Howdy crypto-heads, hope your fall has started off well. As we keep adding new folks I’m going to make the following my standard intro:
This newsletter is focused on current events in the crypto space, sharing projects and people I find interesting, and serving as a resource for upcoming crypto events; locally in Colorado and larger events across the U.S.
No worries if this isn’t something you’re interested in - just scroll to the bottom of this email and hit “unsubscribe”.
This weeks we’ll be talking about…
Bitcoin market: Evergrande, SEC, Quant analysis
Gitcoin Grants final day
New NFT art gallery in Denver
Upcoming events
1. Bitcoin market action
As Bitcoin takes another leg down it’s a good time to remind everyone - don’t invest more than you’re willing to lose and dollar cost averaging is a great way to accumulate cryptocurrency! (Also, none of this is financial advice, it’s just my personal thoughts shared for free)
Evergrande
According to crypto twitter the main reason for Bitcoin heading down and pulling most of the cryptocurrency market with it seems to be related to Evergrande and it’s looming insolvency. Unfortunately there still seems to be a strong correlation between cryptocurrency markets and global financial markets, so uncertainty in one often leads to uncertainty in the other.
For those not up to speed, Evergrande is a gigantic Chinese property developer who just last week announced their inability to make a major interest payment on the debt they’ve used to finance operations. With many in the crypto space anxiously awaiting the unraveling of the current FIAT system this seemed to be the “moment we’ve been waiting for” and comparisons to the 2008 financial crisis quickly made the rounds.
More recently however it seems that Beijing will likely allow Evergrande to restructure it debt while forcing Chinese banks to lend them funds, effectively preventing the spiraling cascade of defaults that many twitter economists predicted. For me it makes perfect sense that the government will step in to prevent Evergrande from going under and taking others with them. It is hard to imagine a tightly controlled economy like China’s giving free market forces the ability to decide the fate of a massive company and potentially their economy as a whole.
SEC
Another interesting development concerning Bitcoin and crypto are the recent comments from Mr. Burns look-alike Gary Gensler, the current chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
His comments are centered around cryptocurrency being speculative assets, which (for now) in first world countries is fairly true. He loses me however when he begins stating that the SEC has broad authority to take enforcement action against crypto platforms that offer lending and trading and projects considered “securities”.
According to this video from Sept 21 - https://youtu.be/aatNpmgNHRAf
Gary expects decentralized platforms like Uniswap and Compound to “come in” and register with the SEC or face regulatory action. While he isn’t wrong that people have lost their shirts to overly leveraged trading, I can’t shake the feeling that we’re being protected from ourselves (AAVE offers 6% return on savings in USD stablecoin compared to the 0.2% your bank does) and that this stance will ultimately hinder innovation and drive talent from our country to more crypto friendly locations.
With his repeated saber rattling over the past few months culminating in an interview with the Washington Post just yesterday, I feel there may be a correlation between investors selling off some cryptocurrency and the SEC Chair’s consistent comments about upcoming broad enforcement action in this space.
Quantitative Analysis
Whenever there is a big move in Bitcoin one way or the other I like to take a look at the on-chain data. This week’s down turn again seems to be mostly driven by low-timeframe traders speculating on recent news, and I’m basing this theory on two data points:
On Monday 96.8% of the Bitcoin traded had been parked in a wallet for less than 3 weeks. My conclusion here is that the older investors are not panicking and moving the coins that they’ve accumulated over the years.
The percentage of Bitcoin’s total supply that is being held by long term holders is still increasing. In recent scenarios that percentage begins to decline well in advance of the market top. My conclusion here is that many longer-term crypto investors are continuing to accumulate and aren’t scared enough to begin locking in profits or even selling at a loss.
2. Gitcoin Grants
I’ve participated in a few Gitcoin Grants rounds now and I’m sorry that I’m bringing this to your attention with only 1 more day to go!
Basically these grants are an awesome way to fund exciting and innovative projects in the cryptocurrency space through a process known as “quadratic funding”. For contributors, any money they grant to a project is matched from a pool according to an algorithm that gives more when a larger number of people support a given project.
If 100 people donate $1 they may each be matched from the pool by up to $4, totaling $500. However, if only 2 people donate $50 the pool may contribute only $20 each for a total of $140. This ensures that wealthy funders can’t force the funding pool to prioritize the projects they like and instead funding is received by projects doing the most public good.
Check out the Grants page here - https://gitcoin.co/grants/
Additionally, if you’re worried about high gas fees on ethereum (gitcoin takes grants paid with ETH or ERC20 tokens) make sure you use https://wallet.zksync.io
.
You can use their layer 2 scaling solution by heading to their site in the link above, connecting your metamask wallet and depositing some funds. It’s a well audited smart contract and the funds are controlled by your ethereum wallet, not a 3rd party.
The initial deposit will require regular ethereum gas fee’s (~$15 of ETH atm) but once you’re in you’ll get super cheap transactions around 15-20 cents for all of your Gitcoin Grants funding!
3. IRL Underground: Art Gallery in Denver
Taken from their website at https://www.irlunderground.com/crypto
We are SERIOUS about Cryptocurrency, Decentralization, Open-source technology and sharing tools with artists and our community that eliminate those annoying “middle-men”.
IRL Underground is a community hub for innovators, educators and newbies just beginning their crypto journey.
We work in collaboration with decentralized communities and projects throughout the world.
While I still need to get over there and physically check the space out, I’ve been hearing awesome things from other people in the Denver crypto community. From hosting NFT viewing parties to just having an awesome vibe, IRL Underground is fusing the art world with the emerging use case of NFT’s while promoting the use of cryptocurrency.
Currently the U’R,L exhibit is showing and runs until Sept 24th. Free gallery hours are from 2-9pm Wed through Sun at their location on 2611 Walnut St. Denver CO 80205.
4. Upcoming Events
Tonight I’m hosting an in-person event at the Smoky Hills library to help people set up their hardware wallets and secure their crypto. I’ll be covering how to start up a Ledger Nano S and people are welcome to follow along or take notes and replicate them at home.
Starts at 6:30pm in Meeting Room B, 5430 S Biscay Cir, Centennial, CO 80015
Trading Class 2
On October 5th at 6:30pm I will be holding the 2nd class for trading cryptocurrency that builds on the fundamentals taught in Class 1. The primary focus of Trading Class 2 will be on developing a trading your unique trading strategy, applying it and refining it. This will be much more hands on compared to Class 1 which is all about teaching you the fundamentals. The cost is $89 and the class runs for 90 minutes.
Trading Class 1
On October 12th at 6:30pm I will be holding Trading Class 1. If you are new to trading crypto or want a refresher on Technical Analysis indicators and basic Quantitative Analysis this is the place you should start! We will cover:
Setting up TradingView
Support/Resistance, Volume, Candlesticks, EMA’s, Fibonacci Retrace/Extend, MACD, RSI and basic market structures like pennants and flags.
My 8 favorite charts on Glassnode.com useful for quantitative analysis and how to make your own.
The cost is $115 and runs for 2 hours.
Thanks for reading and catch you next time!
~Matt