Crypto News
The Catalyst That Could ‘Standardize’ Bitcoin
Today in my series called “things people following Bitcoin for the last 13 years have already figured out but I’m presenting as a brand new epiphany”, I wanted to write about a revelation about Bitcoin’s adoption, standardization, and normalization I had this past week. While thinking about what it would take for Bitcoin to receive a massive adoption push in the United States, I was able to think of one such scenario that may not be very far off.
And contrary to what you think, it doesn’t have anything to do with regulation, taxation, accounting standards, or any of the things that are mistakenly talked about as the ebb and flow of Bitcoin adoption on a daily basis. As I learned firsthand while finally doing some research on Bitcoin over the last month, none of those things truly matter. The decentralized nature of the network necessitates that it doesn’t need any of those things to flourish. I noted this in my article last week called “Why I Bitcoin.”
But what I also noted in the same article was that Bitcoin will survive if the people want it to survive. For those who understand the network, they understand that ~20,000 global nodes mean that the network is going to stay up regardless of which politician, jurisdiction, or regulatory agency around the world tries to stand in its way. This is part of the elegance of the network.
And still, having realized that, I think to myself, “What is going to accelerate that adoption so much that we move from now—a point of almost no return for Bitcoin—to a significant point of serious escape velocity?” The answer was right underneath my nose.
When I wrote the title to my article last week called “Why I Bitcoin,” it was just one of those titles that came to me instinctively. Sometimes I spend hours trying to figure out which title is going to be the catchiest, and other times, like with this article, I have the title set out beforehand because it is very clear what I want to say.
But I was walking around over the weekend and wondering where I had heard that phrase before.
Suddenly, it came to me. In one of my favorite comedy skits, a group of Philadelphia improv comedians went to the Occupy protests that occurred as a result of the 2008 economic crash. In more than one spot, there are signs that say “Why I Occupy.” In fact, this was basically the namesake of part of the Occupy movement. I remember that WhyIOccupy.org was the source for quite a bit of the pissed-off populace at the time; they thought whatever ideology was on that website was their particular brand of solution to the financial crisis.
It was only after remembering that, that I thought in the next major financial crisis, people really are going to have a legitimate exit ramp from the system. Bitcoin is that exit ramp. It’s the thing that people involved in the GameStop frenzy were so desperately looking for, whether they knew it or not, but couldn’t find.
While the GameStop fiasco was taking place, I remember thinking to myself that there were too many people who were pissed off but didn’t have any idea what they were angry about. In chat rooms and on social media, everybody was catching blame but the Federal Reserve. These people were pissed off because they felt like they were getting gypped: they were reacting, whether they knew it or not, to the widening of the inequality gap while they were struggling to make ends meet.
But what they didn’t know was that this wasn’t the fault of Ken Griffin, Citadel, or short sellers; rather, it was the fault of the Federal Reserve.
Nowadays, it’s becoming clearer as the Fed shoehorns that inequality gap even wider. It’s clearer because inflation is a mainstream story and a phenomenon that people can understand. Even if they don’t know why inflation is happening, most people have a semblance of understanding that it has to do with the Fed blowing out the money supply over the last four years and then, to add insult to injury, lying to the public about inflation being transitory.
And those who hoped to repeat GameStop’s success with names like AMC now know that toxic management and a loss-making business can very easily take the air out of any momentum in any type of short, or FOMO, squeeze in any one equity. And they also know that brokerages and regulators can prevent them from transacting in it anytime they damn well please.
During the next major financial crisis, which, in my opinion, isn’t that far away, the same group of pissed-off “have nots” will hopefully direct more of the blame where it belongs: monetary policy. After all, inflation is a brutal tax on the people who can’t afford it and is all but meaningless for the super-rich. And, the super-rich get super richer as a result of quantitative easing and money printing, which directs a disproportionate amount of relief to the stock, bonds and housing market: assets that rich people have that lower-income people do not have.
I would often ask during the Fed money printing over Covid, that if the Fed wanted to print $5 trillion, why wouldn’t they just divide it up evenly amongst all people in the United States and cut us all a check? After all, $5 trillion divided by 300 million people is about $16,500 per person. Putting systemic reasoning aside, this is a fairly simple straightforward question. If you want to stimulate the economy by spraying money all over the place, why not do it equally amongst all of its citizens, instead of playing favorites?
