Unchained - Unconfirmed: Bitcoin Projected to Reach $135,000 in December, According to PlanB - Ep.283

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hi, all, before we begin, some quick announcements. First, just a reminder that the links for the weekly news recap at the end of the show can be found in my Facebook bulletin newsletter, which is at laura shin.bulleton.com. There are also a few extra news items in it, plus additional articles on news that is not available on the pod. Be sure to subscribe today. Again, it's laura shin. bulletin.com. Second, my book, The Cryptopians, Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Crays is available for pre-order on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, or any of your other favorite bookstores.

Starting point is 00:00:36 Go to Bitley slash Cryptopians. That's B-I-T-O-L-Y-S-C-R-Y-P-O-P-I-A-N-S and pre-order today. Now on to the show. Hi, everyone. Welcome to Unconfirmed. The show that reveals how the marking names in crypto are reacting to the top headlines and gets the insideskip on what they say on the horizon. I'm your host, Laura Shin, a journalist with over two decades of experience. I started coming crypto six years ago, and as a

Starting point is 00:01:06 senior editor at Forbes, was the first mainstream media reporter to cover cryptocurrency full-time. This is the October 22nd episode of Unconfirmed. Tired of your exchange taking 25% of your staking profits? The Avato blockchain computer allows you to stake Ethereum and other crypto at home and keep 100% of the rewards. Go to AVA.do. The crypto.com app pays you up to 8.5% interest on your Bitcoin. Get $25 when you download the crypto.com app with code Laura. The link is in the description.

Starting point is 00:01:42 Wish you could earn crypto but don't want to spend thousands on hardware? Just download the Nodal Cash app on your smartphone. Visit nodle.io-unconfirmed. That's Nod-L-E-D-I-O-S-H. unconfirmed to start earning no no cash today. Today's guest is Plan B, an institutional investor turned Bitcoin investor and the inventor of the Stock to Flow model. Welcome, Plan B. Hi, Laura. Thanks for having me. Heads up for those of you watching the video, Plan B uses a pseudonym so as to hide his real

Starting point is 00:02:13 identity, which is why we are showing an image rather than the video on his side. So Plan B, your Bitcoin price models have done really well over the years, and this week you got even more validation for your projections. In case people are unfamiliar with your professional background, just give us a brief history and tell us how you came to Bitcoin. Yeah, so I'm in traditional finance for the last 25 years. I started in dealing rooms and moved my way up to bank balance sheets, insurance balance sheets, and managing pension balance sheets,

Starting point is 00:02:46 mainly in structured finance or risk management functions, or in the investment offices of those firms. So, yeah, I've seen a lot in the last 25 years. But one of the most interesting things I came across was Bitcoin. And for me, that was 2013, that I first read the white paper. I was hooked from the start. And tell us how you came to create the Stock to Flow model and what that is. Yeah, well, one of the things that I missed when I entered the space was a valuation model.

Starting point is 00:03:20 For every asset, we have a valuation model for equities, for all the derivatives. Not for gold, by the way. That has the same problem as Bitcoin. There's not really a valuation model, although you can look at the mining costs of gold. And that's what most of the models that were there for Bitcoin were as well. So what I tried to do was make some fundamental case for why Bitcoin has any value at at all because most people were saying, well, there's nothing backing it. Bitcoin is a pyramid scheme or a bubble or whatever.

Starting point is 00:03:57 So I sort of started from the assumption that scarce assets like gold and real states, et cetera, have more value than less or non-scarious assets. And of course, in the commodity markets, there is this stock-to-flow measure where you can sort of quantify the scarcity of an asset. And I use that known measure to correlate it with the price. First, only with the time series of Bitcoin, so the Bitcoin price over time. And later with a stock to flow cross-asset model,

Starting point is 00:04:34 I combined the data with gold data, real estate data, silver diamonds, other scarce assets. And what I found was a perfect linear relation between the scarcity measured in stock to flow and the market values of all those assets. And that was astonishing for me and just gave me a rough. I must say it's a very rough model, but it gave me a rough indication that that Bitcoin should be well worth somewhere in between silver and gold and going towards gold since it now has the same stock to flow and the scarcity as gold.

