{"id":27024,"date":"2024-11-22T20:55:41","date_gmt":"2024-11-22T20:55:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/?p=27024"},"modified":"2025-02-07T13:52:55","modified_gmt":"2025-02-07T13:52:55","slug":"i-hear-bitcoin-is-supposed-to-be-good-now-is-it-a-new-bubble-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/2024\/11\/22\/i-hear-bitcoin-is-supposed-to-be-good-now-is-it-a-new-bubble-yet\/","title":{"rendered":"I hear bitcoin is supposed to be good now. Is it a new bubble yet?"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">This one is David&#8217;s fault, though Amy did bits.<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">If you like this post, please <b><i>tell at least one other person<\/i><\/b>. It really helps!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote><p>Valuing cryptocurrencies is complicated by a number of factors. First, cryptocurrencies have no inherent value. \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/restructuring.ra.kroll.com\/FTX\/Home-DownloadPDF?id1=MzEyNTg3MA==&amp;id2=-1\">Judge John T. Dorsey<\/a> in the FTX bankruptcy<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Bitcoin has been artificially pumped to <i>almost<\/i> $100,000 per BTC! Amazing what <a href=\"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/2024\/09\/19\/no-the-bitcoin-price-did-not-move-from-debates-trump-buying-crypto-burgers-or-anything-other-than-shenanigans\/\">9 billion pseudodollars deployed on Binance<\/a> just since <a href=\"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/2024\/11\/07\/our-crypto-predictions-for-2025\/\">the US election<\/a> can do, hey?<\/p>\n<p>So I\u2019m getting press questions and I guess it\u2019s time to make this post yet again.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/2024\/11\/22\/i-hear-bitcoin-is-supposed-to-be-good-now-is-it-a-new-bubble-yet\/the-vc-pump-header\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-27025\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-27025\" src=\"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/the-vc-pump-header.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"510\" height=\"315\" srcset=\"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/the-vc-pump-header.webp 680w, https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/the-vc-pump-header-300x185.webp 300w, https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/the-vc-pump-header-348x215.webp 348w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 510px) 100vw, 510px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>Time to go all-in on bitcoin!<\/h3>\n<p>Retail bitcoin trading \u2014 ordinary people paying actual dollars for bitcoins \u2014 hasn\u2019t recovered. I am confident in stating that this pump is the pump it looks like.<\/p>\n<p>The thing you need to look at is not the price number, but the retail trading volumes against actual dollars. You can see these in Coinbase&#8217;s 10-Q filings. The price is up, but the dollar volumes remain down.<\/p>\n<p>If you deploy sufficient fake dollars, you can make the price do all sorts of things. It\u2019s even easier when retail trading is so thin.<\/p>\n<p>The main hazard for the pumpers is that people want to cash out eventually and volume is so thin that doing so crashes the price.<\/p>\n<h3>But I should buy in, right? Right?<\/h3>\n<p>Can the pumpers get another bubble started? Well, I have otherwise-sensible people asking me if <i>maybe<\/i> this is a good time to get some BTC in.<\/p>\n<p>So I fear the forces of grift could indeed crank this stupidity engine hard enough.<\/p>\n<p>When you\u2019ve just heard about a fresh price peak, that\u2019s <i>absolutely<\/i> the time to go all-in! That&#8217;s how you buy high and sell low in this business.<\/p>\n<p>Should you go for a nice swim in the shark pool built by the sharks on the assumption that you will definitely be a better shark than they are?<\/p>\n<p>If you\u00a0<em>must<\/em> do something so foolish as buying crypto, get ETF shares \u2014 that&#8217;s the least-unsafe method. And you\u2019re vastly more likely to be able to cash out successfully, sell when it\u2019s dropping or short it effectively.<\/p>\n<p>At least I\u2019ll sell some more books.<\/p>\n<p>(Currently writing some book-like text on the AI bubble, with minimal crypto. I also have some book-like text on smart city scams, which has rather more bitcoins in it.)<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><i>A message for our sponsors<\/i><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">I still have<a href=\"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/2020\/11\/26\/get-signed-copies-of-libra-shrugged-and-attack-of-the-50-foot-blockchain\/\"> signed author copies of my books<\/a> for sale. Get one while you can!<\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\">Amy and I still have <a href=\"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/bitcoin-it-cant-be-that-stupid.png\">\u201cBitcoin: It Can\u2019t Be That Stupid<\/a>\u201d stickers for our patrons. Message one of us and ask!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>AWS, not quite on the blockchain<\/h3>\n<p>Amazon Web Services is sunsetting its Quantum Ledger Database as of July 31, 2025.<\/p>\n<p>QLDB was announced in 2018 and launched in 2019 on early blockchain hype. It wasn&#8217;t quite a blockchain, but it did keep a cryptographically authenticated log of changes to your data. [<em><a href=\"https:\/\/aws.amazon.com\/blogs\/aws\/now-available-amazon-quantum-ledger-database-qldb\/\">Amazon<\/a>, 2019<\/em>]<\/p>\n<p>QLDB did have some actual customers who really needed a database with a full audit log of data changes \u2014 but evidently not enough of them.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s almost unheard of for AWS to shut down a service. Usually they keep every service running forever, but just raise the price to get users to move to something else.