Don’t Be Fooled! This Report Should Open Eyes!

I know that it’s been a tough week in the markets. And it can be hard to focus on much else when your portfolio is looking the worse for wear.

However, it’s now more important than ever to stay focused on what really matters. And that is whether cryptocurrency can viably provide us with an alternative to the status quo. Whether we are still on the road to financial freedom (despite how bumpy it can get).

Well, thanks to a recent survey by the folks over at Bitstamp, we have a clearer picture of how the journey is going.

It was a comprehensive survey that incorporated 23,000 retail participants, as well as 5,500 institutions. This is in direct competition with the Gemini retail survey that I looked at a few weeks ago.

The report covers a number of topics, including investor perceptions, geographical dispersion, regulations and adoption trends. It was a fascinating read and in my video today, I break down its most important points and explain exactly what they could mean for crypto this year and beyond.

You can watch that right here.

📊 Main Portfolio 📊

Not making any more moves with the portfolio at this stage. As I mention in the market update below, we have an important week coming up, especially from a macro perspective. This will drive all asset markets and especially crypto.

If these numbers come in better than expected, then I will look to make strategic purchases with some of the stablecoins I have been stacking. I have already asked you guys what has value and there is some interesting feedback there.

As usual, I will keep you updated with any changes in my Telegram Channel.

ETH 33.50% | BTC 23.74% | SOL 7.54% | UST 7.26% | DOT 5.45% | ATOM 4.01% | RUNE 3.15% | NEAR 2.47% | LUNA 2.47% | APE 2.02% | ADA 1.59% | HNT 1.32% | AR 1.30% | FTM 1.26% | MATIC 1.17% | INJ 0.86% | LINK 0.61% | XDEFI 0.29%

🖼 NFT Portfolio 🖼

MAYC 95.53% | Meebit 4.47%

📈 Thoughts on Market 📈

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I don’t think we’re in a bear market just yet, and that’s because we continue to see a long term uptrend (higher lows on BTC) and a long term downtrend (lower lows) hasn’t begun. That said, we recently saw our first lower low since last spring when the crypto market looked like it was on its last legs. This begs the question: will this continue?

The short answer is I’m honestly not sure, but what I am sure of is that asset markets are more or less moving as one. The only safe haven we’ve seen over the last few weeks is the US dollar. Everything else - stocks, bonds, crypto, and gold have all been crashing. Now we’re starting to see signs that even the housing market is losing its footing. You already know why that is.

Inflation, pandemic, supply chain disruptions, China locking down, the ongoing war in Ukraine. It’s starting to feel like the same old story, isn’t it? Well, that’s the thing. Investors like certainty. The reality is that all of these factors are, for the most part, part of the same old story. They’ve all been priced in, and they’re not really what investors are paying attention to at this point.

So, what the hell is spooking the markets so much? You know the answer here too: it’s the Federal Reserve. I covered the ins and outs of this in Friday’s video on Coin Bureau Clips, so I’ll just repeat the most important point. This upcoming Wednesday, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics will be publishing the inflation figures for April.

This CPI print is going to be extremely important, because what the markets are waiting for is ‘peak inflation’ i.e. the top of the current inflation trend. Even if inflation comes in hot for April, if it’s lower or even just growing at a slower rate than it was in March, this will be seen as a bullish sign. Why? Because it means the Federal Reserve won’t have to raise interest rates as much as people were fearing.

Conversely, if April’s CPI is higher than March’s CPI (and grew at a much faster pace), asset markets could take a very nasty tumble. This is because it means the Fed will be tempted to raise interest rates even more aggressively to fight inflation. The worst part is that lots of investors are convinced that March was peak inflation. If it turns out that it wasn’t, then this could lead to even more capitulation.

Now, as horrible as this all sounds, it’s important to remember that there are a lot of fundamentals coming into force for cryptocurrency. Fidelity’s decision to introduce BTC to its 401(k) plans comes to mind here, but there are other potential bullish catalysts like Tesla accepting BTC as payment again and Australia listing those delayed crypto ETFs from the week prior.

In sum, it’s looking bad, but we’re not in bear market territory quite yet. I also didn’t get a single sense of bearishness from the attendees at yesterday’s Coin Bureau Conference. I even heard from a few folks that the impressive turnouts these crypto conferences continue to have is proof that the bear market isn’t here, or at least that crypto has entered a new paradigm.

💯 The First Coin Bureau Conference 💯

Where do I even begin? I suppose I should start by thanking each and everyone one of you; those who showed up in person, those who watched the event online, and the ones who made it possible (also you). I would also like to thank our fantastic sponsors (assuming they’re subscribed to our weekly newsletter of course). Now, enough thanking, here’s my two cents.

Yesterday was the first of many Coin Bureau conferences that will be coming your way, and based on the feedback we’ve received so far, it was a big success. The venue was beautiful, the place was packed, and I managed to spend a fair bit of time with the fans in the crowd. I will admit it took some time for us to find some chairs, but I didn’t hear any complaints.

As far as content goes, naturally I started with a short opening speech, which was followed by a fantastic panel discussion featuring LunarCrush and Swissborg. On that note, I want to thank Swissborg for hosting an incredible event the night before and giving us pointers and tips on how to make ours as amazing as it could be. Seriously, check out Swissborg, and Lunar Crush too!

Next up I shared the stage with Tom and Josh from CryptoBusy and Yusuke from CoinClubJapan, where we discussed the evolution of altcoins. It was great to chew the fat with some fellow content creators and get an insight into their favourite projects. All lovely chaps as well. We then heard from some of the top brass over at Unique Network, a Polkadot project that you should definitely pay attention to.

