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Bitcoin Supply Rises After ‘Unprecedented’ Year-Long Decline

Bitcoin coins
Bitcoin coins https://unsplash.com/photos/4KJJezDyo3M

The supply of Bitcoin available on exchanges has risen after a long slide that started more than one year ago.

Data from the blockchain analysis firm Glassnode shows that the balance of Bitcoins on exchanges has experienced a recovery to hit 2,461,801.581 BTC – the highest level in a month.

This rise comes after a supply decline that started in March 2020, when the total balance on exchanges soared to more than 3,000,000.

Over-The-Counter BTC supply decline

In a recent weekly report, Glassnode also found that the Bitcoin supply at Over-The-Counter (OTC) exchanges has declined to just 6,000. OTC desks allow investors to buy crypto without making orders on the public exchange and causing price disruptions.

The total balance held by the three OTC desks we track has continued to decline throughout 2021, reaching local lows of only 6k BTC this week. This suggests demand by larger buyers exceeds available supply at these OTC desks. Furthermore, this trend clearly commenced starting in Dec 2020 at which time miners were distributing heavily. This aligns with the strong growth in institutional interest in the asset as a macro scale investment.

Glassnode

In other words, Glassnode analysis suggests that institutional adoption of Bitcoin has increased, as confirmed by multiple banks and big companies getting involved in the crypto space.

What Does The Drop In Bitcoin Balance On Exchanges Mean?

It is hard to say exactly why the supply on all exchanges has been dropping. Investors may be holding onto their Bitcoins, which could mean that another bull run is on the way.

As previously discussed, it is also important to remember that the Bitcoin protocol include halvings, which by definition reduce the issuance of new coins.

All of the above factors could be linked to the price of Bitcoin (BTC) increasing over the same period to reach a price of around $65,000 AUD.

Post by Guest Author – Jasper Hamill

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Crypto News Dogecoin

‘Dogecoin Killer’ Shiba Inu Hits Australian Crypto Exchanges

SHIB ecosystem woof paper
SHIB ecosystem woof paper

Shiba Inu (SHIB) token has become available on many crypto exchanges, including Binance Australia and Swyftx.

SHIB on Swyftx exchange

SHIB vs DOGE

Just a few short years ago, Dogecoin (DOGE) was a joke. Arguably, not many thought it would become the fourth-largest cryptocurrency in the world following an astonishing price surge during 2021. Some investors looking for a repeat of the Doge “miracle” have recently turned to a new coin called SHIB, or Shiba Inu Token.

Named after a famous Japanese breed of dog, SHIB has been nicknamed “the Dogecoin killer” and it looks like it is now being taken more seriously than its pooch-themed image might suggest.

A word of caution

When Binance listed SHIB in its Innovation Zone, a place “where users are able to trade new, innovative tokens that are likely to have higher volatility and pose a higher risk than other tokens”, it issued the following warning:

Please note that, as of the time of writing, the top #1, #2 and #5 wallets hold 50.5%, 7.0% and 3.0% of total supply respectively.
SHIB is a relatively new token that poses a higher than normal risk, and as such will likely be subject to high price volatility after the Binance listing. Please ensure that you exercise sufficient risk management, have done your own research in regards to SHIB’s fundamentals, and fully understand the project before opting to trade the token.

Binance announcement [source]

The man who owns half the world’s Shiba Inu is Vitalik Buterin, whose holdings are now worth billions of dollars after SHIB shot up in price during May from around $0.000002 USD to about $0.000035 USD (an increase of over 15 times). He was given the deposit when SHIB was first minted and it’s understood that he did not know about the gift.

The team behind SHIB writes on their website: “We locked the 50% of the total supply to Uniswap and threw away the keys! The remaining 50% was burned to Vitalik Buterin and we were the first project following this path, so everyone has to buy on the open market, ensuring a fair and complete distribution where devs don’t own team tokens they can dump on the community.”

