GM friends.
Right after a few U.S. politicians made some big promises at Bitcoin 2024, Russia this week passed two huge crypto laws.
And all of this makes us believe that we’re at Bitcoin’s end-game: adoption by nation-states.
So pour a coffee and strap in, because here’s your mid-week crypto update. ☕️📰
Here’s what’s in today’s issue:
- David shares his thoughts on Russia green lighting crypto mining and international payments, Biden moving $2B in BTC after conference, ETH ETFs breaking outflow streak, XRP ripping north & Circle’s stock valuation is in.
- Rekt Capital has the latest technical analysis for you on the market.
- Erik has an article on the Pi Cycle Top Indicator: Will it flash again at the top?
- In case you missed it by Rebecca.
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Russia Green Lights Crypto Mining and International Payments
On Tuesday, Russia’s federal parliament passed two crypto laws which both take effect this year.
The first law legalizes crypto mining within the country, starting on November 1st.
Under the new framework, miners can register with the Ministry of Digital Development in order to operate with no energy consumption restrictions, while unregistered miners will be subject to certain consumption limits.
The law allows for the mining of any crypto, but miners must report to the government which ones they’re mining.
The second law allows for certain Russian companies and institutions to use crypto in cross-border payments and international trade, starting on September 1st.
Entities that intend to use crypto for these international payments first need pre-approval from Russia’s central bank.
As of 2023, Russia is the world’s 11th largest economy per GDP, and ranks 12th in exports. The nation is also known as an “energy superpower.” Thus, these new laws are significant for the crypto industry and markets, to say the least.
Welcome to Nation-State Adoption
However, the timing of these new Russian laws is extremely interesting, given the recent promises by Trump, RFK Jr. and Senator Lummis. Essentially, it appears that a certain game theory is beginning to play out with regards to nation-state bitcoin adoption.
The idea is that when there’s evidence that adoption of a scarce asset will increase in the future, economic actors are incentivized to acquire that asset before their competitors do. Thus, these participants enter into a race to acquire said asset, which means number go up.
Indeed, Satoshi hinted to this idea just a few days after he launched bitcoin, writing that “[i]t might make sense just to get some in case it catches on. If enough people think the same way, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Government leaders around the world were paying attention when multiple U.S. politicians made promises to acquire bitcoin as a national strategic reserve asset. And now Russia is making a move towards bitcoin and crypto, which only further strengthens the incentive and urgency for other nations to do the same.
Tick tock . . . tick tock.
Biden’s DOJ Moves $2B in Bitcoin after Conference
You know who’s not into game theory? Biden’s DOJ. Either that, or they just love trolling bitcoiners and pro-bitcoin politicians.
That’s because on Monday, per data provided by Arkham Intelligence, the DOJ moved $2B worth of bitcoin, or 29.8K BTC, to a few different addresses. Generally, any asset movement from the U.S. government is a sign that it’s being prepped for sale.
Moreover, Arkham Intelligence in a tweet stated that they believe that about one-third of this 29.8K BTC was sent to some kind of an institutional custody or service provider.
The U.S. currently holds 207K bitcoin, worth approximately $13.7B. Trump, RFK Jr., and Senator Lummis all proposed using this 207K bitcoin as the base of the U.S.’ bitcoin strategic reserve. Well, not if mumbling Joe Boden has anything to say about it!
And talk about watching what they do, and not listening to what they say. News outlets are currently reporting that VP Kamala Harris is seeking a “reset” with the crypto industry.
Someone might want to tell her that the timing of these DOJ moves makes her reconciliation words look incompetent at best, and disingenuous at worst.
U.S. ETH ETFs Break Four Day Outflow Streak
On Tuesday, the new U.S. ETH ETFs hit net inflows for the first time since the opening day of trading on July 23rd. Thus, a four day outflow streak was snapped.
According to data from the Farside Investors, the nine ETFs saw net inflows of $33.7M on Tuesday. However, the ETFs have $406M in total outflows since trading began.
100% of the outflows have come from Grayscale’s ETHE ETF. Grayscale flipped their pre-existing ETH private trust into an ETF, so initial outflows aren’t surprising given the private trust’s investors have had their funds locked up for a period of time.
But the good news is that the ETHE ETF bleed rate is trending downwards. So hopefully we’ll be hitting consecutive net inflow days soon.
XRP Rips North over SEC Settlement Optimism
Prices across most crypto assets were either negative or flat by mid-week, with one notable exception being XRP.
The asset was up approximately 7% within a 24 hour period on Wednesday, hitting $0.65 per token, which is the highest price for XRP since March of this year.
