Hold the turkey, we roast a SharkTank Millionaire *scammer*

Bostoncoin update Nov-Dec 2023

Good News & Jolly Bitcoin Holidays

Where the markets go in January and February is anyone’s guess, but we are guessing a large rise with some minor pullbacks as some people take profits.

Embattled crypto exchange Mt.Gox claims it will repay many investors' funds by Christmas and continue into January. Some Mt.Gox investors have been waiting years to get their funds. Considering they have been HODLing by force and not by choice, some may choose to sell, but we think the entrained hodling behaviour may persist. If you had seen your investment climb 6000% and drop 85%, and climb 3000% again, you might know the benefits of long-term holding.

Another Bitcoin president?

El Salvador became the first “Bitcoin nation” in June 2021, due to its innovative president Nayib Bukele. We may now be looking at a second Bitcoin nation in Latin America. The new president of Argentina is an economist with some revolutionary ideas, including cryptocurrency.

(Those who know a little history will know that a war-torn impoverished nation with zero natural resources elected an economist instead of a politician after WW2. A few decades later, the broke and asset-poor Singapore was the financial powerhouse of Asia, proving that economists run countries way better than politicians. We digress...)

New Argentinian president Javier Gerardo Milei has promised to cut spending, reduce the size of government, and eliminate the country’s central bank. Rothchild fans know that central banks can exert more control over a nation than its government. Removing a central bank is a major project, but it is possible.

Currently, only ten nations out of 192 do not have a central bank. As these ten small non-central-bank nations only represent 4.5 million people in total or half of 1% of the world population, it is arguable whether the Rothschild banks even care about them.

Argentina, however, has a population of 45 million, ten times as many people as the combined ten unbanked small nations. Argentina could thus be represented as being the same size as 100 tiny nations. Argentinians collectively hold 10% of all the USD in circulation in the world. This is the kind of math that could make the IMF and central bankers take notice.

World-watching analysts suggest that if Argentina follows El Salvador into embracing cryptocurrency and ousting its central bank, that would mean another 200 million people escaping what President Milei called “the central bank scam.”

A few million people here and a few million there, and suddenly, you have a quarter of a billion people escaping the central banks. How do revolutions start? First slowly, then very quickly… Watch this space!

Around the world with Bitcoin

Australia plans to impose capital gains tax (CGT) on wrapped crypto. This is basically when an asset (e.g. Bitcoin) is wrapped in a layer of another (eg. ETH) so it can be sent on another blockchain. Even though the wrapped Bitcoin could be seen as being sent, not bought or sold, the Australian Tax Office (ATO) has a different interpretation.

The ATO consider that one asset is disposed of, and another created, so it is a taxable event. We could argue that a letter was placed inside an envelope and sent with a stamp, and that does not change the nature of the letter, but who are we to fight the ATO? Regardless of whether you love taxes or hate them, this can be seen as government confirmation: crypto is here to stay.

German parliamentary member Joana Cotar has called for Bitcoin to become legal tender in her country. She makes some great points about having sufficient crypto regulation to reduce money laundering while being free to maintain innovation. Ms Cotar not only embraces Bitcoin, she is also decidedly against a central bank digital Euro. For those playing at home, the population of Germany is around 90 million, or two Argentinas.

It will be interesting if a few more Southern- and Central-American nations decide to oust their central banks and adopt cryptocurrencies. Imagine the implications if a handful of European nations say yes to crypto and no to a digital Euro.

Could that lead to the eventual end of the Rothchilds’ central banks, the IMF and the WEF? Or would it be a reinvention or revolution? Feel free to join the discussion on Twitter, or Facebook or drop us a line with your thoughts.

Bin up and bin down

In November, Changpeng Zhao (known as “CZ”) the boss of Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange, agreed to step down as CEO and pay around $4 billion in fines. CZ was accused of not reporting suspicious transactions, which may or may not have been Binance clients using the exchange for money laundering or terrorist activity.

Whilst crypto-haters applaud the news, we must remind the general population that accusations of money laundering are not exclusive to crypto.

From 2015 to 2018, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia took in several large transactions and failed to report them to AUSTRAC (the bank police). How many times did CommBank engage in “law-breaking on a grand scale”, the court asked. Oh, it was just 53 506 times… The CommBank was fined $700 million, or around 6% of their annual profit.

Then there was the Westpac Bank, which also engaged in money laundering. Just to spice things up, it was not terrorists, but money laundering linked to child exploitation. Westpac was fined $1.3 billion, the largest corporate fine in history at the time.

The neighbouring National Australia Bank was involved in money laundering and scams but “only” laundered around $25 million. They received a $0 fine and promised to try harder next time.

Next time you hear someone saying that crypto is used for money laundering or criminal activity, gently remind them that *so are all the banks*…

Two or three or even fifty thousand dodgy bank transactions amongst billions and trillions of good ones, is not a reason to close your bank accounts and keep your cash under the mattress.  A couple of bad actors are not reasons to avoid crypto. Not all crypto exchanges or cryptocurrency tokens are bad, so quit the prejudice and stay informed. #notallcrypto

Whilst prosecuting Binance CEO “CZ” was a small win for regulators over organised crime, one could say that the US government does a very poor job of protecting investors. The SEC failed to protect investors from FTX and instead spent their effort going after decent and complying exchanges like Coinbase and Kraken, who never lost a dollar of user funds.

