“Isn’t he the idiot who said bitcoin would hit $40,000 weeks before it hit $4,000?”
In case you’re wondering, yes, that “idiot” is me.
That’s a variation of what many of the 5 million people who tuned in to watch a special broadcast I had with media personality Glenn Beck in July 2018 tweeted, wrote, or uttered.
At the time I pointed to how institutions were telling everyone how corrupt and worthless bitcoin was… While at the same time, they were laying the groundwork for their traders and money managers to buy, sell, and store bitcoin.
I called it the Great Crypto Conspiracy of 2018.
In July 2018 bitcoin was trading at $8,000. And my research told me as adoption increased, the price would ramp up rapidly.
I would end up being both right and wrong at the same time.
Adoption did indeed ramp up dramatically.
All through the 2018 bear market, adoption rose. And yet the market hammered bitcoin’s price lower.
This was due to traders hedging long positions with a corresponding short position in the newly formed bitcoin futures market.
We saw traders liquidate their spot bitcoin and clean up on their short position in Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) futures. It was the first market period in bitcoin’s brief life when traders had a reliable mechanism to go short.
Many believed the introduction of CME futures along with the ability to go short would mark the end of bitcoin’s meteoric rise. (CME is the world’s largest financial derivatives exchange.)
And it did… at least for 16 months it did.
For the powers that be, it was mission accomplished.
You see, it wouldn’t come out until nearly two years later that the whole premise behind approving bitcoin futures was to crush the price of bitcoin… And in my belief, to extinguish the threat it represented to global U.S. dollar dominance.
You don’t have to take my word for it.
In an October 2019 interview, Christopher Giancarlo – the former Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) boss – explained why he approved a bitcoin futures contract:
One of the untold stories of the past few years is that the CFTC, the Treasury, the [Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)], and the [National Economic Council] director at the time, Gary Cohn, believed that the launch of bitcoin futures would have the impact of popping the bitcoin bubble. And it worked…
We saw a bubble building, and we thought the best way to address it was to allow the market to interact with it.
This wasn’t the first time the establishment had gunned for bitcoin.
In September 2017 JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon infamously called bitcoin a “fraud” and threatened to fire any of his employees caught trading BTC. (Dimon later said he “regretted” those statements.)
The price of bitcoin dropped as much as 30% over the next three days after his statements.
What’s funny is that his London office swooped in to pick up BTC after his comments had knocked the price down.
In less than two months, BTC had hit a new high, making those traders as much as 137%.
Up until now these battles have been between the “establishment” (Wall Street firms, financial regulators, and governments) and the bitcoin community.
Now a new battle is taking shape. And this time it’s happening within the establishment.
I call it the “Establishment Civil War” because it pits U.S. financial regulators against the most powerful financial firms on Wall Street.
An Army of Ants Protected Bitcoin
Up until June 15, the main crypto battleground involved the establishment (regulators, financial firms, central banks) and bitcoiners (everyday people like you and me).
I’ll tell you why June 15 is such an important date in a moment. But know this: Bitcoin has a long history of people trying to kill it.
From China banning bitcoin mining… to the “Nerd Wars” of 2017–2018… to SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s current crusade against fully regulated U.S. exchanges… We’ve seen numerous attacks against bitcoin.
Every time the establishment has tried to bury bitcoin, it’s been the relentless army of “ants” – the everyday people like you and I – who’ve refused to believe the establishment propaganda against BTC…
We’ve been the ones to keep dollar-cost averaging, HODLing (holding on for dear life), and staying true to the core value proposition that bitcoin represents.
That relentless buying and HODLing despite the thousands of negative news articles has pushed the adoption of crypto from just 5 million users in 2016 to an estimated 425 million today.
Today, HODLers own an estimated 68% of the bitcoin supply. That’s the amount of bitcoin that hasn’t moved in more than a year.
Thirty percent of bitcoin holders haven’t moved their coins in five years. By comparison, the average holding period for U.S. stocks is only 5.5 months.
That means there’s a large group of people who’ve held on through thick and thin.
These people are price agnostic. They don’t care if BTC drops 50% or rises 50%. They just hold.
This matters because over time, this “HODL rate” keeps going up.
When you have an ever-growing group of people that refuses to sell… on the cusp of an explosion in new buyers… while the overall supply is cut in half every four years – the logical outcome is much higher prices in the future.
As you can see from the chart, given enough time an army of ants can move mountains. And that’s exactly what the community has done with bitcoin.
