I just read Binance's formal response to the SEC's lawsuit, so you don't have to.

Here are the key arguments they submitted to the courts today.

It's an embarrassingly weak defense... [thread] The primary framing of the document, and the primary argument for the court to deny the SEC its request for a temporary restraining order (TRO) to halt Binance activities is...

"Why now?"

That's the best Binance has...

In the 2019 bear market bottom, I got caught on the sidelines waiting to buy #Bitcoin lower. I listened to on-chain gurus and their favorite metrics.

Learn from my mistakes. Thread on:

- Which Bitcoin price metrics have value & why
- Where we are in the Bitcoin market cycle After 6 years full-time learning, I believe there’s 3 reliable price drivers:

1. Bitcoin’s halvings (increasing scarcity over time)
2. Human psychology amplifying volatility in the wake of the halvings
3. Macroeconomic conditions (e.g. QT/QE)

#1 + #2 create this dynamic:

Politicians have reached a deal to raise the US debt ceiling.

This will lift the prohibition on adding to the US National Debt for the next 2 years.

This greenlit deficit spending also ensures the continued erosion of the US fiscal standing.

Here's how... The debt ceiling deal was brokered between US House Speaker McCarthy (R) and President Biden (D). The deal is expected to be voted on by Congress this Wednesday.

The core agreement is that the self-imposed "debt ceiling" would be lifted for 2 years, through the 2024 election.

The next #Bitcoin halving is in less than a year.

My base case: the 2024 halving could send Bitcoin's price 4-8x higher.

Here's what you need to know... (Thread 👇) This is Bitcoin's issuance schedule.

The day Bitcoin launched in Jan 2009... there were 0 Bitcoin in existence. Eventually, there will be a hardcapped, absolute maximum of 21M Bitcoin.

Coins are issued with each new block "mined"

This "block subsidy" decreases every 4 years

First Republic Bank's collapse - everything you need to know in 8 simple tweets. (A thread.)

#1 - This is the 2nd biggest bank failure in US history.

2023 has seen 3 out of 4 of the biggest bank failures ever... and it's only May. #2 - First Republic was the 14th largest bank in the United States.

Like every bank, they've been dealing with:
a) large unrealized losses on underwater long-dated bonds they bought when rates were ~0%, and
b) an exodus of deposits to MMFs

h/t @stackhodler and Bankrate

Here are the 7 most important charts to understand the United States' fiscal position...

...and why we are heading towards a debt-spiral black hole.

#1 - Here is the annual budget Surplus or Deficit through 2022. #2 - The problem with deficits is that they add up. Each annual deficit adds to the total National Debt.

This debt hole grows bigger because of annual interest expense on all this debt.

Not a problem when interest rates are ~0%. Big problem when they're 5% per year (now).

Here are the 7 most important pieces to understand the seismic shift happening now in global money.

#1 - The US Dollar is losing its status as the world's reserve currency.

China wants the crown - but another challenger has already won. And nobody realizes it yet. #Bitcoin #2 - In early 2022, the US froze Russia's foreign currency reserves & cut them off from the SWIFT banking system.

This was like dropping a nuke on the monetary world order.

The world as it has been since 1971 is over. Have you noticed everything getting weird?

From the mainstream’s viewpoint, when it comes to money…

#Bitcoin is monetary Bizarro World.

What does this mean, who said what, and is it accurate?

1/ A fun little thread... 2/ In the 1960s, Superman had to deal with another Earth — eerily like ours — but where many details were the opposite of what we call normal.

We’ll let Jerry Seinfeld explain it:

Here are the 7 most important charts in global macro right now.

Together, they hint at what's next as the banking crisis broadens into other segments of the financial landscape.

#1 - the elephant in the room right now is Yield Curve Inversion. h/t @DylanLeClair_ As a reminder, when the banking crisis hit a couple weeks ago, bond yields suddenly dropped.

(The bond market realized that the Fed's tightening game is up - they will have to cut rates this year.)

Rates have peaked. QT is dead, QE is back.

This is the moment you've been waiting for with #Bitcoin

We may never see Bitcoin's price this low again.

A thread on why... Everyone misses the bottom. The bottom feels like a disaster, so we all freeze up and watch it go by.

Forget about the recent price bottom - it's gone, peak fear has passed.

But THIS is actually the moment you can seize.

