Is Hyperinflation Inevitable? Jack Dorsey Says It’ll “Change Everything”

When Square’s boss Jack Dorsey talks about hyperinflation, the world listens. And Twitter reacts. Since so-called developed economies are now feeling the pain that inflation brings, the concept is in everyone’s mind. Every human has a front-row seat to witness the consequences of the United State’s relentless money printing. And, since the Dollar is still the reserve currency of the world,  they’re all feeling it too.

Related Reading | Bullish For Bitcoin: US Inflation Expectation Breaks Out From Decade Long Downtrend

This is Jack Dorsey’s tweet:

5 BTC + 300 Free Spins for new players & 15 BTC + 35.000 Free Spins every month, only at mBitcasino. Play Now!

As you can see, he doesn’t merely talk about inflation. He goes for “hyperinflation,” which caused adverse reactions in the replies and the quoted tweets. They accused him of fear-mongering and quoted official numbers at him. And the nay-sayers probably have a point here, because the US is far removed from the reality that word implies. However, one thing’s for sure: money printer goes brrrrrrrr… and it hasn’t stopped working since Covid hit.

Negative And Moderate Reactions To Jack Dorsey‘s Tweet

This is an example of an unnecessarily insulting response from a traditional finance person. 

Get 110 USDT Futures Bonus for FREE!

This man has obviously not done his homework regarding Bitcoin, so his argument is invalid. And doesn’t require a response. Plus, he’s being insulting to get attention, which he got. So, good for him and his dopamine levels. Let’s hope he has fun staying poor.

This is a Venezuelan economist with a moderate answer to Jack Dorsey.

Since Venezuelans have first-hand experience with hyperinflation, let’s take what he says into account. The US is just feeling what inflation does. So-called developing economies live with that concept on their backs every second of every day.

BTCUSD price chart for 10/23/2021 - TradingView

BTCUSD price chart for 10/23/2021 - TradingView


BTC price chart for 10/23/2021 on Bitstamp | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com

Informative Reactions To Jack Dorsey’s Tweet

The Human Rights Foundation’s Alex Gladstein, a notorious Bitcoin maximalist, had this to say to Jack Dorsey.

He’s not lying. Hyperinflation is “already one of the world’s biggest humanitarian crises.” However, the US is far away from “Turkey, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Iran, Lebanon, Venezuela, Cuba”, and Sudan’s situation. And, since the Dollar is still the reserve currency of the world, they have a comfortable cushion to resist the constant money printing’s effects.

Serial entrepreneur and former Coinbase CTO, Balaji Srinivasan, answered Jack Dorsey with a fully-fledged idea. A “censorship-resistant inflation index.

In the project, he brings forth some hard truths:

“If inflation is a government-caused problem, we can’t necessarily rely on government statistics like the CPI to diagnose it or remediate it. Indeed, in places with high inflation, censorship and denial is the rule rather than the exception.”

If you are technically capable, there’s still time to send your proposal and earn “A $100k Prize for a Decentralized Inflation Dashboard.” Be aware that “if you use Chainlink’s oracle tech in your project, the best dashboard will be eligible to receive a $100k grant in LINK tokens.” Those tokens are in addition to the main prize.

Poor Understanding Of The Terminology

In a Twitter Spaces room specifically dedicated to Jack Dorsey’s tweet, notorious podcaster Preston Pysh concluded.

“I think people’s understanding of the terminology, deflation, inflation, is just grossly misunderstood. And so, when you say we’re going to have these deflationary events that are then going to lead to more QE, which is then going to result in more inflationary events. I completely agree with you, but we’re talking that there’s so much information loss in such a simple word as deflation and inflation. So the deflationary event is that this whole system is constructed as credit.”

When he says QE, Preston refers to Quantitative Easing, which Investopedia defines as:

 “A form of unconventional monetary policy in which a central bank purchases longer-term securities from the open market in order to increase the money supply and encourage lending and investment. Buying these securities adds new money to the economy, and also serves to lower interest rates by bidding up fixed-income securities.”

Related Reading | Jack Dorsey Plans to Build A Decentralized Exchange For Bitcoin

That being said, Preston asks:

“How many people in the US, or in the world, have that context when that’s not their expertise, right? They didn’t get a major in macroeconomics, or finance, or whatever. So, it’s just all buzzwords that people throw around. And, in the meantime, no one really even understands what those definitions even represent.”

