From the Desk Of A Trader #12
"The game is to survive, not to shine."
Cheat Sheet -
Support and resistance levels and our daily, weekly and monthly bias on BTC, ETH, OIL, ES, and NQ as well as our favorite altcoins.
Crypto News
Tinder's chief product officer joins web3 gaming studio N3twork (The Block)
Nexo's Bulgaria office raided by police (The Block)
IPFS releases browser extension to archive tweets (The Block)
FTX Has Recovered 'Over $5B' in Assets, Bankruptcy Attorney Says (CoinDesk)
FTX Former Engineering Chief Nishad Singh Looking for Deal From Feds (CoinDesk)
Samsung investment arm to launch Bitcoin Futures ETF amid rising crypto interest (CoinTelegraph)
Ukraine Bank Finds Stellar Blockchain Brings ‘Key Advantages’ (Blockworks)
Silvergate Received Billions in Home Loan Bank Advances To Weather Withdrawals (Blockworks)
Gemini Earn Users Lose Savings in ‘White Collar Robbery’ (Blockworks)
Bill Gates Doesn’t Think Web3 Is a Big Deal (Decrypt)
S&P Downgrades Coinbase Debt to ‘Speculative Grade’ Amid Fresh Layoffs (Decrypt)
FTX Arena Naming Rights Deal Officially Dead (Decrypt)
Amazon Web Services Users Can Now Launch Avalanche Blockchain Nodes (Decrypt)
From The Desk Of A Trader
James Jani did a good job with his 55-minute documentary "The Great Crypto Scam", released last week.
Well made, providing context, raising fair and relevant questions and commenting in an eloquent, comprehensive, and logical way.
There was no shouting, gloating, grifting, nor s(h)elling.
Observations to make you think, without drama
It was on my watch list after the Netflix series on Madoff, who appeared in the documentary.
Surprisingly, similar to the Madoff series, the FTX collapse and SBF's fraud were not shown. Perhaps it was ready before those events became public.
I have shared my observations of the crypto space on LinkedIn as an intellectual challenge, and to give my perspective as a commodity trader.
Despite having some of the characteristics, I have never called crypto a Ponzi or a scam as it works as a red cloth to the bulls and it does not help discussions intended to be constructive.
Crypto believers often react emotionally when challenged, as it touches their identity, investment and sometimes business model.
Getting emotional in #markets is not good, while respecting the other side of the trade, and thinking "what if I am wrong", is.
So to balance Jani's documentary and accommodate the believers, I also quote one of crypto's most prominent and credible supporters, from a Jun '22 interview with McKinsey, A16Z's Marc Andreessen, who also appears in it.
"Blockchain/Web3/crypto is a revolution around distributed consensus, building trusted networks on the internet, and all the things that follow from that"
"A foundational #technology change, a new architecture for building an entirely new generation of computing systems"
"As foundational an architecture shift as the ones from mainframes to PCs, from PCs to web, from web to mobile, or from traditional software to AI. It’s a fundamental shift and building this out is a 25 to 30 year process"
"It layers trust on top of the untrusted network. And as you layer trust on top, you get to pull all of the other economic activity online that you haven’t been able to get online. That’s the big thing"
Andreessen also notices emotional reactions to crypto.
"There is something about crypto and Web3 that it triggers an extremely negative response"
"Even a lot of established tech companies are just full-on, "this stuff is stupid, it’s fake”
"One possible explanation is that they’re right. You always have to concede that the critics may be right"
"But maybe crypto gets people emotional because this technology involves a new form of #money"
I saw that during the 2021 "everything bubble", Wall Street and social media created an unsustainable new money hype for all, to achieve old money riches for few.
Crypto has become a kabuki theater stimulating gambling, attracting bad actors, which requires regulatory oversight, to ensure consumer protection against the Madoff's and SBF's of this world.
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