Category Archives: Bitcoin

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Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for December 21, 2021. This is my final Daily Crunch with you for the year. So, let me just say thanks for reading since I took over writing the newsy bits of this newsletter. It could have gone horribly, frankly, given how much folks hate change in their inboxes. But, with open rates at an all-time high, yall have welcomed the New Daily Crunch Crew with open arms, and were grateful. Heres to an even better 2022 and more jokes. Alex

P.S. You should follow Miranda (Experts), Walter (TC+), Annie (editing) and Richard (editing) as they make this newsletter sing. Richard declined to share a link. Hes a ghost! But a friendly one.

But wait, theres even more public market news! Yes, Snapdeal filed to go public, and our own Manish Singh (follow him; hes amazing!) has the details. SoftBank is a backer of the New Delhi-based startup. Per its prospectus, the company anticipates raising around $165 million in its public-market debut. Recall that Snapdeal once competed with Amazon and Flipkart in India [but] has lost considerable market share in recent years, we wrote.

And speaking of companies going public, remember the Better.com fiasco in which the companys CEO went viral for firing a bunch of staff on Zoom? And then a bunch of whacko stuff from the company came out? Well, were curious why Vishal Garg still has a job, so we did a little digging. Theres more to come on this story.

Next, a few new funds:

And a few rapid-fire pieces of startup news:

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Daily Crunch: Bitcoin is religion; web3 is greed - TechCrunch

Hollywood actress Gwyneth Paltrow is giving away $500,000 in bitcoin for the holidays. The winners are chosen at random and given bitcoin in $20 increments and $100 increments. She explained: I wanted to do it to get women my followers specifically, and Marvel fans feeling excited about bitcoin so they can play around with it and trade it.

Actress and entrepreneur Gwyneth Paltrow announced Monday that she is giving away $500,000 in bitcoin for the holidays via Cash App, a mobile payment service developed by Block Inc., formerly Square Inc.

Im giving out $500K worth of bitcoin for the holidays, she tweeted. Paltrow explained that Buying crypto has often felt exclusionary, noting that Cash App is now making it easy to gift bitcoin in order to democratize who can participate.

At the time of writing, a number of people have tweeted thanking Paltrow for sending them BTC.

The actress explained in an interview with Elle magazine Monday how her fans can participate in the giveaway:

Ill post, and then my followers will post in the comments, and then winners will be chosen at random, given $20 increments and $100 increments.

She added: I wanted to do it to get women my followers specifically, and Marvel fans feeling excited about bitcoin so they can play around with it and trade it.

Paltrow recently participated in an investment round involving the bitcoin mining operation Terawulf. In 2017, she became an advisor to Abra.

Payments firm Block launched a gifting feature last week. With Cash App, you can now send as little as $1 in stock or bitcoin. Its as easy as sending cash, and you dont need to own stock or bitcoin to gift it. So this holiday season, forget the scented candles or novelty beach towel, and help your cousin start investing, the official Cash App Twitter account wrote.

A growing number of celebrities are giving away bitcoin. In November, U.S. football star Odell Beckham Jr. gave away $1 million in BTC via Cash App after he announced that he will take his new salary in the cryptocurrency.

In the same month, American football quarterback for the Green Bay Packers, Aaron Rodgers, gave away $1 million in bitcoin. In December last year, rapper and hip hop artist Megan Thee Stallion gave away $1 million in BTC.

Some celebrities partner with cryptocurrency exchanges to give away a small amount of bitcoin to get their fans started trading cryptocurrencies. For example, award-winning artist Mariah Carey gave her fans $20 in free bitcoin in October for signing up with crypto exchange Gemini.

Bitcoin.com is also giving away $25,000 in cash prizes between now and the end of the year.

What do you think about Gwyneth Paltrow giving away bitcoin for the holidays? Let us know in the comments section below.

A student of Austrian Economics, Kevin found Bitcoin in 2011 and has been an evangelist ever since. His interests lie in Bitcoin security, open-source systems, network effects and the intersection between economics and cryptography.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.

New Cryptocurrency Bill Advances to Senate in Brazil

A new cryptocurrency bill was approved by the Chamber of Deputies of the Brazilian Congress last week, and is now awaiting review by the Senate for approval. The project, if approved, would introduce a central body to regulate all cryptocurrency ... read more.

Excerpt from:
Bitcoin Giveaway: Actress Gwyneth Paltrow Gives Away $500K in BTC for the Holidays Featured Bitcoin News - Bitcoin News

Bitcoin started a fresh increase from the $45,500 zone against the US Dollar. BTC is rising and there could be a strong move above the $50,000 resistance.

