Three times this week I was asked the following question:

“Why are the prices still low when the fundamentals seem so strong?”

Fortunately, there’s a two-worded answer:  Animal Spirits 

It’s not a simple answer – not by a long shot. But it is, indeed, a short answer that encompasses the intricacies of greed, fear and human behaviour.

To understand this, let’s first question if prices are really low? Or are we simply benchmarking prices at their all time high  –  prices that were guided by the animal spirits of crypto investors.

John Maynard Keynes, a famous economist, used the term “Animal Spirits” to describe the irrational decisions investors make in an uncertain environment.

But today the phrase “Animal Spirits” seems to be used primarily in environments of high confidence.  Confidence & optimism, however, aren’t the only byproducts of Animal Spirits. Fear & pessimism play an equal share in the phenomenon.

Should it not then make sense that irrational confidence be followed by equally irrational fear? Optimism that drove prices to exuberant highs should follow with a similar anxiety that would drive prices to irrational lows. For if it does not follow, eventually at least, then perhaps the optimism was not irrational after all. In a way, this explains the driving mechanism of “bubbles” (and also why it’s claimed impossible to forecast)

Nobel Laureate winner Robert Shiller defines a ‘speculative bubble’ in his book ‘Irrational Exuberance’ as follows:

Interestingly, Robert Shiller makes sure to emphasise that “speculative bubbles” don’t simply burst and disappear. Rather, they tend to inflate and deflate in accordance to the accepted narrative.

A viral epidemic can reappear if a new environmental factor reignites the contagion rate.

Similarly, a deflated speculative bubble can “re-inflate” if a new narrative is strong enough to ignite the animal spirits of investors.

Ah, but this poses yet another tricky question for the crypto space.  Have we already “re-inflated”? After all, prices did surge to an all-time-high of $1000 before deflating to $200.

Have we already re-inflated?!

Is it possible that we see another epidemic spark the animal spirits to a point irrational confidence?

A strong argument can be made in favour of another speculative bubble – a larger one. In his definition of a “speculative bubble”, Shiller goes on to explain what follows the price increase in a speculative bubble:

The crypto market allowed for a new class of investors to be first entrants. They consisted mostly of people who were young & technologically sophisticated. But they were by no means the “large class of investors”. Those are yet to come in mass.

Already we hear  reports of new & larger entrants into the market. Will their success draw the envy of other institutions? And will that, in turn, lead to an environment of overconfident gambling and exuberance that we have seen in the past?

Only time will tell. But one thing is certain, never before have we seen events play out at this rapid of a pace. Ahh, what a time to be alive.

There has been a lot of talk about Bitcoin ETFs recently - So let’s explore the basics of what a Bitcoin ETF really is, and the implications of it. 

Put as simply as possible, an ETF (Exchange Traded Fund) is traded on the stock market just like a stock, but instead of being a share in a public company such as Amazon, it tracks the price of an asset instead. 

There are many types of ETF's that track different things, but for simplicity lets use Gold as an example:

If you think gold is going to rise in price, you could go to a stock exchange and buy shares of a Gold ETF, which can be shares in a Trust which stockpiles physical gold. If gold goes up, the ETF shares will go up similarly. This way, you don’t have to go to a futures market or hold any gold yourself. 

A bitcoin ETF would be similar to the above example: an easily tradable asset that ultimately tracks the Bitcoin price. Traders and investors could go Long (buying in anticipation of increasing price) or Short (selling in anticipation of decline).

It may not matter much at all. We got this far without an ETF after all. However the clearest benefit to a Bitcoin ETF is in opening the market to many more participants and significantly more capital. 

In much the same way as you don’t want barrels of crude oil in your living room, many individuals and institutions don’t fancy getting their hands dirty on the unregulated, uninsured, hackable, dodgy overseas crypto exchanges such as Bitfinex.

Many ETFs have been proposed to the SEC (US Securities Exchange Commision). However, all but one of these were all recently denied by the SEC, killing most of the dreams and leaving one last man standing: The VanEck SolidX ETF.

