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Hi Everyone, One time I legit saw Vitalik Buterin take the stage at a conference and just say the word "scaling," only to illicit a roaring applause in response from the crowd. He then followed up with the phrase "proof of stake," to an even more enthusiastic reaction from adoring fans. If Satoshi Nakamoto himself took the stage at a crypto conference and said the word "Taproot," I doubt he would be able to get the same sort of response. Despite this being Bitcoin's biggest software upgrade in years, and the fact that unlike many previous bitcoin upgrades, it is not marred by controversy, not too many people seem genuinely excited about it. Even the miners seem less than eager as we can see on taproot.watch. This site tracks all the latest Bitcoin blocks showing a green square for blocks that have signaled in favor of taproot and red for blocks that have not. Only if the greens take a total of 51%, will the network proceed with the upgrade. With approximately 10 day left, it does seem quite likely that it will happen, but the lack of enthusiasm about getting started is glaring. | |
Perhaps the term Schnorr, which refers to the lightweight cryptographic algorithm set to be implemented, but actually sounds like the word snore, is a lot more apt than most people realize. As any Federal Reserve chair will tell you, a boring update is a successful one. | |
Order of business Later today, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler will have the honor of speaking before the U.S. House Financial Services Committee in order to address matters of great import. Thus far, the incoming chair has been a master of biting his tongue on issues of national interest. Much has happened from the time he was first nominated by President Joe Biden to lead the critical regulatory body. A perfect example is the GameStop fiasco that came to a head in late January. ... | |
Among the talking points were such matters as payment for order flow, which is apparently illegal in many developed countries, centralization of market execution, short-seller reporting, and of course the possibility of "bad actors" who may try to take advantage of popular online forums to manipulate markets. It's not like there's much evidence of that last point, but it will be interesting to hear the new chair's thoughts on it. One matter that might not be on the official agenda, but that will certainly come up, is Gensler's long-withheld opinion on cryptocurrencies. Rep. Warren Davidson, a man who's been advocating crypto-friendly regulation on Capitol Hill since 2017, mentioned in an interview on Bloomberg this morning that he plans on putting the screws to the new SEC chair on this particular issue during his allotted question time. | |
Jobs day Tomorrow is jobs day in the U.S., and economists are currently predicting the best numbers that we've seen since September, as the world's largest economy moves past the pandemic. | |
This is, of course, terrible news for Fed policymakers, who are doing their best to remain accommodative for this roaring market, but I guess we'll see how it goes. Have a wonderful afternoon. | |
Mati Greenspan Analysis, Advisory, Money Management | | |
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