Bitcoin price formed a base and started a fresh increase above the $46,500 level. BTC gained pace for a move above the $47,500 level and the 100 hourly simple moving average.

The upward move was such that the price broke the $48,500 resistance. There was a clear move above the 76.4% Fib retracement level of the key decline from the $48,289 swing high to $45,600 low. The bulls even pushed the price above the $49,000 level.

A high is formed near $49,600 and the price is now showing a lot of positive signs. There is also a key rising channel forming with support near $48,750 on the hourly chart of the BTC/USD pair.

Bitcoin is trading well above the 23.6% Fib retracement level of the upward move from the $48,295 swing low to $49,600 high. It is facing resistance near the $49,600 zone. The next key resistance could be $50,000. A clear move above the $50,000 resistance zone could set the pace for a larger increase. The next major stop for the bulls may possibly be near the $51,200 level.

If bitcoin fails to clear the $50,000 resistance zone, it could start a fresh downside correction. An immediate support on the downside is near the $49,200 level.

The first major support is near $49,000. It is near the 50% Fib retracement level of the upward move from the $48,295 swing low to $49,600 high. A downside break below the $49,000 level could push the price towards the $48,500 support, below which the price could test $48,800.

Technical indicators:

Hourly MACD The MACD is slowly gaining pace in the bullish zone.

Hourly RSI (Relative Strength Index) The RSI for BTC/USD is currently well above the 50 level.

Major Support Levels $49,000, followed by $48,500.

Major Resistance Levels $49,600, $50,000 and $51,200.

Excerpt from:
TA: Bitcoin Gains Momentum, Why Rally Isn't Over Yet - NewsBTC

Shares of several cryptocurrency-related companies, including Coinbase Global Inc (NASDAQ:COIN), Marathon Digital Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:MARA) and Riot Blockchain Inc (NASDAQ:RIOT),are trading higher in sympathy with the price of Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) and Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH).

Bullish comments from Jack Dorsey, co-founder and former CEO ofTwitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) as well as founder and CEO of Block Inc (NYSE:SQ),may have impacted cryptocurrency markets Monday night. Dorsey suggested that Bitcoin will eventually replace the U.S. Dollar about 2 hours before Bitcoin began surging.

Coinbase is a provider of end-to-end financial infrastructure and technology for the crypto-economy. The stock was up 3.18% at $245.62at publication time.

Marathon Digital is focused on mining digital assets. It owns cryptocurrency mining machines and a data center to mine the digital assets. Shares wereup 6.78% at $34.67at publication time.

Riot Blockchain is focused on building, supporting and operating blockchain technologies. The stock was up 5.46% at $23.75at publication time.

See Also:Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin Fail To Break Out And The Next Few Weeks Could Be 'Very Choppy'

BTC, ETH Price Action:At publication time,Bitcoin was up 6.73% at $48,881over a 24-hour period and Ethereum was up 5.95% at $4,011.62over a 24-hour period.

Photo:EivindPedersenfrom Pixabay.

Go here to read the rest:
Why Bitcoin- And Ethereum-Related Stocks Are Rising Today - Benzinga - Benzinga

Today, Texass City of Abilene and Taylor County announced a large-scale partnership with Houston-based infrastructure company, Lancium, to build a $2.4 billion data center campus, per a press release sent to Bitcoin Magazine.

The data center campus, which will be powered by renewable energy, will host bitcoin mining and other energy-intensive applications. This project will begin at 200 megawatts of power, but has an expansion capacity of over 1 gigawatt.

We are very proud to be part of the community and build one of our flagship Clean Campuses in Abilene, said Michael McNamara, cofounder and CEO of Lancium. We chose Abilene for our second Clean Campus because of its ideal location, proximity to abundant wind and solar generation, high-quality workforce and the opportunities to grow in the future. We want to thank the city, county and all of the members of the economic development team that worked together to help make this significant milestone possible.

The construction of this new facility is set to break ground on about 800 acres of land in Abilene and Taylor County, starting in Q1, 2022. The data center is expected to bring in about $993.4 million in total economic impact to Abilene and Taylor County, according to the release.

This project brings immense value to our community as it is truly shaping our future, said Jack Rich, Development Corporation of Abilene board chair. We are fortunate to have community resources that support the needs of companies like Lancium.

Link:
The City Of Abilene And Taylor County To Build $2.4 Billion Data Center, Will Host Bitcoin Mining - Bitcoin Magazine

Blockstream, a builder of crypto-financial infrastructure based on Bitcoin, is now a sponsor of the Mempool project, an open-source block explorer for the Bitcoin ecosystem, according to a Monday statement.