Starting point is 00:05:10 So yeah, very interesting discovery. I put it on paper and since then on Twitter and with the interviews like we're having now, it really took off and caught me by surprise. So, yeah, especially now with over a million followers, I'm really astonished by that. Yeah, I only imagine, especially because you do have an anonymous account. So, you know, I've heard you say you also use other price models. I don't know if you've made too much about them public, but in general, I think your models have been vindicated this week.

Starting point is 00:05:48 Why do you think we've hit this new all-time high of nearly $67,000 for Bitcoin this week? Yeah, I could give several answers to that. But yeah, maybe one step back when I made the model that was in March 2019, we were below $4,000 Bitcoin after the 2017, all-time high of 20,000. thousand. So we crashed all the way to 4,000, even going to 3,000. I think it was 3.2 at the bottom. And everybody's calling for a thousand dollar Bitcoin at that time. And through the stock to flow and through the scarcity, yeah, that guided me towards, well, there will be a half thing. Bitcoin will be more scarce, approximately as scarce as gold. So we have to go up from here

Starting point is 00:06:39 and not down. And we have to go up to the $1 trillion market cap. And we reached that cap at the moment. And so the last two years or three years were really spectacular and roughly led us towards that $1 trillion market cap. And I think based on that stock to flow model and the scarcity of Bitcoin at the moment that we should go a lot higher than we are today. towards the

Starting point is 00:07:10 5 or 10 trillion a dollar cap at first the same dollar market value as gold has but yeah more recently there's of course all sorts of things happening in the macro and geopolitical sphere that caused

Starting point is 00:07:29 that were the immediate triggers I should say for the rises and of course the Bitcoin ETF is one of the things that was that we have been waiting for for a long time to happen. And that came to, yeah, that was a reality since this week. And that caused a major upwards movement, I think, in Bitcoin.

Starting point is 00:07:52 That helped us a lot. And so since that was Bitcoin Futures ETF, which I think the community maybe didn't necessarily expect, you know, at least until recently. and has also criticized for saying, you know, it's not maybe as efficient or as good a product as a spot ETF would be. So why do you think that it affected the price that way? And how do you think it all affect the Bitcoin price going forward? Yeah, that's very true. Bitcoin's futures ETF is better than nothing, but it's not as good as a spot ETF.

Starting point is 00:08:30 And so I'm already happy with the futures ETF, and I understand it. because futures are instruments that the SEC understands. And for example, in the companies I used to work for, the latest company was a pension balance sheet of $100 billion US dollars. They did not understand Bitcoin or, well, let's say my colleagues did understand Bitcoin and had Bitcoin in their personal portfolios, but we did not have a mandate to go into Bitcoin, a virtual currency like assets,

Starting point is 00:09:04 because our board did not understand it. And likewise, the SEC does not understand, I guess, Bitcoin or has to get used to this digital currency world. And futures, and I saw that in my company as well, futures on Bitcoin, that was interesting because they knew the instruments. So a futures ETF, well, yeah, it's the first step. But it's not as good. It's bought ETF.

Starting point is 00:09:34 example, I have been talking about the cash and carry trade before, that there's a huge premium and contango premium between futures and spot prices. The future Bitcoin price is approximately annualized 10% higher than the spot price at the moment. So a Bitcoin futures ETF would lose that 10% contango premium compared to a spot ETF. And well, yeah, it's a, it's, If Bitcoin goes 2x or 10x, then that 10% is worth it. But on the other hand, it is 10%. And as I used to say, there's a very interesting counter trade to those future ETFs. And that is the cash and carry trade where you short the, you buy the spot and you short the future Bitcoin and cash that 10% annually for really low.

Starting point is 00:10:34 risk. So, yeah, I think it's a nice step, a nice first step, but spot for sure is better than than futures. Yeah, it's interesting that you said, you felt maybe the SEC didn't understand because, you know, the chair, Gary Gensler used to teach courses on blockchain technology at MIT. I think he understands, but I think he just doesn't trust that they can't regulate the spot markets. And so. Yes. Yeah, he understands, is for sure. Gary's ago. Yeah. All right. So we're going to talk a little bit more about the price action and your models. But first, a quick word from the sponsors who make this show possible. There's a new cryptocurrency made for mobile that you can earn by downloading the Nodal Cash app.

