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Mar 8, 2024

Qatar's Secret Bitcoin 🇶🇦🏦🐧

Valko

Qatar's Secret Bitcoin 🇶🇦🏦🐧 Valko

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Specs’ Insights

Qatar is rumored to be buying BTC in secret amid Bukele meeting

⌐◪-◪ → The Emir of Qatar just flew to El Salvador and met with President Nayib Bukele, a Bitcoin bull purchasing 1 BTC/day for El Salvador since November 2022.

This led to the continuation of rumors that Qatar is secretly accumulating Bitcoin, which if they are is probably on a scale much larger than 1 BTC/day.

In fact, it could very well be this wallet purchasing 100 BTC/day.

Now if you’ve been paying attention, you’ll remember that yesterday we wrote about Arizona adding Bitcoin to their state retirement funds, and how that could not only set off a race among States to purchase Bitcoin, but a race between Nations.

If we can confirm Qatar is accumulating Bitcoin, then the Great Bitcoin Race may be closer than we think.

Per usual, Snowden was right.

Let me know what you think in Specs Chat!

Spot Bitcoin ETFs now control 4% of the Bitcoin supply

⌐◪-◪ → The spot Bitcoin ETFs continue accumulating Bitcoin, now holding roughly 4% of the entire 21 million Bitcoin supply. BlackRock alone holds 0.89% of the total supply.

This news is exciting, but it’s a double-edged sword, and here’s why.

On one hand, it’s bringing a lot of fresh capital into the market, which is good for Bitcoin’s price and market cap.On the other, it means an increasing portion of Bitcoin’s supply is controlled by the same financial incumbents Bitcoin was designed to displace.

I’m beginning to think this cycle will be our longest ever as we see corporations, banks, states, and entire nations fight to accumulate a very finite supply of Bitcoin.

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Metastreet founder injects $2M to stop Pudgy Penguins death spiral

⌐◪-◪ → Yesterday evening there were 435+ leveraged Pudgy Penguin loans on Blur and another 300+ on other platforms.

Like any leveraged bet, if the price of the collateralized asset drops, then the asset gets liquidated to cover the loan. Of course, this can lead to a downward death spiral, where loan liquidations continue to drive the underlying asset’s price lower, triggering further liquidations.

This is exactly what’s happening to Pudgy Penguins, with the floor plummeting from 20 ETH to 10 ETH in just a few days.

It’s so bad that David Choi, the founder of NFT lending protocol MetaStreet, decided to inject $2M of personal funds to stop the death spiral. This could prove to be a pretty brilliant marketing stunt IMO.

Anyway, this is why most people should never use leverage.

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Everything Else

⛓️ Crypto & DeFi

  • Coinbase BTC dominance climbs from 47% to 60% in 3 months

  • Crypto CEX daily volume rises to nearly $100B for 1st time since 2021

  • Arkham claims to identify Tesla and SpaceX Bitcoin wallets

  • Optimism Foundation to sell $89M of OP tokens in private sale

  • Base will support EIP-4844 fee reduction following Dencun upgrade

  • Ethena does more fees than Lido and Uniswap over last 24 hrs

  • Fireblocks hires new Chief Marketing Offer after new CFO hire

  • Chloë Moretz to star as 'Razzlekhan' film on $4B BTC heist

  • Injective inEVM L2 launches mainnet for interoperability

🏦 Wallstreet & VC

  • Spot BTC ETF holdings to surpass GBTC today

  • BlackRock to purchase BTC ETFs for Global Allocation Fund

  • Binance Labs invests in 7 startups from “incubation season 6”

  • JPMorgan says expecting BTC to match GOLD allocations is crazy

  • Oyl raises $3M for Bitcoin ordinals focused trading platform

  • Cosmology raises $5M for Cosmos-focused developer platform

🏛️ Legal & Regulatory

  • Fed Chair Powell says they are “nowhere near” deploying a CBDC

  • US to challenge extradition of Do Kwon to South Korea

  • SEC says recent legal win carries weight in larger Coinbase case

  • SEC pushes back on BlackRock’sspot BTF ETF options application

🌎 Rest of the World

🖼️ NFTs & Metaverse

  • ArtBlocks Curated pauses drops due to low gen-art demand

  • Degens trading “L” token after missing Wormhole “W” token aidrop

  • PlayStation seeks patent on super fungible gaming tokens

  • Gala Games launches $1M hackathon with Amazon and Alienware

  • Saga gaming token airdrop begins on Avalanche, Cosmos, Solana

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Specs Chat is more than just a group chat, it’s a community designed to help you become a better crypto investor and operator.

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