For more information about inflation, check out the Bitcoinist Book Club analysis of Saifedean Ammous’ “The Bitcoin Standard.”

Featured Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay - Charts by TradingView

Source

Tagged : / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

Is Evergrande Defaulting? Is This The Reason For China’s War Against Bitcoin?

The biggest property developer in China, Evergrande, seems to be on the verge of collapse. They apparently owe $300B. Is bankruptcy on the table? There’s a better question, though. Is Evergrande the only company in the sector with these kinds of debts? Or is Evergrande just a symptom of a widespread disease? And, how does this relate to Bitcoin? Do we present a valid case or are we reaching? Is this “China’s Lehman moment,” as the following Bitcoin analyst suggests?

Related Reading | New To Bitcoin? Learn To Trade Crypto With The NewsBTC Trading Course

What we know for sure is that “China’s major banks have been notified by the housing authority that Evergrande Group won’t be able to pay loan interest due Sept. 20,“ according to Reuters. Plan B’s comment sets the tone, and the video shows the intensity of the situation:

5 BTC + 300 Free Spins for new players & 15 BTC + 35.000 Free Spins every month, only at mBitcasino. Play Now!

Check yesterday’s date. Well, on September 15th, 2008, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. Let’s quote Investopedia for a quick recapitulation.

“At the time of its collapse, Lehman was the fourth-largest investment bank in the United States with 25,000 employees worldwide. It had $639 billion in assets and $613 billion in liabilities. The bank became a symbol of the excesses of the 2007-08 Financial Crisis, engulfed by the subprime meltdown that swept through financial markets and cost an estimated $10 trillion in lost economic output.”

Is China living through a similar situation right this minute?

Get 110 USDT Futures Bonus for FREE!

How Did China Evergrande Get Here?

A few days ago, on September 13th, the South China Morning Post seemed cautiously optimistic about the situation. They explained the root of the issue:  

“Reports about missed payments to contractors, attempts to reschedule payments on wealth management products, and failure to sell assets have prompted Chinese regulators and the central bank to intervene to prevent a shock to the financial system.”

At the time, the big news was that they hired “Houlihan Lokey and Hong Kong-based investment bank Admiralty Harbour Capital to assess its capital structure, evaluate the liquidity and explore ways to ease its current liquidity crunch.” And you know what that meant:

“Hiring such financial advisers means Evergrande has come to a serious stage of listing what it owns, what it owes and what are the best plans” to extricate itself, said Lung Siu-fung, an analyst with CCB International. 

The writing was on the wall.

Evergrande price chart - TradingView

Evergrande price chart - TradingView


Evergrande price chart on HKEX | Source: 3333 on TradingView.com

Where Are We Now? Is China Really In Trouble?

Apparently, China Evergrande was caught in a loop. The company was pre-selling apartments and using that money to fund other projects, in which they also pre-sold the apartments and the cycle started again. Evergrande bonds are suspended, and there’s a chance they’re worthless. The stock is near its all-time low, it has lost nearly 80% of its value this year. 

Completing the story, CNBC informs:

“The company warned investors twice in as many weeks that it could default. On Tuesday, Evergrande said it’s at risk of a cross default, which means such risks could spill into other related sectors.

Evergrande said Tuesday its property sales would continue to deteriorate significantly this month, adding to its severe cash flow problems.”

Is there a possibility that Evergrande’s problems are the symptom of a widespread disease? That’s the $1M question. Is the real state sector really in trouble? For that answer, we have to go to ZeroHedge’s report:

“Country Garden, the nation’s largest developer by sales, plunged 16% in the past two days, while Gemdale slumped 12% as a  gauge of property shares in Shanghai tumbled almost 5% in the period, with valuations firmly below book value. Following the news, Guangzhou R&F Properties drops 10.8% to the lowest since Dec. 2008 while Greentown China -9.1%. At this point, one can safely call it a crisis.”

How Does Evergrande Relate To Bitcoin?

China’s Bitcoin policy doesn’t make sense. Regulating themselves out of the leadership position in the most important industry of our times is a hard pill to swallow. There has to be something else going on. We at NewsBTC have been on the case. We explored the Digital Yuan CBDC angle. We looked at ads selling small hydropower stations. We discovered China’s dominance over the Bitcoin hashrate was waning before the ban. And we detailed the so-called new “China Model.” 

