Vitalik Buterin makes the cover of TIME magazine,
Biden meets with his handlers,
and the debate on whether or not Bitcoin will stick to its traditional 4-year cycle heats up.
My name is Ben.
This is your nightly crypto wrap-up.
Let's get it!
Joe Biden is set to meet with top executives from major industries
including ones from Exxon, JPMorgan and Cargill.
Janet Felon Yellen and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan will also be there
for the in-person off-the-record meeting to talk about the crisis in oil, food and supply chains.
Sounds like an expensive meeting.
The US and Russian sanction war is setting up the world's economies
for some intense price and supply shocks in the coming months,
with some analysts saying that a worldwide famine could grip the developing nations,
possibly putting 100 million people at risk of starving.
This is dovetailing with skyrocketing inflation
and a stock market that's teetering on the point of recession.
The Biden White House has been using price gouging as a cudgel
to get the big corporations to make concessions.
Too bad no one in the White House understands supply and demand.
Either way, this is shaping up to be the year the deglobalization starts.
Sorry, Klaus.
We are a community and ultimately we do have, like, a say in what things we put more resources towards.
And, like, if we don't exercise that voice,
then, you know, the only things that get built are like the things that are immediately profitable.
And, like, that--
like, those are definitely far from--
often far from, like, the things that are actually the best for the world.
If you've not yet read the TIME magazine cover article about Ethereum's founder Vitalik Buterin,
I highly recommend that you do.
It's quite the roller coaster.
Andrew Chow outlines Buterin's upbringing in Russia,
how he started playing around on computer at the age of four,
how he learned to code by the time he was 12.
Vitalik was introduced to Bitcoin by his father in 2011.
This obviously had a major impact on Vitalik
since he personally witnessed the fall of the Russian and American financial systems.
The idea of alternative money that wasn't controlled by authorities got the gears in his head spinning.
He started writing articles for a magazine called Bitcoin Weekly
for five Bitcoin per article.
The deeper he dove into the space,
he realized its full untapped potential.
This motivated him to continue forward,
becoming the change he wanted to see in the world.
In 2013, he dropped out of college and wrote Ethereum's whitepaper.
Within a year, he built a team including the likes of Charles Hoskinson and Gavin Wood.
We all know what happened when they started bumping heads.
In the case of founding Ethereum,
like, probably the biggest divide definitely was that, like,
a lot of these other people cared about making money.
And--
like, for me, that was totally not my goal.
And, like, for me, like,
I--
there were even, like, times at the beginning where I was--
like, I was negotiating down the percent, the percentages of the ETH distribution
that, like, both myself and the other top-level founders would get
because I want it to be more egalitarian.
And that was a--
like, that did make them upset.
The reason Vitalik had so much success is because his focus is set on what Ethereum can do for the world,
not the power it will give him or how much money he can squeeze out of it.
Money was never his priority.
Vitalik asked Charles Hoskinson to leave Ethereum because he didn't want to make it a business.
His net worth is less than a billion dollars, and he's done that on purpose.
He even donated and burned $6 billion worth of SHIB tokens last year.
Chow mentions in the article
Buterin is not the formal leader of Ethereum
and he fundamentally rejects the idea that anyone should hold a unilateral power over its future.
He knows what too much power can do to a person.
And that's why everything is voted on and not enforced like some type of overreaching executive order.
Considering this article is called The Prince of Crypto Has Concerns,
much of the article encompasses the problems Vitalik has with the world he created,
why it's essential that we do the right thing for the sake of Ethereum and blockchain as a whole.
His worst fear for the future of crypto is it ends up in the hands of dictatorial governments.
Vitalik correctly points out that crypto itself has a lot of dystopian potential
if implemented wrong.
He's 100% right about that.
First and foremost, it disgusts me to my core when people leverage blockchain
and scam people out of millions of dollars.
The evil in the world will always show its face when money is involved.
But blockchain was made to change the world for the better.
Keep in mind, he's from Russia and that the conflict in Ukraine
has affected him on a deeper level than most.
In an email to TIME on March 14, Vitalik highlighted,
"One silver lining of the situation in the last three weeks
is that it has reminded a lot of people in the crypto space
that ultimately the goal of crypto is not to play games with million-dollar pictures of monkeys.
It's to do things that accomplish meaningful effects in the real world."
It's safe to say that Ethereum is in practiced humble hands.
With the merge of ETH 2.0 coming this year,
it's only a matter of time until ETH far exceeds expectations.
It's debatable if Ethereum will ever flip Bitcoin,
but I think it has a great chance to do so eventually.
But another popular debate happening in the industry right now
is if the 4-year cycle remains strong or if it's as broken as the stock-to-flow model.
One thing is certain.
We are, without a doubt, in uncharted territory.
The banks and the venture capitalists were once on the sidelines negatively speculating.
Guess what.
Now, they're in the game,
and there's blood in the streets.
They're used to the amount of Bitcoin that's currently in circulation.
In 738 days,
that supply is going to get cut in half.
The demand is higher than ever,
and the supply is going to be lower than ever.
You see where I'm going with this?
Here's an example.
US has banned the imports of Russian oil,
which accounts for 8-11% of our supply.
The demand has remained the same.
And look what has happened to oil and gas prices.
Now, look at Bitcoin,
whose demand continues to rise exponentially every year.
When the supply gets cut in half and it tops a year and a half after every halving without fail,
how can you say it's broken?
Bitcoin analyst Willy Woo recently tweeted,
"We're likely seeing the first signs of 'The Last Cycle' thesis playing out.
Three relatively short bull and bear markets have transpired since the 2019 bottom already.
i.e. No more 4-year cycles."
No disrespect, but I have to disagree with his take on this.
The truth is,
it's too early to tell whether or not the 4-year cycles are broken or not.
Just like it's too early to say if Benjamin Cowen's lengthening cycle theory is correct or not.
Keep in mind, Willie's wording is
"We're likely seeing the first signs of 'The Last Cycle' thesis playing out."
"We're likely" isn't enough for me to take that big of a stance
when it's too early to tell in the first place.
No one has a crystal ball, and that's what makes crypto so fun to speculate on.
The unexpected.
What I do know is that the supply shock after the next halving
will be unlike anything we've seen before in this market.
And until we're at that point in time,
it remains to be seen if we're on or off track for the traditional 4-year cycle.
Time will tell.
That's all I got.
Be blessed.
BitBoy out.