$38,128.73? When did that happen? I thought it was just at $65,000. Who needs the Nasdaq 100 when BTC gives you this kind of action?
From FT Alphaville:
The regulatory threats to crypto are mounting
2021 was a stellar year in the crypto galaxy. Now the fiat empire is striking back.It’s not been a great start to the year for HODLers. If governments (other than El Salvador’s) have their way, it could get a lot worse.
This week Russia, a massive centre for mining, proposed a clampdown on that and on trading. A vice-president of the European Securities and Markets Authority wants to outlaw some forms of crypto mining in the EU. Earlier this month, Madrid called time on dodgy adverts, while the UK plans on doing the same thing.
We expect more attempts to rein in the industry over the course of 2022. Global financial officialdom, which has made its distaste for crypto crystal clear, will continue to work on rules that would police banks’ activity in the sector through the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision....
....MUCH MORE
Market structure: very important.
And part of market structure is knowing the rules and perhaps more important, who makes the rules.
When you see headlines like this one a year ago it reminds you that you don't make the rules:
The night before we had posted "A Heads-Up To The Gamestop, AMC etc. Crowd: They Are Going to Change The Rules On You" and "Discord has shut down the /r/WallStreetBets server (GME)"
This is a lesson that even market pros can forget, although one of the smarter ones, Cassie at Cassandra Does Tokyo remembered it on hearing of the death of the once-and-never-again Silver King:
Wednesday, October 22, 2014
In Memorium: Nelson Bunker Hunt
....Your catchphraseshouldhave been:"Never squeezethe peoplethat canchange the rules.
Here is a longer attempt to say the same thing from a 2010 post on wheat:
....When the Billionaire Hunt brothers were
attempting to corner the silver market in January 1980 the head of one
of the world's largest grain traders said "Those boys don't know what
deep pockets are".
The "commercials" had been shorting into the Hunt bros. buying and the grain trader was at the top of the "commercial" heap.On January 21 the COMEX went "liquidation only".On January 22 the CBOT went "liquidation only".On Tuesday the 22nd silver closed at $34, down 27% from its close the previous Friday.The Hunt's still had enormous paper profits but any attempt to book them would smash the markets even further.Prices declined to $17 by March, down 66% from the January high and the Hunt's were receiving calls of $60 Million per day in variation margin. On March 27 the price dropped from $21.62 to $10.80 and one of their brokers, Bache was in violation of net capital requirements and another, Merrill Lynch was on the brink.
As
the attorneys got involved over the next few years, oil prices headed
south, destroying the value of Daddy's creation (and the brother's
piggybank) Placid Oil.
Bunker Hunt filed for bankruptcy in September 1988 as did his brother and Placid.
At the time the grain trader spoke it is
probable that the various branches of the Hunt families comprised the
wealthiest "family" in America.....
Market structure: very important
