There was a lot of drama over China’s announcement over the weekend forcing Bitcoin miners to pack up and leave the country. It sparked a furious sell off earlier in the week which briefly breached recent lows just above $30,000 per coin.
But the big question for me, as always, is why now? There are never any coincidences in geopolitics. Things happen when they happen for reasons. And sometimes those reasons are not readily apparent.
In the case of bitcoin it happened after the FOMC shocked markets the same day Presidents Biden and Putin met in Geneva, signaling a shift in monetary policy which drained markets of a lot of dollars.
So the stage was set for China to pile on, here.
For bitcoin bulls, especially those looking at things technically, these were a scary couple of hours. Bitcoin has been vulnerable psychologically since the May 19th bloodbath. It’s never bullish when a recent low is violated, it’s especially worrying when that May19th low of 30,261.70 (Investing.com Bitcoin Index price) had already been tested a few times and seemed to hold.

So, in no way should we make light of that violation. But as the day wore on and the market refused to break down further, we saw the inevitable snapback rally associated with the bulls making a big statement, forcing overzealous shorts to cover.
But as I’ve discussed multiple times recently, governments and the traditional financial community are hostile to bitcoin and all cryptocurrencies. They have stepped up that hostility with the price getting out of control above $64,000 and the cracks in the financial system widening in the aftermath of the Coronapocalypse.
Anyone serious about what bitcoin is, what it represents and what it was designed to do knew this fight was coming and isn’t surprised now that it’s here. So, China’s crackdown on the immense amount of mining going on in the country is no surprise. China’s pilot projects to introduce its digital yuan, already struggling against entrenched systems like Alipay and Tenpay, are further complicated by any strong cryptocurrency underground economy.
And the reality is that bitcoin mining in China was always tacitly approved of by the Chinese government as long as it served the CCP’s purpose to pressure western financial dominance as an extension of their mercantilist playbook. But, at some point, that relationship was going to end.
But there are a few other issues at play here that may not be readily apparent. And I went over them in a video I did recently. Asking the following question:
Like I said, sometimes the reasons aren’t readily apparent. So, here’s what I thought then and still do.
At Bitcoin 2021, Kevin O’Leary, chairing a discussion on being a Public Bitcoin Mining company made the statement that there’s more than $1 trillion in institutional money that wants to come into cryptos but are being held back by a number of things.
First, there are custodial issues, legally, but those are being worked out. States like Wyoming have, and soon others will have, the financial institutions capable of acting as custody agent for moving funds in and out of crypto. But the problem they focused on in this discussion was ESG — Environmental, Social and Governance — compliance which has inserted itself as a roadblock thanks to The Davos Crowd’s declaring bitcoin to be “not green enough.”
That argument is, of course, a silly one which I addressed recently with respect to Lizzie “Slapaho” Warren’s silly comments about bitcoin. Elon Musk was, I think, forced to make the comments he made to help break the market back in May.
Where so many bitcoin bears go wrong in their analysis is thinking that all the banks are against cryptos. But they aren’t. If anything they all want in because the reality is that their traditional business has been choked off by the central banks.
Remember, I told you last month that the big untold story of Davos’ Great Reset is that the commercial banks are to be thrown under the bus and fed as chum to the remnant of the Occupy Wall St. crowd when the next iteration of the global financial collapse gets underway.
The Davos Crowd in Europe is setting up the U.S. banks to be the villains of the next big financial crisis. Obama through Biden is putting in place regulation, tax policy, court decisions, etc. to ensure both maximal anger at the banks and get the maximum effect on the structure of the U.S. economy.
So, once this crisis hits and the banks are caught once again having been irresponsible, they will be blamed like no other villain has been blamed since Hitler. And the Progressives on Capitol Hill — the Lizzie Slapahos and the AOCs — will demand the banks pay for killing the little guy.
Now let’s connect another couple of dots. If O’Leary’s numbers are even close to correct then the floor under bitcoin is a lot stronger than recent price action would indicate. That means there is a third reason holding back their investment into crypto.
