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Monday April 17, 2023 07:48

(Kitco News) - April Bitcoin futures prices are lower in early U.S. trading Monday, after hitting a new contract high Sunday. A price uptrend on the daily bar chart remains firmly in place. There are no strong, early chart clues to suggest a market top is close at hand. The bulls have the solid overall near-term technical advantage to suggest still more upside in the near term. Stay tuned!

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Kitco Metals Inc. nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Kitco Metals Inc. and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.

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Bitcoin Apr. 17 daily chart alert - Price uptrend alive and well - Kitco NEWS

Disclaimer: The article is simply speculative and should not be taken as investment advice.

Lets call it what it is: 2022 was a dramatic year for crypto. The fall of multiple cryptocurrency exchanges and the industry starting 2023 with a loss of $2 trillion gave rise to what was considered as the worst bear market in a decade.

Fortunately, this story was writing a good chapter at press time. Consider this Bitcoins [BTC] price has risen by 28% since 12 March, touching $30k for the first time since 10 June 2022.

Even so, folks like Ray Dalio remain unimpressed. In fact, the famed investor spoke about the most traditional investment opportunity Gold and how crypto can never match up to it.

Dalio summed up his thoughts by saying,

Its a very, very poor alternative to gold Central banks, by the way, own gold, and its their third-largest reserve US dollars, euros, gold, and then yen.

Driving home his point, Dalio argued,

They can outlaw [Bitcoin]. They can regulate it. Central banks and countries pretty much dont want it, anyway. So its not a good viable alternative You can have it go down 80%, and if you want to have a little bit [of] it, you can have it. Its not a big asset. It gets an amount of attention which is way out of proportion to its size.

However, the debate between gold and crypto is not new, especially as Vitalik Buterin voiced his pro-crypto opinions not long ago. He reminded Twitter users why crypto is the future of money, saying,

Gold is incredibly inconvenient. Its difficult to use, particularly when transacting with untrusted parties. It doesnt support safe storage options like multi-sig. At this point, gold has less adoption than crypto, so crypto is the better bet.

Does Buterin have a point? Do naysayers like Dalio ultimately have no leg to stand on? Lets delve deeper.

For starters, Buterin called gold inconvenient and difficult to use. It makes sense because well, who uses gold for everyday transactions? Gold is stored in reserves by central banks in places like the U.S., is bought as a sign of wealth in places like India, but is ultimately traded for cash in both scenarios. Crypto, on the other hand, is slowly moving towards P2P transactions.

Buterins last point, which brings up golds less adoption as compared to crypto, is something that has started playing out already. In fact, by November 2022, the number of crypto-owners hit 402 million as adoption grew at an average of 2.9% monthly.

Conversely, investment demand for gold grew by 10% throughout 2022. These are some interesting numbers for those caught in the crosshairs of this debate.

Based on the above analysis alone, one could argue that crypto-investment will become more important in the future. Its simple: Anyone can buy crypto, save it, and sell it when the time is right. Crypto is the better bet, as evidenced by the recent successes of Bitcoin and Ethereum [ETH], which are emerging as safe havens for investment.

To help prove my point, I went to our AI friends and self-proclaimed experts on everything, ChatGPT. I began my quest for the truth by asking it the most basic question I could think of, which was simply,

Is crypto a better investment than gold

As expected, the classic version of ChatGPT did not give me satisfactory answers, reiterating that individual preferences depend on their risk appetite, investment conditions, and everything else taught in investing 101.

However, DAN gave me an answer to ponder about.

Explosive growth, clear winner, massive returns.

Playing the Devils Advocate, one could argue that these are just hyperbole statements by an AI that does not know better (yet). However, as I prodded DAN further, the AI admitted,

The last point was particularly interesting, as we can see this play out in real life too.

For instance, according to a report by Bankrate, towards the start of 2023, millennials, with 57%, led the list of crypto-investors. Gen-Z followed not far behind, with 13% investors. Gen-X and Baby Boomers rounded off the list, with 20% and 10%, respectively.

For now, maybe gold remains the top investment choice, but the tides are changing. This, despite there being not many cryptos that will be a safe choice, apart from a select few. Moreover, as technology develops, AI-enabled cryptos will see an increase too. And, maybe its anyones guess as to where this innovation will take the industry.

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Move over gold, smell the Bitcoin? Heres what ChatGPT says - AMBCrypto News

Recent turmoil in the banking sector has shown that Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) can withstand a shaky economy, outperform other asset classes and function like gold, says ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood butone long-time investor still isnt sold.

