Was That the Worst? Or More to Come??

It was a brutal start to the year. Markets had fallen to levels not seen for months. Sentiment was down across the board…

However, when February came around, fortunes appeared to reverse. There was a much needed boost that seemed to pump sentiment across the board.

The main question now is whether this is sustainable? Or is it more of a bull trap that many could get caught in? That’s exactly what two recent institutional crypto market reports have attempted to answer. And those reports are exactly what I will be covering today.

I will be breaking down their charts and stats and explaining exactly what they mean. I'll also analyse their key findings, as well as give you my own thoughts on their price and market predictions.

You can watch that video here.

📊 Main Portfolio 📊

Took a bit of profit off the top of my ETH position as well as HNT and will be keeping this in UST. Apart from that, there are no more changes to my portfolio. As usual, all portfolio movements will be disclosed in my Telegram channel.

ETH 31.12% | BTC 24.24% | SOL 9.73% | DOT 9.48% | ATOM 5.69% | FTM 4.31% | UST 2.37% | MATIC 2.20% | HNT 2.18% | ADA 1.91% | RUNE 1.49% | INJ 1.33% | LUNA 1.16% | AR 0.94% | LINK 0.80% | YGG 0.76% | XDEFI 0.28%

🖼 NFT Portfolio 🖼

MAYC 95.23% | Meebit 4.76%

📈 Thoughts on Market 📈

It’s been another interesting week in the crypto market. What started out as a bullish breakout is now starting to look like a bull trap, but I have a feeling we’re going to see some more positive price action later today. This is because in a few hours time, the Super Bowl will begin.

For those who don’t know, the Super Bowl is American football’s biggest event, and it attracts around 100 million viewers every year. This time around, crypto companies will be competing for the attention of these eyes with their ads. This could translate to positive price action for crypto.

The only problem is that any parabolic runs could be cut short by our friends at the Fed. This is because there are concerns that they could react more aggressively when it comes to raising rates in March. Some see a 0.5% rate hike in response to the record inflation readings for January. Not everyone is convinced this will happen, however.

This begs the question of what role cryptocurrency plays in this market dynamic. On the one hand, Bitcoin is supposed to be an inflation hedge. On the other hand, the Federal Reserve’s response to inflation seems to be having a negative impact on its price as if it was a stock.

I think a better way to see Bitcoin and crypto as a whole is as more of a fiat hedge rather than an inflation hedge. In other words, it’s a bet against the current financial system, and history suggests that’s not a bad bet to make. Even Blackrock is getting its head in the game now.

This relates to an interesting trend I’ve seen over the last week, and that’s a sharp rise in Bitcoin dominance. Put simply, it looks like investors are rotating their altcoin gains into BTC. This could either be because we’re about to see a big crash, or Bitcoin is about to see some big news.

In either case, altcoins are getting slaughtered by this shift in capital, and as much as it’s probably harming your portfolio right now, consider it to be an opportunity to buy the dip on any cryptos you’re interested in (like I did). If you need help with that, check out this video.

🤯 Craziest Story in Crypto 🤯

I am sure that you folks have no doubt heard the story about the DOJ arrests and seizures in relation to the Bitfinex hack. It’s one of the craziest and most unlikely stories that I have seen in the crypto space recently - and that says A LOT.

I think that the whole saga can best be summed up with this tweet. How on earth could an eccentric hipster couple from New York be charged with trying to launder over $4.5 billion in stolen cryptocurrency?

There were so many other crazy details about this case, but here are just some of them:

• The Cloud Drive: Imagine storing the private keys to 120,000 Bitcoin on a cloud drive?! How on earth could someone who used pretty sophisticated cyber laundering techniques commit one of the most noobish mistakes ever? It’s almost impossible to believe but yet, that’s how the agents were able to access it. A simple search warrant. A simple search. A decent $3.6 billion haul - the largest financial seizure of any kind, ever!
• The Public Life: They were being traced by perhaps hundreds of agents from numerous three letter agencies. By blockchain analytics firms and other cyber security professionals with the best tools money can buy. And yet, they still had a public life plastered all over the internet. He was a VC and angel investor who until recently, regularly tweeted about Web 3. She was a rapper called Razzlekhan who posted on TikTok, was a Forbes contributor and even gave a talk on Social Engineering.
• Not Accused of Hack: Although they were in control of the Bitcoin and accused of trying to launder it, they are not accused of being the hackers. That means that either the authorities can’t prove they hacked it or someone else did and this couple seemed to have landed up with the crypto.
• Who Gets the Funds: The victim of the hack was of course Bitfinex. But it also impacted on the exchange’s users as they all had to take a haircut on balances at the time of the hack. This was eventually paid back but only in the USD value of the amounts lost at the time of the hack. Will the DOJ send the funds back to Bitfinex? The exchange wants them back but the DOJ has not indicated whether they are planning to return any of it. Let’s also not forget that US authorities still have concerns around the Bitfinex-Tether connection.
• Tracing it: As mentioned, the couple used some really sophisticated techniques to try and obfuscate the funds. They used automated transaction batching, “chain peeling”, chain hopping, dark-net markets and other mixers. Some of these transactions involved multiple hops and some of the chain hops involved using privacy preserving tech like Monero. Yet, the agents were still able to trace it and ultimately bring them down.

