The real government did something yesterday – and the Bitcoin and crypto world rejoiced. Forget the illusion that Bitcoin is decentralized. If indeed it was that decentralized, the FTX collapse would not have triggered the massive value destruction. Being decentralized technically but centralized at exchanges should not confuse – a bird that flew from the ground only to perch on an ant hill is still very much on the ground.
Yes, the movement now is well correlated on how the US government handles what happens at the trading exchanges. Why? If the hodlers see actions, they will continue to believe. And the government drew the first sword yesterday, and that could be great for this sector!
Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, was arrested in the Bahamas on Monday, according to a press release from the Royal Bahamas Police Force. The note states that the arrest came after US authorities filed criminal charges against Bankman-Fried. Now it is expected that the businessman will soon be extradited to the US, his home country.
The arrest of the founder of FTX took place at the request of the US authorities; the expectation is that SBF will return to the US to be tried for the possible crimes he committed.
Bahamian Attorney, General Ryan Pinder said the United States has filed unspecified criminal charges against Bankman-Fried and “will likely seek his extradition.” This was made available via a Post on Twitter by SDNYNews. The full note on SBF’s arrest can be read below:
(As I have disclosed, I do not believe in hodling Bitcoin and cryptos. But I believe in using them as a means of payment, especially in places the normal payment system does not work seamlessly.)
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Comment 1: Where did some people get the notion that humans will always act in good faith, without laws and enforcement? Even with those constraints, people still misbehave, yet some expect them to behave better without ordinances! The moral quotient of most creatures roaming the face of the earth is nowhere near such level.
You can build a fortress, well fortified all round to prevent criminals from invading or plundering, but how about the criminals already living within the fortress? Internal threat is the most difficult to deal with, if humans don’t fail you, nothing else can.
Just few months ago, the man SBF was a mega billionaire, doling out money to politicians and charities, now he’s in detention, with more or less zero networth. Bonkers!
Time to redefine what it means to be wealthy or rich, these poor souls cannot continue to lay claim to being billionaires; they are too fickle to qualify as one.
Comment 2: I believe in crypto as a store of value. Just like any other asset, garri for example. 1 cup of garri is always equal to 1 cup of garri any day, anytime. That is to say, 1 BTC is always equal to 1 BTC anyday, anytime.
Volatility is present in the market price of any asset and how volatile depends on the risk and other prevailing factors.
What you are concerned about is the dollar price pair. Which isn’t what trully defines whether something is centralized or not.
NOBODY determines the price of Bitcoin. Its purely driven by the forces of demand and supply. You will agree with me that both internal and external factors influence the choice of demand/supply for any asset. That doesn’t mean centralization as participating traders or market makers are stimulated by the prevailing PESTEL factors surrounding their environment.
Technologically per say? BTC is decentralised
Fundamentally? BTC is decentralised
Commercially? Its arguable. But boils down to the distributed account and who controls the x% supply. BTC circulating supply is technically controlled by the miners/CEX custodial vaults.. not like they are killing the price as US govt is killing dollar with their stimulus and reliefs packages. No one prints BTC for free or whenever they like.
It’s an open market.. you can buy as much BTC as you want and push the price to a new ATH i.e if you have the adequate purchasing power to overcome the selling pressure. You don’t complain when others sell because they similarly bought from the market as well.
My Response: “NOBODY determines the price of Bitcoin. Its purely driven by the forces of demand and supply. ” The SEC determined it today by making it clear that it will enforce its laws on exchanges. Over the last 4 months, the FED determined the price when it pushed the interest rate high. If FED begins to reverse course, borrowing becomes cheaper and people will have funds to hodl.
Everything which happens in Bitcoin is affected by the ease people get money or spend it (legally, commercially, technically, etc). If you regulate that process, people with $2 billion may be interested. Today, many of those pension funds, PEs, etc cannot trade on BTC because in their prospectus, they have “we only invest in regulated assets”. So with regulation, someone will determine the price of Bitcoin because it will bring big rainmakers into it. My point is this: you use real money (Naira, USD, Euro, etc) to buy BTC and what happens to that real money will affect BTC.
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