The sponsorship will include the development of new widgets for auditing and transparency of the network, and a redesign of the Liquid asset directory that will feature the recently proposed El Salvador Bitcoin Bond (EBB1), the Blockstream Mining Note, and other popular securities issued on Liquid, according to the statement.

Auditing Liquids federated network will become easier once Mempool integrates the feature into its platform. What currently requires a user to run an Elements node and a Bitcoin Core node will become more accessible, as Mempools intuitive and straightforward design does its job. Once the feature is implemented, anyone with an internet connection will be able to audit the Liquid sidechain and its governance structure by accessing mempool.space.

The new widgets to be added to Mempool will include a live display of the number of functionaries online and an audit page for the Liquid Federation wallet, the statement said. The latter will allow users to verify assets and liabilities of the Federations bitcoin holdings in real-time.

Another aspect of Liquid that will receive particular focus from Mempool relates to the networks asset directory. Blockstream said its Bitcoin sidechain currently has about $1.4 billion in assets issued. The Mempool integration will enable users to view the directory in a more interactive and data-rich manner.

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Blockstream Sponsors The Mempool Bitcoin Project - Bitcoin Magazine

With the printing press in overdrive, there is an ever-increasing amount of fiat looking for a home. In order to avoid being debased and lose purchasing power, capital allocators are charged with finding investments that can outperform the rate of monetary inflation. Thus, more and more capital is being allocated further out on the risk curve. Enter venture capital. Venture capitalists provide financing to startups and early-stage businesses. Since 90% of early-stage businesses fail (according to Investopedia), venture capital is certainly well to the right on the risk curve.

Record amounts of venture capital money has poured into the crypto ecosystem over the last several years. However, Bitcoin-focused companies have been the beneficiaries of only a small fraction of that capital influx. In this article, we will explore venture capital's impact on the crypto ecosystem generally, its impact on the Bitcoin ecosystem specifically, and discuss the primary drivers causing the disparity in capital allocation between crypto companies and Bitcoin companies.

With massive venture capital funds such as a16z, ConsenSys, Paradigm, Polychain, and countless others pouring tens of billions of dollars into the crypto ecosystem, it would be easy to assume that much of that capital is being used to support Bitcoin-focused companies, since bitcoin has, and always will have, the largest market cap of any cryptocurrency. However, that assumption is wildly inaccurate. In reality, the vast majority of that capital gets allocated to new cryptocurrency tokens (at a fraction of the cost that retail pays), and the teams building infrastructure around those cryptocurrency ecosystems. This is evident when looking at the explosion of Defi, NFTs, Layer 1, and Layer 2 projects over the past several years.

Once these projects are flush with money, they turn the marketing and hype machines to overdrive in order to attract attention and pull speculators and nave crypto investors into their web. Many promises are made about how their project is going to change the world; thus, it must eventually be worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Speculators and unsuspecting newbies pile into the token of the week, increasing the market value, and setting in motion a feedback loop that only ends once insiders have dumped their tokens for a massive profit and moved onto their next target.

So, what is the impact of venture capital on the crypto ecosystem? Its to print money (tokens) out of thin air, pump the price of that printed money, and then dump it on the poor saps that bought into their engineered hype cycle. What a great benefit these venture capitalists are providing to the world!

The amount of venture capital focused solely on the Bitcoin ecosystem pales in comparison to the amount of capital focused on crypto. Rough estimates indicate that Bitcoin-focused companies have received less than 2% of the overall crypto ecosystem funding. We will discuss the reasons for this disparity in the next section. As a result of having a small capital base, most Bitcoin-focused companies are bootstrapped by the founding team. Typically, these early-stage companies are focused solely on building, not on marketing or generating hype. Most Bitcoin companies have a product or service live before ever seeking outside investment. This is in stark contrast to crypto companies, who typically receive massive funding rounds before ever shipping a product.

So, what is the impact of venture capital on Bitcoin? Since the majority of capital is deployed elsewhere, Bitcoin-focused companies are typically left to build quietly, develop product-market fit, and go to market on their own. This reality has both advantages and disadvantages. The advantages are that, since most projects are self-funded, the teams are incentivized to create a great product or service before unleashing it to the world. Additionally, Bitcoiners are so passionate about Bitcoin that they will only build projects that they feel will benefit the overall Bitcoin ecosystem. The disadvantages are that achieving network effects with a limited amount of capital is difficult, and many early-stage companies may not have the runway to achieve escape velocity. Thus, even products or services that may benefit the Bitcoin ecosystem may be scrapped before delivering that benefit.

