The Billionaires Are Selling! Do They Know Something We Don’t?

It hasn’t just been meme coin degens who’ve been cashing out and making insane amounts of money lately. Some of the world’s richest people have also been hitting the sell button and the natural question is… why now?

The likes of Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon have all been selling off shares in their respective companies and, perhaps unsurprisingly, such sales have raised a few eyebrows. This isn’t just because the sums involved are pretty eye-watering, but also because the timing suggests they may be preparing to weather some storm that us mere mortals remain blissfully unaware of.

In today’s video, we take a look at the selling that these and other rich folks have been doing and examine what might have prompted them to all make the call around the same time. And, it’s not just the rich who are in the spotlight, but the powerful as well. A number of US politicians have been playing the stock market like seasoned pros lately and that too raises many questions.

So, for a rundown of what all the high and mighty have been up to and what it might all signal for the rest of us, watch that video right here.

📈 Crypto Market Forecast 📈

It’s going to be a very big week on the crypto and macro fronts. On the crypto front, Ethereum will undergo its highly-anticipated Dencun upgrade this Wednesday. If you watched our video about Dencun, you’ll know that it will be bullish for ETH, but even more bullish for Ethereum’s layer 2s, as it will decrease their fees and increase their TPS.

If you look at the list of Ethereum layer 2 tokens, you’ll notice they all have something in common - they’ve all been lagging behind the other altcoins that have pumped recently. The Dencun upgrade could be the catalyst that causes them to catch up. In other words, the cryptos in this niche could see significant rallies in the coming days.

The caveat is that a potential correction for BTC could dampen any rallies we see from ETH or its L2s. Famous BTC cycle trader Bob Loukas made the bold prediction that crypto has hit a local top after BTC hit its new all-time high of 70k. Bob is not the type of trader to put out these kinds of calls on a whim, but of course, nobody can predict the future.

This ties into the macro side of the equation, which is where things could get messy. For starters, we have the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, where ceasefire talks between Hamas and Israel reportedly broke down a few days ago. Israel had previously stated that it will enter the last area of Gaza by today if its demands are not met.

In case you haven’t noticed, oil prices have been spiking every time the conflict in the Middle East has escalated. That’s because, if the conflict becomes truly regional, then there could be disruptions to the oil supply that result in inflation ticking higher. In turn, central banks would be forced to keep interest rates higher for longer, which would put pressure on the markets.

This relates to the second macro factor to watch and that’s the upcoming PPI and CPI prints. For context, the PPI is inflation for products and the CPI is inflation for consumers. It’s believed that PPI leads CPI, which makes sense. As such, a higher-than-expected PPI print could lead to fears that the CPI will also rise, and this would be aggravated if the CPI does in fact come in hotter.

For reference, the CPI will be released on Tuesday, while the PPI will be released on Thursday. As most of you will know, higher-than-expected inflation prints will increase the risk of the Fed keeping interest rates higher for longer. To refresh your memory, the last CPI print came in hotter than expected, foreshadowing the start of a new trend of higher inflation.

The caveat here is that speculation around NVIDIA’s upcoming conference could cause markets to shrug off a higher-than-expected CPI, just like they did last time. For those unaware, NVIDIA’s get-together starts early next week (18th March). You can bet that there will be a lot of headlines about AI coming out of it that could take stocks and crypto higher.

On that note, chances are that you’ve all noticed how insane the memecoin rallies have been lately. If we do see markets surprise to the upside this week, then chances are that memecoins will continue to pump. This begs the question of how you can capitalise on this. The answer could be to focus on memecoins in ecosystems that have been lagging behind.

Can’t think of any? Hint: re-read this section.

⚡️ BTC Supercharged ⚡️

With Bitcoin finally achieving a new all-time high last week, a fresh wave of newbie investors will soon begin to find their way into crypto.

While these newcomers attempt to understand the difference between Bitcoin and Ethereum, older crypto investors have already begun shifting most of their attention towards a layer of assets built on top of Bitcoin - the market’s oldest and most revered network.

This layer, made up of assets such as Ordinals, BRC-20s and Runes, has been experiencing a surge of activity over the past few weeks.

In fact, we saw the average daily sales volume of “NFTs” on Bitcoin surpassing that on Ethereum in recent days. Specifically, Bitcoin ‘NFT’ sales rocketed 80% week-over-week to $168.5 million, while Ethereum only drew in $162 million in sales last week.

The largest contributing factor to this sudden spike in sales of Bitcoin Ordinals-based NFT collections seems to be the recent rise in popularity of a collection called NodeMonkes. Notably, NodeMonkes is being described as Bitcoin’s version of CryptoPunks.