But that isn’t what happened in 2008, and it’s not going to be what happens during the next financial crisis.
What I do think will happen, however, is a new group of “have nots” and economic renegades will be exponentially more informed about how monetary police works, not just as a result of the GameStop fiasco, but also as a new, younger generation has familiarized themselves with the ideological case for Bitcoin. Before I even took to Bitcoin, one of the things I liked about it was the idea that it was forcing a younger generation to understand Austrian economics in a world where we have all but overused and beaten to death our modern monetary theory privileges. Armed with this new knowledge, an entire new generation of pissed-off, regular people will once again bear the cost of socialized losses from nefarious, toxic companies who privatized their profits. And this will be within an inflationary crisis still fresh in their minds. This time there will be no question about who is eroding the purchasing power and the wealth that they have worked for through taxation and inflation.
Which brings me to my point: Bitcoin could very well be the exit ramp that millions of angry people look towards in such a situation.
Unlike with GameStop, Bitcoin actually does have the chance to affect major change because the network’s success is tethered to how large it grows. This means that with every single person who decides to own, or educate themselves about, Bitcoin, they become part of a self-fulfilling prophecy of the network’s success. And, of course, the ideology behind the success of the network is firmly rooted in empowering people just like them: the people who are tired of having what little they earn silently whisked away from them by the dark inflationary financial machinery of the night.
Many people who participated in the GameStop frenzy, including the “apes” over at Reddit’s Wall Street Bets and millions of other retail traders, will be forced to realize that Bitcoin has all of the positives of what they sought to achieve in the past without the negatives. There is no management to mess it up, there is no counterparty to dilute them, there is no one to turn off the buy button and there is essentially no governing or regulatory body to prevent the network from being a success if the people want it to be one. It becomes the digital freedom that all of these people sought out during the last financial crisis but had no effective way to manifest.
2008 was yet another echo of what has become par for the course on Wall Street: every time things get catastrophic, the public bears the cost, gets pissed off and brandishes the torches. But then it eventually blows over and people go about their business.
“I’m starting to feel a little better about this whole thing,” John Tuld says at the end of Margin Call, signifying that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Bankers and politicians have been relying on this pattern to play out the way it has in the past in order for them to continue to perpetuate the same scheme they’ve been part of for decades. It is, in essence, what enables the miscarriage of justice of everyday Americans bearing the cost of failures of the ultra-rich.
And so, the next time this happens, the investing public could legitimately have a chance to break that cycle for the first time in half a century by adopting Bitcoin. It has a chance to opt them out of the system that they have railed against. Capital flows into Bitcoin and out of traditional financial assets will send a message to major financial institutions who only respond to the opportunity to make fees (see their newfound obsession with Bitcoin now that there’s ETFs for reference). At the same time these flows could add to the self-fulfilling prophecy of the network becoming a success, due to its redundancy essentially serving as the barometer for the health of the network.
It is by no means guaranteed, but if the system ever goes belly up again, and the average person is looking for a true weapon to fight the system – and one that is literally programmed to be the technological braille of the phrases “there’s safety in numbers” and “power to the people,” Bitcoin could shine through and open an epoch for itself that be seen in the future as its adoption Renaissance.
This is a guest post by Quoth the Raven. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
The Bitcoin network teaches us that there’s safety in numbers. Now, what could bring people together in numbers to mass-adopt it further than they have?
Today, MicroStrategy announced it purchased an additional 15,400 bitcoin for approximately $1.5 billion. This brings its total holdings to over 400,000 BTC, almost 2% of the entire bitcoin supply.
MicroStrategy now owns 402,100 #bitcoin worth $38 BILLION
They now own almost 2% of the total bitcoin supply 🤯 pic.twitter.com/lbEpHNer7T
— Nikolaus Hoffman (@NikolausHoff) December 2, 2024
In the month of November, bitcoin rose almost 40% while MicroStrategy bought over $12 billion in bitcoin. In total, MicroStrategy now owns over $38 billion in bitcoin.
Other companies are now starting to copy the Microstrategy play book and run their strategy of accumulating bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset. Saylor even presented to Microsoft’s CEO and board of directors on why they should adopt a bitcoin standard. Microsoft is the third largest company in the world by market cap, and is voting on whether or not they should add bitcoin to their balance sheet. Insane!
Publicly traded bitcoin miner MARA is also copying MicroStrategy’s playbook and announced today that they’re raising up to $805 million in debt to buy more bitcoin.