Bitcoin’s hashing power being centered in China. A lot of miners there saw the writing on the wall and began moving out of the country earlier this year. China’s share of bitcoin’s hashing power had dropped to around 50% of the market. In a business this big and a potential investment pool also large enough looking to make it bigger China controlling that much hashing power is a national security issue.
So, the deal is a simple one. China doesn’t want the corruption surrounding bitcoin mining. It also is tired of it destabilizing its electrical grid, feeding off its electricity subsidie. It also helps knock a few local officials skimming mining profits back down to size. It also wants more control, not less, over its internal currency flow.
The U.S. wants more security surrounding bitcoin production to support its financial oligarchs staying relevant and tapping into the massive latent demand for cryptos in general. Pension funds, yield starved after nearly a generation of being turned Japanese can no longer tap the fracking junk bond markets to make their 8% mandated returns thanks to Biden’s doing Davos’ bidding to shut down U.S. domestic production.
In a podcast at the beginning of the year I made the prediction that DeFi would become the new junk bond market in the U.S. because of this as the potential returns off a rising crypto market was attractive to yield-starved investors.
And with new BIS rules putting cryptocurrencies on par with junk bonds for capital reserve requirements, that prediction seems to have been prescient. The reason the Fed raised interest rates in 2017-18 was to help pension funds meet their obligations. That policy had to fail then and it quickly reversed course last year.
Now they aren’t going to do so for at least another eighteen months and the markets freaked out by a simply 5 bps raise of both IOER and the RRP rates.
So, this leaves us with the scenario that bitcoin actually helps fix this very real problem and it does so without the Fed or the Treasury having to just bail everyone out and foist the bills off on the next generation. Moreover, tt blunts the Davos plan to just blow everything up, issue a bunch of scrip, i.e. MMT, and turn us into China on steroids.
And if that helps mitigate some of the tension between the two countries it’s a small price to pay allowing institutions and big players who want into crypto to further accumulate at much lower prices while keeping all the bears scared to join in because they still think the headlines tell the tale.
In my experience, headlines rarely do anything close to that. A close this week above $30,000 looks more like a matter of watching out above rather than below.
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Or the Yuan’s entry into the SDR basket in 2016 is an indication that a global (IMF or BIS?) stablecoin is being prepared (Diem?) backed by the major fiat currencies, and the demonization and persecution of Bitcoin in China is merely the start of a Davos-led and co-ordinated process to ban all private crypto.
Just sayin’.
Hey Tom, sorry this is off-topic, we don’t see eye to eye on everything but you were so right about the value of information.
That’s why they wanted me isolated. Someone was fucking with me.
They weren’t trying to silence me alone, they were stealing my ideas. They gave me some ideas in return, thinking I was the one benefiting. It was hidden under the guise of initiation that never ends. I’ve been censored on your blog somehow, I don’t think it was you. It could be a technical glitch though since wordpress sucks.
I said it from the start, our efforts need to be an open-source process, because otherwise the people with tech and bad intentions will literally violate your computer and your mind, and use it for themselves. The technology is here for them to do this, we’re the ones who don’t have it. Beware. Do things openly or only the bad guys will get the information. They’ll develop products and place bets on the market with it.
This about defending the private property which is your very mind, and them trying to keep secrets buried, both.
That’s why you make a thousand new age religion blogs where people submit to the idea of joining hivemind and “communitarian” empires. All your thoughts belong to society, really.
It’s extremely hard to stay down to earth when you go down this rabbit hole, but this is it, they want your brainpower and their secrets.
Basic natural law libertarian socialist ethics are the only thing I believe in anymore. I ditched even spirituality since it was a gateway drug to superstition.
It’s all about information.
Did you hear about the Chinese spy who defected to the United States with three terabytes worth of Chinese information. He went to the DIA not the FBI or CIA and the Biden administration did not know about him.
This is excellent news for decentralization. Bitmain and others will no longer be able to sell their ASICS internally to Chinese miners at discount prices while the rest of us pay top dollar. Also gone will be secretly mining with new prototypes before releasing them to the pubic. And the cherry on top will be a hardware glut driving prices to the floor. Pity the Chinese though in this massive own goal for their freedom.
