Very interesting post from a guy named Bob Kendall on twitter. ( ) First the TL;DR of his tweet: * Bitcoin price discovery shifted from onchain supply to synthetic float * Financial derivatives created a theoretically infinite supply of Bitcoin * Synthetic manufacturing of supply eliminated asset scarcity * Institutions use paper inventory to manipulate price movements * Bitcoin now functions as a fractional reserve price system And here is Bob Kendall's original tweet: So here’s the issue you get influencers like this guy have a quarter million followers and they claim they don’t know why it is declining… it’s because they don’t understand basic mechanics of price discovery. They don’t understand that the marginal buyers or the float determines price they think the onchain bitcoin is that is the price discovery Well, it was once upon a time but now.. Once you can synthetically manufacture the supply, the asset is no longer scarce and once scarcity is gone, price becomes a derivatives game, not a supply-and-demand market. This is exactly what has happened to Bitcoin. This is the same structural break that occurred in gold, silver, oil, and eventually equities once they became derivatives-dominated. The original premise that no longer exists Bitcoin’s entire valuation logic was built on finite supply (21M) and inability to be rehypothecated. That died the moment: •Cash-settled futures •Perpetual swaps •Options •ETFs •Prime broker lending •Wrapped BTC •Total return swaps were layered on top of the chain. From that moment forward: Bitcoin supply became theoretically infinite. Not on-chain in price discovery. The metric that explains the collapse Synthetic Float Ratio (SFR) Once you can synthetically manufacture the supply, the asset is no longer scarce — and once scarcity is gone, price becomes a derivatives game, not a supply-and-demand market. That is exactly what has happened to Bitcoin. This is the same structural break that occurred in gold, silver, oil, and eventually equities once they became derivatives-dominated. Why Wall Street can now “trade against” Bitcoin They do exactly what they’ve done in every commodity market: 1.Create unlimited paper BTC 2.Short into rallies 3.Force liquidations 4.Cover lower 5.Repeat They are not “betting” — they are manufacturing inventory. The same 1 BTC can now support: •An ETF unit •A futures contract •A perpetual swap •An options delta •A broker loan •A structured note All at once. That is six claims on one coin. That is not a market. That is a fractional reserve price system. ---------------------------------------------- I have written about this in my "Why Bitcoin's 21M cap is not guaranteed (Paper Bitcoin)" article: - Even though I'm not very bullish on Bitcoin's fiat price short-term, I am starting to DCA into self-custody at these prices because something with the financial system seems very off. I'd rather take a drawdown on an asset I own than get bailed-in and get wrecked.
The way gold is trading, it seems the financial system is failing. Might be smart to hold assets in self-custody, not in brokerage accounts.
Interesting.
The Great Taking will be used to usher in CBDCs + Digital ID
Governments love Gold-backed stablecoins (tokenized Gold)
One thing that was interesting about this last Bitcoin cycle was that degens were almost never allowed to significantly lever up. Once levered longs started forming, they almost instantly got drop-kicked by 5 market makers. In previous bull runs, degens levering up caused the blow off tops. This is to be expected in the post-ETF era, but I didn't expect it to be as aggressive. Pre-ETF: 20–100× perps → vertical melt-ups → liquidation cascades. Post-ETF: basis carry (long ETF/spot, short futures) + dealer options + marginable ETF → bigger notional, lower directional beta. - Upside: capped by call walls / long-gamma dealers. - Downside: cushioned by basis unwind, dealer buying, AP/NAV arb. Probably also has to do with how CZ, Brian Armstrong and the other big boys are in bed with the government. Some of the big players might have been given the green light to stop-loss hunt more aggressively.
Since we can't make fun of gold anymore: image
What are the odds that Jeffrey Epstein is sitting somewhere on an island enjoying all this attention he's been getting? Probably higher than the odds of him having killed himself.