5/17 Andy Hoffman: CryptoGoldCentral.com Morning Commentary

Mt Gox Trustee Reeking Havoc, but Becoming More Obvious

As someone who not only spent the past 15 years analyzing market manipulation – of stocks, bonds, currencies, and Precious Metals; but became a globally recognized expert on the topic, I’m uniquely qualified to give better than average “educated guesses” about anomalistic market behaviors.

In my view, Bitcoin’s fundamental outlook has never been stronger – in terms of technological development, global adoption, use case necessity, and the relentless marginalization of its primary wealth storage “competitor”…Precious Metals. However, the BTC price has been under severe pressure since nearly touching $10,000 12 days ago – amidst extremely suspect trading conditions, according to my extremely trained eye.

On April 25th, the Mt Gox Trustee moved 16,000 Bitcoin from his cold wallet; and on May 10th, another 8,000; i.e, 24,000 Bitcoin worth approximately $200 million, or 15% of the total of 162,000. Which, as many of you are aware, peaked at 197,000 in late December – just before the Trustee single-handedly caused Bitcoin’s top at $20,000, and bottom at $6,000 - via the completely opaque, but decidedly obvious, sale of 35,000 Bitcoin.

I am extremely confident this is the principal reason why Bitcoin plunged from $9,990 on May 4th, to a low of $8,100 May 15th. The reason being, that after the 16,000 Bitcoin were moved from his cold wallets on April 25th, not once did Bitcoin experience a significant decline. At the time, the price was $8,900 – after which, it rose nearly non-stop to $9,990 on May 4th. However, starting first thing Monday morning Asia time, on May 6th, every bid was hit from $10,000 to $9,000 over the next two days.

Then, on Thursday, May 10th, another 8,000 Bitcoin left the Mt Gox Trustee’s cold wallets, for a total of 24,000 worth roughly $200 million. Hours later, with the price having stabilized in the high $9,300’s, another violent bombing raid commenced – that continued for the next 6 days…until finally, on Monday and Tuesday this week, with the price approaching $8,000, the vicious, price insensitive seller backed off…apparently, with a “price limit” after all. Then, yesterday; and last night; it couldn’t be more obvious that a “mysterious,” relentless seller was camped out at $8,400 – selling every last Bitcoin bid for in that area…as clearly, selling below $8,300 started to dry up.

Andy Hoffman (#HODLBTC)‏ @Andy_Hoffman_CG
Given all available info, I am 90% confident today's relentless seller is the Mt Gox Trustee - camped out at $8,400 after pounding bids since $10,000.
4:30 PM - 16 May 2018

So, while the Mt Gox Trustee is clearly wreaking havoc in the Bitcoin – and cryptocurrency markets in general; he has barely $1 billion worth left…that at any time, a single institutional investor – like, for example, the Bank of Japan – could take out with pocket change from the $300 trillion legacy financial asset markets. More importantly, this is as NON-FUNDAMENTAL an issue as you’ll find – which quite obviously, is the reason for Bitcoin’s dramatically undervalued price, both absolutely, and in terms of the Mayer Multiple.

Andy Hoffman (#HODLBTC)‏ @Andy_Hoffman_CG
The Mt Gox Trustee's (borderline malicious) lack of transparency is at the moment trumping #Bitcoin's best-ever fundamental outlook. Fortunately, this is a decidedly non-fundamental issue that will likely be resolved this year.
7:23 AM - 16 May 2018

BCash Fork Proves, Yet Again, Why BCH is the Biggest Scam in all of Crypto

On Monday, BCash kicked off its Consensus propaganda push (with the bigger push to commence tomorrow, at BCash’s big Hong Kong propaganda event) by naming its centralized “booth” Bitcoin.com instead of Bitcoin Cash; and on Tuesday, hard-forked its centralized coin for the third time in just nine-months of existence…this time, to increase its maximum block size from 8 MB to 32 MB; and add “smart contract” capability. In other words, backing up its “baffle them with BS” strategy with actions - that amount to absolutely nothing.

Aside from the fact it’s been PROVEN big blocks cannot scale, the average BCash block since inception has been roughly 0.2 MB – essentially ALL due to trading, depicting a “currency” that despite its “cash” moniker, is not used for ANYTHING other than speculation. Let alone, the “smart contracts” Ethereum dominates…and shortly, Bitcoin will be a big participant in, too, care of the SegWit adoption Roger Ver is so vehemently against.

As it turns out, despite having “ordered” all BCash nodes to “upgrade” to the new, forked code, nearly 20% failed to do so, rendering them useless. In other words, a political and technological disaster; in a centralized coin offering zero use case other than speculation; attempting to LOL, usurp Bitcoin.

Andy Hoffman (#HODLBTC)‏ @Andy_Hoffman_CG
If crypto is around 1,000 years, it will NEVER see a scam as big as BCash. People actually believe the con artist running it, that it will used FOR commerce. The average block size is around 0.2 MB, yet it hard forked today to 32.0 MB! And oh yeah, it added smart contracts. LOL!
8:22 PM - 15 May 2018

Institutional Custody Products Launched at Consensus

A topic that has gotten a lot of buzz at this week’s Consensus conference – validating exactly what I have been for some time - is custodial solutions for institutional cryptocurrency holders…as introduced by first, Coinbase; and second, Ledger X with its decidedly mainstream partner Nomura Securities of Japan. And TRUST ME, it’s no coincidence that of all the major banks, the largest in Japan – by far, the most Bitcoin-centric Western nation; whose Central bank, in my view, is likely buying it up; is the first to offer such an ambitious, far-reaching solution.

Since institutions started wading into crypto once Bitcoin first achieved a $100 billion market cap last Fall, it has been considered “common knowledge” in the Bitcoin community that a lack of safe, regulated custodial solutions would prove a hinderance to widespread institutional adoption. To the contrary, I believe such an issue is marginal at best – with the bigger issue being demand for this decidedly non-Mainstream asset class. After all, the GBTC Bitcoin fund – easily, one of the world’s largest Bitcoin holders - has been publicly traded for several years; doing so not only safely, without a single technological glitch…but actually distributing the BCash it received as a cash dividend to shareholders.

In other words, as immortalized in Field of Dreams, “build it, and they will come.” Higher institutional Bitcoin demand – which with each day Bitcoin stays above $6,000 (i.e, a $100 billion market cap), increases – will catalyze increased development of the custodial solutions that, technologically speaking; and eventually, regulatory-wise; are nothing particularly complex to implement.

If you have Bitcoin wallet technical issues of any kind - or want to SAFELY split forks like BCH, BTG, BTX, BCD, SBTC, BCX, BPVT, and others, I can put you in contact with one of industry's most reliable wallet experts.