Detained Binance Leaders in Nigeria

The Breakdown First Five - Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Welcome back to The Breakdown First Five — the 5 most interesting and/or important stories in bitcoin, crypto, and markets to start your day.

5. Saylor: Fiat is for the Poor 

Coming off a tight appearance on CNBC, Michael Saylor continued his media blitz with an appearance on Yahoo Finance. When pushed on the topic of selling Bitcoin to capture some gains, Saylor said, “People that use fiat currency as a store of value, there’s a name for them, we call them poor.” The internet immediately did its thing.

4. The Halving Will Be ReOrged

Travis, the founder of Ordiscan, has hypothesized that this halving will see never before seen game theory. He thinks miners will scramble to mine the first block of the new era due to what he’s calling the “Epic Sat”, which could be worth a million dollars. The block will also feature insane fees as a rush of ordinals enjoyers crowd into the historic block. Travis thinks a reorg could be worth $50M if any miner can pull it off. 

3. CPI Stuck

February Inflation came in above expectations but, more importantly, stuck above 3%. It’s now been 8 months since meaningful improvement on inflation was reported. Economists have various theories, seasonal effects, more positive PCE data; but it’s hard to believe the Fed can push through rate cuts with headline inflation above 3%. Bitcoin appears to be in its honey badger phase, largely ignoring the hot print to continue to all time highs.

2. GBTC Spins Out, IBIT Prints

Grayscale has applied for a spin-off mini trust using the ticker BTC. The trust will offer competitive fees and automatically convert a portion of current holdings, providing some much needed fee relief. This could be the catalyst that stops the bleeding. Meanwhile Blackrock’s ETF hit another record, gathering $849M worth of inflows. Overall the ETFs had their first ever day above one billion in net inflows. 

1. Binance Execs Still Held Hostage

A pair of Binance executives are entering their third week of being detained in Nigeria after the company was blamed for the ongoing currency crisis. They haven’t been charged, may have contracted Malaria and contact with diplomatic services has been monitored. The government is demanding a list of 100 top users and complete transaction records for the last six months. One of the executives is now identified as top former IRS investigator Tigran Gambaryan, a pioneer of blockchain tracing.