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

$BTC: Two Bitcoin FUDs to address this Thanksgiving weekend:

1. China PlusToken FUD: Old news. Please see linked thread.

2. U.S. Treasury FUD: Read thread below...


1/ These news are much more relevant, as they imply severe trade-offs for people who want to keep their bitcoins undoxxed, with the cost and risks of doing so. I would not disqualify the tweet as mere FUD in the sense that what he posted is false. It should be taken seriously.

2/ For all we know, his decision of making it public before TG weekend may come out of the urgency of informing CT of a poignant anti-Bitcoin move by a Trump administration trying to cut lose ends before leaving office—not just "price manipulation" as I've seen suggested around.

3/ It implies the acceleration of a process already planned for for months in advance, not something he just came up with to "crash the market."

4/ In practicality, assuming this passes, it will have two major consencuences:

a. Armstrong's analysis is correct. And I would go further in saying, this regulation would leave the U.S. severely handicapped to continue to be the leader in the cryptocurrency industry worldwide.

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