<\/p>\n<p>QLDB reportedly had performance problems \u2014 which suggests they used an actual blockchain somewhere in it and the performance issues weren\u2019t fixable.<\/p>\n<p>AWS\u2019 suggested upgrade path is Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL \u2014 which also does audit logs. So as usual, the answer to which database is: just use Postgres. [<a href=\"https:\/\/docs.aws.amazon.com\/qldb\/latest\/developerguide\/document-history.html\"><i>AWS<\/i><\/a><i>; <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/aws.amazon.com\/blogs\/database\/migrate-an-amazon-qldb-ledger-to-amazon-aurora-postgresql\/\"><i>AWS<\/i><\/a><i>; <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/old.reddit.com\/r\/aws\/comments\/1e6nmy5\/goodbye_amazon_qldb_quantum_ledger_database\/\"><i>Reddit<\/i><\/a>]<\/p>\n<h3>Australian securities, absolutely not on the blockchain<\/h3>\n<p>Use a blockchain, they said. Fabulous efficiency, they said. Will <a href=\"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/2024\/06\/12\/the-australian-securities-exchange-chess-blockchain-seven-years-of-sunk-cost-fallacy\/\">revolutionize stock trading in Australia<\/a>, they said.<\/p>\n<p>After the ASX spent seven years and AUD$250 million on their failed effort to replace their old CHESS trading system with a blockchain, their regulator, ASIC, is not letting them go \u201clol whoops never mind\u201d and is suing them. [<a href=\"https:\/\/asic.gov.au\/about-asic\/news-centre\/find-a-media-release\/2024-releases\/24-177mr-asic-sues-asx-for-alleged-misleading-statements\/\"><i>ASIC<\/i><\/a><i>; <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/download.asic.gov.au\/media\/zx2jijyi\/24-177mr-concise-statement-13-august-2024.pdf\"><i>Concise statement<\/i><\/a><i>, PDF; <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/download.asic.gov.au\/media\/5kypnmsy\/24-177mr-originating-process-13-august-2024.pdf\"><i>Originating process<\/i><\/a><i>, PDF; <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/download.asic.gov.au\/media\/kpznybdo\/24-177mr-asic-v-asx-limited-orders-9-september-2024.pdf\"><i>case timeline<\/i><\/a><i>, PDF<\/i>]<\/p>\n<p>ASIC is particularly annoyed at ASX claiming in early 2022 that the blockchain project was \u201con-track for go-live\u201d in April 2023 and was \u201cprogressing well\u201d when it absolutely wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>The ASX CHESS system is critical infrastructure for the Australian economy and is precisely the sort of thing regulators get tetchy about.<\/p>\n<p>Elmer Funke-Kupper, the ASX CEO at the time, commissioned the project in 2016, though he left shortly after \u2014 but Dominic Stevens was CEO for <i>years<\/i> of this dumb thing and should absolutely suffer career damage at minimum. Wow, you\u2019re the guy who did <i>that<\/i>.<\/p>\n<h3>Totally wired<\/h3>\n<p>We\u2019ve been busy with <a href=\"https:\/\/pivot-to-ai.com\/\">Pivot To AI<\/a> \u2014 still making a post each and every day! \u2014 though crypto stories keep falling out of the AI coverage because it\u2019s quite a lot of literally the same grifters. We have a draft in progress on one right now, and it\u2019s as dumb as you would expect.<\/p>\n<p>If you want to follow the minutiae of crypto news, we heartily recommend signing up for Molly White\u2019s newsletter. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.citationneeded.news\/\"><i>Citation Needed<\/i><\/a>]<\/p>\n<p>Nicholas Weaver: OFAC the Ransomware Gangs. Nicholas suggests it\u2019s time for OFAC to designate every ransomware gang by default. Nicholas\u2019 previous essay on what the US government should do to crypto mixers was implemented pretty much as he said on <a href=\"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/2022\/08\/09\/us-sanctions-tornado-cash-and-crypto-shrieks-in-horror\/\">Tornado Cash<\/a>, so let\u2019s see which regulators are listening this time. [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.lawfaremedia.org\/article\/ofac-the-ransomware-gangs\"><i>Lawfare<\/i><\/a>]<\/p>\n<p>I was quoted in July on how Labour\u2019s big win in the UK election affected crypto. I said that nobody on any side of the UK government cared any more. I\u2019m pretty sure this is still true in November. [<a href=\"https:\/\/cryptonews.com\/news\/uk-election-why-labours-big-win-may-be-bad-news-for-crypto.htm\"><i>CryptoNews<\/i><\/a>]<\/p>\n<br><br><div align=\"center\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/bePatron?u=8420236\"><img src=\"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/become_a_patron_button.svg\" alt=\"Become a Patron!\" title=\"Become a Patron!\" width=217 height=51><\/a><br><p style=\"align:center;\" class=\"patreon-badge\"><i>Your subscriptions keep this site going. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/bePatron?u=8420236\">Sign up today!<\/a><\/i><\/p><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Plus some enterprises not on the blockchain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27025,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[961,914,138,3139,21,288,1047,2685,459,2326,3866,70,1080,457],"class_list":["post-27024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised","tag-asic","tag-asx","tag-australia","tag-aws","tag-bitcoin","tag-coinbase","tag-etf","tag-molly-white","tag-nicholas-weaver","tag-ofac","tag-qldb","tag-ransomware","tag-trading","tag-united-kingdom"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/the-vc-pump-header.webp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27024"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27060,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27024\/revisions\/27060"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}