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Starting point is 00:12:08 Spotify, and Amazon Prime subscriptions. Download the crypto.com app now and get $25 by using the code Laura. The link is in the description. Back to my conversation with Plan B. So in the past, there have been articles that have come out saying that the authors felt that when they tried to retrofit the Stock to flow model with gold, it didn't work. And so then they felt that stock to flow for Bitcoin won't work. What do you say to such critics? Yeah, that was one of the critics. There's a lot of them.

Starting point is 00:12:40 I like the discussion and we've had a lot of discussion. This is one of the arguments that I don't really understand because I know that one study that was published with this argument used like 100 years of gold data. concluded, well, yeah, there is no relation between the stock to flow over that 100 year period and the market value. But they forgot that since 1971 or everything before 1971, the gold price was the dollar price. So there was no movement in the gold price denominated in dollar at all. If you look at the charts, for example, there is one little jump in around the World War II period where Roosevelt, It was a little before that.

Starting point is 00:13:29 It was 33, I guess, where Roosevelt stole the gold from the American people and that it was illegal to have gold. And in that period, they jumped the price, the dollar price of gold a little. But from there, it has been flat. And before that, 1933 Roosevelt action, it was flat as well. Bitcoin or gold, dollar was gold. It was defined literally as a measure, a certain, amount of ounces of gold.

Starting point is 00:14:00 So you can't take a data set with a lot of data before 9071 and then conclude that the gold price did not move with a stock to flow because it did not move at all. And in fact, in my own charts, I take 10 years of data, stock to flow data of gold and market value data. And what you see, it's one little dot on that chart. So you see Bitcoin move, but the stock to flow of gold and the stock and the market value of gold did not move that much at all. So I'll repost that chart in one of the tweets later this week. You can see for yourself, it's really not moved at all.

Starting point is 00:14:48 And in that study you are referring to, there was a chart with 100 years of data. And, yeah, they just didn't acknowledge the fact that that gold and dollars were the same before 1971. So speaking of dollars, obviously we're in a very unusual time historically right now with the pandemic. How would you say the pandemic has influenced the Bitcoin price over the last almost two years? Yeah, in the beginning, it went down. So in March 2020, we had this. Yeah, everybody was scared. everybody was panicking and sold everything from stocks to bonds to real estate to even gold and

Starting point is 00:15:32 Bitcoin. But in the long run, I think it has been very good for the Bitcoin price because of the basement because of the Fed printing all that money. And of course, that was the reason why Satoshi Nakamoto invented Bitcoin for the first place. The problem with our current money is the debasement that the central banks are. are doing. And they have been doing that for ages, literally since the Roman empires, they diminish the silver content of the denarius as a way to enrich themselves and steal, literally steal from

Starting point is 00:16:07 the people. So that's what central banks are doing right now. They do it for the greater good, of course. That's the narrative. So to save the banks in the 2008 financial crisis and to save all the companies and, for example, airliners now in the COVID period. But somebody has to pay that. And it's paid through debasement, our dollars, the dollars that you and I have in our pockets become less valuable. And we see that in inflation, first asset inflation, house prices, equity prices, everything of value arises, including Bitcoin.

Starting point is 00:16:44 And that's so it has been very, very good for the Bitcoin price. But now it trickles down to energy prices, energy inflation, gas, electricity, et cetera, and even core inflation. So, of course, central banks have been saying it has been transitory, but we all know it's not transitory. It's here to stay. And it's getting, it will become worse. So, yeah, those trillions and trillions of dollars, I think it's $8 trillion to be exactly that the Fed and also the European Central Bank, way is also $8 trillion that they printed, that problem must be solved. I don't know how. How? It's, it will be very interesting to see in the next couple of months or years how that's

Starting point is 00:17:33 getting resolved. But it will be nasty, I think, and there will be winners and losers. And I think Bitcoin is one of your safe bets in this scenario. Well, speaking of kind of some of the geopolitical issues, we have seen this big change in the Bitcoin network due to China banning mining there and also the government just cracking down even more stringently on trading. How would you say that all that has affected the price and will continue to affect Bitcoin going forward? Yeah, China has been a big factor in Bitcoin and especially in mining because all the free

Starting point is 00:18:14 electricity in the provinces where the dams were and the hydro energy was available. That was very cheap energy. And of course, yeah, it has to be used. And Bitcoin is a perfect use for that. So I guess at one point, China had 50% of the mining power, the hash rate of the entire Bitcoin network. And then they banned it. They made it illegal. and that had an enormous effect on price.

