|
| | | Today’s Stories:
🎸 Conference Recap
🚀 The Future is Bright For Bitcoin | Today's newsletter is 1,326 words, a 6-minute good read. |
| |
| | |
|
We Went To Nashville So You Didn’t Have To |
Last week, we promised to report our takeaways from BTC 2024 and all that we found insightful. |
Today, we’ll share our favorite speeches, highlight key takeaways, and revisit the ongoing and important narratives for investors going forward. |
Broadly speaking, in a world filled with short-sighted, attention-grabbing headlines focused primarily on price, it was refreshing to sit back and marvel at just how massive this industry has become. |
Summary of Events and Notable Speeches |
BlackRock’s Bitcoin Journey (watch)
Bloomberg’s James Seyffart sat down with BlackRock’s Head of Digital Assets, Robert Mitchnick to discuss the fund’s journey from crypto skepticism to launching the most successful ETFs in history. |
The gist: BlackRock views Bitcoin very much as risk-off, or a flight to safety. And despite the ETF hysteria around inflows and outflows, Mitchnick reminded us that most of their clients are long-term investors, just like us, buying with the intention of holding BTC for years to come. Overall, there’s a lot more demand still eagerly waiting on the sidelines as BlackRock builds the infrastructure to eventually allow its bitcoin products to be sold on a solicited basis. |
Alex Gladstein on Bitcoin Global Utility (watch)
Founder of the Human Rights Foundation, Alex Gladstein, presented all the global use-cases of bitcoin that many American’s fail to conceptualize. |
The gist: The first world has financial privilege and bitcoin is bad for dictators. Bitcoin may not be for everyone, but it is for anyone. It should be no surprise that countries with the highest rates of adoption are experiencing economic, fiat, or humanitarian crises. |
Gladstein also took the main stage on the following day (watch), discussing another overlooked use-case: Bitcoin saves wasted energy. |
Michael Saylor’s Keynote (watch)
MicroStrategy CEO (who, by the way, is treated as like God at the conference) breaks down the limitations of traditional financial and physical assets, contrasting them with the revolutionary potential of Bitcoin as a 100,000-year asset. |
The gist: Don’t ever sell your bitcoin. |
RFK Jr. Keynote (watch)
Presenting at the Bitcoin Conference for the second year in a row, Presidential candidate RFK Jr. proposed ambitious initiatives including making the US government a major Bitcoin holder, eliminating taxes on Bitcoin transactions, and using Bitcoin to incentivize green energy production, curtail inflation, pay down US debt, and defund the US military industrial complex. |
The gist: RFK went on stage, smashed all the buttons, and strategically, delivered a speech that was nearly impossible for Trump to one-up. In other words, he hit on nearly every angle any bitcoin enthusiasts could hope for while demonstrating a deeper understanding of what bitcoin represents. |
Trump Keynote (watch)
After much anticipation, Trump finally made his Bitcoin pitch. He committed to a strategic Bitcoin reserve that would hodl all existing/confiscated government BTC. Scattered between mixed messages and banter that sounded just like another Republican rally, Trump promised the right to self custody, to free Ross, shut down Chokepoint 2.0 and, of course, fire Gary Gensler. |
The gist: Trump went down the checklist of all the things he was supposed to say. While the speech was less revolutionary than many anticipated, lacking any talk of the mechanics behind his plans or passion, it sure was enough to appeal to the roaring crowd. |
Cynthia Lummis unveils Bitcoin Strategic Reserve Bill (watch)
The Republican senator out of Wyoming unveiled legislation that would require the U.S. government to buy one million Bitcoin over five years — roughly 5% of the total supply and valued at $68 billion at current prices. |
The gist: The government would hold those coins for at least 20 years unless the tokens are sold to “reduce the debt.” We already hold oil. We stockpile gold, too. Will BTC be next? |
|
PARTNER |
Start earning today |
|
Turn out the lights on traditional savings accounts. With our high-yield cash account, your money is earning 11x the national average**. |
Get started |
*The national average savings account interest rate is reported by the FDIC (as of 3/18/24) as the average annual percentage yield (APY) for savings accounts with deposits under $100,000. |
|
|
The Major Themes and Takeaways |
Bitcoin is more political than you could even imagine |
Trump, RFK, Tim Scott, Haggerty, Vivek, Khanna… You’d be forgiven for mistaking the conference for a political rally. |
And while there were Democrat representatives on the stage, it was clear that the attendees were pro-Trump and the Republican party. |
The question emerges: Are these politicians serious about implementing Bitcoin into their policy because they believe in it? Or is this all just a quick sleight of hand? |
Regardless, we want to reiterate that politics was THE major takeaway from the conference. Simply put, Bitcoin will be a significant force in the coming election. Whether that is a good thing or not remains unclear. |
Coinbase: A Silent Behemoth |
While many crypto companies were in attendance at the conference, one obvious missing was Coinbase. |
Why? It seems that they don’t need to be. |
Other crypto companies and exchanges used the conference to promote how good their businesses are and how they are onboarding new users. But any discussion with TradFi companies entering the space all had one thing in common – they were using Coinbase. |
It seems as though Coinbase has already won over the retail community. Instead, they are probably off courting developers and large traditional finance (see BlackRock talk above). |
Volatility is definitely still a bug, not a feature |
On multiple occasions, we heard a moderator insinuate that Bitcoin’s volatility is necessary or, perhaps even good. |
And every single time that idea was shut down by the speaker. |
So, while retail investors might like the idea of being able to buy and sell an asset that gyrates in price every day, it is clear that in order to 10x in market cap, the volatility will need to come down. |
The good news? It already is. |
Yes, we’re still early. |
It was only two short years ago that Bitcoin was trading ~$ at $17,000 in the wake of FTX's collapse. |
Fast forward to today and the presumptive future President's political party is discussing creating a strategic reserve of millions of BTC. |
It seems odd to say that, given everything we all as a community have been through… but the truth is, we are still early. |
|
|
|
|
| Bitcoin Magazine @BitcoinMagazine | |
| JUST IN: $13.2 billion Cantor Fitzgerald CEO says they own “a shit load of #Bitcoin” | | | | 3:49 PM • Jul 27, 2024 | | | |
| | 7.37K Likes 1.15K Retweets | | 404 Replies |
|
|
|
Other Content You Might Enjoy |
Tether generates a record $5.2B profit in first half of the year (The Block) Circle Said to Be Trading Around $5B Valuation Ahead of Planned IPO (Coindesk) Galaxy (GLXY) raises $113M for crypto-focused venture fund (Galaxy) Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon says bitcoin could be 'a store of value case' (The Block) U.S. National Debt Tops $35 Trillion for First Time (NYT) Sen. Lummis draft bill allows US states to hold bitcoin (The Block) |
|
How did you like today's email? |
| ⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡ Love it⚡⚡⚡ Ehh, could be better⚡ Do better next time |
|
About CoinSnacks |
Launched in December 2017, CoinSnacks is home to the longest continuously running crypto newsletter. Each week, we publish our cryptoasset musings to an audience of 35k+ crypto enthusiasts and investors. |
In a space flooded with new projects, research, and narratives, you may feel overwhelmed or confused. CoinSnacks offers a solution by doing the digging for you, so you don't have to spend hundreds of hours sifting through the noise. Learn more here » |
|
Reach Our Audience |
If you’re a brand interested in partnering with CoinSnacks to find your next customers, partners, or allies, we’d love to hear from you. Learn more here. |
