1/ The #Bitcoin bear case has two two components:

The macro, and the miners.

THREAD 👇

2/ On the macro side, if the dollar reverses its major downtrend and/or real rates turn positive, that will hurt $BTC considerably.

I don't expect either to happen in 2021, but have to pay attention to these.
3/ On the miners side, one has to consider the miners' cycle.

It works like this 👇
4/ Miners' hashrate (the aggregated bitcoin computing capacity) is directly tied to mining difficulty, which is the main variable in the bitcoin cost of production

=> the more capacity installed, the higher the difficulty, and the higher the cost.
5/ In a bull-run, miners' hashrate lags price, so as price takes off and moves higher, miners' profitability explodes (as price goes up but production costs don't as much).

These are the happy times.
6/ Higher profitability drives miners to increase capacity, and attracts new miners.
7/ Around major tops you will see people who don't understand bitcoin pull online calculators --which ignore other costs such as cooling, pool fees, warehousing, security, and personnel-- and imagine they are going to become wealthy mining bitcoin. Then go buy overpriced miners.
8/ It's important to understand that Bitcoin mining presents a perfect Prisoner's Dilemma.

Here's an old thread on that topic. Mind that the bitcoin produced a month is now 27,375, or about 900 a day. This quantity halved in May.

https://t.co/PPPtXM6hOB
9/ Higher profitability drives increasing mining capacity, but this new capacity can take months to install.

That's why hashrate increases lag price increases.
10/ Currently, and due to chip shortages related to technological changes and covid supply chain disruptions, delays are in the order of 6-10 months.
11/ While miner profitability moons, miners are capable of hodling more: they can reduce sales to take advantage of rising prices in a bull market.

This adds to reflexivity and helps prices further up.
12/ Eventually hashrate catches up with price. Happy times end, and miners have to increase their selling volumes to pay the bills.
13/ There's another game theory component: if you are a miner and know that other miners will soon be forced to increase their selling volumes, you may want to sell before and front-run them to get better prices.
14/ This increase in selling can be augmented by prior hodling, resulting in a perfect storm.

Miners did hold inventories back late 2020, but their selling volumes have already increased in 2021, with price in the 30s-40s.
15/ Finally, consider that at current prices the dollar amount for new bitcoin produced is considerably larger than it was prior to the halving.

1800 bitcoin/day * $10,000 = $18,000,000/day

900 bitcoin/day * 35,000 = $31,500,000/day
I remain bullish, but it's important to keep the bear case in mind. Miner flows make sure price can't move in straight up lines for too long, and are the reason one should not be too bullish later in the year. At some point miner excesses must be rinsed out.
For those asking where to find miner data, there are three main sources:

@cryptoquant_com
@glassnode
@thetokenanalyst

All require a subscription unfortunately.

I mostly use CryptoQuant: https://t.co/AaOPJjxt7h

Their founder @ki_young_ju shares very useful data on Twitter.

More from Bitcoin

1/ #Bitcoin FUD-busting time!

claim: bitcoin ownership is heavily concentrated.

@business published an article claiming "2% of accounts control 95% of all Bitcoin" 🤣

truth: the facts, my friends, simple don't line up. let's dive in!

2/ interrogating on-chain addresses is tricky.

address =/ account.

one person can control multiple addresses.

one address can hold bitcoin belonging to multiple ppl.

exchanges and trading firms will have addresses with large balances that represent client funds.

3/ the fine folks @glassnode published an excellent analysis of on-chain address balances in January

the ownership distribution of bitcoin among wallets is actually much more diverse than one might expect.

full piece here:
https://t.co/n5IdIQdNoA


4/ 31% of BTC is held in addresses not identified as exchange wallets.

these are likely institutions, funds, custodians, and OTC desks.

our analysis at @CoinSharesCo indicates >15% of all bitcoin is held in third party custody, including @coinbase and our own @KomainuCustody

5/ in fact, between asset managers @Grayscale ($36B in BTC) and our @xbtprovider ($4B in BTC), 4% of bitcoin is locked up by fund providers and asset managers!

our @CoinSharesCo research team publishes an EXCELLENT weekly report on fund flows and AUMs -
Agree mate. Well done @ttmygh @profplum99 and @nic__carter on a ripping show. Im obviously in the "gold is superior" camp, though I am long #BTC (tiny position). I thought the best/most interesting point of whole debate was raised by @profplum99 regarding the fact that a 1/n