Starting point is 00:18:46 It was April, I guess, this year, May, April or May this year. And, yeah, they just switched off half the network, which technically is not a problem, of course, but for the miners that are impacted, it was a very big problem. And their entire business model and investment, of course, were rendered worthless, or at least they had to go to a Plan B scenario. which they did. They moved their mining equipment, their hardware to the neighboring countries of China

Starting point is 00:19:19 and also to America, of course. And I guess now, a couple of months later, the situation is completely opposite. The United States has 50% of the hash power of the Bitcoin network. And China has zero. So China has decided not to play the Bitcoin game. And, yeah, in my opinion, they gave away their AVIR,

Starting point is 00:19:43 very strategic and an important advantage. That's how I see it as an investor, of course. Yeah. Well, yeah, I think it's also good for the Bitcoin Network because there was always the talk that there could be a threat if the Chinese government decided to take over the miners or something like that. Absolutely. But, yeah, so now it's stronger.

Starting point is 00:20:03 And I think the last debt that I heard was that in July, the U.S. had 35% of the Bitcoin hash rate. So let's talk about your. models for the price of Bitcoin for the next, I don't know, six months or so. I did see you say that the floor for November will be 98K for December, it's 135K. How are you getting there and what drivers do you think will bring us to those prices? Yeah, so I basically have three kinds of models. The first model is the fundamental one, the stock to flow model that we talked about. The second one is a floor model that is more a technical analysis price-based model.

Starting point is 00:20:47 And it makes use of a mathematical error that most people, especially the technical analysts make when looking at markets like Bitcoin, because Bitcoin is not normally distributed, the returns. It's following power laws and you need different math for that. And all the technical analysis tools are, they are for normal markets. For example, the RSI, the relative strength. index, it normally bounces between 30 and 70. When it's 70, a market is an asset is overboard. If it's below 30, it's oversold. While Bitcoin's RSI never goes below or at least,

Starting point is 00:21:26 well, sometimes, but almost never goes below 45 and can go as high as 95. So that tells you there's some really different dynamics and also mathematical processes behind the Bitcoin price. And you have to look at things like fractal dimensions, hearse components, that kind of stuff. So that's the floor model. And the third thing I'm looking at. And actually, I'm spending most of my time there at the moment is on-chain models. So the big advantage of Bitcoin is that we have all the transactions, on-chain transactions available in the blockchain.

Starting point is 00:22:01 Everybody can download the blockchain. If they run a note, it's about 400 gigabytes of data. So it's a big data crunch. but you can get that data and analyze it, and you see all sorts of patterns in the transactions, where they came from, from old investors or new investors, big investors, small investors, all sorts of patterns. And those models are very useful for timing tops and bottoms.

Starting point is 00:22:29 So phone world transactions, for example, are very noticeable. At the very bottom, the emotions there are very important. interested and interesting and seeable in the transaction. So I used those three models. And the model that got most attention the last couple of months was the floor model because I predicted in June 20th, that was the same time, by the way, that the Guggenheim chief investment officer predicted Bitcoin to go below 20K. at about that same day

Starting point is 00:23:06 I made the discussion no no no no it's going to 47 and Bitcoin was mind you was below 34 at that time I said well in August it will close above 47

Starting point is 00:23:22 in September it goes down a little bit it will close above 43 and in October it will close above 63 well it's a bit of luck of course, involved in there. It has to be. One cannot be that precise. But at least all those targets were met. So 47, 43. And we're waiting for the close of the month, of course, now of

Starting point is 00:23:46 October. But 63 is in the book. So yeah. And if that continues, and frankly, I would be very surprised if it doesn't. That would be a Black Swan event that we haven't seen in the last 10 years. But if that continues, we'll go to 98,000 in November already, and 135,000 Bitcoin in December. So that will be a very nice Christmas this year if that comes true. I agree. So in the past, Bitcoin has breathed, as one of my sources call it, in cycles of hitting a new high, kind of basically in a bubble-like fashion, and then drawing down again, but to a floor that was higher than in the previous cycle.