The NodeMonke fever has even led to some rethinking their decision to go all in on the Blast ecosystem (something we covered last week).

However, that isn’t the sole reason for the recent spike. Another notable factor is the new developments around Runestone. If you’re a loyal reader of our newsletter, you’ll likely remember Runestone from our coverage of it in one of our January issues.

Well, it appears that Runestone conducted two significant events this past week. The first is its inscription of the largest Bitcoin block ever mined in history, while the second is its auction of that block.

On that note, the rising popularity of RROs (Runes-related ordinals) compels us to remind you that a lot of the claims made by these projects are highly speculative and mere promises until Casey Rodarmor launches the actual Runes protocol.

Having said that, it’s plain to see that the Bitcoin sub-asset layer isn’t just a passing fad anymore. In fact, many (including us) believe it will grow to be one of the largest ecosystems in crypto.

While a lot has been written about Ordinals and Inscriptions, the most convincing thesis we’ve come across is hidden in the lengthy tweets of Taproot Wizards founder Udi Wertheimer.

Udi makes two excellent points on why the scope of Ordinals is bigger than most can imagine. Interestingly, both points relate to the psychology of ‘Ancient Bitcoin Whales’ – the earliest users of Bitcoin. Specifically, the first relates to unit bias and the second relates to degeneracy.

Udi points out that most ancient Bitcoin whales purchased their first stack of Bitcoin for around $3 a piece and used it as a form of money to buy and sell drugs on the internet. Given the nature of their activities and the origin of their funds, it should come as no surprise that these whales would rather let their BTC holdings sleep on-chain than off-ramp them all back to their bank accounts for government scrutiny.

Having said that, Udi notes that these whales are often yearning for some form of degeneracy to engage in. In the early days, they satisfied this craving by trading shitcoins on altcoin exchanges.

However, now that most of these exchanges have imposed KYC restrictions, these whales have long since abandoned altcoin trading. Udi claims that Bitcoin’s burgeoning sub-asset layer now gives these whales an outlet via which to indulge in complete degeneracy.

Secondly, he also points out how unit bias plays an important role in this degeneracy. For those unfamiliar with the term, unit bias refers to the psychological phenomenon in which most individuals perceive a single unit of an item, regardless of its size, as the appropriate amount to consume or use.

For financial assets, this results in investors often subconsciously assigning the value or profitability of an asset based on the position of its price value on the numerical scale. For example, if one unit of Asset A costs $1 and one unit of Asset B costs $0.1, most investors will perceive Asset B to be the more profitable asset, even if its market cap happens to be larger than that of Asset A.

In the case of ancient Bitcoin whales, Udi claims that most of these characters often subconsciously treat their Bitcoin holdings as if they were still priced at $3. To these whales, spending 1 BTC on an Ordinals collection is equivalent to Ethereum holders paying 1 ETH for a popular Ethereum NFT. In simple words, they no longer care about the dollar value of their BTC holdings.

However, that thesis isn’t the only thing pushing forward out bullishness on the BTC ecosystem. Rather, we and most others have slowly been noticing significant progress being made on the Bitcoin layer 2 front. Even large Bitcoin miners like Marathon Digital are pushing forward with their own Bitcoin layer 2 networks.

Best believe, there’s a whole lot more in the works within the Bitcoin ecosystem. Those who miss out will likely end up regretting so more than they can imagine.

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🔮 Video Pipeline 🔮

* How To Trade Bitcoin: Ultimate step-by-step guide
* Secret AI Report: Which AI cryptos should you be looking at?
* Crypto In Japan: What’s happening & what are the trends?
* OKX Review: Everything You Need To Know

🏆 What's New at CoinBureau.com This Week? 🏆

* Mt Pelerin Review: Regulated KYC-Free Crypto Transactions!
* What is Ethereum Restaking?
* Bybit Copy Trading Review 2024: Maximize Your Crypto Trading
* Best New Cryptocurrencies in 2024
* Arkham Intelligence Review 2024: Revolutionising Crypto Analytics
* M6 Labs Crypto Market Pulse: God Candles Loading
* Blur NFT Marketplace Review 2024: Leader in NFT Trading

📖 Quote of the Week 📖

As Bitcoin breaks through its all-time highs again, it’s important to remember how crazy the past twelve months have been. But we all made it, together. Let’s enjoy this moment!

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up” - Thomas Edison

Team Coin Bureau

Disclosure: Authors may own cryptoassets named in this newsletter. These are unqualified opinions, and a Coin Bureau newsletter, is meant for informational purposes only. It is not meant to serve as investment advice. Please consult with your investment, tax, or legal advisor.