Why? The next halving is coming...

Here are the 7 most important charts in global macro right now.

Together, they hint at what's next for the banking crisis.

#1 - Fed rate hikes expected to stop. Appears likely that now (5%) is the peak for Fed interest rates. #2 - the Fed added ~$100B to its balance sheet last week, adding to the ~$300B in money printing the week before.

The Fed has now offset 2/3 of the last 15 months of balance sheet reductions in just 2 weeks.

Ultra-simplified #Bitcoin educational content series, from @Croesus_BTC

This thread contains all my ultra-simplified Bitcoin educational graphics, now and into the future.

Save it and share with friends and family on their Bitcoin journeys
👇👇👇 Ultra-simplified #Bitcoin educational content, #1

https://twitter.com/Croesus_BTC/status/1280599224766226433

.@HeatherReyhan and her husband @unrealdutch were arrested today for the 2016 Bitfinex hack, were sitting on 120k BTC worth $4.5B

My fav part is how Heather got this 2019 writeup in Forbes: forbes.com/sites/heatherm…

Here's her rapping she's a "bad bitch": "Got Burnout? This Tech CEO Thinks You Should Try Stealing $4.5B in Bitcoin"

Been trying to take stock of the possibilities of where we are with the market:

1. We're in a bear market
2. Supercycle / S2FX
3. Cycles elongated, still on way to $1-200k peak

Here are my current thoughts (it's all WIP)... 1. We may be in a bear market. But if we are, $69k wasn't the peak... $64k in April 2021 was.

Basically, if leveraged derivatives trading wasn't a big part of this market (like in 2013 & 2017), maybe we would have gotten a blow-off top. Instead, funding rates were too HIGH

THREAD:

Many things set #Bitcoin apart from any altcoin. But keep it simple, no technical metrics needed.

Three elements to consider:
- Digital scarcity is a one-time phenomenon
- Schelling points
- Money is the mother of all network effects & tends to one The graphic above shows the proliferation of cryptocurrencies over time. In truth, they exist in two categories: Bitcoin and copycats.

By definition, a copy of a digitally scarce system is itself not scarce. The marginal cost of creating an additional new copy is zero.

Bitcoin blocks are like container ships.

You may have heard this metaphor before, but the details are fun to consider. It also helps explain Bitcoin's path to scaling up to handle the entire world's transactions.

A thread... In 2019, 802M containers were shipped.

A large container ship holds 8,000 containers. If an average one holds 4,000 containers, this means ~200k container ship journeys per year.

Bitcoin has ~210k blocks per year.

Sources: statista.com/statistics/913…, worldshipping.org/benefits-of-li…

Ultra-simplified #Bitcoin educational content, #4 Updated version with watermark and label fixed, please use this if not retweeting original, thanks!

Compendium of my work:

Each tweet in this thread links to my best #Bitcoin analysis threads, articles, graphics, podcasts, etc.

Hopefully the content here proves valuable to your personal Bitcoin journey, or as you help your friends and family on theirs.

👇👇👇 How the halving causes Bitcoin's bull markets:

https://twitter.com/Croesus_BTC/status/1319734166557081600?s=20

Thread:

Dollars, gold, #Bitcoin - which is the best for storing your hard earned money?

----

All forms of money grow in total value as the global economy grows. What differs is how they do it.

The U.S. prints as many dollars as needed to achieve 2% inflation. The only way to do this is to pull supply out to the right far enough that it deflates the purchasing power of all existing dollars by ~2%. (For your own good!)

Since 2010, this has meant an average supply increase of ~8% per year. Source: fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2

Ultra-simplified #Bitcoin educational content, #3

(a brief thread) As time goes on and Bitcoin's network effect grows, educational content gets better, UX/UI of onramps and services get simpler, it gets easier for people to "get it"

Just like with the Internet in the 90s, social media, mobile, etc.

Same chart, now not in log format

THREAD:

How Early Are We?

As a starting point, here is the analysis I put forward previously on this topic:

https://twitter.com/Croesus_BTC/status/1271165671171227648?s=20

However, as @johnkvallis pointed out to me, there are different levels of #Bitcoin adoption, and each level is at a different point in the adoption curve.

When we clearly segment these levels of Bitcoin adoption, it helps illuminate just how early it still is for Bitcoin.