Judge Rules Wright Is Not Satoshi

The Breakdown First Five - Friday, March 15, 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. Cold Flows Trigger Selloff

Bitcoin suffered a massive 8% drawdown overnight as icy ETF flow data rattled markets. Blackrock data lags the pack, so the first report quoted $212M in outflows, triggering a crash. Once Blackrock checked in, net flows were positive for $132M. That’s still the slowest day in two weeks. Hot inflation data pushing back rate cuts and excessive leverage also didn’t help. Bitcoin traded under $67,000 this morning for the first time in over a week. 

4. El Salvador’s Secret Stash

El Salvador announced that it was taking self custody of their Bitcoin, and there’s a lot more there than previously thought. Best estimates were previously 3000 Bitcoin had been bought. President Bukele disclosed 5,689.68 BTC after hinting the country had been mining, taking payments for passports and holding onto currency conversions. The stack is a few sats larger after a wave of small donations flooded in. 

3. Reed: SEC Should Block Further ETFs

Senator Reed thinks the SEC should not approve anymore crypto ETFs. The key complaint seems to be that some people are incorrectly referring to them as ETFs, when they should be called ETPs. The nuance is a slightly different level of investor protection. Reed urged the SEC to crack down on brokerage communication and advisors who recommend the funds.

2. Crypto Voters Could Decide the Election

Paradigm has published the most useful crypto polling results to date, finding that the crypto vote is significant. 8% of voters hold more than $1000 in crypto and few of the millions of voters trust either party to deliver reasonable crypto policy. That said, they’ve swung hard for Trump after voting for Biden in the previous election. Paradigm said the crypto vote could be “decisive if the election is yet another razor-thin race.”

1. We Are All Satoshi, Except For Craig Wright

The Satoshi trial is over with the judge making an immediate decision from the bench. “Dr. Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto". This should put an end to the abusive lawsuits against Bitcoin developers and personalities. The community is ecstatic that the nightmare is over, thanks to the hard work of all the companies and individuals who came together to fight this out.