The CCP carefully watched the crypto space and all the code while providing massive funding for research on a centralized coin with functionality that will both impress and chill your spine. You can have a centralized coin guaranteed by the force of the state or you can have a decentralized coin guaranteed by proof of work. What’s it to be? The ruthless efficiency of a centralized coin paid for by the power of the state or the hard road of decentralized coins with proof of work?
Craig wright going to take back the bitcoin brand name from BTC through the UK high court soon.. its already in process. He’s had the copyright to the code and whitepaper for a while now. Now the COPA retards walked into his trap he will then be able to enforce his rights. He also has around 3000 patents now too…. that’s why the COPA retards exist..
https://patents.google.com/?assignee=nchain&oq=nchain
Mt. Gox, Quadriga, and now Africrypt.
Sophisticated HODLers that are already on board know this is just one more example of why you shouldn’t leave funds on the exchange, but to the average punter that we need to buy into private crypto, this is one more reason not to.
Davos are pulling up the ladders Tom – soon private crypto will be banned and HODLers will be stampeded into their stablecoin (Diem?) or outlawed.
I get that you might not wish to publish this comment, and I completely support your right not to – this is after all your website.
I want to see bitcoin over come two facts. These facts also apply to gold n silver. Fact 1: When stonks crashed into March 2020, so did bitcoin and so did gold n silver. Fact #2: This isn’t actually a fact as of yet, but it will be proven to be a fact very soon. The “fact” is that the lows set for stonks, shitcoins, and commodities in general that were set in March 2020 are now “target lows” for future selloffs. A move below BTC $3800 opens the door to the gapdown low it set the Fri evening that the two TwinkleToes Shitco brothers got their bitcoin shitcoin ETF “denied!!” by the S.E.C. years ago. That low was $700 per Bitcoin shittoken. Bitcoin will NEVER achieve universal acceptance ifn it doesn’t 1) Gain acceptance from “normal” idiots who don’t believe their asset of choice should go 20X every 2 years and 2) Lose the bearded dudes in skinny jeans and hoodies. Bitcoin as it is right now may well be too gay for even the LGBTQ community to get involved. Who’s ready for guys in speedos “live!” on Utube…direct from ElSalvador? #NormalPeeps sure ain’t
Shitlib and shitcoin. Seems like maybe the same crowd. Believe in fairy tales and sci-fi that we’re not ready for yet. Still some generations after the ruin of this fourth turning.
> But the big question for me, as always, is why now? There are never any coincidences in geopolitics. Things happen when they happen for reasons. And sometimes those reasons are not readily apparent.
“In politics, nothing happens by accident. If something does happen, you can bet it was planned that way.”
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
This gives too much credit to the clowns in charge. It’s like seeking out the 4th dimensional chess move Trump or Musk is making when it’s really fear, ignorance, greed or incompetence.
DCEP is struggling because it is weak and unwanted except by its doting parents. Clearing away the domestic competition is futile if there’s any global plan for it. My prediction is that DCEP will be a disaster.
Governments are made of people who lie well, thus not omniscient or omnipotent.
Agreed, but governments are not really the issue – if anything, political leaders are merely the clueless, interchangeable and expendable facemen that we are told run the show. A convenient heatsink for our anger at our ongoing impoverishment.
Those capable of more than just “lying well” find their way into different spheres – areas of real power and influence behind the scenes. We rarely know their names and they shun the limelight.
These social engineers use governments as tools.
Tom calls them The Davos Crowd, but believes them to be bumblers too.
We are about to see if he’s right.
“commercial banks are to be thrown under the bus”
It was only a matter of time before the “elites” would turn on their own kind and start consuming themselves. The inevitable consequences of diminishing returns on very much needed natural resources.
Currencies, regardless of type, are proxies for energy which, is limited and can not be magically created.
Your head is in the wrong place Tom. Sorry. Physics trumps economics every time.
Avagoodwun.
Cheers.
H.
Just wondering why you censored my comment. Seemed pretty innocuous to me?
I don’t censor comments… but not all of them come through the wordpress notifications… let me look for it and I’ll post it. If i don’t see it I can’t approve it.
I don’t see any other comments by you for me to approve.
Nevermind… Found ’em. There were a few in the hopper that I never got notifications for.
many thanks