Thread

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.

Replies (3)

When I first found out about paper Bitcoin ( - The protocol can cap issuance at 21,000,000 BTC. - Markets can create claims on far more than 21,000,000 BTC. - More context: ), I got a bit black-pilled on Bitcoin because of the Coordination Tax I've described in this article ( ). When you raise the problem of paper Bitcoin, captured, retarded influencers hit you with: "I hate to break it to you, but Bitcoin is for everyone." "Bitcoin is for everyone" is true at the protocol boundary and false in the lived system. Because the path of least resistance is: paperization + perimeter control. That means other people's choices (custody ETFs, policy clients, protocol-bloat, KYC defaults) directly degrade your outcomes — just like bad drivers raise your accident risk and premiums even if you drive perfectly. In the lived system most people's incentives are convenience, rebates, and legality. So power will keep steering the majority into programmable, supervised money, and that majority's behavior redefines the economic surface you live on — even if your keys are perfect. "Bitcoin is for everyone" is an oversimplification only a retarded/captured (or both) influencer would use. View quoted note →
I agree with all of this. However, it only impacts you if fia,lt, specifically the dollar in this case, remains your center of gravity. Bitcoin isn't broken, it actually exposes how disruptive, corrupt, and artificial fiat systems can be. Once you break free from fiat constraints, this becomes obvious. The goal isn’t to fix or reform the fiat system, but to replace it entirely. That’s the endgame, and it’s why NGU doesn’t matter in the long run. What matters is that people realize they’re being played and choose to opt out of the system, one person at a time, regardless of the fiat price.