When the SEC witchhunted Coinbase last year, the stock dropped massively. We bought it at a discount because we believed in the project. Now, Coinbase stock is up over 225% YTD. It may take time, but the good guys will come out on top. Hang in there.

If you are sad about Binance, know that the company is still in business, and there are some funny memes around to make you smile, like this one, or this one. Both of these short video clips brought some thunderous laughter around the Bostoncoin office, during an otherwise difficult time.

Shut up and *don’t* take my money

Whilst we are on the topic of Janet Yellen talking funny, maybe it’s time to press mute on this guy? The infamous Shark Tank swindler who promoted FTX and SBF, is now endorsing another dodgy crypto exchange.

You may know him as “Mister Wonderful”, but it was he who gave himself the name, so it probably does not count. (Just as Donald Trump once introduced himself as “your favourite president”; settle down Don: you are not even in my ‘Top 500 Presidents’.)

Kevin O’Leary (whom we will now call “Mister Questionable”) was paid large amounts of money to endorse FTX, during the time that its CEO was literally stealing investors’ money, and before the company went super-duper-bankrupt.

We can understand that some other celebrities may not have been aware of SBF’s thievery or the unavoidable downfall of FTX. Most smiling celebrities are famous for being pretty or athletic: they did not know that SBF’s girlfriend kept no less than seven sets of books on the company to try to disguise the embezzlement. But Kevin purports to be some kind of financial and business whiz, so perhaps he should have looked at the books before saying how great FTX was…

It is some kind of karma to know that O’Leary lost almost all of the $15 million he was paid to advertise FTX, and we will not feel sad to know he lost his ill-gotten gains. More recently, O’Leary has been advertising a new exchange with some bold claims.

First O’Leary said the new “M2” crypto exchange was going to dethrone Binance (or is it “Beh-nance”?). As Binance is world number 1, that is a big task. Secondly, M2 claims to be based in Abu Dhabi (nope, they are in the Bahamas, the same place where SBF was hiding out before being arrested and sentenced to prison).

Thirdly, the M2 exchange offers some unbelievable returns, such as 11% on stablecoin USDT, and 10% each on Bitcoin and Ethereum. Before FTX and Celsius went bankrupt, they also claimed to pay high returns for those who lent them crypto, but the returns were not as high as these claims.

Let’s be clear: the bank can afford to pay you 4% on your cash savings only if they are charging someone else 6% or more for their mortgage. To pay out 10-11% for investors, M2 would have to be charging interest of 20-30% to someone else. Who would be paying those high rates? Our guesses would be either 1) nobody or 2) someone who is at very high risk of default. In any case, tread carefully when someone is offering returns that are unmatched in the entire industry.

Finally, remember that when everything is on the blockchain, everyone can see it and verify it. When O’Leary claims that M2 is on the tail of beating Binance, we can analyse the on-chain data and see that even if M2 was 1000 times larger than it currently is, it would still be not even 1% of Binance trade figures. If you cannot back up anything you are saying with even one fact, maybe it’s time to shush.

How did we go this month?

Bostoncoin

Assemble   up 555%

Solana        up 492%

LivePeer     up 208%

ChainLink   up 207%

In 2022, many of our competitors shut down, as they did not have the strength or integrity to last in a bear market. We look forward to 2024, when many new competitors will emerge, making things more interesting.

DARTcoin

ThorChain (RUNE) is **==up 1922% ==**since we bought it and is up 523% for the year. It is time for us to take some profits and rebalance for safety, while holding some RUNE for future gains.

Our investment in Render (RNDR) is up 712% for the year, and we are OK to hold this one for a while longer, as we see more to come from this project. Render was first profiled on Cryllionaire.com in July 2023 when it was around $0.50.

We first bought Arbitrum (ARB)  after it dropped from $1.80 down to $0.70, and enjoyed the bounce back up to $1.20 for around 50% gains. You can read the full profile using the link here.

As of November 30, 2023

BOS NAV AUD 76.843388905

BOS Price AUD 84.5277277955

BOS NAV USD 52.9492654369

BOS Price USD 58.2441919806

DART NAV AUD 155.2695949772

DART Price AUD 170.7965544749

DART NAV USD  103.290581

DART Price USD 113.61964

We trust you stay safe and healthy through the holiday season. May you spend time with those you love (if you are alone, feel free to love yourself, or reach out to us or others). Time off can be a great time to refresh, renew and recreate.

The BostonTrading team includes people of various faiths, including Christian, Buddhist, Hindu and Atheist, so there may be some who do not take the “normal” public holidays. Feel free to get in touch if you need to, as someone may be on deck.

If you are stuck for a gift idea, we are fairly sure that everyone would love to get their hands on even just one of your Bostoncoins or DARTcoins 😊

If you are not feeling generous enough to gift one of your tokens, send your loved ones this article, and they, too, can find out how we make great crypto gains safely and simply. See you in 2024.

JB