Sunday Essentials 🪥 by JAD (7/21/24)
Your bi-weekly reminder to brush and floss every day - and more!
Gm gm everyone~
Mt. Gox repayments (~$9B worth of BTC) + US Government sell-offs of seized BTC (~$2B worth of BTC) + German Government sell-offs of seized BTC (~$2.9B worth of BTC) = a painful crypto market 📉
Where others were fearful, seek opportunity.
As such, I added to my positions during the tumultuous market over the past few weeks and am pretty happy these days 😄
With a wave of “pro-crypto political support” in the US, BlackRock stating “BTC is a legitimate financial instrument”, as well as the launch of the ETH ETFS scheduled for July 23rd, are things looking up for the crypto market?
I’m cautiously optimistic.
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The Milk Road did a great piece on the global crypto market the other week. I‘ll break down some of the biggest takeaways right here:
Asia has ~326M total crypto users
This is 4.5x more than the US
South America grew by +116% users from 2023 to 2024
BTC is the most widely held asset across all continents
This nice chart shows us the % of a country’s population that owns crypto, with the UAE, Singapore, and Turkey coming in as the top 3
Countries with high inflation rates are seeing greater adoption of crypto
Turkey at 60% inflation
Argentina at 250% inflation
Venezuela at 100% inflation
Countries are utilizing stablecoins for holding and transferring money
Just because you’re sitting comfortably in the US with no need for financial services offered in crypto…doesn’t mean that others throughout the world don’t utilize it on a daily basis. Think and learn outside your comfort zone. Where we in a fortunate position see a risky market, others use it for their livelihood as a financial instrument. Just some food for thought.
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Oh - I found this meme to be particularly funny 😂
Enjoy~ ☕️
Sony announced that they’ll be launching a cryptocurrency exchange in Japan, called S.BLOX 🎮
Jack Dorsey predicts that BTC will become a dominant currency and replace the US Dollar within the next 15 years 👀
Japanese company, MetaPlanet, added another $1.2M in BTC to their corporate treasury, with a total of ~203k BTC held 🤯
FTX and the CFTC has agreed to a $12.7B settlement 🤝
BlackRock’s tokenized fund, BUIDL has reached a total market cap of ~$500M in ~4 months 👀
Kraken is now the official crypto partner for football clubs Atletico de Madrid and Tottenham Hotspur ⚽️
Stripe has allowed for crypto payments in BTC, ETH, and SOL in the EU ✅
VanEck has begun offering BTC exposure through French pension plans ✅
Goldman Sachs announced plans to release three different tokenized products in both the US and Europe ✅
🇺🇸 The US Government transferred ~3,900 BTC, raising speculation of s sell-off
🇺🇸 US CPI has fallen to 3%, the lowest level in 3 years
🇺🇸 The city of Santa Monica in California is opening a “Bitcoin office” to provide education and allow for economic opportunities
🇬🇧 BTC Policy in the UK is pushing for the new Labour government to allow BTC mining to boost the country’s renewable energy grid
🇩🇪 Germany has been selling off confiscated BTC over the past several days, with an average sell price of ~$60k
🇮🇹 Italy is set to increase surveillance on the crypto market
🇬🇷 Greece recently introduced a 6-day work week
🇹🇼 Taiwan is prototyping a CBDC with ~20k transactions/second
🇦🇺 Australia launched its second BTC ETF through it’s ASX
This week’s interesting chart:
“Income a Family Needs (To Live Comfortably in the US)”
“Comfortable” can be quite the range depending on your preferences and habits.
This chart by SmartAsset defines it as two working adults with two children, with an annual income to cover a 50/30/20 budget (necessities/discretionary spending/savings respectively).
If anything, this gives you something to think about when considering one of your “big three”: what you do, where you live, and who you spend your life with.
What I’m Experimenting With
Pressed Juicery’s Cleanse 3 | Advanced Juice Cleanse
Earlier this week, I experimented with an “advanced” juice cleanse.
This consisted of 6 bottles of juice per day, at two-hour intervals.
Given my normal regimen of intermittent fasting and bi-yearly attempts at a 7-day water fast, this 5-day juice cleanse was “relatively” easy in comparison.
I am a big fan of Pressed Juicery as a whole, with their Pressed Freeze being one of my favorite “desserts”.
With 1/3/5/7-day options, I opted for the 5-day because I knew that the weekends would be heavy with food.
In Case You Missed It
Carlos Alcaraz has claimed the “Channel Slam” 🎾
For tennis fans, Carlos Alcaraz beat Novak Djokovic last week in the Wimbledon Finals in straight sets (what an accomplishment!), claiming his 4th Grand Slam Title before the age of 22 (an even greater accomplishment!!!).
In doing so, Alcaraz joined the coveted few who have claimed the Channel Slam, or winning both Roland-Garros (French Open) and Wimbledon in the same year.
Only 5 men have been able to accomplish this feat so far: Rod Laver, Bjorn Borg, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, and Nova Djokovic (in that order).
In regards to the current “Open Era” of tennis. At 21 years of age, Alcaraz has already cemented himself as a legend in the sport.
The full article delves into what makes this feat so difficult to achieve.
Food of the Week
Coco Ichibanya’s Fried Chicken Curry (Level 8 Spice)
And of course once the juice cleanse was over, I couldn’t help myself to my ultimate craving throughout the week - some good ol’ Japanese curry.
Stoic Passage
We could all use some simpler rules in our lives.
Person I’m Learning More About
Shavonne has become a friend over the past few years, and reading about her recent accomplishments has been nothing short of amazing.
Here’s a snippet of her most updated bio ⤵️
Photo of the Week
Stay safe out there and be happy~
Best,
Philip
Disclaimer:
All thoughts and opinions are my own; please DYOR (do your own research) and remember that this is NFA (not financial advice). After all, I’m just another dentist.