Independent Alternative-News Aggregation
Source: ZeroHedge.com
International Man: At $1.1 trillion, annualized interest on the US federal debt is now the second-largest budget item—and is on track to become the largest.
Meanwhile, long-term interest rates are climbing, even as the Fed lowers short-term rates.
Can the US government keep kicking the can down the road? Or will Trump have to reset the system?
Source: CoinTelegraph.com
There are five key warning signs when Bitcoin (BTC) is nearing a price peak, and one of those indicators is already flashing red, according to onchain data service CryptoQuant.
In a Nov. 19 X post, CryptoQuant shared its top indicators to watch when assessing whether or not Bitcoin’s price is nearing an unsustainable level.
Source: CoinTelegraph.com
Bitcoin exchange-traded funds now collectively manage approximately $104 billion, and are on track to surpass gold ETFs in net assets.
United States Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) broke $100 billion in net assets for the first time on Nov. 21, according to data from Bloomberg Intelligence.
Continue reading “US Bitcoin ETF Assets Break Above $100 Billion – Alex O’Donnell 11/21/24”
Source: ZeroHedge.com
Donald Trump’s social media company, DJT, soared 8%, amid reports that it was in advanced talks to buy Bakkt, a cryptocurrency trading venue owned by Intercontinental Exchange, as it pushes to expand beyond online conversation.
Source: ZeroHedge.com
The third time was the charm as Bitcoin finally surpassed the $90,000 Maginot Line this morning…
…now up over 32% since before the election night results started to pile in favor of Trump…
BTC ETF flows have been incredible…
Ethereum is also rallying, back above $3300…
Continue reading “Bitcoin Tops $90,000; Where Next? – ZeroHedge 11/13/24”
Source: BombThrower.com
Bitcoin and gold are both signalling the end of the monetary order
Earlier this year having digested a steep correction after the spot ETF approvals, Bitcoin put up a fresh all-time high, which was anomalous, because the halving was still coming. In past cycles new ATH’s weren’t achieved until after the halving, by a few months at least.
Source: CoinTelegraph.com
Nearly half the available Bitcoin (BTC) supply has not moved in the past six months, onchain data confirms.
Continue reading “45% of Bitcoin Supply has not Moved in 6 Months – William Suberg 8/14/24”
Source: TheLastAmericanVagabond.com
As U.S. Presidential candidates Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appealed to the Bitcoin community for votes, the right-leaning Big Tech bro’s sunk their claws further into the once potentially revolutionary project.
Former President Donald Trump and Independent Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr courted voters at the BTC Nashville Conference this past weekend. Both men made promises to change the Biden administration’s policy of criminalizing elements of the cryptocurrency industry.
Source: ZeroHedge.com
In a spirited keynote address, Former President Trump promised to make USA the “bitcoin super-power of the world,” ensuring that cryptocurrency is “mined, minted, and made in the USA.”
Source: TheLastAmericanVagabond.com
Recent viral reports claim the United States and Saudi Arabia have ended their long-standing petrodollar agreement. Are these claims based in fact? And what do recent agreements between the Saudi Kingdom and China mean for the U.S. dollar?
Continue reading “The Petro Dollar, China, and CBDC’s – Derrick Broze 6/21/24”
Source: Mises.org
On May 14, Alexey Pertsev, one of the lead developers of Tornado Cash (TC), was found guilty of money laundering by a Dutch court and sentenced to sixty-four months in prison. TC is a privacy-preserving protocol developed for the Ethereum blockchain: it allows users to deposit funds in a TC pool and withdraw them to a different address, thus making it impossible for external observers to track financial activity. TC is completely noncustodial, meaning that users are in control of their own money at every step of the process. In other words, developers do not have any technical means to control how individuals interact with the TC smart contracts.
Source: Mises.org
The Link between Economic Calculation and Human Personality
Economists and historians have clearly shown that the destruction of the value and function of money by hyperinflation makes economic calculation impossible and leads to economic and social disintegration and widespread poverty. What is not so clearly understood, even by many economists, is that during periods of rapid inflation, the inability to economically calculate undermines the very nature of property and causes a withering of the human personality, which is intimately connected with property ownership. By eliminating the means of appraising and rationally allocating one’s property, hyperinflation eliminates the very basis of independent human existence and personality under a system of social cooperation. The inevitable result is the dissolution of the society of voluntary contract and its replacement by a hegemonic order in which property and personality are collectivized.
Source: Mises.org
On April 24, two lead developers of Samourai Wallet (SW), the most-advanced privacy-centric wallet in the bitcoin ecosystem, were arrested and charged with money laundering and money transmitters offenses by order of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). This is just the latest assault of an escalating war waged by US regulators on financial privacy and freedom.