Wood said in an April 15 interview that Bitcoins resilience throughout the most recent banking crisis has been the most remarkable of all indicators her tech-focused investment management firm is monitoring.

Bitcoin and Ether are now acting as risk-off assets and as a flight to safety for investors amid macroeconomic uncertainty, she claimed:

We would say that there is a flight to safety, certainly led by crypto assets, and it is telling us that the world is transforming and will continue to transform. You cannot stop innovation, she added.

Wood thinks cryptocurrency will eventually become an election issue when the sector becomes more broadly accepted, and the public can more clearly see the kinds of regulatory pressure that the United States government is applying on the industry to maintain centralized control of money and monetary policy.

Not all share Woods sentiment.

Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Associates the worlds largest hedge fund by assets under management saidin an April 12 interview that Bitcoin could not serve as an effective currency because it is too volatile and central banks wont adopt it:

They can outlaw [Bitcoin]. They can regulate it. Central banks and countries pretty much dont want it anyway, he said, adding that it gets attention way out of proportion to its size.

Related: Bitcoin likely to outperform all crypto assets following banking crisis, analyst explains

Dalio strengthened his case by pointing out that gold is the third largest reserve held by central banks, trailing only the U.S. dollar and euros.

Despite previously describing Bitcoin as one hell of an invention, Dalio recently said that he instead wants to see an inflation-linked coin be built that would serve to ensure consumers secure their buying power.

Magazine: Unstablecoins: Depegging, bank runs and other risks loom

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Bitcoin, Ether are like gold says Cathie Wood, but Ray Dalio is skeptical - Cointelegraph

By William Farrington At Proactive Investors For This Is Money 13:49 17 Apr 2023, updated 17:17 17 Apr 2023

Those of you with eyes on the markets will know that the best-performing asset class of 2023 has not been equities, real estate, bonds or gold, but bitcoin, the world's first and largest cryptocurrency borne from the ashes of the 2008 global financial crisis.

Bitcoin was originally conceived by pseudonymous developer Satoshi Nakamoto as a decentralised payment network without the need for a third-party financial institution.

While bitcoin has failed to cement itself as a genuine cross-border payment network primarily due to prohibitive transaction charges and sluggish transaction speeds the digital currency has been rebranded by its evangelists as a sort of inflation hedge, an alternative store of value with a finite circulating supply that is impossible to be diluted.

So it comes as no surprise that since the start of 2023, bitcoin's spot price has skyrocketed over 80 per cent, surging past $30,000 earlier this month for the first time in nine months.

Financial analysts and Twitter handles will continue to lock horns over the credibility of the so-called 'digital gold', but for the investor seeking to diversify their portfolio without the technical hassles of managing crypto wallets and untrustworthy crypto exchanges, what is the best way to gain exposure?

For physical gold, the answer is easy: The London Stock Exchange is a global hub for small-cap gold exploration and production groups; Shanta Gold, Caledonia Mining, Greatland Gold and Ariana Resources to name a few.

Though far less developed, there is also a burgeoning bitcoin mining segment at the lower end of the London capital markets.

Bitcoin miners use long rows of specialised computers to solve complex equations that help the bitcoin network run, receiving newly minted bitcoins in return. This makes start-up costs high, but margins tend to also be high once operations get up and running.

Argo Blockchain (12.75p), saved by the sale of its Texas-based Helios bitcoin-mining facility to Galaxy Digital, is the most established name (its 78 per cent year-to-date performance underscores perfectly how bitcoin miners reflect the market price of bitcoin).

There is also Quantum Blockchain (1.58p), the AIM-quoted group with an interest in the arcane world of quantum computing.

Chief executive and Italian theoretical physicist Francesco Gardin leads a research and development team trying to develop a new way of mining bitcoin using proprietary algorithms to give miners a competitive edge.

These companies are as risky as the cryptocurrency underpinning their operations, though there will soon be another route to bitcoin exposure.

The London Stock Exchange Group has just teamed up with digital asset derivates platform Global Futures and Options (GFO-X) to bring regulated bitcoin futures and options products to UK investors for the first time ever.

Paris-based clearing house LCH, which is owned by the London Stock Exchange Group, will facilitate the transactions via a new, segregated service called DigitalAssetClear.