Starting point is 00:24:31 Do you believe that we're in a cycle like that again? Or do you believe that with these new levels of institutional validation that we're seeing? And also, I think, kind of like a more diverse set of drivers. Do you think that Bitcoin will not see that same kind of cycle again in which the price sees a massive drop after this next high is reached until the next having? Yeah, I seem to be one of the few that things were in a normal. normal cycle that will go down again after the all-time high because everybody, I guess, hopes for the super cycle or the hyper-bitronization to start right now and that we do not have

Starting point is 00:25:11 a big crash after next all-time high so that we don't see a minus 50% or even a minus 80% drop like we have seen last three times. And as much as I would hope that were true that we don't see that crash anymore, I think we will. We're still in a phase where Bitcoin is very, very small compared to traditional assets. Institutional investors either flat out deny the asset. I don't want to have it. I think it's for criminals or bad for the environment and all this stuff you read in the mainstream media. They're still there. So I don't think the world is ready yet for hyper-bitconization or the super-circuit. I don't think we will be, managed by greed right now and fear later on and see another minus 80% after we top out

Starting point is 00:26:04 at a couple hundred thousand dollars. But there will be a point in time. And in that way, it's a timing question. There will be a point in time later on, maybe after next halving in 2004, when the market is ready and ready for Bitcoin, but also ready to see that Bitcoin is the better money. because it's scarcer than anything else. It's more divisible. It's more fungible.

Starting point is 00:26:31 It's more portable. It's really mathematical and thermodynamically the best money there is. And as soon as people realize that, see that, yeah, then maybe the dollar is in trouble. And we'll have a global reserve currency that's called Bitcoin. But I guess my timing for that hyper-bitronization or super cycle event is after 2024, maybe somewhere between 2004 and 32. Okay. Okay.

Starting point is 00:27:07 Well, we'll have to check back and see because I agree. I have other sources who also believe that this cycle will be different. So I guess we'll maybe we'll do a show with you and somebody who believes that. And then you can discuss and we'll try to do it like for December, January or something like right as we're hitting that high. Okay. Well, this has been so much fun. Thank you so much for coming on Unconfirmed. Thank you very much. Don't forget. Next up is the weekly news recap. Stick around for this week in crypto after this short break. Did you know that exchanges take up to a 25% cut on your staking rewards?

Starting point is 00:27:45 But you don't need an exchange to stake. You can run a validator at home. Join thousands of solo stakers, get an Avato device, plug it in, deposit your stake, and earn the full reward. Avato created the best hardware and specific software to stake and keeps your validator on the latest version through auto updates. One-time investment, 100% profit. Go to Avato. That's AVA.do. Thanks for tuning in to this week's news recap. Pro-share's Bitcoin Futures ETF goes wild.

Starting point is 00:28:23 On Tuesday, the pro-share's Bitcoin Strategy ETF went live, becoming the first Bitcoin futures ETF to launch in the U.S. trading under the ticker BITO on the New York Stock Exchange, the listing of BITO marked a significant milestone for the crypto industry, which has been attempting to get a Bitcoin link to ETF approved by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission since 2013. The fund tracks Chicago Merchantile Exchange or CME Bitcoin Futures, allowing investors to gain exposure to BTC by speculating on the future price rather than purchasing the underlying crypto asset itself. For now, a spot Bitcoin ETF, which would give direct exposure to Bitcoin the asset, has yet to be approved by the SEC. Based on BITO's performance over the first few days of trading, investors seem fine with purchasing the Bitcoin-adjacent investment fund.

Starting point is 00:29:13 BITO saw nearly $1 billion of trading volume on Tuesday, enough to make it the second largest first day of trading for a U.S. ATF, according to Bloomberg's Eric Baltunis. Even more impressively, after closing on Wednesday afternoon, BITO assets totaled $1.1 billion, making it the fastest ETF ever to reach a billion dollars. In what Baltunus described as, quote, a poetically apropos movement, BITO broke GLD's 18-year-old record of hitting $1 billion in assets in three days. BITO is trading so well, however, that Bloomberg reports it is likely to breach the limit on the number of futures contracts CME will permit it to hold.