Source; WallStreetOnParade.com
Last Wednesday, JPMorgan Chase, the publicly-traded parent of the largest federally-insured bank in the United States as well as a five-count felon, revealed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that on top of the $348 million it paid out in March to two of its banking regulators for sketchy trading violations involving “billions” of trades on 30 global trading venues, it “expects to enter into a resolution with a third U.S. regulator that will require the Firm to, among other things, pay a civil penalty of $100 million….” (See “Trading Venues Investigations” on page 168 of the SEC filing at this link.) JPMorgan Chase did not name this third regulator but Bloomberg News reported that it is the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Source: Brownstone.org
Those who involved themselves in Bitcoin markets after 2017 encountered a different operation and ideal than those who came before. Today, no one much cares about what came before, speaking of 2010-2016. They are only watching the upward price momentum and are thrilled for the increase in the asset valuation of their portfolio.
Continue reading “What Happened to Bitcoin? – Jeffrey A. Tucker 4/14/24”
Source: WallStreetOnParade.com
The Fed’s unprecedented experiments with years of ZIRP (Zero Interest Rate Policy) and QE (Quantitative Easing), where it bought up trillions of dollars of low-yielding U.S. Treasuries and agency Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS) and quietly parked them on its balance sheet, are now posing a threat to the Fed’s flexibility in conducting monetary policy. (Since 2008, the Fed’s concept of conducting monetary policy has come to enshrine serial Wall Street mega bank bailouts as a regular part of its monetary policy. Large and growing cash losses at the Fed may seriously crimp such future bailouts.)
Source: ReclaimTheNet.org
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has delivered an enforcement notice to Uniswap, a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange.
Known as a Wells notice, the enforcement wrangle points toward a future legal dispute between the regulatory body and Uniswap, reflecting its reputation as a precursor to enforcement actions.
Continue reading “SEC Moves Against Decentralized Finance, Targets Uniswap – Rick Findlay 4/11/24”
Source: ZeroHedge.com
Last December, wholesale retailer Costco announced that they had sold over $100 million worth of gold in Q3 2023.
“You’ve probably read about the fact that we’re selling one-ounce gold bars. We sold over $100 million of gold during the quarter,” sad CFO Richard Galenti.
Now, Wells Fargo estimates that Costco “may now be running at” $100 million to $200 million per month in gold sales.
Source: Mises.org
Utah Governor Spencer Cox has signed legislation explicitly empowering the state treasurer to protect state funds with an allocation to physical gold and silver.
Source: WallStreetOnParade.com
Yesterday, American Banker released a report showing that five banks in the U.S. hold a combined half trillion dollars in commercial real estate (CRE) loans. It came as a big surprise to a lot of folks that the bank holding the largest amount of CRE loans is JPMorgan Chase – whose bank holding company is also exposed to $49 trillion in derivatives as of December 31, 2023 according to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. (See Table 14 at this link.)
Source: FinanceMagnates.com
With spot Bitcoin ETFs having been approved the same year that the halving is set to take place, many newcomers to the space may be wondering: what is the Bitcoin halving? This is a common question among those wanting to learn more about the Bitcoin protocol. Expected to be the most important event in Bitcoin’s history, the 2024 halving is expected to occur sometime on or around April 13.
Here we will cover the basics of how the Bitcoin halving works, what the Bitcoin halving is, why it happens, and what it may mean for markets this year and beyond….
Source: Unz.com
The United States Government today bears little resemblance to the government created by the Founding Fathers. Many “reforms” contributed to the transformation of an accountable government to an unaccountable one. For example, the direct election of US senators and the expansion of the franchise from male property owners adversely affected the security of private property. Others point to the effects of wars. All of these played a role in America’s destruction. However, in my opinion the transformation of American government can be explained by events in three short periods of our history.
Continue reading “The 15 Years That Destroyed America – Paul Craig Roberts 11/29/23”
Source: CoinTelegraph.com
On Oct. 5, the gold-backed digital token called, Zimbabwe Gold (ZiG), officially launched as a payment method. The launch was announced by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ).
Source: SchiffGold.com
It is slowly coming clear that the fiat dollar’s hegemony is drawing to a close. That’s what the BRICS summit in Johannesburg is all about — rats, if you like, deserting the dollar’s ship. With the dollar’s backing being no more than a precarious faith in it, it is bound to be sold down by foreign holders. Being only fiat, it could even become valueless, threatening to take down the other western alliance fiat currencies as well.
How do you protect your paper wealth from this outcome? Some swear by bitcoin and others by gold.
This article looks at what is likely to emerge as a replacement currency system, and concludes that from practical and legal aspects, bitcoin and the entire cryptocurrency industry will fail with fiat, while mankind will return to gold, as it has always done in the past when state control over currency fails
Continue reading “Hedging the End of Fiat – Alasdair Macleod 8/24/23”