Analysts mostly attribute the price increase to optimism that Ripple Labs might soon reach a settlement in its multi-year legal battle with the SEC. The price increase is also linked to heavy buying coming out of South Korea, where exchanges within the country have seen a surge of XRP trading over the past month.
Ripple Labs is set to unlock a total of 1 billion XRP tokens this month, per its publicly disclosed unlock schedule.
Circle Stock Valued at $5B Ahead of IPO
Circle’s private stock is currently valued at $5B. That’s according to a few unnamed sources familiar with the company.
Circle is the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, which has a current market cap of $33B. The company is gearing up for a highly anticipated IPO in the U.S., which should occur some time this year.
Apparently, Circle stock is trading on the secondary market, and this is how the sources are able to derive the $5B valuation. However, the sources are also stating that the company is prohibiting any stock sales that would result in a dip below the $5B valuation. It’s thought that most of Circle’s private stock is currently held by early stage investors and company employees.
Circle tried and failed to go public in 2022. At that time, the company’s stock was valued at $9B on the secondary market.
In today’s edition, the following cryptocurrencies will be analysed & discussed:
- Solana (SOL)
- Optimism (OP)
- Vanar Chain (VANRY)
- TrueFi (TRU)
- Bonk (BONK)
Solana — SOL/USDT
Solana is positioning itself really well for a bullish Monthly Close.
After all, the black level of $165 denotes a May and June resistance which has been broken this month.
With the Monthly Close just around the corner, SOL has a very real chance of Monthly Closing above the old black resistance in an effort to potentially reclaim it as support in the future.
Following a Monthly Close above the black level, any dip that gets SOL closer to the $165 would be considered a retest attempt.
And if the retest of that level is to become a little bit more volatile to the downside, whereby price would deviate below the $165 level briefly, then the path could even look like this, with a dip as low as even to the $140s:
Of course, this retest doesn’t need to happen however textbook TA suggests that whenever an old resistance is broken, it is often reclaimed into new support afterwards in an effort to ensure trend continuation to the upside later.
So will the retest occur in August?
And if so, how volatile will it be?
Optimism — OP/USDT
OP is losing the Macro Higher Low, dating to mid-2022 (purple).
The black $1.91 Range High resistance (black) is approximately confluent resistance with the aforementioned Higher Low and both are acting as a point of rejection for the moment.
OP will need to Monthly Close above the $1.91 Range High to avoid potentially turning this level into new resistance which could send price to the $1.33 Range Low (black) as part of intra-range consolidation between $1.33-$1.91.
After all, last month OP Monthly Closed below the $1.91 (black) level to lose it as support and this month price has upside wicked into it from the underside, as if to confirm it as new resistance.
Turning said level into resistance could thus precede downside continuation deeper in the black-black range.
CLICK HERE to go Premium and read the rest of this week’s Market Analysis – Premium subs can read Rekt capital’s full report.
The Pi Cycle Top Indicator: Will it Flash Again at the Top?
In a mini series of indicators that predict the bull market price top for Bitcoin, we first look at the infamous Pi Cycle Top Indicator.
In the past, it has flashed close to tops or local tops, distinguishing it from normal bull and bear crosses, which lag changes in market conditions.
But it’s very well possible that it won’t flash this time around, but only come close.