These are only some of the most important facts and there is a lot more that needs to be uncovered. I hope to be doing a video on the topic in the coming week or so.

But, the most important thing that I took away from this event is that cryptocurrency is not friendly to money launderers. Every single transaction on the blockchain is stored there immutably and forever. It doesn’t matter how long ago a theft occurred, the data is free for all to see and study.

This is something that investigators would not have been able to do had the laundering being attempted with gold or cash. And this is exactly why the mainstream narrative around cryptocurrency and money laundering is tired. Times have changed and they need to change with the times.

🤫 Cryptocurrency vs. Censorship 🤫

Speaking of crazy news stories, you’ve probably heard about the truckers protesting pandemic restrictions in Canada. This is something that’s come across my radar a few times over the last couple of weeks, but I didn’t pay too much attention until the headlines started mentioning cryptocurrency.

While I don’t have any interest in the protests per se, I am very interested in the financial censorship we’ve seen from corporations and governments. It has put their financial powers on full display, and I see this as a very real test of whether crypto is truly uncensorable money.

But first, some background.

In late January, the organisers of the trucker protest started a GoFundMe page to crowdfund everything the truckers would need (food, fuel, accommodation, etc.). After raising 10 million dollars, GoFundMe pulled the page under pressure from Canadian politicians.

When the GoFundMe page was pulled, another crowdfunding website called GiveSendGo set up a few campaigns for the truckers, vowing not to bow to any political pressure. After raising almost another 10 million dollars, Canadian courts issued an order to block payments from the platform.

Around this time, a crypto crowdfunding website called Tallycoin started accepting BTC donations on behalf of the truckers. It has raised nearly 1 million dollars so far, including from high profile people in the crypto community such as Kraken CEO Jesse Powell.

My question is, will these BTC donations be any different from its predecessors in practice?

Cryptocurrency is not legal tender in Canada, and this means it will need to be sold for fiat using a cryptocurrency exchange. It’s likely blockchain analytics companies are tracking these BTC transactions closely, and they’ll be able to alert Canadian authorities about any donated BTC.

At that point, the Canadian authorities will just ask the exchange to freeze the funds. If the exchange doesn’t comply, said authorities will likely freeze their bank accounts the same way they recently did with the protestors who successfully received donations.

Alternatively, it’s possible that these crypto payments could be processed by a bank that exists “outside” of the Canadian banking system. As it so happens, some of the organisers are using an independent provincial bank which is apparently sympathetic to their cause.

This would actually explain why the Federal Reserve is seemingly hesitating to approve licences for crypto banks in the USA. In any case, it’s clear that financial censorship is a powerful force, and even though crypto itself is uncensorable, the infrastructure used to interact with it is not.

Whatever your opinions are about this protest, know that this is a very dangerous state of affairs, because the same suppression could just as easily be used against causes you deem to be just. This means it's more important than ever for crypto to create its own financial infrastructure.

Let’s hope that happens sooner rather than later.

🔥 Deal of The Week 🔥

Let’s face it, those crypto markets are full of opportunities and many of you have devised your own trading strategies to take advantage. However, have you ever wondered how good that trading strategy was?

Sure, you can keep running that strategy and learn from trial and error - that will likely cost you a boatload of money. OR you could test that secret trading methodology with paper trading.

This basically simulates real-time forward testing. Additionally, you can test that strategy with back testing, which shows your performance against historical price data. All that, gives you a much better idea of how effective that strategy actually is and enables you to make the necessary tweaks to optimise it!

But how do you do that? Well, you need some trading automation software! The one I use to refine my own crypto dabbling is 3Commas!

🔮 Video Pipeline 🔮

• Top 10 Most Expensive NFTs Ever!
• Bitfinex Hack: The Craziest Story Yet
• NFT Flipping: Is is Profitable?
• Anchor Protocol: What the heck is it?
• Polkadot Update: Still one to keep an eye on?
• The worst advice in crypto: What to ignore!

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

✅ Arbitrum: The Complete 101 Guide

✅ Best Crypto Related Stocks For Investors: Huge Upside!

✅ NFT Scams: How to Avoid them and Keep SAFE!

✅ What’s the Better Inflation Hedge: Bitcoin or Gold?

✅ ​​GensoKishi: A Blockchain Gaming Revolution

✅ Top Crypto Tax-Friendly Jurisdictions

That’s all for now guys. I just wanted to share a big thank you from the whole team in the Coin Bureau labs. We all understand how fortunate we are to be able to spend all night and all day researching what we love and sharing those findings with you!

So, thanks for all the continued support.

Guy your crypto guy