Bitcoin price up 1,300% since the Fed said it had ‘infinite cash’

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We’re back with another collection of cool bitcoin stuff from all corners of the internet. 

First, a quick reminder to join Pete Rizzo, the Bitcoin Historian, twice a week as he explores the latest in bitcoin with a historical twist, featuring interviews with the most important developers and investors in the space today. 

Read more about the Supply Shock vision.

Now, onto the roundup!

A presidential first

It’s hard to beat this: the first sitting US president to ever address a bitcoin and crypto conference.

“A very big hello to everyone at the Blockworks Digital Asset Summit; it’s an honor to speak with you about how the United States is going to dominate crypto and the next generation of financial technologies,” Trump told the crowd in New York last Thursday, in a pre-recorded message.

Trump re-upped his pledge to make the US an “undisputed bitcoin superpower,” and end the Biden administration’s “regulatory war” on bitcoin. That includes the “lawless Operation Chokepoint 2.0,” which has seen US-based bitcoin companies struggle to maintain banking partners.

“It was a form of lawfare through government weaponization. Frankly, it was a disgrace,” Trump said.

Strategy executive chairman Michael Saylor appeared onstage shortly after the Trump address to present his 21 Truths of Bitcoin, followed by a sit-down interview with Rizzo for Supply Shock. 

Name a more iconic trio.

Moby Degen

This past week, a spiritual sequel to 2014’s story of the BearWhale played out on Hyperliquid with a tokenized version of bitcoin…only the bulls weren’t so lucky this time around.

One trader — whom ZachXBT later linked to a string of allegedly dodgy behavior — had opened a short position with 40x leverage reportedly worth as much as $449 million. 

In this case, the whale would profit if bitcoin stayed under $83,923, or be liquidated if it exceeded $85,940. This would’ve led to forced buying of bitcoin to cover the short, and potentially additional short squeezes to boot.

So some traders tried to band together to liquidate the whale. But the whale took evasive maneuvers: they added margin, momentarily controlled order books with huge buy-and-sell walls, and scaled back their shorts slowly. 

They even attempted to FUD stablecoin Tether.

In the end, the whale was calculated to have closed their short with $9 million profit. “We lost the war, but it’s been a long time since we had this much fun on the internet,” tweeted trader CBB. 

“Gg to the shorter for the win 🫡”

Working as intended

It was five years ago on Saturday that Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari said the quiet part out loud.

The world was gripped by the first act of the coronavirus pandemic at the time: closures of schools, cinemas, gyms, and restaurants; shelter-in-place orders; and worldwide market crashes.

60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley had asked Kashkari what he’d say to someone who’s worried about the collapse of the US banking system — and may be headed to an ATM to withdraw $3,000.

Kashkari reassured them that they don’t need to withdraw the cash. The ATM and the banks were safe.

“And there’s an infinite amount of cash at the Federal Reserve. We will do whatever we need to do to make sure that there’s enough cash in the banking system,” Kashkari said.

What better advertisement for Bitcoin than that? The price of bitcoin has appreciated by 1,300% since the 60 Minutes spot, while the US dollar has lost 24% of its value due to inflation. 

Who could’ve possibly predicted this?

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