Is SHIB going to the moon – or doomed to plunge to Earth? No one can tell, but it will be very interesting to see what happens to the latest canine cryptocurrency phenomenon.

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Crypto News

Bitcoin is ‘Disgusting’, Says Billionaire Charlie Munger At Berkshire Hathaway Meeting

Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting 2021 – source

The world’s most valuable cryptocurrency is “disgusting and contrary to the interests of civilization” says billionaire Charlie Munger, famed as Warren Buffet’s right hand man during Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting.

Charlie Munger, 97, is worth more than $2billion and has spent close to a century being a huge benificiary of the prevailing economic system.

But Munger, vice president of the holding company Berkshire Hathaway, does not appear to be very keen on the emerging global financial system being built around crypto.

Speaking during a Q&A session at an annual shareholder meeting that’s claimed to be the most watched business event of the year, the super-rich nonagenarian was asked if he still considered Bitcoin to be “worthless artificial gold”.

“Of course I hate the Bitcoin success. I don’t welcome a currency that’s so useful to kidnappers and extortionists and so forth, nor do I like just shuffling out of your extra billions of billions of dollars to somebody who just invented a new financial product out of thin air.”

“I think I should say modestly that the whole damn development is disgusting and contrary to the interests of civilization.”

Charlie Munger
Charlie Munger speaking at the Berkshire Hathaway meeting

Warren Buffet, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, dodged the question.

“I knew there’d be a question on Bitcoin” he said. “I thought to myself: ‘Well, I’ve watched these politicians dodge questions all the time.'”

“I always find it kind of disgusting when they do it. But the truth is, I’m going to dodge that question because we’ve probably got hundreds of thousands of people watching this that own Bitcoin, and we’ve got two people that are short. We’ve got a choice of making 400,000 people mad at us and unhappy and/or making two people happy. That’s just a dumb equation.”

Warren Buffet

Berkshire Hathaway is a corporate giant which owns many famous companies including Duracell and Fruit of The Loom.

Fool’s Gold Or The New Standard?

Munger has previously said that Bitcoin is “too volatile to serve well as a medium of exchange”.

Speaking at the Annual Meeting of Shareholders of the Daily Journal Corporation in February, he said: “It’s really kind of an artificial substitute for gold. And since I never buy any gold, I never buy any bitcoin.”

“Bitcoin reminds me of what Oscar Wilde said about fox hunting. He said it was the pursuit of the uneatable by the unspeakable.”

Crypto investors don’t appear to share the billionaire’s feelings about Bitcoin.

The price of Bitcoin has now surged to well above $50,000 and Ethereum hit an all-time high as it soared to more than $3,000 per token.

In total, the total cryptocurrency market cap is over $2trillion – making it worth one thousand times more than Charlie Munger.

Warren Buffet himself is worth more than $100billion, so the total value of the cryptomarkets is roughly 20 times larger than his wealth.

Jasper Hamill – Crypto News Guest Author

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Crypto News Cryptocurrencies Cryptos Dogecoin

Mark Cuban talks about Dogecoin on the Ellen Show, with 2.6 Million Viewers

Mark Cuban told Ellen that he accepts the Dogecoin cryptocurrency as payment for his Mav’s basketball team merchandise and suggested she should do the same for her Ellen shop.

“Should I buy some Dogecoin?” is possibly the most popular question coming from the mouths of noobs looking to get into crypto over the past several weeks and months. And with Mark Cuban telling the 2.6 million viewers on the Ellen show to go buy DOGE, will surely help its poularity grow.

Dogecoin Started as a Joke

The meme coin that started off as a joke, has performed insanely well, much to the surprise of the more serious crypto investor. Dogecoin has climbed into the top cryptocurrencies on CoinGecko, currently sitting at #7 under well known majors; Bitcoin, Ethereum, Binance coin, Ripple and Cardano.

It went from being a crypto currency joke, to now becoming something that’s becoming a digital currency.