There are a myriad of reasons as to why the vast majority of venture capital is dedicated to crypto and not Bitcoin, including a perceived larger addressable market, a misguided comparison of crypto to tech, and higher valuations of crypto companies compared to Bitcoin companies.

Perceived Larger Addressable Market

Crypto venture capitalists love to lean into the notion that Bitcoin is only money, and therefore, every other use case the world over must then be ready to be disrupted by other cryptocurrencies. The visions of decentralized finance, tokenized everything, the metaverse, NFTs, etc., are easy to sell to a hungry base of investors who think theyve missed the boat on Bitcoin and are looking for the next big thing. In reality, since money is the foundation of all economic activity, nothing else could possibly have a larger addressable market. Everyone in the world needs money, no one need a JPEG.

Misguided Comparison of Crypto to Tech

There have been many comparisons made between early crypto companies with early tech companies. Cryptocurrency projects love to compare their project to companies like Uber, Airbnb or Apple. This framing is useful for venture capitalists to lean into when soliciting funds from traditional investors. Who wouldnt want to own a stake in the next Apple? In reality, this comparison is flawed in several ways. First, the mere fact that these cryptocurrencies are purported to be decentralized and that their future and mission are supposedly not driven by any single individual or group makes the comparison to a centralized tech company irrelevant. Secondly, the fact that these cryptocurrencies print their own money out of thin air is not comparable to actual tech companies that must create value in order to attract capital.

Higher Valuations of Crypto Companies versus Bitcoin Companies

When venture capitalists examine the cryptocurrency ecosystem, they see companies, like Coinbase, ConsenSys, Crypto.com, Binance and FTX, that have achieved multibillion dollar valuations. They then compare those companies to Bitcoin onlyfocused companies, which typically have lower valuations, and quickly deduce that, in order to generate the highest return on their capital, they must need to invest in crypto companies and not Bitcoin companies. This is flawed, high time preference fiat thinking. Low time preference Bitcoin thinking goes something like this: Bitcoin will one day be the worlds reserve currency, therefore, companies whose mission supports Bitcoin will thrive. The fact that there is less fiat-minded capital allocated to Bitcoin companies is actually a plus, as it enables mission-aligned capital to occupy the space on Bitcoin company cap tables. And finally, the fact that Bitcoin companies have smaller valuations than crypto companies means that the market has not accurately priced in the chance of a hyperbitcoinized future world.

There is a massive amount of fiat being allocated further and further out on the risk curve in order to attempt to generate returns higher than the rate of monetary inflation. Much of that capital is finding its way into the crypto ecosystem. Unfortunately, due to flawed comparisons, fiat thinking and an underestimation of Bitcoins future, the vast majority of that capital is being allocated to crypto companies and not to Bitcoin-focused companies. Fortunately, the winds may be starting to shift.

As bitcoin continues to appreciate, more and more Bitcoiners have started to allocate capital in support of Bitcoin companies. While still small in comparison to crypto, were starting to see more Bitcoin-focused venture capital firms being formed. The likes of Ten31, Trammell Venture Partners, Bitcoiner Ventures and Lightning Ventures are joining more established players such as Stillmark, Mimesis Capital and Fulgur Ventures. Additionally, many individual Bitcoiners (myself included) utilize their own capital to invest directly in support of Bitcoin companies.

As bitcoin continues to suck in capital from inferior stores of value such as real estate, stocks, bonds, gold and collectibles, more and more wealth will be transferred from high time preference fiat thinking investors to low time preference Bitcoin thinking investors. As that happens, Bitcoin-focused companies stand to benefit from both a larger user base, as well as increased amounts of investable capital in the Bitcoin ecosystem. One day in the not-so-distant future, we will see Bitcoin companies with valuations orders of magnitudes higher than crypto companies. What a joy that will be.

This is a guest post by Don. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

More:
Venture Capital And Its Relationship With Bitcoin - Bitcoin Magazine

Never sell your bitcoin.

Youve probably heard that one before. And it isn't a completely unfounded piece of advice; built into the supply-predictable, demand-elastic protocol of Bitcoin is the assumption of increased purchasing power over time. But to what limit should that be followed? Many Bitcoiners have seen their bitcoin holdings relative to their net worth explode upward and sit in waiting to see how the U.S. dollar system reacts to being cornered by another variant and that pesky debt ceiling limit. Anyone telling you anything other than I don't know is making grand assumptions about what happens next. As comforting as fractals from previous runs can make us feel, Bitcoin finds itself in quite literally uncharted territory.

