markets, including Kenya, Nigeria, Vietnam and Venezuela, rank high largely due to enormous transaction volumes on peer-to-peer (P2P) platforms (adjusted for purchasing power per capita and internet-using population). The primary reason for doing so is that they often lack access to centralised exchanges.

Trend 3: China and US Dip in Rankings

Last year, China ranked fourth while the US ranked sixth. This year, the US ranks eighth while China ranks 13th. The main reason for both dropping is that their P2P trade volume weighted for internet-using population declined dramatically – China from 53rd to 155th, while the US fell from 16th to 109th. China’s decline is no doubt linked to regulatory clampdowns over the past six months in particular.

Crypto Gone Mainstream

In years to come, 2020 may well turn out to be the year that crypto went mainstream. Following a sharp correction in March along with other growth assets, crypto picked up steam towards the second half of 2020 and officially became entrenched in mainstream consumer consciousness.

It’s not just ordinary investors taking charge, as a recent survey by Fidelity Digital Assets revealed that 70 percent of institutional investors are interested in buying cryptocurrencies in the near-term. In addition, a 2021 survey of financial advisers found that 26 percent will recommend crypto to their clients within the next year after half had clients who had inquired about crypto in the preceding six months.

Retail investors initially led the charge and institutional investors followed suit, pushing crypto to new highs. Financial advisers lacking insight into the digital asset space run the risk of falling behind. In the past, it might have been a career risk to advocate crypto exposure to one’s clients. In the near future (or perhaps even now), it may be a career risk not to.

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Bitcoin Coinjar Crypto News Crypto.com Sports

PSV Eindhoven Football Club Gets €400,000 Sponsorship Deal Paid 100% in Bitcoin

Dutch football giant PSV Eindhoven has signed a partnership with Anycoin Direct to become the first major football club in the European Union to have its entire sponsorship paid in bitcoin. Chances are they won’t be the last.

Celebrating the deal. Source: Official PSV Eindhoven website

PSV No Stranger to Crypto

Earlier this year, the club got involved in the crypto sector for the first time when in April it sold an NFT of its historic victory in the 1988 European Cup final over Portugal’s Benfica.

According to the official press release, Anycoin Direct will be the club’s partner for the next two seasons with the goal being to grow awareness of the crypto industry and Anycoin Direct across the European region. While there were many candidates in the race for the partnership, PSV ultimately chose to have a local partner from the Eindhoven area, in the southern Netherlands.

Frans Janssen, the commercial director of PSV, has already created the relevant crypto wallets and expressed enormous enthusiasm about the partnership:

The possibilities and the future that the world of cryptocurrency offers is very promising. As a club in the heart of the Brainport region, we are always innovating; cryptocurrency fits well into this picture.

Frans Janssen, commercial director, PSV

Echoing those sentiments, Lennert Vlemmings, COO at Anycoin Direct, commented:

Growing up in the region, PSV has always been very close to me. As a technology company from the Brainport area we are very excited to be working with PSV. The payment in bitcoin marks the next step for the adoption of cryptocurrency in the EU.

Lennert Vlemmings, COO, Anycoin Direct

According to Dutch publication Eindhovens Dagblad, PSV will be paid €400,000 (about A$650,000) per season. The report further suggests that the arrangement guarantees undefined guaranteed returns in the case of a price reduction, taking into account bitcoin’s volatility.

Sports and Crypto – a Trend On the Rise

Increasingly, we are seeing the worlds of sports and crypto intertwine as unexpected partnerships proliferate within the sector. Earlier this year, the UFC partnered with Crypto.com in a US$175 million 10-year deal.

Turning to the world of football, Watford Football Club will be sporting the Dogecoin logo on its shirts this EPL season, while Crypto News Australia partner and Australian crypto exchange Coinjar recently concluded a partnership with newly promoted EPL team Brentford FC.

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Bitcoin Crypto News Market Analysis Trading

New Record: Bitcoin Realised Market Cap Hits All-Time High

While much of the focus has been on its recent run on the back of strong fundamentals, bitcoin quietly achieved a new milestone – hitting an all-time-high of U$378 billion in “realised market cap”.

BTC realised cap. Source: Glassnode

What is Realised Market Cap?

The standard measurement of market capitalisation is a simple multiplication of all coins in circulation by the current price. At the time of publication, bitcoin’s total market cap is $US899 billion.

Realised market cap, by contrast, is a method of assessing bitcoin’s market cap based on the price at which each coin last moved. Put differently, it measures how much “active” money is in the bitcoin market.

Realised market cap therefore measures the size of bitcoin’s active market cap, which specifically excludes holdings that haven’t changed hands for a long time (ie, long-term HODLers and Satoshi’s stash).

To determine realised market cap, data providers like Glassnode assign time-sensitive values to coins. If, for example, a coin last moved in 2018, when the price of bitcoin was US$6,000, that coin is then priced at US$6,000 rather than at today’s price.

What Does it Mean?

Realised market cap is argued to provide a better estimate of the size of the “active” bitcoin market. This is perhaps reflected in the data, with 1.2 million new users joining the network in the past month.

It may also be useful to note that where the market cap trades above realised cap, the market is in aggregate profit. The inverse applies when market cap trades below realised cap.

If this all sounds a bit technical, Willy Woo breaks it down in simple terms:

Good Times Continue

Bitcoin is up 8 percent on the week and is currently trading at US$47,800. Analysts suggest it may continue to trade in the US$45,000-$50,000 band for some time, while others are eyeing a strong breakout in coming weeks above US$50,000.

For those less interested in short-term price fluctuations and who are in it for the long haul, the chart below offers a useful roadmap of where bitcoin may be going in the next few years. On a linear chart, bitcoin is all over the map. However, on a log-chart (as shown below), the growth trajectory in bitcoin is self-evident.

The easiest, and potentially best, strategy is to simply stack sats and HODL.

BTC pricewith stock to flow model. Source: ChartsBTC