Visa Buys a Punk as Bitcoin Returns to $50K

The Breakdown

Blockworks

Investing, Business

4.8 • 786 Ratings

🗓️ 24 August 2021

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Late Sunday evening, bitcoin pushed above $50,000 for the first time in three months. Overall BTC is up 46% in the last 30 days. NLW explores arguments that this move has been spot driven and connected to institutions and whales. He also looks at the potential implications of the Federal Reserve’s Jackson Hole meeting later this week. In the second part of the show, he looks at the news that has Crypto Twitter on fire: Visa bought a CryptoPunk. The purchase, executed for around $150,000, is being maligned by some as a marketing stunt, while others see it as heralding a new era of institutional purchases of non-fungible tokens. NLW looks at both sides and ultimately argues that neither is exactly correct. Instead, it seems to be about inserting Visa’s business into a new digital market. Enjoying this content? SUBSCRIBE to the Podcast Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1438693620?at=1000lSDb Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/538vuul1PuorUDwgkC8JWF?si=ddSvD-HST2e_E7wgxcjtfQ Google: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9ubHdjcnlwdG8ubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M= Follow on Twitter: NLW: https://twitter.com/nlw Breakdown: https://twitter.com/BreakdownNLW “The Breakdown” is written, produced by and features NLW, with editing by Rob Mitchell and additional production support by Eleanor Pahl. Adam B. Levine is our executive producer and our theme music is “Countdown” by Neon Beach. The music you heard today behind our sponsor is “Only in Time” by Abloom. Image credit: Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images Entertainment, modified by CoinDesk.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Visa wants to be in the middle of transactions across a long tail of businesses, and it seems to me
0:05.2	that part of what they're seeing is a new category of digital commerce that they want to be in the
0:09.6	middle of. In other words, it's less about treasury reserves and stores of value, and more about
0:14.6	figuring out how to make money in a new economic market category. Welcome back to The Break breakdown with me, NLW.
0:23.8	It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world.
0:31.0	The breakdown is sponsored by Nidig and produced and distributed by CoinDesk.
0:37.3	What's going on, guys? It is Monday, August 23rd,
0:40.9	and it is an exciting little Monday morning we got here. First up, as I discussed on Saturday's
0:47.1	weekly recap, Bitcoin had just made a nice little punch-up heading into the weekend. Last night,
0:53.2	on Sunday, Bitcoin lifted its head above
0:55.4	50,000, where it remained until about an hour ago at the time of this recording. Some have called
1:01.9	this last month the short squeeze rally, referring to the fact that it was started as Bitcoin
1:06.6	held above $30,000 in the face of numerous short positions that forced those short sellers
1:12.3	to buy more at higher prices to keep their positions open, bada bing, bada boom, short squeeze.
1:17.1	Whatever the cause, over the last 30 days, Bitcoin is up around 46%.
1:21.4	And Bitcoin's peak in the last 24 hours around 50,200 is a three-month high.
1:30.1	Bitcoin has now recorded gains for five consecutive weeks, which is its longest winning streak since September of last year. Matthew Dib,
1:35.8	the co-founder and COO at Stack Funds, said that this rally, unlike some of our previous
1:40.5	frenetic moves up, hasn't been driven by derivatives bets, but instead by spot buying.
1:45.8	Quote, looking at funding in the options market, this rally still appears to be spot-driven.
1:50.8	Our expectation is that this break of psychological resistance will likely result in a rotation
1:55.2	back to Bitcoin in the coming weeks, with the next target of $60,000.
	...

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