The News Block #28 (03/12/24)
Bitcoin Price on Its Way to $75K, Bitcoin Eclipses Silver in Market Cap, MicroStrategy Buys 12,000 More BTC, Trump Says He “Won’t Take Bitcoin Away”, The American Dream Now Costs $3.4 Million
Listen to the latest episode of the News Block below. 👇
Bitcoin Breaks $70k With Momentum
I have a feeling we should get used to waking up to new Bitcoin all-time highs in the coming months. The bull market is officially in full swing as Bitcoin recently crossed $72,000 for the first time in its history.
Bitcoin is now being touted in mainstream media as an institutional-grade asset class. Most news networks aren’t calling it a bubble anymore.
A recent Financial Times article reads, “Bitcoin bulls are not the bigger fools.”
Historically, the Financial Times has been very critical of Bitcoin, so it was notable to see a piece from them that read, “Bitcoin increasingly looks more like an asset with staying power than a passing fad…There is an old Wall Street saying for moments like this: only the fools are dancing, but the bigger fools are watching.”
Of course, it doesn’t hurt that we have large financial institutions now educating their clients on the merits of Bitcoin now that they are incentivized to do so, given their new wildly popular ETF products.
The same Financial Times article stated that the ETFs are on pace to break $300 billion in assets under management (AUM) by 2025!
This means that the Bitcoin ETFs are on pace to soon overtake Gold ETFs, which collectively hold just under $100 billion in AUM. Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Analyst Eric Balchunas recently published a note that said that conquering gold ETFs may be “too easy of a goal for Bitcoin ETFs.”
The ETFs have undoubtedly forced some traditional financial money managers who have previously been skeptical of Bitcoin, such as billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, to revisit their thoughts.
Ackman tweeted the following:
Ackman comes to one correct conclusion here – that he should maybe buy some bitcoin – but seems to still misunderstand how mining works.
Michael Saylor replied to his tweet, saying:
I hope Ackman takes Saylor up on his offer, but regardless, the trend remains clear – Bitcoin’s recent rally has awakened renewed interest in it once again, and this time, it’s simply too big to ignore.
As of Monday, Bitcoin’s market cap has surpassed Silver to become the 8th most valuable asset in the world.
See the tweet below from my friend James Lavish.👇
It only seems natural that Bitcoin will continue to skyrocket up these rankings and soon take over gold as the most valuable asset in the world because, as Saylor points out, it doesn't have the defects of gold, including the fact that gold is physical and can’t be transported instantly anywhere in the world online.
MicroStrategy Stacks 12,000 More Bitcoin
Speaking of Michael Saylor, today MicroStrategy announced it completed a $800 million convertible note offering – meaning it raised $800 million by issuing more debt to be used to buy bitcoin.
This was $200 million more than the company initially announced. In last week’s News Block, we went over this whole strategy and how valuable it’s been to both the company and its investors.
MicroStrategy didn’t wait for any dip to buy bitcoin with the proceeds either. On Monday, MicroStrategy announced that it had acquired 12,000 bitcoin for $821 million at a price of $68,400 per bitcoin and now holds 205,000 bitcoins.
And they did it all over the weekend when traditional markets were closed.
At this rate, it looks like it will only be a matter of time before MicroStrategy holds 210,000 bitcoin or 1% of the total bitcoin that will ever be created.
In the wake of this news, Saylor went on CNBC Monday and explained why he continues to view Bitcoin as the only way to preserve capital for the next 100 years.
Listen to this great clip from the interview:
Saylor always does a great job of zooming out and explaining the opportunity that exists for Bitcoin if it just becomes the go-to store of value. Interestingly enough, this clip was shared by rapper Drake to his 146 million Instagram followers.
In my opinion, too many people make the mistake of criticizing Bitcoin for not being used as a medium of exchange today. As Saylor said, the killer application of Bitcoin is capital and wealth preservation. Right now, people turn to stocks and real estate to preserve capital, but you never hear anyone complaining about being unable to spend their real estate to make small purchases.
Given that Bitcoin has an absolute fixed supply and it is digital in nature, Bitcoin is a form of property that the world has never seen before, and stands in a class of its own.
As Saylor famously says, there is no second best.
Trump Says He “Won’t Take Bitcoin Away”
The recent spike in Bitcoin’s price isn’t just on the radar of the Wall Street crowd. It is also demanding the attention of American politicians gearing up for the coming presidential election.
A couple of episodes ago, we mentioned how presidential candidate Donald Trump appears to have changed his tune when it comes to Bitcoin, and on Monday, there was more evidence of this when he was interviewed on CNBC’s Squawk Box and said that it has “taken on a life of its own” and called it an “additional currency” that he “has fun with.”
But the most interesting part of the interview came at the very end of the segment when he said the following:
Whether you lean left or right, Donald Trump has a real chance at becoming the next President of the United States, and to hear him say that he won’t try to take Bitcoin away from Americans could alleviate some investors’ concerns that the government may try to ban it in the future.
Trump did say how important it was for the United States to continue to drive the adoption of the dollar and that losing its role as the global reserve currency would be equivalent to losing a world war.
What I would say to Trump is that by embracing Bitcoin doesn’t mean you are rejecting the dollar. The two can co-exist. Right now, Americans desperately need a way to preserve the value of what they earn, and there is no better savings technology than Bitcoin. Spend your fiat; save your Bitcoin!
By embracing Bitcoin, America can protect its place as the center of innovation and use the technology to remain competitive with our global peers.
The American Dream Now Costs $3.4 Million
As is the case with fresh all-time highs, every holder of Bitcoin is now in the green on their investment.
But it’s always a little bittersweet to see Bitcoin rising because I know that so many people are still unaware of the benefits of saving in it.
You hear it in viral social media clips every week. People are struggling with the rising cost of living as the purchasing power of their fiat can only buy a fraction of the house, groceries, or gasoline it did a few years ago.
You see it in the data too. Investopedia published a study last December that concluded that the American Dream now costs $3.4 million.
The Investopedia study defined the American Dream as the lifetime cost to cover milestones like marriage, two kids, a house, a dog, cars, health care, and education.
Mike Higgins summarized the study well when he tweeted:
And that’s exactly what the current system has done. It has made everyone debt slaves just to afford a home, a couple of kids, healthcare, and decent education.
And the situation has only gotten worse in recent years. The Kobeissi Letter recently tweeted how unaffordable owning a home has become in America today.
Luckily for us, there is now a form of property that doesn’t require a 20% down payment and has the ability to preserve their purchasing power as inflation continues to melt their dollar savings away.
Bitcoin is now coming of age when the world needs it the most. I hope that more everyday Americans learn about Bitcoin so they can also benefit from its price appreciation as its adoption continues to accelerate.
Ultimately, my hope is that Bitcoin will help make the American Dream affordable once again.
Until next week, keep stacking.
- N₿
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NEW: Michael Saylor: Bitcoin's 'Gold Rush' Has Started: 2024-2034, Why Smart Money is Buying
Michael Saylor is an American entrepreneur, executive, inventor, author, and philanthropist. He is co-founder and Executive Chairman of MicroStrategy (MSTR), a publicly traded business intelligence firm founded in 1989. Michael is an advocate for the Bitcoin Standard www.hope.com and is the first CEO of a publicly listed company to make a long-term investment in Bitcoin.
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