Messari Daily Brief Jan. 8, 2021 - A Torrid Pace

Many of us who have been around for a couple of bitcoin cycles are counterintuitively hoping for a pullback and period of consolidation right about now. That's because the *pace* of this rally feels unsustainable even if we may still (directionally) have some room to run. CaseBitcoin’s “doubling time” metric (the days it takes BTC to double from a previous threshold) has flashed inauspicious multi-year lows this week: the only comparably frothy periods were in April 2013, November 2013, and December 2017. Of course, significant selloffs followed each of those euphoric spikes.

But (Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t say it.) this time feels different.

Messari alum Qiao Wang pointed out that a number of on-chain metrics suggest long-term hodlers aren't selling. I for one have borrowed more against my appreciated holdings rather than sell, so there’s anecdotal truth there. Perhaps we’re in the early stages of a crypto credit bubble. Or as Qiao predicts, any near-term blow-off top could look more like 2013’s "double bubble” than 2017’s spring spike, summer pullback, and December peak. That makes sense to me, too. It’s hard to imagine the new wave of institutional investors bidding on the “digital gold” narrative will do anything other than BTFD this year. New entrants are in accumulation mode. Barring any negative regulatory shocks, whale FOMO and dip buying will likely dampen selloffs.

Even in the "shock" scenarios, April 2013 ($265 peak) and May 2017 ($2979 peak) ended up being good times to buy bitcoin.

Headlines that matter:

+ INTEL: 1inch liquidity mining Rd 2 starts tomorrow; Mass resignations at Aragon; 0x v4
+ Coin Metrics: December stablecoin volumes eclipsed the previous September peak.
+ Bitcoin cracked the top 10 global currencies by M1.
+ DeFi token trading volumes are down to 5% of centralized exchange volume. (The Block)
+ Brad Garlinghouse says Ripple tried to settle with the SEC, and will try again with a new SEC
+ SoFi’s going public via a Chamath-backed SPAC (CoinDesk)
+ Early BitMEX founders settle ~$540 million lawsuit (Decrypt)
+ ICE’s Bakkt to SPAC in a $2 billion merger deal with Victory Park Capital (CoinDesk)
+ Coinbase hits #30 in the app store and acquires trade execution startup Routefire (The Block)
+ Daily Shade: We were all thinking it. Chamath said it.