With the current lull in price, it may seem that bitcoin is slowing down — but this is simply an illusion.
Summary Of The Week
Although bitcoin started climbing slightly over the last week of November 2021, it still hasn’t picked up the next leg of the current bull run. The recent dip saw many large HODLers accumulate more bitcoin, while several large mining firms once again confirmed their intent on HODLing the bitcoin they mine.
Interestingly, this week also saw reports emerge that large U.S. banks are eyeing the possibility of providing bitcoin-backed loans, and executives at the Korean Exchange are also showing interest in bitcoin. Let’s take a look at what happened this week in bitcoin.
Monday MicroStrategy Moves
The week started off on a bullish note. Thailand revealed plans that they may waive taxes on bitcoin for tourists in the country. Jack Dorsey announced his resignation as CEO of Twitter, leading many to believe he will focus on bitcoin after saying, “If I were not at Square or Twitter, I’d be working on Bitcoin" at Bitcoin 2021 earlier this year.
As predicted in my last post, MicroStrategy and the nation of El Salvador bought the dip, with MicroStrategy purchasing another 7,002 BTC, bringing their total holdings to 121,044 BTC. El Salvador, on the other hand, purchased another 100 BTC, bringing the country’s total holdings to 1,220 BTC.
Asset manager Invesco launched a spot bitcoin exchange-traded product (ETP) on the Deutsche Boerse under the ticker symbol BTIC.
Tuesday ETF Talk
Tuesday saw very little in terms of news in the market, except that Purpose Investments launched the first bitcoin ETF offering monthly yields in Canada. The U.S. Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, said that the risk of more inflation in the U.S. was rising, which is likely to push more people into investing in bitcoin, the best hedge against inflation.
Wednesday Retailer Adoption
With the U.S. government rejecting several spot ETFs over the last month, Fidelity announced plans to list a spot bitcoin ETF in Canada pending government approval. Croatia’s largest retailer, Konzum, announced that they would start accepting bitcoin payments for online orders.
Jack Dorsey announced that Square would rebrand to Block Inc., while Square Crypto, which focuses on bitcoin, would be rebranded to Spiral. The company will reportedly focus more on blockchain technology going forward. It was also announced that their payments app, CashApp, would support bitcoin’s latest upgrade, Taproot.
Bitcoin node maker, nodl, launched Lightning Network–focused node aimed at merchants in emerging markets that wish to accept bitcoin payments.
Thursday Regulation Themes
Facebook announced that they would loosen licensing and advertising restrictions on companies that promote bitcoin exchanges and wallets, signalling an overall positive sentiment for the market moving forward. Yves Choueifaty, the founder and CIO of Tobam, said that it’s riskier to invest $1 million in the S&P 500 than $25,000 in bitcoin.
Korea Exchange (KRX) Chairman Son Byung-doo said the country needs to study embracing bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. For reference, KRX has 2,448 companies listed with a combined market cap of $2.6 trillion.
Canadian bitcoin miner Hut 8 announced that they had mined 265 BTC during November and intends on HODLing all of it, bringing the company’s total bitcoin holdings to 5,242 BTC. And finally, the Indian government announced plans to regulate bitcoin, instead of banning it.
Friday Freedom Backed Loans
Early on Friday, a report was released that Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street banks were exploring the possibility of offering bitcoin-backed loans, meaning individuals and companies would be able to take out loans providing bitcoin as collateral.
Bitcoin miner, Riot Blockchain, also revealed that they mined 466 BTC during November and intend on HODLing all of it and Marathon, another mining firm, announced it would expand its agreement with data center provider, Compute North, to add 100,000 miners in its predominantly solar- and wind-powered data centres.
Bitcoin History From This Week
On December 5, 2010, in one of his last posts on the BitcoinTalk forum, Satoshi Nakamoto pleaded with WikiLeaks not to start accepting bitcoin payments as they “would not stand to get more than pocket change, and the heat you would bring would likely destroy us at this stage.”
On November 28, 2012, the first bitcoin halving took place, at the time a single bitcoin cost only $12. On December 5, 2013, the first Chinese bitcoin ban was announced, which saw BTC China, the largest bitcoin exchange at the time, shut down. On November 29, 2017, bitcoin surpassed the $10,000 mark for the first time during the 2017 bull run, it would surpass $18,000 just 10 days later.
The Long And Prosperous Road Ahead
First off, as the end of November came and went, PlanB’s popular floor model was proven wrong, despite accurately predicting bitcoin’s price at the end of August, September and October all the way back in June. Of course, he said the stock-to-flow model is still on track and that bitcoin is still ready to moon during the current bull run.
Seeing U.S. banks interested in embracing bitcoin-backed loans is another interesting bit from this week, showing how bitcoin has proven itself as an asset that’s here to stay and banks simply can’t ignore that anymore. It remains to be seen if HODLers decide to opt for loans, but the more services available to them, the better.
While the U.S. government remains reluctant to approve spot bitcoin ETFs, plenty have been launched in Canada and Europe and the U.S. is slowly falling behind. It’s likely that, as more become available in other nations, the U.S. will make a u-turn and embrace companies hoping to both offer the funds and invest in them.
As I’ve said before, it was highly likely that MicroStrategy and El Salvador, both pioneers in their respective fields, would buy the dip. Their leaders appear to have a clear strategy in mind and it’s likely they will continue to buy future dips, just as they have this one. Their example should see many more adopt the same strategy, because apparently if we say so, it’s not convincing above.
Overall, more individuals, companies and even countries are embracing bitcoin. Whether it be through investment, favorable laws or just promoting its uses in general; bitcoin is getting more screen time than ever before. Despite the dip, the more coverage the better.
It’s likely that with the newly discovered omicron variant, the COVID-19 pandemic has no end in sight and its effect on the global economy will continue to hold. Inflation in some of the leading economies will continue, which will end up affecting developing nations, likely pushing more to follow in El Salvador’s footsteps.
There’s still centuries ahead for bitcoin to grow, despite bitcoin being over 11 years old by now, we’re still in the early days and there will be days where we yearn for being able to buy bitcoin at $58,000.
This is a guest post by Dion Guillaume. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.
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Dion Guillaume
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