Starting point is 00:29:57 Quote, after two days trading, BITO owns nearly 1900 contracts for October, and CME rules cap the number of front month contracts one entity can own to 2,000. What could help the situation is the next news item. More Bitcoin Futures on the way. With the SEC's approval of ProShare's Bitcoin Futures ETF, institutions are flocking to get similar products to market. Notably, the SEC approved two additional Bitcoin Futures ETFs to be issued by Valky and Vanek, respectively. According to filings, Vanek's Bitcoin Strategy ETF is set to go live after October 23rd, meaning it will most likely go live via the New York Stock Exchange on Monday, October 25th.

Starting point is 00:30:42 Valkyrie also gained approval and will list on NASDAQ as soon as the 23rd, which is when this podcast goes live. Amusingly, Valkyrie initially filed under the ticker BTFD, which for those of you who spend hours on crypto Twitter will know means buy the fucking dip. However, the company ended up changing the ticker to BTF. ETFs are not the only way to get into the Bitcoin futures game. On Wednesday, Sibo, where over $75 billion in U.S. equities are traded daily, announced the acquisition of Aris X, a digital asset exchange that offers spot and futures products.

Starting point is 00:31:18 Under the New Deal, Aris X will be rebranded to CBO Digital. At Tilly, Chairman, President, and CEO of CBO Global Markets, said, quote, We believe our acquisition of Aris X, coupled with broad industry participation and support, will help us bring the regulatory framework, transparency, infrastructure, and data solutions of traditional markets to the digital asset space. This is Sibo's second foray into Bitcoin futures, as the exchange previously offered Bitcoin futures from 2017 to 2019. More fines for Tether. Last Friday, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC, announced the simultaneous filing and settlement of charges against Tether and Bifanex for 42.5 million.

Starting point is 00:32:05 total. The regulator penalized the stable coin issuer $41 million for, quote, making untrue or misleading statements and omissions in connection to the backing of USDT, the largest stable coin by market cap. IFINX was fined $1.5 million for the misties of Bipfinex, such as operating a futures commission merchant without the CFTC's permission and engaging in, quote, illegal off exchange retail commodity transactions. Acting chairman Rosson Benham said, quote, this case highlights the expectation

Starting point is 00:32:38 of honesty and transparency in the rapidly growing and developing digital assets marketplace. In a conversation with the block, BitFinex's general counsel, Stuart Hoagner, explained that what sparked the enforcement actions occurred during quote, markedly different time in our

Starting point is 00:32:54 ecosystem. Hoganer went on to add that there is no finding that Tether tokens were not fully backed at all times, simply that the reserves were not all in cash and all in a bank account titled in Tether's name at all times. In related news, Celsius CEO Alex Mishinsky told the Financial Times this week that Tether has begun loaning USDT against cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum as collateral. Quote, if you give them enough collateral, liquid collateral, Bitcoin, Ethereum, and so on, they will mint Tether against it, said Mishinsky. DeCript points out that this

Starting point is 00:33:30 conflicts with Tether's legal terms, which state, quote, Tether will not issue Tether tokens for consideration consisting of the digital tokens, for example, Bitcoin. Only money will be accepted upon issuance. Additionally, on Tuesday, Hindenberg Research announced a $1 million bounty to be presented to anyone who comes forward with what they are calling undisclosed details about Tether reserves. The research firm says it is establishing the bounty due to doubts regarding the legitimacy of USDT's backing. Senators call for Novi to shut down. On Tuesday, five Democratic sedenters, including Elizabeth Warren, sent a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, urging him to shut down the social media giants cryptocurrency projects Novi, a digital wallet, and DM, a stable coin.

Starting point is 00:34:20 Disclosure, I write a Facebook bulletin newsletter. In their bid to dissuade Novi and D.M from launching, the signatories cited Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, acting, of the currency, Michael Sue, and the Financial Action Task Force as regulators who are looking into, quote, the risks that stable coins pose to financial stability. The letter came just hours after Novi, Facebook's crypto wallet, launched a pilot in the U.S. in Guatemala, and announced a partnership with Paxos that would allow users to send and receive Paxos's stablecoin, USDP, through Novi. Notably, Novi chose not to use DM, Facebook's digital currency project, which has hit major

Starting point is 00:34:59 regulatory obstacles since being announced as Libra more than two years ago. Warren and Co explicitly addressed the pilot program in their letter. Facebook is once again pursuing digital currency plans on an aggressive timeline and has already launched a pilot for a payments infrastructure network, even though these plans are incompatible with the actual financial regulatory landscape, not only for DM specifically, but also for stable coins in general. In addition to citing concerns regarding financial stability, the senators also went after Facebook's history of moving fast and bringing things.

