1. The crypto crash continues exactly as I said last week it would play out. There is no bounce after the initial crash to $26k…just a gradual slide lower, to $10k or wherever the eventual bottom is. As shown in the screenshot below of the past five days, no bounce at all:
When the death spiral begins, there is no attempt at a meaningful recovery of any kind, just an uninterrupted slide. A similar pattern was observed with Enron, which entered a similar death spiral and never recovered more than 20% at any point during its terminal decline, eventually settling out at zero:
The death spiral occurs when it dawns on people that their investment is likely hopeless and sell at any price to preserve what little capital is left, and such selling reinforces itself.
I don’t think Bitcoin is going to zero, but the bottom is likely a long ways away, maybe the March 2020 lows, or around $4,400. But the actual target or date does not matter. As long as the chart fails to show the necessary compression and smoothness described earlier, I remain short. I see it as almost risk free money even though there are in theory definite risks.
I think people overestimate the risk of it rebounding; years of trading experience has shown that when an investment is doomed or unsalvageable, there is no recovery until after it has lost 95-99% of its value, in which there is finally the long awaited bounce due to short covering, such as a recovery from a 99% loss to ‘only’ a 98% loss (which is technically a 100% bounce off the bottom). Because of this trade and others, the first eight months of 2023 has been more profitable for me than almost the past decade combined. I wish I had done this in 2021-2022 but better late than never.
What the economy does or inflation is irrelevant. Bitcoin has been shown to be useless as an inflation hedge anyway.
#2
JUST IN: 🇺🇸 US Presidential Candidate RFK Jr. says #Bitcoin is an exercise and guarantee of civil liberties.
— Watcher.Guru (@WatcherGuru) August 22, 2023
It’s like Breaking News: “Candidate who never had any chance of winning has opinion that no one who is in any position of power or intellectual authority takes seriously or cares about.” Despite his family name and some name recognition, the guy is otherwise a nobody when it comes to having any sort of power, influence, or authority.
Sure, Trump’s odds were low in 2015 too, but running as a Democrat doomed his candidacy from the onset and is why he was never serious to begin with. Had he ran as an Independent or a Republican, maybe he would have a tiny chance (lower than Trump in 2015, but a chance nevertheless). Also, the fact he went on every no-name podcast also shows that his candidacy has always been about boosting his brand above any actual policy. Trump to his credit knew early during his candidacy in 2015 that he had to make inroads with powerful, important people, and that name recognition would not get him there alone.
Here we go with the seed oils again:
New diet villain just dropped. Believe or disbelieve this specific one, "fat" or even "polyunsaturated fat" increasingly looks like a failure as a natural category. Only finer-grained concepts like "linoleic acid" are useful for carving reality at the joints. https://t.co/acFDMeSyNk
— Eliezer Yudkowsky (@ESYudkowsky) August 20, 2023
It’s not a new villain. Seed oils have been blamed for a host of health problems for a long time.
If seed oils are the cause of obesity in America and worldwide, it would imply that obesity could be solved by eliminating such oils. This does not seem to be the case. [But it is possible that seed oils may contribute to obesity initially, which becomes irreversible. ] This stuff has been studied for decades…no restriction diet of any kind, whether it’s restricting macros or a specific food item or ingredient, has been shown to be effective at reversing obesity. Once people get fat, they tend to stay that way, no matter what. Maybe the key is preventing obesity from happening in the first place, but obviously easier said than done.