#Bitcoin transaction is never really final, given the energy required to keep the network running, and obviously its scale issues will only grow over time. That said, I actually though @nic__carter "won" the debate as it were, and I was unconvinced by the threat to national 2/n

security or undermining Fed policy angles Mike put forward. Two areas that are super interesting to me. One is the issue of #Bitcoin ownership, and how concentrated it is in terms of a small % of addresses that own most of it (2% addresses > 95% of holdings I think). 3/n

made great point a lot of this is omnibus/exchange related - so exchange or fund - ie @Grayscale holds #bitcoin for multiple investors. That may well be true - but it brings up 2 other issues. One - it proves that #bitcoin doesn't really "work" without 4/n

centralisation - as this implies most people need exchanges or funds (or @Paypal) to buy it. If so, that kills off a major "bitcoin is better than gold argument" - as in reality, gold is way more decentralised (from mine supply to ownership distribution). It also brings up a 5/n

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He has been wrong (or lying) so often that it will be nearly impossible for me to track every grift, lie, deceit, manipulation he has pulled. I will use...


... other sources who have been trying to shine on light on this grifter (as I have tried to do, time and again:


Example #1: "Still not seeing Sweden signal versus Denmark really"... There it was (Images attached).
19 to 80 is an over 300% difference.

Tweet: https://t.co/36FnYnsRT9


Example #2 - "Yes, I'm comparing the Noridcs / No, you cannot compare the Nordics."

I wonder why...

Tweets: https://t.co/XLfoX4rpck / https://t.co/vjE1ctLU5x


Example #3 - "I'm only looking at what makes the data fit in my favour" a.k.a moving the goalposts.

Tweets: https://t.co/vcDpTu3qyj / https://t.co/CA3N6hC2Lq
प्राचीन काल में गाधि नामक एक राजा थे।उनकी सत्यवती नाम की एक पुत्री थी।राजा गाधि ने अपनी पुत्री का विवाह महर्षि भृगु के पुत्र से करवा दिया।महर्षि भृगु इस विवाह से बहुत प्रसन्न हुए और उन्होने अपनी पुत्रवधु को आशीर्वाद देकर उसे कोई भी वर मांगने को कहा।


सत्यवती ने महर्षि भृगु से अपने तथा अपनी माता के लिए पुत्र का वरदान मांगा।ये जानकर महर्षि भृगु ने यज्ञ किया और तत्पश्चात सत्यवती और उसकी माता को अलग-अलग प्रकार के दो चरू (यज्ञ के लिए पकाया हुआ अन्न) दिए और कहा कि ऋतु स्नान के बाद तुम्हारी माता पुत्र की इच्छा लेकर पीपल का आलिंगन...

...करें और तुम भी पुत्र की इच्छा लेकर गूलर वृक्ष का आलिंगन करना। आलिंगन करने के बाद चरू का सेवन करना, इससे तुम दोनो को पुत्र प्राप्ति होगी।परंतु मां बेटी के चरू आपस में बदल जाते हैं और ये महर्षि भृगु अपनी दिव्य दृष्टि से देख लेते हैं।

भृगु ऋषि सत्यवती से कहते हैं,"पुत्री तुम्हारा और तुम्हारी माता ने एक दुसरे के चरू खा लिए हैं।इस कारण तुम्हारा पुत्र ब्राह्मण होते हुए भी क्षत्रिय सा आचरण करेगा और तुम्हारी माता का पुत्र क्षत्रिय होकर भी ब्राह्मण सा आचरण करेगा।"
इस पर सत्यवती ने भृगु ऋषि से बड़ी विनती की।


सत्यवती ने कहा,"मुझे आशीर्वाद दें कि मेरा पुत्र ब्राह्मण सा ही आचरण करे।"तब महर्षि ने उसे ये आशीर्वाद दे दिया कि उसका पुत्र ब्राह्मण सा ही आचरण करेगा किन्तु उसका पौत्र क्षत्रियों सा व्यवहार करेगा। सत्यवती का एक पुत्र हुआ जिसका नाम जम्दाग्नि था जो सप्त ऋषियों में से एक हैं।