Starting point is 00:35:32 Quote, Facebook cannot be trusted to manage a payment system or digital currency when its existing ability to manage risks and keep consumers safe has proven wholly insufficient. We urge you to immediately discontinue your Novi pilot and to commit that you will not bring DM to market concluded the senators. In response, a Novi spokesperson told the block, quote, we look forward to responding to the committee's letter. Next headline. New York State Attorney General calls for cease and desist.

Starting point is 00:36:03 New York Attorney General, Leticia James, directed two crypto lenders to immediately cease operations within the state and three other platforms to provide information by their activities. The AG did not name the company she was going after, though documents in the release reference both Nexo and Celsius. Disclosure, Nexo is a previous sponsor of my shows. However, Celsius published a blog post this week, claiming it has not received a cease and desist order in New York. According to the New York AG's press release, crypto lenders are facilitating, quote, unregistered and unlawful activities

Starting point is 00:36:37 by offering interest-bearing accounts, which the regulator believes are securities. The press release states that digital asset lending platforms must register with the state's attorney general's office before offering any such product to New Yorkers. Cryptocurrency platforms must follow the law, just like everyone else, which is why we are now directing two crypto companies to shut down

Starting point is 00:36:57 and forcing three more to answer questions immediately, said Attorney General James. Time for fun bits. Jack Dorsey almost called Bitcoin's all-time high. On Tuesday, Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted 705-742. No context, no punctuation, just the string of six digits. The tweet sparked a variety of speculation, with many a non-crypto accounts lurking in the comments trying to ascertain the meaning of the seemingly random digits. luckily, a follow-up tweet by Dorsey cleared up the confusion. Off by 117, he wrote, most likely in reference to how many blocks he was away from predicting Bitcoin's all-time high.

Starting point is 00:37:41 By DeKrips math, this put Dorsey nearly 20 hours off on his prediction, as Bitcoin did not hit its new all-time high above $67,000, according to Coin Gecko until Wednesday morning. You can't make this stuff up. The Sam Bankman-Fried led cryptocurrency exchange FTX, announced a massive funding round on Thursday that valued the company at $25 billion. So what's the fun part? FTX raised exactly $420,690,000 in its series B, sourced from 69 investors, including Black Rock and Tiger Global. In a billionaire-related meme, Elon Musk tweeted a couple lying in bed looking at a chart of the Bitcoin and Ethereum prices at $69,000 and $4,200, respectively.

Starting point is 00:38:35 Pleaser Dow invests in a physical NFT. Pleaser Dow, a collective of NFT owners known for making splashy digital purchases, but once upon a time in Shaolin, a rare physical album by Wu-Tang Clan for $4 million, according to the New York Times. The Times says Pleaser Dow purchased the album from none other than the U.S. government after its previous owner was convicted of fraud and had his assets seized. The album is undoubtedly a forerunner to NFTs. Wu Ting Clan only created one copy of the album and placed stringent legal restrictions on it.

Starting point is 00:39:09 For instance, the initial contract prevented the buyer from using the music commercially for 88 years. In a blog post, Pleaser Dow concluded, quote, we believe the next chapter in the incredible story of this album should be Web 3.0 native, Although we are bound by the legal agreement underpinning this work of art and may not be able to duplicate and share the music digitally, we firmly believe there are ways to share this musical masterpiece with the world. A lot of things in life are temporary, fleeting, and permanent. But remember this.

Starting point is 00:39:40 Just like our blockchain, Woothing is forever. All right, thanks for tuning in to learn more about Plan B. Be sure to check out the links in the show notes. Unconfirmed is produced by me, Laura Shin, with Alphan from Anthony Youne, Mark Murdoch, and Daniel Ness. Thanks for listening.

Unchained - Unconfirmed: Bitcoin Projected to Reach $135,000 in December, According to PlanB - Ep.283

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