Chaos on the Surface, Accumulation Below

Happy Monday Bitcoiners, it's Bam here with another Bitcoin update!

Each week, our team at Bitcoin News saves you time by curating the most impactful events into a concise, easy-to-read update.

Notable events this week include:

• Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley holding $605 million in Bitcoin ETFs

• Two central banks disclosing indirect exposure of ~1,900 BTC

• State pensions increasing their Bitcoin ETF positions

Let’s dive in! ⚡

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LATEST NEWS 📰

🙌 ADOPTION

• Satoshi Action Fund raises $100,000 in 72 hours to support Bitcoin advocacy and rights in the U.S.

• OpenSats announces a new round of grants focused on Bitcoin Core.

• River releases a new video explaining the benefits of the U.S. adopting Bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset.

⚖️ LEGAL

• U.S. Government sells 10,000 BTC to Coinbase Prime, sourced from the Silk Road seizure.

• SEC approves the first 1.75X leverage long MicroStrategy ETF.

• Fedwire processed over a quadrillion dollars in volume last year, averaging about 6 transactions per second. Bitcoin’s base layer is perfectly suited to replace this system in the future.

📈 MARKETS

• Goldman Sachs reports a $418 million position in various Bitcoin ETFs, while Morgan Stanley holds 5.5 million shares of the $IBIT, valued at $187.7 million as of June 30.

• The Swiss Central Bank gains indirect Bitcoin exposure by owning MicroStrategy shares, equating to about 500 BTC, while Norway’s Central Bank holds shares worth 1,400 BTC.

• The State of Wisconsin Investment Board’s position in BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF has grown to nearly $100 million, adding 447,651 shares since the last 13-F filing.

⛏️ MINING

• Marathon Digital Holdings purchases $249 million of Bitcoin after completing its $300 million convertible senior note offering at 2.125%, due in 2031.

• Bitcoin miners’ daily earnings hit a ‘24 low of $2.54 million on Aug. 11.

• OCEAN outperforms three well-known FPPS pools in rewards, according to a new study by Barefoot Mining.

🗳️ POLITICS

• El Salvador announces a $1.6 billion private investment, the largest in the nation’s history, to modernize the planned location for Bitcoin City.

• Governor Jared Polis of Colorado endorses protecting self-custody and Bitcoin mining in the USA.

• Donald Trump appoints Howard Lutnick, CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, as co-chair of his transition team. Lutnick, a noted Bitcoin proponent, spoke at the Bitcoin 2024 Conference in Nashville in July.

BAMS 2 SATS 🧢

The market has been extremely volatile over the past few months since Bitcoin ETFs were initially approved and we hit a record high of $72,000. Since then, price has remained range-bound while with sharp intermittent fluctuations, shaking out many short-term holders.

It almost seems as if this volatility is a coordinated effort to prevent Bitcoin’s price from running up while the big players accumulate.

Why? Well, because everything started unraveling right after the all time high. Significant sell-offs began as bankruptcy cases like Genesis, Celsius, BlockFi (from 2022), and even Mt. Gox (from 2013) started distributing Bitcoin back to creditors.

Governments also began offloading their Bitcoin holdings—Germany sold around 50K BTC, and the U.S. transferred 10,000 BTC to Coinbase (likely to sell). Note that the U.S. government still holds around 200,000 BTC in reserve.

All of this coincides with large institutions starting to establish their Bitcoin positions, for example:

• Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley started building their positions in Q2, investing over $605 million in the ETFs.

• All U.S. Bitcoin ETFs now hold 910K BTC, 305K BTC more than what Grayscale held when ETFs were first approved.

• Switzerland’s and Norway’s Central Banks along with other institutions, reported a significant increase in $MSTR exposure in the latest 13-F filings. MicroStrategy, holds 226,500 BTC, giving these institutions indirect exposure to Bitcoin. Notably, MicroStrategy has outperformed 499 out of 500 companies in the S&P 500 over the last four years.

In essence, the market has seen significant distribution since March, but now all players (both institutional and retail) are returning to accumulation mode.

I’m not suggesting it’s a conspiracy, but it’s interesting that all of this happened in such a short time. It allowed for a massive influx of retail selling pressure as Bitcoin from bankruptcy cases was distributed, and governments offloaded large amounts of Bitcoin, all while institutions were quietly scooping us more Bitcoin.

Keep on stacking!
Bam

Exposing Who Broke the Markets

This week, we had the pleasure of hosting one of our favorite market commentators, Peruvian Bull.

You won’t find a better explanation anywhere on the internet of the Yen Carry Trade or the dollar’s endgame.