As Bitcoin putters away and keeps producing blocks, ossifying its immutable incentives every 10 minutes, the global economy finds itself sputtering in the whiplash of central banks trying to taper their fiat Ponzi schemes. Citizens around the world are standing up and removing their economic activity from oppressive regimes, and the ability to live nearly entirely on the Bitcoin standard has never been more technologically accessible. Of everything to be learned from the Blocksize Wars, as the working class attempts their own user-activated soft fork (UASF) from legacy finance, is that the only votes that matter are from economic nodes. Go ahead and fork Bitcoin and run a billion nodes; if no one is using your consensus for economic activity, your governance over a ghost chain means nothing. The suggestion to conserve your satoshis for the long haul, to hold them for the next generation, is the ethical and incentivized economic strategy, but perhaps we should also be employing our means to remove as much personal economic footprint from the fiat system as we can.

The Bitcoin protocol is innately apolitical, but the social implications of a base layer of economic activity that is in the hands of no centralized entity gives citizens a true choice. We have an opportunity as humans to stop donating our life energy to these vampiric parasites that feed off the productivity of the working class. The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was normalizing a compounding 2% inflation on our national store of value. The fiat system is at a crux of disbelief on both sides; Modern Monetary theorists trust the Federal Reserve to control the yield curve, and Bitcoiners think they have already won. In many ways, I agree with the Bitcoiners, and I believe the natural growth of a truly open, first of its kind network to continue. But where I get off the train a few stops before many fundamentalists is that we should let up in our skepticism of attack vectors. Rather than be defensive, I think we are presented with a unique opportunity to leverage our knowledge and means to set up institutions and systemic infrastructure to ensure Bitcoin can flourish in whatever comes next.

But how do we best set ourselves up to ensure we can not only survive but strengthen in the breakdown of bond markets and their respective nation-states? It has never been more important to focus on the fundamentals of Bitcoin and how you can take back control of your own economic activity and start being the change you want to see. The game is to create not just as many economic nodes as possible on the Bitcoin network, but to create strong, sustainable nodes that can weather short-term unpredictable price action and regulatory uncertainty. This is not a call to sell your bitcoin, but a call to be conscientious about where you place your energy, who you feed with your capital, and how to best prepare yourself for the economic unknown.

Not your keys, not your coins is more than just a catchy colloquialism of the space, but an empirical truth in regards to ownership rights of ledger space on the Bitcoin blockchain. If you give your keys to a custodial centralized exchange, or worse to some yield-generating re-hypothecary, you are giving up your user rights to those UTXOs for nothing more than paper promises from, frankly, most likely dubious venture capitalists. There is no such thing as a free lunch, and exchanges offering any short time frame incentive for users to stake their coins are far outpacing their yield expenses by using your liquidity to trade. Zero free transactions on off-chain, custodial brokerages like Robinhood are sold to large firms that often directly trade against your order in the digital but public book. You incentivize firms to continue this behavior when you utilize these services and give up your rights as a property holder on the blockchain.

Simply buying bitcoin and leaving it on an exchange, while it might help you with the monetary expansion effects, it will not help you remove your liquidity and thus economic vulnerability to the macro-global economy. Exchange wallets have, are going to, and will always be, attack vectors for hackers to direct their energy, and by not doing your duty to protect your rights with the entropy of your own private key, you incentivize bad actors to continue sub-ideal economic activity. Bitcoin needs to be held by its users. It needs to be distributed and in custody of the people in order to siphon energy away from the ever-expanding debt bubble of our fiat system. Inevitably, incumbent banking elites will take custody of bitcoin and stablecoins for their users, and offer banking services to the new Bitcoin class.

These products, while perhaps may make sense for some, are very likely going to be an attempt to capture float and, more importantly with it, economic activity that leads to transaction fees and thus revenue streams. Satoshi himself talked about the need for bitcoin banks and payment processors, but he never mentioned if we should allow the legacy system to control these rails out of habit from their years of financial terrorism inflicted on the working class.

What's your plan? Alex Gladstein asked the Bitcoin masses. It is a serious and important question to ask yourself in regards to how well-equipped you are in all time frames.

Hyperbitcoinization will not be pretty. The overwhelming incentives to be a peaceful, good faith actor will ultimately bring a fair playing field to the world, but the transition there should not be assumed to be without a fair amount of turbulence. Millions of people around the world rely on dollar-denominated philanthropy and subsidies to reliably source such fundamental things we so quickly take for granted such as food, clean water, medicine and electricity. A further breakdown of supply chains will hurt the least prepared, and a further expansion of monetary supply could hurt even the most traditionally prepared. This is not an attempt to cast doom on our situation, but rather how important it is to handle this culmination with grace and sound execution. A systemic flipping from a fiat standard to a Bitcoin standard will require a concentrated effort of economic nodes of self-custodial users to maintain the chain and feed the incentive structure of withholding network integrity for the mutual benefit of all.