This is the ETF you have probably heard most about, brought to the SEC by a partnership of Investment firm VanEck and financial services company SolidX. This proposal is also endorsed by the CBOE (Chicago Board Options Exchange), known for launching their Bitcoin futures in December), and if approved it would trade on the CBOE exchange.  

Buying this proposed ETF would basically represent shares in a Trust, and the Trust’s assets would be securely-stored Bitcoin (insured against loss or theft). Therefore as bitcoin rises in price, the assets of this Trust appreciate and make money.

ETF Hopefuls file a “Proposed Rule Change” to the SEC. When received, the SEC posts a “Notice of Filing” and then has 45 days to approve or deny (or delay decision on) the proposed ETF. 

Here is the Notice of Filing for the most hyped up ETF of the year, the VanEck/SolidX ETF (mentioned above):

“Notice of Filing of Proposed Rule Change to List and Trade Shares of SolidX Bitcoin Shares Issued by the VanEck SolidX Bitcoin Trust”

VanEck/SolidX ETF Approval - When Will We Know?

The SEC delayed the decision on the VanEck/SolidX ETF to September. They are able to delay further 2 more times, and very likely to do so. This gives the deadlines of:

1. September 30

2. December 29

3. And finally, February 27 

Bitcoin ETF's & The SEC - What Does It All Mean?

The SEC is not friendly to these proposals, and their reasons are clear.

The Bitcoin market is unregulated, easy to manipulate, and not liquid enough (not enough trading volume occurs). The SEC are concerned that Bitcoin trading almost exclusively 

occurs on unregulated venues overseas that are relatively new and that generally appear to trade only digital assets.

Given these problems, the VanEck/SolidX ETF is also in trouble, as currently it does not appear to solve any of them. There is a low likelihood that it will be accepted, at least before the Crypto markets have matured a whole lot.

While an ETF would be great for adoption and more widespread trading of Bitcoin, it is certainly not a necessity, and many other projects are in the works, such as those listed in our article:

Ever since Bitcoin was created in 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto, it has largely been pushed aside by the traditional financial services industry and the institutional space. A similar attitude has been displayed towards most cryptocurrencies and digital assets, based on fear and the fact that very little was known about these new “actors” in the industry. Now that they are gaining traction and have received the attention of millions of investors, lawmakers and governments are beginning to address the question of regulation for these virtual currencies.

This war between the institution and the new wave of digital assets has been going on for years. However, it seems like we are noticing a shift in mentality and approach from the institutional space towards bitcoin. More and more financial organizations are changing their opinion about the first-ever virtual peer-to-peer currency and have developed interest in these new forms of potentially lucrative investments for their loyal customers.

In this brief overview, we will see how the tide is turning for bitcoin and how it is becoming one of the most sought-after assets by large and reputable financial firms all across the globe. In turn, we will demonstrate how this could eventually lead to the crypto markets regaining their strengths and how we might be on the cusp of one of the largest bitcoin bull runs in history.

Some recent events and news have been very positive for bitcoin and its slow but steady breakthrough within the institutional space. Institutional investors refer to large entities such as banks, hedge funds, insurance companies, investment groups and more. The first major news that has been affecting the space as of recently and that showcases bitcoin’s growing position within the institutional markets is the upcoming (and recently delayed) decision by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding the approval of a bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF).

An ETF is a fund that represents an asset’s value and that is traded directly on the stock market. They are considered passive investments.

In the recent weeks, the cryptocurrency community, as well as actors in the institutional space and even some members of the SEC, have been strongly advocating for the creation of a bitcoin ETF. This truly shows that there is a heavy desire from financial firms and large investors to join the cryptocurrency trend.

Another recent report by Forbes has stated that the Northern Trust, a financial services firm that has close to $10.7 trillion in assets under custody, has opened their doors to companies involved in the crypto space. In addition, the firm is supporting multiple blockchain-based projects. Moreover, Northern Trust’s President, Pete Cherecwich says he believes in a tokenized economy and future.

The Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, has announced that it will be launching a new company called Bakkt which aims “to create an open and regulated, global ecosystem for digital assets”. It will enable big organizations to purchase, sell, and safely store virtual currencies and other decentralized assets. With large companies such as Microsoft and BCG involved in the project, this shows how blockchain-based applications and crypto-assets are gaining in popularity and are making their way through various industries. The ICE also plans to initiate a one-day physical bitcoin futures contract when Bakkt launches.