After a brief break, I opened the evening session with another short speech (because why not), and then we had what I considered to be among the most interesting discussions of the evening, and that was between LunarCrush and OGroup. It was also a blast having a chat with Rob from Digital Asset News, and incredible to see the stage light up in red for the one and only Maren Altman.

To wrap things up we did an in-depth DeFi discussion with DeFi Dad, and by ‘we’ I mean myself and our energetic, 200-words-per-minute head of crypto research, Dan the man. The night ended with an equally energetic and in-depth discussion about Decentralised Autonomous Organisations, their adoption, their issues, and how they could potentially be improved.

All in all, a solid event, and again, no spoilers here. Head on over to Coin Bureau Clips and watch the whole thing (pro tip, 2x speed and remember to skip around as there are some transition parts as well). We will be pushing shorter clips from the event over the next few weeks as well, so keep your eyes peeled for that because the highlights will be sweet!

It was an exhausting but exhilarating day, all told. Our speakers and sponsors were wonderful and all such lovely people too. It was a pleasure to meet them all and I’m so grateful for their support. A big thank you too to the wonderful Team Coin Bureau. They worked their socks off all day to keep the show on the road and I was delighted to see them getting some love from the fans too. Coin Bureau couldn’t function without them and I’m lucky to be a part of such an elite unit! Special thanks of course to Macey, who worked so tirelessly to make the whole thing happen. A few days rest and then I guess she better start thinking about the next one…

🧐 A Tale of Two Blockchains 🧐

Last weekend we had two very different examples of how blockchains deal with excessive demand on their networks. These were Ethereum & Solana. Both of these networks faced this demand thanks to NFTs. In the case of Solana, it was an NFT Minting tool and with Ethereum, it was the Otherside land drop.

As it relates to Solana, it suffered a 7 hour outage thanks to an NFT minting tool called “Candy Machine” that was swarmed by bots. Essentially, the network was flooded with transactions that were too numerous for the validators to process, which in turn led to the network fork.

Then, on the Ethereum side, the Otherside mint led to an unprecedented spike in gas fees, which saw buyers paying over $100m in fees for the mint. Not only did many view this as extortionate, but it also raised ETH fees for the entire network. For example, there was this person who paid $3,800 in fees for a $270 NFT.

In both of these cases, it left some community members feeling a bit jaded about the state of their blockchains. It wasn’t a pretty picture for either of these networks. However, what this did illustrate is that when it comes to demand for block space, there is no free lunch.

In the case of Etherem, it was those individuals who were consistently bidding up the gas fees in order to mint those NFTs. The free market on that day determined that some people valued those NFT mints more than others were willing to pay for simple transactions.

In the case of Solana, its algorithmic fee model was developed to adjust based on how full the previous blocks were. The only problem is that this model could underprice the block space and hence allow a flood of low value transactions. Spam attacks tend to happen when the cost of spamming isn’t that high. Moreover, given the open nature of a blockchain, you can’t really ‘ban’ any dapps.

So, in Ethereum’s case, fees were so high that people found it unusable. Yet, with Solana, they could not use it because, well, it was inoperable.

It’s not just a Solana or Ethereum thing. All other networks could face similar challenges in the future. When network demand gets so great, you have to find a solution that keeps fees manageable without risking spam.

There are blockchains that are trying to do this and they are having varying degrees of success. And, even if they do demonstrate the ability to scale as desired, this generally comes at the cost of decentralisation.

This is the opening chord of a much broader discussion of the blockchain trilemma: a problem that has been around for as long as blockchains themselves.

🔥 Deal of The Week 🔥

If you are like the Coin Bureau team then you are hodling those coins and tokens in a super secure hardware wallet. But, what happens if you misplace that hardware wallet? Or you forget the password?

Well, the only thing between your future millions and losing your crypto are those all important seed words. That’s why it is so important to keep them as safe as possible

The security risk most people face when it comes to seed words is that they write them down on just a piece of paper or card. Unfortunately, both cardboard and paper are not exactly resistant to spillages, fire, damp and other mishaps.

But there is a way to keep those seed words safe. Safe against all elements including explosions! And that’s using a steel seed card to engrave those seed words into.

We’ve just placed Coin Bureau’s snazzy new steel seed wallets in our merch store, complete with Coin Bureau branding! Now, the supplies for these are limited and I expect them to sell out once we start promoting them on the channel. So, it might be a good idea to grab one whilst you can!

🔮 Video Pipeline 🔮

• A TradeFi Scandal For The Ages
• Cryptocurrencies Vs CBDCs: All you need to know
• Cryptocurrency Decentralization: Why is it key?
• Crypto.com Update: My thoughts revealed…
• Algorand Update: Still worth it?
• Worst Crypto Scams Ever! Don’t Fall For It!

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

✅ What is Mimblewimble, What Does it Do, and Why You should Care

✅ Illuvium: Has the ‘AAA’ NFT Gaming Messiah Arrived?

✅ Getting Fit with Move2Earn DApps

That’s all for today. However, I would like to thank everyone who went or tuned in to the Coin Bureau event yesterday. Honestly, the reception blew me and the team away. We feel so grateful that so many of you took time out of your busy schedules to meet up.

Yes, we know that there are many other great cities out there in the world and we’ll certainly be looking at the possibility of hosting other events in the future.

Guy your crypto guy