One obvious way to reduce your fiat footprint is to utilize bitcoin as a top of its class savings technology. Another less obvious way is situating your lifestyle in such a way to barely interact with the fiat rails at all. The model only works if you feed it your energy; true for both the Bitcoin network and the U.S. dollar system. While I cannot in good faith condone any other long-term, or even medium-term, investment outside of bitcoin, there are other ways to limit your personal exposure to central bank financial manipulation. If getting yourself set up to live the life you want to see more people in the world living means utilizing some Bitcoin, perhaps that will ultimately be well worth the inward investment. Consider building a low-overhead life to preserve persistent leakage from your addressable digital energy, but not so frugally you miss out on experiencing a truly beautiful day to day that brings you self-driven purpose no matter the ticker price.

The only way to preserve the collective human spirit is by carrying on with the very reasons we were plopped on this planet: creating art, writing books, exploring spaces, sharing experiences, extending life and helping it along. Onboarding your community and being loving and patient with all those that deserve it is not only just a neighborly gesture, but also directly incentivized in the presumed expansion of economic network effect. The more robust we make the network, by educating, saving and using bitcoin, the better the chance we have to massively disrupt the centralizing incumbent vultures. Build yourself an ark that can withstand the rains of another season of Jerome Powell, but one that's fun to live in if an unforeseen drought comes out of a potential macro-collapse. Bitcoin is the air mask that falls when an airplane loses cabin pressure, and you should feel good about putting it on your face; but now is the time to help those around you gain sovereignty and build lifestyles and infrastructures apart from the repressive regimes revealing themselves thoroughly throughout the start of the decade.

You may get rich along the way, but the intentions of the ideal money principles behind Bitcoin will spread net-beneficial user access and user rights from this disruptive technological advancement in the human energy economy. How do you create a world that encourages and empowers healthy Bitcoiners? Not by wasting bitcoin on frivolous things, but by utilizing bitcoin to monetize good ideas and sustain discourse toward a better and freer future. The hash rate continues to recover from the Great Migration, and network security has rarely ever been mathematically stronger against, or rather more difficult and expensive, to maliciously attack. But it does not matter how secure the hash string is if you use paper order books for high margin trading and gamble your ticket to the deflationary world.

Live somewhere you like, that upholds your views and that you can be proud to participate in. You are an actionable agent for jurisdictional arbitrage, and you can limit spending your satoshis only to where you want to see growth. Build homes, plant seeds, support creators and developers, and give yourself a saturated life you'll be proud of living in alignment with your personally held beliefs. Trust your instincts that brought you to Bitcoin in the first place, for you have put yourself in place to be given a grand gift of opportunity. There has not and will never be a greater transfer of wealth like this in the history of human economics. The transistor brought us analog logic, as the microprocessor has brought forth further applications of data storage and manipulation, all culminating into the mesh of human intelligence formulated in the world wide web. Digital scarcity in a near infinite universe is a very big deal, and you as a Bitcoiner have a unique opportunity to directly affect the ever-important rest of the decade.

If Bitcoin is going to be a peaceful revolution, then put yourself in a position to be at peace, full and sovereign. But best yet to prepare to protect the network in the many small, but compounding, ways you can. You can't fix the world until you fix yourself, and you can't fix all the money until you fix some of the money. Fix your money, fix your world.

This is a guest post by Mark Goodwin. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC, Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.

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Bitcoin And The Means To An End: Appreciation Is Simply A Vehicle For Major Change - Bitcoin Magazine

For years, the U.S. government has maintained a side hustle auctioning off bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Historically, Uncle Sam has done a pretty lousy job of timing the market.

The 500 bitcoin it sold to Riot Blockchain in 2018 for around $5 million? That's now worth north of $23 million. Or the 30,000 bitcoin that went to billionaire venture capitalist Tim Draper for $19 million in 2014? That would be more than $1.3 billion today.

The government has obtained all that bitcoin by seizing it, alongside the usual assets one would expect from high-profile criminal sting operations. It all gets sold off in a similar fashion.

"It could be 10 boats, 12 cars, and then one of the lots is X number of bitcoin being auctioned," said Jarod Koopman, director of the Internal Revenue Service's cybercrime unit.

One of the next seizures up on the auction block is $56 million worth of cryptocurrencies that authorities confiscated as part of a Ponzi scheme case involving offshore crypto lending program BitConnect. Unlike other auctions where the proceeds are redistributed to different government agencies, the cash from this crypto sale will be used to reimburse victims of the fraud.

