0/ It's been a big 2 weeks for $BTC as it hits a new ATH, $MSTR completes a $650M convert, Mass Mutual invests $100M, Ruffer Management buys $745M, Jeffries recommends a 5% allocation, Guggenheim's CIO gives a $400K PT, OneRiver, FinCen rules better than feared & Coinbase S1

1/ $MSTR completed a $650M convertible bond offering at 0.75% with the intent to purchase $BTC (and per @michael_saylor) it looks like they completed that buy. Since first announcing their $BTC purchase in mid-August the stocks +143% (with BTC over 2.0x during that time)
2/ Mass Mutual with its ~$235B general investment account purchased $100M of $BTC through NYDIG (after making an equity investment alongside @BessemerVP & $MS).
3/ Ruffer Management a ~$27B asset manager bought $750M of $BTC to equate to ~2.5% of the portfolio:

"We see this BTC investment as a small but potent insurance policy against the continuing devaluation of the world’s major currencies,”
4/ Jefferies Christopher Wood amended his long-only asset allocation recommendation for pension funds cutting gold to 45% from 50% and initiating a 5% position in $BTC.
5/ Guggenheim CIO Scott Minerd claimed that the firms "fundamental work" shows $BTC should be worth ~$400,000.

"Bitcoin has a lot of the attributes of gold and at the same time has an unusual value in terms of transactions," Minerd told Bloomberg TV.
6/ OneRiver & Eric Peters aims to own ~$1.0B of $BTC & $ETH in early '21 and has reportedly acquired in excess of $600M already with the backing of Alan Howard.
7/ For the past few weeks the crypto community was worried about rules that would come out of FinCen & @stevenmnuchin1. They were better than feared not covering unhosted to unhosted wallets and puts $BTC on a similar footing to USD from a FI perspective.
8/ @coinbase has been executing a lot of these large buy orders for institutional investors / funds & has filed their S1 to go public. As they continue to take back volume from offshore exchanges and as CME grows it leads to the maturation of the market.
9/ This fact pattern is the biggest difference between now & '17 which was very much a retail driven frenzy. You are having multiple 9 figure $BTC spot orders placed in market when daily inflation is ~1/2 of what it was on top of a more conducive macro backdrop.
10/ All of this is in the last 2 weeks & excludes the $PYPL roll out, the success of $SQ, @DigitalAssets, new custodians, guidance from the OCC, macro investors like Druckenmiller & PTJ talking about $BTC's place in the portfolio, etc... will shape up for an interesting '21.

More from Crypto

Michael Pettis @michaelxpettis argues that it is not always obvious who (China or the U.S.) adjusts best to "turbulent changes."
Bitcoin answers that question.
Thread:


World economies currently suffer four major redistribution challenges:
The most important is increasing government stealth use of the monetary system to confiscate assets from productive actors.
/2

That process is exacerbated by "Cantillon Effect" transfers to interest groups close to government ("the entitled class," public sector workers, the medical industrial complex, academia, etc....), which is destroying much of that wealth /3

The shadow nature (see Keynes) of government inflation makes the process unidentifiable, un-addressable and undemocratic.
The biggest victims (America's poorly educated young) are unequipped to counter generational confiscation tactics of today's wily senior beneficiaries. /4

Government control of the numéraire in key economic statistics (GDP, inflation, etc...) makes it impossible for economic actors to measure progress and liabilities. /5

You May Also Like

I just finished Eric Adler's The Battle of the Classics, and wanted to say something about Joel Christiansen's review linked below. I am not sure what motivates the review (I speculate a bit below), but it gives a very misleading impression of the book. 1/x


The meat of the criticism is that the history Adler gives is insufficiently critical. Adler describes a few figures who had a great influence on how the modern US university was formed. It's certainly critical: it focuses on the social Darwinism of these figures. 2/x

Other insinuations and suggestions in the review seem wildly off the mark, distorted, or inappropriate-- for example, that the book is clickbaity (it is scholarly) or conservative (hardly) or connected to the events at the Capitol (give me a break). 3/x

The core question: in what sense is classics inherently racist? Classics is old. On Adler's account, it begins in ancient Rome and is revived in the Renaissance. Slavery (Christiansen's primary concern) is also very old. Let's say classics is an education for slaveowners. 4/x

It's worth remembering that literacy itself is elite throughout most of this history. Literacy is, then, also the education of slaveowners. We can honor oral and musical traditions without denying that literacy is, generally, good. 5/x