Do you get it yet?
This is not going to stop any time soon. We have officially entered a new era of bitcoin accumulation that is being led by these large corporations. Saylor, MicroStrategy, and other companies are going to scoop up every available coin they can get their hands on. And if they’re as convicted as MicroStrategy is — they’re not selling. That’s not even to mention the other big players now (BlackRock, Fidelity, ARK, etc) buying up coins for their ETFs. The amount of demand for bitcoin today is surreal.
Companies that adopted a Strategic #Bitcoin Reserve this month:
– Rumble
– LQR House
– Remixpoint
– Genius Group
– Cosmos Health
– Jiva Technologies
– Hoth Therapeutics
– Thumzup Media Corp
– Acurx PharmaceuticalsAnd this is just the beginning 🚀 pic.twitter.com/6YW7D2DnRn
— Nikolaus Hoffman (@NikolausHoff) November 27, 2024
I think that everyone (this message is mainly for the newer Bitcoiners) should follow suit in adopting their own personal strategic bitcoin reserve for themselves and their families. I’m not saying or advising anyone to take on debt to buy bitcoin, but rather adopt it as your primary savings account and sit back and take in all the benefits of holding bitcoin — especially in regards to holding your own private keys.
The plan is simple: buy bitcoin, secure it safely, and hold it for the long term. If you sell, you will be selling directly into the hands of MicroStrategy and every other company running this playbook.
This article is a Take. Opinions expressed are entirely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
When you sell bitcoin, MSTR and others are buying it.
We can’t live in a world where somebody starts a company that’s a completely legal thing, and then they literally [] get sanctioned [] and embargoed by the United States government through a completely unaccountable [process] by the way. No due process. None of this is written down. There’s no rules. There’s no court, there’s no decision process. There’s no appeal. Who do you appeal to, right? [] Who do you go to to get your bank account back?
— Marc Andreessen, speaking to Joe Rogan, published on 11/26/2024
In yet another troubling manifestation of “Chokepoint 2.0,” a Wyoming company was summarily debanked in early November, 2024, by Mercury, a banking platform operated with Evolve Bank (and other banking partners). After years of seamless operations and exemplary service, Mercury abruptly terminated the account without clear cause. The excuse? A vague nod to “internal factors” that remain as opaque as the regulatory pressures likely behind them.
Let’s be clear: The company’s banking activity was uncontroversial. The only potential offense is that the company accepts a sizable portion of its customer payments in Bitcoin. Aside from monthly wires from Kraken (a regulated crypto exchange), its transactions included rent, utility payments, hardware store purchases, and subcontractor invoices.
The termination couldn’t have had anything to do with risky behavior or financial misconduct. Instead, the closure is emblematic of a systemic effort to hobble Bitcoin businesses by exploiting the centralized banking choke points regulators have turned into tools of suppression.
This is Chokepoint 2.0 in action. Regulators have found new ways to suppress industries they disfavor—this time, targeting Bitcoin miners and businesses. Instead of legislative debate or due process, unelected bureaucrats leverage their oversight of banks to nudge them into “de-risking” clients that engage in entirely legal activities. The company was simply collateral damage in the campaign to isolate Bitcoin from the traditional financial system.
This is a chilling echo of Operation Chokepoint 1.0, where federal regulators illegally pressured banks to cut off services to lawful but disfavored industries, such as firearms dealers and payday lenders. That campaign ended in disgrace when the FDIC was forced to settle a lawsuit in 2019. The settlement affirmed what should have been obvious: weaponizing the financial system against legal businesses is unconstitutional. Regulators know this—and yet here we are again.
Why This Matters
Debanking isn’t just an inconvenience. For businesses, it’s existential. Operating without a reliable banking partner in today’s economy is like trying to breathe without air. When banks are coerced into severing ties with Bitcoin-related companies, it sends a chilling message: engage in this industry at your peril. It also stifles innovation, a dangerous precedent for a country founded on economic freedom.
Moreover, this practice undermines the core tenet of fairness in financial services. The American banking system isn’t a private fiefdom. It operates under public charters and with public trust, and its gatekeepers should not act as arbiters of political or ideological purity.
The harm extends beyond Bitcoin. If regulators can throttle this industry, what stops them from targeting others? What happens when innovation, dissent, or inconvenient truths are deemed “too risky” for the comfort of entrenched powers? This is about more than Bitcoin—it’s about the integrity of the financial system and the preservation of free markets.