The government's crypto seizure and sale operation is growing so fast that it just enlisted the help of the private sector to manage the storage and sales of its hoard of tokens.

FBI agents finish loading materials into a truck out of the home of United Auto Workers President Gary Jones on Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2019.

Michael Wayland / CNBC

For the most part, the U.S. has used legacy crime-fighting tools to deal with tracking and seizing cryptographically built tokens, which were inherently designed to evade law enforcement.

"The government is usually more than a few steps behind the criminals when it comes to innovation and technology," said Jud Welle, a former federal cybercrime prosecutor.

"This is not the kind of thing that would show up in your basic training," Welle said. But he predicts that in three to five years, "there will be manuals edited and updated with, this is how you approach crypto tracing, this is how you approach crypto seizure."

There are currently three main junctures in the flow of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies through the criminal justice system in the U.S.

The first phase is search and seizure. The second is the liquidation of raided crypto. And the third is deployment of the proceeds from those crypto sales.

In practice, the first stage is a group effort, according to Koopman. He said his team often works on joint investigations alongside other government agencies. That could be the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Homeland Security, the Secret Service, the Drug Enforcement Agency, or the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

"A lot of cases, especially in the cyber arena, become...joint investigations, because no one agency can do it all," said Koopman, who worked on the government's Silk Road cases and the 2017 AlphaBay investigation, which culminated in the closure of another popular and massive dark web marketplace.

Koopman said his division at the IRS typically handles crypto tracing and open source intelligence, which includes investigating tax evasion, false tax returns, and money laundering. His team consists of sworn law enforcement officers, who carry weapons and badges and who execute search, arrest and seizure warrants.

Other agencies that have more money and resources focus on the technical components.

"Then we all come together when it's time to execute any type of enforcement action, whether that's an arrest, a seizure or a search warrant. And that could be nationally or globally," he said.

During the seizure itself, multiple agents are involved to ensure proper oversight. That includes managers, who establish the necessary hardware wallets to secure the seized crypto.

"We maintain private keys only in headquarters so that it can't be tampered with," Koopman said.

In recent years, the government has brought back record amounts of crypto.

"In fiscal year 2019, we had about $700,000 worth of crypto seizures. In 2020, it was up to $137 million. And so far in 2021, we're at $1.2 billion," Koopman told CNBC in August. The fiscal year ended Sept. 30.

As cybercrime picks up and the haul of digital tokens along with it government crypto coffers are expected to swell even further.

Once a case is closed, the U.S. Marshals Service is the main agency responsible for auctioning off the government's crypto holdings. To date, it has seized and auctioned more than 185,000 bitcoins. That cache of coins is currently worth around $8.6 billion, though many were sold in batches well below today's price.

It's a big responsibility for one government entity to assume, which is part of why the Marshals Service no longer shoulders the task alone.

The U.S. General Services Administration, an agency that typically auctions surplus federal assets, such as tractors, added confiscated cryptocurrencies to the auction block earlier this year.

In July, following a more than yearlong search, the Department of Justice hired San Francisco-based Anchorage Digital to be its custodian for the cryptocurrency seized or forfeited in criminal cases. Anchorage, the first federally chartered bank for crypto, will help the government store and liquidate this digital property. The contract was previously awarded to BitGo.

"The fact that the Marshals Service is getting professionals to help them is a good sign that this is here to stay," said Sharon Cohen Levin, who worked on the first Silk Road prosecution and spent 20 years as chief of the money laundering and asset forfeiture unit in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York.

The process of auctioning off crypto, in blocks, at fair market value, likely won't change, according to Koopman.

"You basically get in line to auction it off. We don't ever want to flood the market with a tremendous amount, which then could have an effect on the pricing component," he said.

But other than spacing out sales, Koopman said, trying to "time" the market to sell at peak crypto prices isn't his objective. "We don't try to play the market," he said.

In November 2020, the government seized $1 billion worth of bitcoin linked to Silk Road. Because the case is still pending, those bitcoins are sitting idle in a crypto wallet. Had the government sold its bitcoin stake when the price of the token peaked above $67,000 last month, coffers would have been a whole lot bigger than if they liquidated at today's price.

https://www.usmarshals.gov/

Once a case is closed and the crypto has been exchanged for fiat currency, the feds then divvy the spoils. The proceeds of the sale are typically deposited into one of two accounts: The Treasury Forfeiture Fund or the Department of Justice Assets Forfeiture Fund.

"The underlying investigative agency determines which fund the money goes to," Levin said.