Furthermore, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) recently published a 70-page-long report on the “Risks and Returns of Cryptocurrency”, analyzing three major coins: bitcoin, ripple, and ethereum. The fact that this paper is being published already shows that cryptocurrencies are actively being discussed by institutional investors. The NBER explains a “strong time-series momentum effect and that proxies for investor attention strongly forecast cryptocurrency returns”. The report even goes as far as recommending investing in digital currencies with “1 or 4 or 6 percent in bitcoin”.

Lastly, popular cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has recently announced the launch of the Coinbase Index Fund. It allows institutional investors, with a minimum investment of $250,000, to place money and bet on the performance of the Coinbase Index. The Coinbase Index is composed of all the coins listed on the American giant’s platform. We clearly see that the desire to invest in cryptocurrencies is not strictly one-sided, but that the crypto space is also eagerly waiting for these institutional investors.

In conclusion, there has been a shift in the way digital currencies, especially bitcoin, are viewed in the institutional space. Previously considered scams, frauds, and even fake, they are now starting to be looked at as real financial assets with considerable potential and upside. In this article, we have seen that numerous events have cemented the belief that opinions are changing, and so has the place of bitcoin in larger investors’ hearts. As a result, we can probably assume that the crypto markets will be positively impacted by the increase of institutional investors in the near future. 

​In this post Shawn explains the Nothing At Stake Problem simply. He goes over the nothing at stake definition, and also touches on nothing at stake Casper issue.

 Nothing At Stake definition: –  a situation where someone loses nothing when behaving badly, but stands to gain everything.​

So, Mike – a Mango reader –  emailed me with this question a few days ago:

“ Hey Shawn, I enjoyed your explanation on Sharding. Thank you. But now I’m  trying to understand what makes Proof Of Stake less resource intensive than Proof Of Work? Doesn’t the verification process need to take place the same way? ”

This is actually a really good question, Mike! It shows that your understanding is growing deeper. Your asking the right questions!

Yes, PoW and PoS conduct the validation/verification of transactions similarly. As such, Proof Of Stake  consumes just as much resources to verifiy transactions as Proof Of Work does.

However, it’s important to note that the “verification of transactions” is not what makes Proof Of Work resource intensive. It is the Cryptographic Puzzle  – required to be solved by all miners –  that consumes a large majority of the resources.

Many of us tend to believe that it's the validation of transactions consumes the resources. In truth, the majority of the resources is consumed while solving the Cryptographic Puzzle - which has nothing to do with the validation/verification of transactions.

In fact, Proof Of Work and other consensus methods are more concerned with the ordering of transactions than the "validation" of transactions. The ordering of transactions is resolved by getting miners to solve the Cryptographic Puzzle.

Miners solve the cryptographic puzzle in order to win the “right” to place their block next on the chain. And it’s the solving for the "cryptographic puzzle" that is computationally intensive - not the verifications transactions.  

It was the devastating effects of the 2008 financial crisis that gave way to the rise of blockchain technology, in particular, the bitcoin blockchain.

The bitcoin blockchain is revolutionary because it enables the world to transact without the need of a middleman. This elimination of the centuries old middleman was partly due to one inherent property of the bitcoin blockchain - Immutability

Lets breakdown the term: Immutable

• Immutable in the dictionary is - “Unchanging over time or unable to be changed”

• Immutable in blockchain is - "The inability of a block to be deleted or modified once it is in the blockchain" - An immutable ledger

​​​​You’re probably wondering: 
" Why is blockchain immutability so important in knocking off the middleman anyways? "

Blockchain Immutability is often misunderstood – even among industry enthusiasts. To truly understand the essence of blockchain immutability, we need to clear out the confusion between Tamper Evident & Tamper Proof.

If you were tasked to come up with a list of things that cannot be changed, and is indeed Tamper Proof, you probably wouldn’t get very far (Go ahead! Give it a shot). Almost everything is susceptible to change, and things that are susceptible to change cannot be Tamper Proof.