- When Bitcoin starts making all-time highs it has the ability to suddenly convert critics
- Various people and entities have been commenting on crypto this week, with interesting results
- Have they really changed their tune or are there underlying motives?
It’s one of the most well-known maxims in the crypto space that no one wants to know about crypto in a bear market but when it’s doing well then everyone wants a piece. This seems to be playing out again as in the last week we have seen individuals and entities who have previously denigrated crypto suddenly showing an interest, although their rationale is questionable.
Donald Trump
In 2020, Trump’s former National Security Adviser John Bolton claimed that then-US president Donald Trump wanted to “go after Bitcoin” in 2018 and ordered Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to clamp down on the trading and selling of the cryptocurrency, believing it to be fraudulent.
Six years later, however, it seems that Trump and crypto may have patched up their differences, probably because Trump found a way to use the space to grift millions of dollars from his followers with his NFTs. On Monday, Trump told CNBC’s Squawk Box that he now sees “a lot of use” for Bitcoin and admitted that he was “not sure that I’d want to take it away at this point.”
Bill Ackman
In May 2021, Pershing Square Capital Management founder and CEO Bill Ackman savaged the entire crypto space following the collapse of Terra/LUNA, claiming that none had any intrinsic value. Just three years later, however, Ackman seems on the surface to be interested in picking up some bitcoin, but it seems that it’s not for the reasons one might suspect:
A scenario:
Bitcoin price rise leads to increased mining and greater energy use, driving up the cost of energy, causing inflation to rise and the dollar to decline, driving demand for Bitcoin and increased mining, driving demand for energy and the cycle continues.
Bitcoin… https://t.co/a5LzX69R7q
— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) March 9, 2024
Can we count Ackman as a convert, then? Not really, especially when he’s maxing out on Helium.
India
India is known to be very anti-crypto, which makes it all the more interesting that yesterday Indian crypto investment platform Mudrex was given the green light to offer US Bitcoin ETFs to citizens. US-based Mudrex, which has a subsidiary registered with the Intelligence Unit of India. will list four spot ETFs – BlackRock, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, and Vanguard – with the potential for more down the line.
The development is a surprise given that India’s crypto regulations are split between the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Finance Ministry: while the RBI opposes crypto, the Finance Ministry’s Intelligence Unit has registered over two dozen Indian crypto service providers and imposed taxes.
Mudrex, therefore, has managed to slip through the back door somewhat thanks to its connection to the Intelligence Unit of India, and we sadly can’t see this as a sign of unity from India’s regulators.