Under Plan B’s original tweet, two comments attract attention. Investor and podcaster Preston Pysh feels that the situation is “The guaranteed outcome of fractional reserve banking: Impairment of promises. It’s just a matter of when and at what magnitude.” And the person behind Documenting Bitcoin goes conspiratorial and says, “They knew this was coming. Perhaps this is why they “banned” bitcoin.” That, as you might imagine, opens a huge can of worms.

Related Reading | Since China’s Mining Ban, Bitcoin Hashrate Has Recovered by 68% And Counting

Full of confidence, Plan B responds, “Yes, and they closed the exits, typical they always do that.” Bad for the people in China but, in general, bullish for Bitcoin. To recap: the government saw this coming from a distance. They knew the crisis was going to repeatedly hit the country and banned Bitcoin mining to scare the population into not buying the hardest asset ever created. Bitcoin, the true hedge against the collapse of every economy. In any case, the Chinese government will probably try to print its way out of this one. And somehow it’s going to use this crisis to unveil their Digital Yuan CBDC.

Does the theory sound coherent to you? Or is there even more to this story?

Featured Image by Li Yang on Unsplash - Charts by TradingView

Source

Tagged : / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

Bitcoin fractal that predicted 2020 rally flashes again as BTC price reclaims $40K

A crossover between two Bitcoin (BTC) moving averages that appeared before the 2020 price boom hints at returning in 2021, just as the flagship cryptocurrency eyes a bullish breakout from its current $30,000-$40,000 trading range.

The indicators in focus are MACD Line and Signal Line. MACD is an acronym for Moving Average Convergence Divergence, and a MACD line represents the difference between the 12 and 26-period moving averages. Meanwhile, a Signal Line is a 9-period moving average.

Plotting MACD Line and Signal Line together forms the so-called MACD Indicator that allows traders to predict future price trends. For example, when the MACD Line—a faster moving average—closes below the Signal Line—a slower moving average, it typically reflects a bearish trend underway. Conversely, the trend switches to bullish when the MACD Line closes above the Signal Line.

Bitcoin MACD trends since March 2020. Source: TradingView.com

The difference between the two moving averages makes a Histogram. If the faster moving average moves away from the slower moving average, it indicates a MACD Divergence. Similarly, when the faster-moving average gets closer to the slower one, the crossover is called MACD Convergence.

Pitting Bitcoin prices against MACD

In 2020, Bitcoin prices reacted accurately to the MACD crossovers. The chart below illustrates the said correlation.

The Bitcoin price-MACD weekly correlation. Source: TradingView.com

The recent bearish crossovers between the MACD Line and the Signal Line led to declines. Similarly, bullish crossovers led to massive spikes. The Histogram indicator showed the strength of both upside and downside moves based on the difference between MACD and Signal Lines.

Now, Histogram is recovering back to zero with the two lines looking at a potential MACD Convergence. The same fractal appeared last in March 2020. That followed a massive Bitcoin price rally from $3,858 to circa $65,000.

Preston Pysh, the founder of the Pylon Holding Company—an equity investment firm, expected the MACD fractal deja-vu. The analyst tweeted:

Additionally, in a note published in July, Katie Stockton, founder, and managing partner of Fairlead Strategies, that Bitcoin’s “intermediate-term momentum” was improving thanks to the MACD histogram.

Decisive breakout anticipated

But spot markets have largely ignored long-term upside outlooks for Bitcoin as the asset struggles repeatedly to break above $40,000. Its previous attempts to extend its upside momentum beyond the said level have met extremely high selling pressure.

Meanwhile, on a brighter note, a similarly strong buying sentiment near $30,000 has capped the Bitcoin prices from pursuing deeper downtrends. As a result, equally assertive bulls and bears have trapped Bitcoin in the $30,000-$40,000 price range. 

Related: Bitcoin bulls overtake the $40K barrier ahead of Friday’s $625M options expiry

Pankaj Balani, the CEO of Delta Exchange, expects a bullish breakout move in the Bitcoin market should it manages to hold above $40,000 for a week.

“On a conclusive breakout of the $40K level, BTC could challenge the $48K level,” the executive said.

“On the downside, traders will keenly monitor the $36K level. On breakdown below $36K, BTC can quickly move to $28K – $32K range.”

Bitcoin was trading at $40,723 at publishing time.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.