A Call to Action: Accountability for Regulators
The new Congress and Trump administration must seize this moment to hold the architects of Chokepoint 2.0 accountable. This isn’t a partisan issue; it’s a constitutional one. Regulators acting as de facto lawmakers, imposing policies that would never survive public scrutiny, must be reigned in.
- Investigations into Regulatory Overreach
Congress must launch comprehensive investigations into the agencies pressuring banks to sever ties with Bitcoin businesses. Who issued these directives? Under what authority? The American people deserve answers, and the offending parties deserve consequences.
- Personal Accountability for Regulators
Bureaucrats who abuse their power should not be shielded by the anonymity of the regulatory machine. Those responsible for weaponizing the financial system against lawful businesses must be named, shamed, and removed from their positions, permanently lose any security clearances they may have, and potentially lose their government pensions and retirement benefits.
- Restoration of Due Process
Any decisions to restrict banking access should require clear, codified standards and a transparent appeals process. No more shadow rules. If a business is to be debanked, the reasons should be public, defensible, clearly articulated & defined, grounded in law, and appealable.
- Legislation to Protect Financial Access
Congress should pass laws prohibiting banks from discriminating against lawful industries based on political or ideological reasons. The free market thrives on neutrality; it withers under bias.
- Decentralization of Financial Systems
Bitcoin exists as a hedge against precisely this kind of overreach. Policymakers should embrace and encourage its growth, not fight it. America cannot afford to fall behind in the global race for financial innovation.
Much of the above could be addressed through Section 10 of the SAFER Banking Act, which directly limits undue regulatory influence over banking services. Specifically, it prohibits federal banking agencies from pressuring financial institutions to terminate relationships with lawful businesses, including those in the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency industry, based on reputational risks or political motivations. This provision reinforces the principle that decisions about financial services should rely on risk-based analysis of individual accounts rather than blanket biases against entire industries. By codifying such protections, the SAFER Banking Act would promote fairness and transparency in financial services, ensuring that regulators adhere to their duties of impartial oversight while respecting the rights of businesses operating legally under state or federal law.
In addition to legislative solutions, the presence of even one bank with the willingness and capability to resist undue regulatory pressure could dramatically reshape the financial landscape for Bitcoin businesses. Caitlin Long’s Custodia Bank, based in Wyoming, exemplifies this potential. Custodia has consistently demonstrated its commitment to operating within the law while challenging the overreach of federal regulators, as seen in its lawsuit against the Federal Reserve.
A bank with this level of resolve, direct access to the Federal Reserve itself, and a proven track record of standing up to regulators will provide a lifeline for Bitcoin (and other) businesses seeking reliable financial services. By fostering an ecosystem where lawful businesses can thrive without fear of arbitrary debanking, Custodia Bank offers a template for how other institutions might follow suit, ensuring that innovation and economic freedom remain protected.1
Taken together, the SAFER Banking Act and the perseverance of institutions like Custodia Bank represent two critical fronts in the fight against financial discrimination. While the SAFER Act provides a legislative framework to curtail regulatory overreach and protect lawful businesses from debanking, it has faced significant resistance, having been introduced multiple times in Congress only to be repeatedly blocked. Meanwhile, Custodia Bank’s struggle underscores the severity of institutional hostility; the Federal Reserve’s refusal to grant Custodia access to the banking system forced the bank to file a federal lawsuit just to claim its rightful place in the financial ecosystem. These challenges highlight the entrenched opposition to reform, but they also emphasize the urgent need for a multi-pronged strategy—legislative, judicial, and entrepreneurial—to ensure fair and impartial access to banking services for all lawful businesses.
Bitcoiners: The Frontline of Freedom
Bitcoin isn’t just money; it’s an idea—an idea that money and power belong to the people, not the state. This is why we’re here. This is why Bitcoin exists. The legacy financial system is crumbling under its own corruption, and every act of suppression only underscores the need for decentralized alternatives.
To be clear, I don’t fully blame Mercury and Evolve for this. They’re likely being forced into it by their regulators.2 Indeed, due to the Orwellian Bank Secrecy Act, the banks aren’t allowed to disclose the reasons for these matters to the affected customers. Banks like Mercury, and any others who have willingly cooperated with Chokepoint 2.0 should be subject to Congressional Subpoenas to explain themselves, and also name-and-shame the regulators who coopted them.
