jim of Jim's blog (@jim7z)

The price of Bitcoin is apt to fluctuate dramatically, because the flow of fresh money into Bitcoin usually comes in short bursts. The price of reached new highs because of a dramatic flow of fresh money in November and December. It is now stagnant below those highs because the flow has slowed, but not stopped. If the flow continues at the current slow rate, Bitcoin will eventually rise to new highs, but rather more slowly than in past dramatic moves. Should the flow stop completely tomorrow, as it stopped completely from 2022 January to 2024 February, the price of Bitcoin will stabilise to around $50 000, which would be rather disappointing compared to its previous stabilisation during the previous lull at $30 000, with brief dip to $16 000 (which I called). But precisely because it is slow, but has been running for considerably longer than previous short and sudden rushes of new money into Bitcoin, it seems likely to continue running, in which case Bitcoin will continue rising. As Bitcoin becomes more mainstream, and as halvings have less and less impact, we should be entering a regime of stable flow of new money. Flow has been very bursty, but has been steadily becoming less bursty. Peace in the Ukraine is likely to delay the rise of the petrobitcoin, but the damage to SWIFT is irreparable. The petroBitcoin is coming, slower than I expected, but is inevitable. A full refund of the money stolen from Russia would delay it considerably, but would not undo the damage done by stealing it in the first place. Peace in the Ukraine will also prevent a Russian led SWIFT replacement, which is good for our plans to replace SWIFT. Bitcoin is mobile, gold is immobile, but paper gold is mobile. Bitcoin's biggest competitor as a store of value is paper gold. If Fort Knox is empty, expect a large movement from paper gold to Bitcoin. Not that Putin's plans to replace SWIFT were getting anywhere. Putin was running into resistance and betrayal from within from the bankers and bureaucrats similar to the resistance and betrayal from within that Trump suffered from his first cabinet and the bureaucrats during his first term. It was resembled an episode of "Yes Prime Minister". Putin needed to bump off a few bankers, and failed to do so. Perhaps he would have done so eventually, but peace in the Ukraine, if we get peace in the Ukraine, would forestall that.