Gary Gensler’s creation of confusion is a toe-curling problem for crypto
The week in review
with Jason Deane
The Easter break may have slowed the news down, but crypto, of course, never sleeps. There have been a whole host of eventful moments to muse upon and far too many to try and cover in one short update, but there are always a few that it would be criminal not to mention.
For me, the pick of the week is Gary Gensler’s toe-curlingly bad performance at the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee for the House Committee on Financial Services on Tuesday. The whole event is available to watch here, but at five hours, as entertaining as it was at times, it’s a big ask. The TL;DR version was neatly summarised and commented on by Ryan Selkis, and I strongly recommend going through this much shorter thread.
We knew there were problems with the way “GG” was running the show, but even so, the extent of his incompetence was astounding. After two years in power, there is more confusion around crypto than ever before, he’s cost the taxpayers a small fortune in unnecessary and unclear litigation, scared companies away from the US and hasn’t actually protected any consumers. In my view, he’s actually moved the country back a few years, in stark contrast to the EU’s move this week.
Meanwhile, the New York Times published an article slating Bitcoin mining that will surely go down as one of the most biased, poorest researched pieces of “journalism” to ever grace its pages. Not only was the content easily disproved by respected industry players such as Daniel Batten, Dennis Porter and Pierre Rochard, it wasn’t long before it was noted that the accompanying images may have been doctored to make it look like smog was laying over the Bitcoin mine they’d singled out.
Not cool guys, not cool.
Elon Musk was also busy this week removing people’s blue ticks on Twitter and, in his spare time, launching the world’s biggest rocket, lovingly called ‘Starship’. However, the flight was short lived as the rocket failed to separate and experienced a “rapid unscheduled disassembly” shortly afterwards.
To me it just looked like an explosion. But then, I’m not an expert.
In the UK, there was also some very big news from the Bitcoin Racing Team. No, not that yours truly had his first races in the Nankang Tyre CityCup Challenge and managed to miss the start lights, get a puncture and spin off all in one weekend, but concerning Netflix star Sebastian Melrose who is representing Bitcoin Racing in the Porsche Carrera cup for 2023 and starts his season at Donnington Park this weekend. He, of course, will do none of those things.
This means that, for the first time, the Bitcoin logo will be seen by tens of millions of people in a mainstream racing event on terrestrial television (ITV), the 50m+ people on the associated social media platforms and global broadcasts that accompany it. This is bound to start some conversations in front rooms that it will up to all of us to follow up on.
The team’s early sponsors and partners include Bitcoin Pioneers, Cardmarket, Reprimo and Ordinals Gateway and it’s worth noting that the team is officially endorsed – at the highest level – by the country of El Salvador. I’ll be honest, I can’t help being proud of what we have achieved here. And all from a standing start last year.
My fellow team owners and driving colleagues will be attending this weekend of course, so if you’re dropping in the biggest racing weekend of the year (outside of F1), come and say “hi!”.
Want to know more about how to maximise your Bitcoin holdings and learn simple ways to invest? Come to my next free webinar on April 25th at 6pm to find out, ask any questions, and grab some free Bitcoin*. Click here to register. (*18+, UK resident, new Luno users only)
Yesterday’s Crypto AM Daily
In the Markets
The Bitcoin Economy
*Data can be found at https://terminal.bytetree.com/
Total crypto market cap
The total capitalisation of the entire cryptocurrency market this morning was $1.179 billion.
What Bitcoin did yesterday
We closed yesterday, April 20, at a price of $28,245. The daily high yesterday was $29,076, and the daily low was $28,037.
Bitcoin market capitalisation
Bitcoin’s market capitalisation this morning was $540.604 billion. To put it into context, the market cap of gold is $13.182 trillion and Tesla is $516.56 billion.
Bitcoin volume
The total spot trading volume reported by all exchanges over the last 24 hours was $20.842 billion.
Fear and Greed Index
Market sentiment today is 50, in Neutral.
Bitcoin’s market dominance
Bitcoin’s market dominance today is 47.23. Its lowest ever recorded dominance was 37.09 on January 1 2018.
Relative Strength Index (RSI)
The daily RSI is currently 45.52. Values of 70 or above indicate that an asset is becoming overbought and may be primed for a trend reversal or experience a correction in price – an RSI reading of 30 or below indicates an oversold or undervalued condition.
Soundbite of the day
Bitcoin is the internet’s native value settlement protocol, transferring trillions of dollars of value annually. Tick tock, next block.
Dylan LeClair, crypto analyst
What they said yesterday
What happens when you add BTC to an investment portfolio?
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Crypto AM: Editor’s picks
ChatGPT urges crypto conference panel not to become over-reliant on AI
Mt. Gox customers will have to wait until November to recover lost Bitcoin funds
Sam Bankman-Fried: A tissue of lies soaked with fake tears?
Three-in-four wealth managers are gearing up for more cryptocurrency exposure
Crypto.com granted FCA licence to operate in UK
Q&A with Duncan Coutts, Principal Technical Architect at IO Global
Jamie Bartlett – on the trail of the missing ‘Cryptoqueen’
MPs are falling silent over potential of cryptocurrency
Erica’s ‘Crypto Wars’ handed honours in Business Book Awards
‘Let people invest’: Matt Hancock makes case for liberal crypto rules
Crypto AM: Features
Crypto AM: Founders Series
Crypto AM: Industry Voices
Crypto AM: Contributors
Crypto AM: In Conversation with James Bowater
Crypto AM: Tomorrow’s Money with Gavin S Brown
Crypto AM: Mixing in the Metaverse with Dr Chris Kacher
Crypto AM: Visions of the Future, Past & Present with Alex Lightman
Crypto AM: Tiptoe through the Crypto with Monty Munford
Crypto AM: Taking a Byte out of Digital Assets with Jonny Fry
Crypto on the catwalk
Crypto AM: Events
Cautionary Notes
It’s definitely tempting to get swept up in the excitement, but please heed these words of caution: Do your own research, only invest what you can afford, and make good decisions. The indicators contained in this article will hopefully help in this. Remember though, the content of this article is for information purposes only and is not investment advice or any form of recommendation or invitation. City PM, Crypto AM and Luno always advise you to obtain your own independent financial advice before investing or trading in cryptocurrency.