Now Here Come the Giants
What’s coming next, though, isn’t an army of ants… It’s an army of giants.
And they don’t move the earth with tiny ant-sized mandibles. They move the earth with gigantic hydraulic shovels the size of three-story buildings.
RH400 hydraulic shovel. Source: KH Plant
Here’s what I mean by that…
Remember that June 15 date I mentioned above?
That’s when BlackRock – the world’s largest asset manager, with almost $10 trillion under management – stunned the world by filing for a spot exchange-traded fund (ETF).
Unlike previous bitcoin ETF applications, this filing went to great lengths to appease the SEC’s concerns over manipulation in the spot BTC market.
This was such a big deal to me that on June 21, I came out and said when we look back, we’ll see that the BlackRock filing will have marked the end of the crypto bear market and the beginning of the bull market. (Confidential subscribers can watch the video here.)
Will I be wrong, like when I called $40,000 bitcoin?
I’m sure many thought I will be. Especially when just 15 days after BlackRock announced its spot bitcoin ETF application… The SEC threw cold water all over it.
The agency said the application was inadequate because it didn’t properly monitor price manipulation in the spot BTC market. That forced BlackRock to refile the application to address the SEC’s concerns.
Bitcoin briefly dropped to $29,000 on the news… but quickly vaulted back above $30,000, where it’s held steady. If we were still in a bear market, bitcoin would have dropped 30%-plus on that news.
Here’s my takeaway: The market has finally awakened. The financial giants are coming, and there’s just not enough bitcoin to go around.
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and his colossal money management firm is the mightiest giant of them all. If you don’t believe me, consider this…
Just over two weeks after the SEC called the BlackRock bitcoin ETF application “inadequate,” it quietly acknowledged that it had accepted the refiled application for official review.
Now, this doesn’t mean the SEC has approved the ETF. But it means the application is on the agency’s docket for review.
The fact that the application is now under official consideration is a big step forward. To me this looks like Larry Fink has been able to force the SEC to stop its foot-dragging.
Friends, Larry Fink’s move into bitcoin provides all the cover the rest of Wall Street needs to bring their money shovels, too.
The bet in front of you is simple: Do you bet that Gary Gensler – a political appointee with very little political capital to speak of – has the stones to both confront, deny, and defeat the 800-pound gorilla of global finance, Larry Fink?
I think not.
And if Gensler loses – which I believe he will – what does that mean for all of crypto?
Bitcoin will skyrocket in price. BTC at $100,000 will happen in the blink of an eye. That’s a 235% move higher from here.
Ethereum will also explode higher in value to at least $7,500. That’s another no-brainer 296% gain.
So you need to own more bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH).
If you’re waiting for a big dip, you might not get it. If you have cash on the sidelines and are looking for an opportunity to own more bitcoin and Ethereum, now’s your chance.
This Will Be a Huge Trend
Longtime readers know that in the future, I believe every asset will be tokenized.
That means stocks, bonds, titles of ownership, music rights – everything of value – will have their ownership rights secured by a blockchain.
That will be led by stablecoins and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), private market funds, securities, and real estate.
The simplest, lowest risk, highest reward way to get exposure to this trend is to buy the Ethereum (ETH) token.
Based on my research, it will eventually be the world’s most important global trade network because most NFTs (as well as countless other innovations) are built on its open-source software.
Now, I do have an urgent warning about CBDCs.
While the global move to CBDCs will be a catalyst for digital currencies, it also will threaten your financial freedom.
As I wrote last month, the United States is laying the groundwork for a digital dollar. And the Federal Reserve just launched FedNow on Thursday.
If you haven’t heard of FedNow, it’s basically the infrastructure that the U.S. government would require for a future transition to a U.S. digital dollar.
That’s why some call FedNow “a Trojan Horse for CBDCs.”
FedNow is a new instant payment system developed by the Fed. It allows financial institutions of every size to provide instant payment services.
And once a government implements a digital currency, it will have direct access to your bank account.
That’s why I recently put together a free presentation to show you how to opt out of a new dollar regime while at the same time profiting from it.
One of the plays is a crypto project that will provide the infrastructure for blockchain digital payment networks.
Click here to stream the presentation.
Friends, for five centuries the global financial system has been in the hands of the elites. And all their power came from a centralized accounting system that they owned, operated, and controlled.
The blockchain is poised to reverse the entire process – distributing the information and power equally all around the world. As it plays out, the value creation in the ETH token and other projects that enable this shift will be immense.
Let the Game Come to You!
Big T