Mark Cuban

Dogecoin was created in 2013 by software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer, as a payment system free from traditional banking fees. Since, it has gained a huge online following and made headlines again recently by hitting it’s all time high of 0.40c per coin, rising over a whopping 450% in value over just one week.

Cryptocurrency is just an asset to invest in. Bitcoin is like a digital version of Gold, Ethereum is a digital version of a currency and then you’ve got Dogecoin… which is just fun!

Mark Cuban

Is Dogecoin a Good Investment?

Because Dogecoin started as a joke and has limited utility, some might say it’s not even an investment at all. However, it certainly has strong branding and provides a great way to introduce new people into the cryptocurrency space.

We’re seeing some shops have starting accepting DOGE as payment, such as merchandise on the Dallas Maverick Store, owned by Mark Cuban. And with such a strong meme presence and an army of famous ambassadors such as Elon Musk and Snoop Dogg shilling the project on social media, love it or hate it; Dogecoin is here to stay.

Caitlin Carey – Crypto News Guest Author

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Bitcoin Bitcoin Mining Crypto News Crypto Trackers Cryptocurrencies Ethereum Investing Markets Stablecoins Tether Worldwide

Crypto Market Cap Hits One Trillion US Dollars

The overall cryptocurrency market capitalization has reached one trillion US dollars for the first time in history, according to data from the leading crypto statistics site Coinmarketcap.com.

Major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) have seen exponential gains over the past few months, both rising by over 300% since November. Some smaller cap crypto assets and digital tokens like Chainlink (LINK), Cardano (ADA), and Polkadot (DOT) have enjoyed similar price rallies.

Bitcoin’s market valuation recently catapulted to $650 billion, overtaking major US investment firm Berkshire Hathaway, with a $533 billion market cap. Berkshire Hathaway was acquired and reformed in the 70s by iconic investor Warren Buffet, who remains its chairman and CEO to this day. Buffett has historically been very vocal about his dislike of cryptocurrencies, once famously calling Bitcoin “rat poison squared”. 

Despite Bitcoin being the best performing asset of the past decade by a large degree, Buffett continues to discount its worth, insisting that it has no value and is purely speculative. However, several major tech firms and financial institutions disagree, such as 170-year-old Mass Mutual which recently bought up $100 million worth of Bitcoin. A small amount compared to the world’s largest digital currency asset manager, Grayscale, with over $20 billion invested in crypto assets.

Image from Howmuch.net
Image from Howmuch.net

Criticism

Naturally, the extreme gains mean the cryptocurrency market has once again come under fire from critics who believe that asset prices are being manipulated. As with the previous 2017 rally, many critics believe that USDT tokens printed by stablecoin company Tether are being used to artificially prop up the cryptocurrency market – much like the US Federal Reserve props up traditional stock markets with seemingly endless USD issuance.

The concerns are not without merit, especially considering Tether’s continued reluctance to prove that it’s USDT tokens are fully backed by genuine dollar reserves. Tether has been minting millions of dollars in USDT tokens lately, presumably to meet the demand of consumers cashing out their Bitcoin profits or buying USDT as a digital onramp to the crypto world. Without clear and transparent auditing of this issuance, it’s fair to say the situation has the potential for abuse and manipulation.

One argument that challenges this theory is PlanB’s Bitcoin stock-to-flow model, which has accurately tracked the price movements of the BTC/USD trading pair over several years. The model reveals how the price of Bitcoin closely follows a set pattern dictated not by buyers or sellers but rather scarcity created by the algorithm which halves the BTC mining reward every 210,000 blocks. Price movements from the very first Bitcoin halving in late 2012 – long before Tether started printing in 2015 – correlate with Plan B’s stock-to-flow model. This suggests that the current price rally and the one following the previous 2016 halving are simply a result of Bitcoin’s coding rather than any external manipulation.

Image from PlanB (@100trillionUSD) on Twitter
Image from PlanB (@100trillionUSD) on Twitter