I recall 1999-2000, when mining stonks changed their name to whatever.com and watched their stocks soar as the FOMO money piled in. I also recall that that didn't end well. This 'treasury' strategy seems to have a lot in common, and raises another red flag that we're at peak Bitcoin Bubble.

Interesting new article from the Fin Review, which attempts to shed light on who's been doing all the bitcoin buying and selling recently:

Why you might be the biggest loser in bitcoin’s great power shift

"While the whales cut exposure, ETFs, treasury companies and other institutions combined have absorbed nearly 900,000 coins in the past year, according to 10x Research. These players now hold about 4.8 million coins, out of about 20 million bitcoin in circulation.

But even as institutions bring stability and legitimacy to the asset class, some observers warn they’re also providing the long-awaited exit ramp for whales, raising the risk that it’s retail and retirement investors left holding the bag if crypto sentiment falters."

"Regardless, one big risk right now is imbalance: if bitcoin whales resume selling at scale while institutional flows plateau, the market could tip into steep declines. Outflows of just 2 per cent in 2018 and 9 per cent in 2022 triggered bitcoin price drops of 74 per cent and 64 per cent respectively, according to 10x Research."

https://archive.md/3C7QY#selection-1771.0-1771.328

There does seem to be a fair bit of selling around Bitcoin's ATHs. It has struggled to make a clean break, though the longer-term trend is still favourable.

How do you go from one person to 8 billion without a redistribution of existing coins along the way?

Answer: you can't.

There will always be holders that, at a certain price and time will choose to spend some of their money, and in doing so redistribute some coins to another party (even if that spend is by way of an initial currency conversion).

The idea that whales, who have held through multiple cycles, with near continuous opportunity to realise significant gains (albeit perhaps at a slower rate), have decided, in concert, to "dump" on apparently naive institutional capital, just as the major players are coming to the party, strikes me as a tough narrative to swallow.

There's a far bigger story playing out than a decade long pump and dump, imo.

So much to say on this article, but I’d just be repeating myself, and no one wants that lol. So I’ll just say this:

The authors remind me of asking a saddle maker what they thought of the Model T when it first rolled off the production line in 1908… their conclusions are stuck in the rear-view mirror, not seeing that the core fundamentals of the economy and technology are shifting around them.

I love Scott Phillips and Andrew’s references on the Motley Fool podcast (or Pod Machine?) that reasonable people can reasonably agree, and it’s the offering of different views that makes me love this platform. I’d just ask that folks look a bit broader than the traditional financial commentators when forming a view on Bitcoin and the leading stable coins - IMO these two are materially different from the rest of what is referred to as 'crypto', in much the same way Microsoft was different from petfood.com during the dot.com days.

"Eppur si muove"