Koopman said the crypto traced and seized by his team accounts for roughly 60% to 70% of the Treasury Forfeiture Fund, making it the largest individual contributor.

After it's placed into one of these two funds, the liquidated crypto can then be put toward a variety of line items. Congress, for example, can rescind the money and give the cash to other projects.

"Agencies can put in requests to gain access to some of that money for funding of operations," said Koopman. "We're able to put in a request and say, 'We're looking for additional licenses or additional gear,' and then that's reviewed by the Executive Office of Treasury."

Some years, Koopman's team receives varying amounts based on the initiatives proposed. Other years, they get nothing because Congress will choose to rescind all the money out of the account.

Tracking where all the money goes isn't a straightforward process, according to Alex Lakatos, a partner with Washington, D.C. law firm Mayer Brown who advises clients on forfeiture.

The Justice Department hosts Forfeiture.gov, which offers some optics on current seizure operations. This document, for example, outlines a case from May where 1.04430259 bitcoin was taken from a hardware wallet belonging to an individual in Kansas. Another 10 were taken from a Texas resident in April. But it's unclear whether the list is a comprehensive compilation of all active cases.

"I don't believe there's any one place that has all the crypto that the U.S. Marshals are holding, let alone the different states that may have forfeited crypto. It's very much a hodgepodge," said Lakatos. "I don't even know if someone in the government wanted to get their arms around it, how they would go about doing it."

A Department of Justice spokesperson told CNBC he's "pretty sure" there's no central database of cryptocurrency seizures.

But what does appear clear is that more crypto seizure cases are being trumpeted to the public, like in the case of the FBI's breach of a bitcoin wallet held by the Colonial Pipeline hackers earlier this year.

"In my experience, folks that are in these positions in high levels of government, they may be there for a short period of time, and they want to get some wins under their belt," said Welle."This is the kind of thing that definitely captures the attention of journalists, cybersecurity experts."

WATCH: Here's why Fed Chair Jerome Powell wants stablecoin regulation

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The U.S. government has a massive, secret stockpile of bitcoin Here's what happens to it - CNBC

A technical sell signal is about to appear on the Bitcoin (BTC) daily chart.

On Dec. 18, the BTC price will experience a death cross, a market indicator that occurs when a short-term moving average slips below a long-term moving average. In this case, Bitcoin's 20-day exponential moving average (20-day EMA) will close below its 200-day exponential moving average (200-day EMA).

The indicator may end up alerting traders and investors about a potential selloff in the coming sessions, given its history of predicting bear trends in advance. For instance, the 20-200 bearish crossover that appeared on May 30, 2021, was instrumental in crashing the BTC price from $36,500 to $28,800 in the next 24 days.

A similar death across also surfaced during March 2020's pandemic-led market crash, exactly a day before the Bitcoin price dropped from nearly $8,000 to below $4,000.

Bitcoin has been correcting consecutively across the last four weeks and looks poised to close the ongoing weekly session in losses, as well, primarily with theFederal Reserve taking more aggressive action on inflation.

In the last 30 days, the BTC price has fallen by nearly 17.50%, including a correction from its record high of $69,000 on Nov. 10. In doing so, the cryptocurrency briefly fell to $42,333, only to rebound sharply later, paring some losses, as shown in the chart below.

Nonetheless, the rebound did not turn into a bullish reversal the Bitcoin price has been trending lower after finding an interim resistance near $50,000, a psychological level.

Bitcoin's efforts to retest $50,000 for a bullish breakout face opposition from its descending channel's resistance trendline, combined with additional downside pressure from its 20-day EMA and 200-day EMA waves, which are also sitting near $50,000.

Related:Bitcoin bears lack 'balls' to continue selling into 2022 analyst

As a result, the path of least resistance for Bitcoin appears to the downside. And with the death cross looming, the cryptocurrency would likely continue trending inside the descending channel to test levels around $42,000 for a strong pullback move.

If the decline accelerates, the price may eye $40,000 next as its downside target.

Another leg lower would also push Bitcoin's daily relative strength index (RSI) into its oversold territory below 30, a buying signal.For now, the momentum indicator has been attempting to break above its downward sloping trendline, a move that has earlier predicted Bitcoin's local price bottoms.

On a shorter timeframe chart, the RSI has been consolidating sideways, anticipating that it would break out of the rectangle range to the upside. At the core of this optimistic outlook is a fractal from September 2021,shared by Mozzi, an independent crypto-market analyst.

"Bitcoin is following a similar structure from the end of September," the analystnoted on Saturday.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

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Bitcoin 'death cross' that pushed BTC price to $28.8K reappears - Cointelegraph