The future of Bitcoin—and America’s role as a leader in innovation—depends on exposing and dismantling Chokepoint 2.0, and holding all those who participated in it accountable.
1 Of course, Custodia Bank having a master account doesn’t eliminate the possibility of governmental censorship, but it does force it to be direct and open, rather than the indirect, hidden, and unappealable route the regulators can take now. See this x-post by Caitlin Long.
2 Another reason to believe that, in the case of Mercury and Evolve, the regulators are responsible, is that Evolve Bank was penalized in June 2024 by the Federal Reserve, and likely forced into these actions by their overreaching and overreactive regulators as part of that penalty.
This is a guest post by Colin Crossman. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
Why regulators must be held accountable for the consequences of Operation Chokepoint 2.0.
Bitcoin is closing out one of its most remarkable months in history, surging over $30,000 in November and marking a renewed bullish sentiment in the market. As we look ahead to December and beyond, investors are eager to understand whether Bitcoin’s momentum can sustain itself into 2025. With macroeconomic conditions, historical trends, and on-chain data aligning in Bitcoin’s favor, let’s analyze what’s happening and what it could mean for the future.
November’s Record-Breaking Performance
November 2024 wasn’t just any month for Bitcoin; it was historic. Bitcoin’s price rose from around $67,000 to nearly $100,000, an approximate 50% peak-to-trough increase, making it the best-performing month ever in terms of dollar increase. This rally rewarded long-term holders who endured months of consolidation after Bitcoin’s all-time high of $74,000 earlier in the year.
Historically, Q4 is Bitcoin’s strongest quarter, and November has often been a standout month. December, which has also performed well in past bull cycles, presents a promising outlook. But as with any rally, some short-term cooling might be expected.
The Role of the Dollar and Global Liquidity
Interestingly, Bitcoin’s rise occurred against the backdrop of a strengthening U.S. Dollar Strength Index (DXY), a scenario that typically sees Bitcoin underperforming. Historically, Bitcoin and the DXY have maintained an inverse relationship: when the dollar strengthens, Bitcoin weakens, and vice versa.
Similarly, the Global M2 money supply, another key metric, has shown a slight contraction recently. Bitcoin has historically correlated positively with global liquidity; thus, its current performance defies expectations. If liquidity conditions improve in the coming months, this could act as a powerful tailwind for Bitcoin’s price.
Parallels to Past Bull Cycles
Bitcoin’s current trajectory is strikingly similar to past bull markets, particularly the 2016–2017 cycle. That cycle began with gradual price increases before breaking key resistance levels and entering an exponential growth phase.
In 2017, Bitcoin’s price broke out from a key technical level of around $1,000, leading to a parabolic rally that peaked at $20,000, a 20x increase. Similarly, the 2020-2021 cycle saw Bitcoin rise from $20,000 to nearly $70,000 after breaking above the crucial YoY Performance threshold.
If Bitcoin can break out decisively from this historic level and above the key $100,000 resistance, we may witness a repeat of these explosive price movements as BTC enters its exponential phase of bullish price action.
Institutional Adoption and Accumulation
A key factor underpinning Bitcoin’s strength is the continued accumulation by institutions. Bitcoin ETFs are adding billions of dollars worth of BTC to their holdings, and corporations like MicroStrategy have doubled down on their Bitcoin strategy, now holding close to 400,000 BTC. Even with BTC rallying to new all-time highs, ‘smart money’ is scrambling to accumulate as much as possible to ensure they’re not left behind.
This institutional demand indicates growing confidence in Bitcoin as a long-term store of value, even in volatile market conditions. Such accumulation also tightens the available supply, creating upward pressure on prices as demand increases.
Conclusion
While December has historically been a strong month for Bitcoin, short-term volatility could temper gains as the market digests November’s sharp rally. Although given the aggressive accumulation we’re witnessing from institutional participants anything is possible.
Longer-term, however, the outlook remains exceptionally bullish. The obvious level to watch is $100,000 as the next major milestone, which, if breached, could pave the way for a much larger rally in 2025. Bitcoin is entering one of its most exciting phases yet, with the stars seemingly aligning across macroeconomic, technical, and on-chain metrics.
For a more in-depth look into this topic, check out a recent YouTube video here: The BIGGEST Bitcoin Month EVER – So What Happens Next?
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