Crypto Market News
- Russia is considering legalizing crypto for global payments to overcome its sanctions issue. Source
- The SEC has canceled its request to classify tokens such as Solana as securities. Source
- Donald Trump has unveiled plans to introduce a strategic Bitcoin reserve and HODL the US government’s existing Bitcoin if elected as US President. Source
- Donald Trump has pledged to fire SEC chair Gary Gensler on day one if elected as US President. Source
- Senator Lummis has proposed a Bitcoin Reserve Bill to allow the US to buy 5% of Bitcoin’s total supply and hold it for at least 20 years. Source
- RFK. Jr will buy 4 million BTC for the US government’s reserves if elected as US President. Source
- US pension funds in Michigan and Jersey City will add Bitcoin ETFs to their portfolios. Source
- The US government has transferred $2 billion in seized BTC from Silk Road to an unknown wallet just 2 days after Trump’s stockpile announcement. Source
- Kraken has completed the distribution of Bitcoin from Mt. Gox and the selling pressure has so far failed to materialize. Source
- Over 41.5% of BTC from Mt. Gox has been distributed and recipients continue to hold. Source
- Grayscale has seen over $20.4 billion of outflows from its Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs combined. Source
- Ark Invest has sold $7.8 million of its own Bitcoin ETF from its Next Generation Internet ETF as part of its rebalancing strategy. Source
- Bitcoin rewards app Fold has announced plans to list its company stock on the NASDAQ through a SPAC deal. Source
- Riot Platform has bought mining company Block Mining for $92.5 million. Source
- Marathon Digital has bought $100 million worth of Bitcoin in the past month and plans to go “full HODL.” Source
- Financial services company Cantor Fitzgerald has announced the launch of a Bitcoin lending programme. Source
- HSBC Australia is blocking payments to all crypto exchanges due to investment scams. Source
- DigitalX has chosen Coinbase as the custodian for its Australian Bitcoin ETF. Source
- Bitcoin miner Bitfarms has been forced to stop its measures of obstructing Riot’s hostile takeover attempts. Source
- Iris Energy could become one of the largest listed Bitcoin miners according to Canaccord and has raised its price target from $12 to $15. Source
- ETF issuer Hashdex has filed an S-1 registration statement for its combined Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF. Source
- A Bitcoin investment fund is offering citizenship in Portugal by indirectly investing over $500,000 into Bitcoin. Source
- Ferrari will expand its crypto payments feature to Europe by the end of 2024, after its US success. Source
- Coinbase UK has been fined $4.5 million for breaching a voluntary agreement to stop onboarding high-risk customers. Source
- A UK hacker has been sentenced to 3.5 years in prison for a $900K Coinbase login scam. Source
- Hong Kong is exploring the benefits and feasibility of using Bitcoin for its fiscal reserves. Source
- The University of Wyoming has launched the first Bitcoin research institute. Source
- DEX market share has reached a new all-time high compared to centralized exchange trading volumes. Source
- Ledger has launched its new Flex Wallet which is a touchscreen design building on the previous Stax model. Source
Coins and Projects
- Bitcoin could reach a base case price target of $2.9 million per coin by 2050 according to VanEck. Source
- Michael Saylor is forecasting Bitcoin will be worth $13 million per coin by the year 2045. Source
- Goldman Sachs CEO has said in a CNBC interview that Bitcoin could be a “store of value case.” Source
- Bitcoin transaction fees have dropped to a yearly low signaling lower network demand since the halving in April. Source
- ProtonMail has launched Proton Wallet, a self-custodial Bitcoin wallet. Source
- BitcoinOS has claimed to have successfully verified the first zk-proof on Bitcoin’s mainnet. Source
- USDC issuer Circle is trading at around a $5 billion valuation ahead of its planned stock market listing. Source
- Base has launched stage 1 of its decentralization by deploying fault proofs on the Sepolia testnet. Source
- Tron’s revenue has surpassed Ethereum’s since July 23 with $1.42 million in 24 hours vs. Ethereum’s $844,276. Source
- Solana has surpassed Ethereum in weekly total fees for the first time topping $5.5 million in daily total fees on July 28. Source
- Solana-based memecoin Neiro has seen its developer reportedly rug pull the token with $2.85 million in profits. Source
- Compound and Celer’s recent attacks may have been caused by a faulty website migration system. Source
- TON has partnered with Trust Wallet and plans to integrate TonKeeper wallet imports “in the coming weeks.” Source
- Chainlink has integrated its proof-of-reserves system into the 21Shares Ethereum ETF. Source
Macro News
- The US national debt has crossed $35 trillion for the first time. Source
- Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said the US needs $78 trillion to pay for the climate change transition. Source
- The Bank of England is planning to carry out a series of experiments on a wholesale CBDC. Source
- The Euro zone economy grew by 0.3% in Q2 which is above expectations. Source
- The Bank of Canada has cut interest rates again by 25 basis points to 4.5%. Source
- Venezuela has re-elected Nicolas Maduro despite the opposition claiming victory. Source
Thank you so much for your support, and I truly hope that today’s issue will give you insights needed to help you master your wealth.
If you are reading this it means you are on the free version of the Wealth Mastery Investor Report, which is great for news and tips on the crypto markets.
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See you next time!
Lark and the Wealth Mastery Team
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Wealth Mastery (Lark Davis, and the Wealth Mastery writing team) are not providing you individually tailored investment advice. Nor is Wealth Mastery registered to provide investment advice, is not a financial adviser, and is not a broker-dealer. The material provided is for educational purposes only. Wealth Mastery is not responsible for any gains or losses that result from your cryptocurrency investments. Investing in cryptocurrency involves a high degree of risk and should be considered only by persons who can afford to sustain a loss of their entire investment. Investors should consult their financial adviser before investing in cryptocurrency.
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