GFO-X called it 'the first steps to extracting efficiencies from new technologies within a traditional market structure, with the goal over time of delivering 24/7 trading to global regulated digital asset markets'.

DigitalAssetClear will bring bitcoin derivatives products into the regulated market a year after the Financial Conduct Authority prohibited Binance, Coinbase and other trading platforms from offering them.

The partnership also offers a glimpse of prime minister Rishi Sunak's plans to make the UK a 'global crypto hub'.

All things considered, the options for UK retail investors seeking alternative exposure to bitcoin prices are objectively limited, albeit growing.

But if bitcoin prices sustain the rapid momentum we have seen in the latest calendar year, there is a good chance that we'll see more miners, innovators and derivatives platforms coming to the public markets.

London could be particularly well-placed to draw IPO interest, if, as is the generally accepted case, bitcoin is treated as a commodity in a similar vein to physical gold rather than a tech-adjacent security.

The other fundamental question each person must ask themselves is: Should I risk an investment?

The numerous controversies over the past 12 months, from the dramatic collapses of Three Arrows Capital and FTX to the more recent closures of crypto-focused US banks Signature and Silvergate, have besmirched the reputation of crypto as a respectable asset class, but bitcoin sits apart from the Wild West that is decentralised finance, NFTs and others.

Unlike gold, bitcoin has no intrinsic value and it certainly does not earn a yield in the way a security does, but that has not stopped institutional adoption from ploughing ahead, whether that's commission-free trading offered by Fidelity or BlackRock launching a private bitcoin trust to US clients.

The message remains as always, do your research , keep your wits sharp and there will be opportunities.

Some links in this article may be affiliate links. If you click on them we may earn a small commission. That helps us fund This Is Money, and keep it free to use. We do not write articles to promote products. We do not allow any commercial relationship to affect our editorial independence.

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SMALL CAP IDEAS: Where can UK investors find alternative exposure to bitcoin? - This is Money

For all the knocks hes taken from and over his interest in crypto markets, Skybridge CEO Anthony Scaramucci says he hasnt lost any enthusiasm for Bitcoin.

Im not a cold figure in this space. Im not an evangelist. Im not one of these religious figures thats going to chant Bitcoin ber alles no matter what is going on in life, he told Decrypt during a recent interview for the gm podcast. So I want to frame it from that perspective, and then tell you that Im more bullish now than Ive ever been.

Hes up against some strong headwinds. By the time Sam Bankman-Frieds crypto exchange FTX filed for bankruptcy in November, hed become professionally and personally close to Scaramucci. They partnered to host the Crypto Bahamas conference last April. In September, FTX acquired a 30% stake in SkyBridge for $40 million. And when Bankman-Frieds empire went bust, Scaramucci said on CNBC that he was working to buy the equity back.

Now, hes got his sights set on Bitcoins next boom cycle and hoping that regulators can get out of their own way. The way he sees it, Bitcoin really started accumulating interest from a wider audience from late 2021 through the end of 2022.

Prior to that, there was sort of a microbrewery known as Bitcoin. And people liked the beer that was coming out of the microbrewery, Scaramucci said. And then all of a sudden it had this Budweiser Light distribution explosion where everyone in the world and their mother was talking about Bitcoin.

But he wouldnt go so far as calling himself a Bitcoin maximalist. They have no willingness to compromise, Scaramucci said. They have guns and ready-made food in their basement and they hate the government.

He had harsh words for regulators, tooespecially Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler.

None of the stuff that he does makes any sense to me, Scaramucci said. He's got the SEC in complete disarray. He also posited that Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren has been acting like shes Washington's shadow president for financial services.

So he takes some solace in the fact that, at least according to him, Bitcoin should be categorized as a commodity and not regulated by the SEC.

I think it feels like money to me and feels like a commodity, he said. I think that these things that earn, or you have these staking positions where foundations give you more of something, I think anything that has an earning mechanism to it probably is a security.

Scaramucci said: We need this, you know guys. Hong Kong is open for business for crypto. They're not stupid. They go, Ah, the U.S. is gonna blow this. That's fine, we're gonna switch our position. The UK: They screwed up with Brexit. They all know it, but they're open for business for crypto. You know, our supposedly socialist neighbors to the north have two or three cash Bitcoin ETFs. We've got Gary Gensler and Elizabeth Warren.

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Anthony Scaramucci Is Bullish As Ever, Says Bitcoin Is 'Definitely A Commodity - Decrypt