Swan Signal Monthly: July 2020 Newsletter

The following is our monthly newsletter for July 2020. It includes:

• Liftoff: a short riff on an impor­tant topic
• A curated list of recent bitcoin content from Swan and around the web
• Behind the scenes updates from the Swan team

Liftoff: Is Bitcoin headed toward all time highs?

On July 27^th, Bitcoin broke out of a 2‑year downtrend, sending the price up to $11,400. BTC closed up 11% on the day, causing a frenzy of excite­ment. Let’s examine Bitcoin from a risk vs reward standpoint.

Now may be the best risk-adjusted time to buy Bitcoin in its 11-year history. While there might not be quite as much upside poten­tial as there was when a Bitcoin cost a dollar, the risks today are signif­i­cantly less.

Bitcoin is no longer an Internet curiosity. It has emerged as a major player on the world stage. Compa­nies such as Square, Visa, IBM, JP Morgan, and Fidelity are investing in Bitcoin projects. 

Many of the most impor­tant investors on the planet are buying Bitcoin. For example: Paul Tudor Jones said he’s putting almost 2% of his fund’s assets into Bitcoin, saying “every day that goes by that Bitcoin survives, the trust in it will go up.” The Bitcoin network has run with 99.98% uptime for more than 11 years and has never been compromised.

Even elements of the U.S. govern­ment are begin­ning to embrace Bitcoin. Late last year, U.S. Congressman Patrick McHenry said in a hearing on cryptocur­rency that “the world that Satoshi Nakamoto, author of the Bitcoin white paper, envisioned is an unstop­pable force.” And just this month the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) published a letter clari­fying that national banks can now legally custody Bitcoin.

The list goes on and on, and the message is clear: Bitcoin is here to stay. In other words, the downside risk of owning Bitcoin has never been lower. 

What about the upside? 

Although Bitcoin might sound “expen­sive” at $11,000. The good news is there’s still a ton of upside. The total market cap of Bitcoin is around $200 billion. Respectable, but still tiny compared to major assets like gold. Gold’s market cap is still about 50 times larger. Let’s assume Bitcoin reaches only 10% of Gold’s market cap… we’re looking at $50 thousand per Bitcoin, or nearly 5x from today. There is plenty of room to run.

The world is waking up to Bitcoin. 

Every day more people are starting to buy Bitcoin as an invest­ment. The current uncer­tainty in the macro­eco­nomic climate doesn’t hurt either. Since there will only ever be 21 million Bitcoins, an increase in demand means the price can only go up. Do you think more or less people will buy Bitcoin in the future? All indica­tors point to very exciting years ahead

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Noted Invest­ment Strate­gist Lyn Alden Recom­mends Swan

Join Lyn and Start Investing with Swan Now

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Beginner Friendly Resources

Bitcoin: A Guide for the Perplexed with Vijay Boyapati by The Tom Woods Show

Crash course into Bitcoin, why it matters to the world (and you), where it’s headed, and why it’s superior to Gold. 

Why does Bitcoin use Hash Functions? Twitter Thread by Dany Diekroeger

A fun thread to enrich your under­standing of Bitcoin. “hash functions” are like finger­prints for data. No tech background required.

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Bitcoin Tidbit: What is “Stacking Sats?”

​[/stak/-ING sats]

1. Verb: the act of regularly accumu­lating Bitcoin. This term has been organ­i­cally adopted by the Bitcoin commu­nity because it’s a catchy phrase and acquiring small amounts of Bitcoin every week is the most rational approach to accumu­lating it. Sats is short for Satoshis, the smallest unit of Bitcoin. Matt Odell gets credit for popular­izing the phrase, but the origin is unknown.

Example of stacking sats in a sentence:

Friend: hey do you trade BTC?

Me: No way, most traders lose all their money. I’m stacking sats with Swan.

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Bitcoin Content Showcase

Bitcoin Invest­ment Thesis by Fidelity Digital Assets
Fidelity makes the case that Bitcoin is an aspira­tional store of value. The report explores the inherent charac­ter­is­tics that position Bitcoin to fulfill this role in the future and discusses factors that may drive greater demand for such utility.

3 Reasons I’m Investing in Bitcoin by Lyn Alden
Lyn Alden published an in-depth analysis highlighting three reasons why she started buying Bitcoin in 2020. Lyn is another example of the macro investors getting into Bitcoin this year. 

Masters and Slaves of Money by Robert Breedlove
Breedlove explores money as a tool for trading human time and the impli­ca­tions throughout history. He argues that central banking is a weapon to steal time and inflict wealth inequality. Bitcoin, as incor­rupt­ible money, is the defense.

Debunking Common Bitcoin Myths by Yassine Elmandjra
Yassine gives thoughtful rebut­tals to common Bitcoin myths such as: Bitcoin is too volatile, Bitcoin is a bubble, Bitcoin is for crimi­nals, Bitcoin wastes energy, and more. 

Bitcoin’s Town Square by Zane Pocock
For most Bitcoiners, the mempool is simply a list of pending trans­ac­tions. Zane argues they’re the center­piece to the Bitcoin economy and totally underrated

Highlights from Swan’s Content

Swan is dedicated to producing great content to educate and raise aware­ness about Bitcoin. Our blog, Swan Signal, features thoughts and opinions on Bitcoin from the Swan team and friends. 

On our weekly live broad­cast, Swan Signal Live, a pair of experts join us to discuss Bitcoin economics and technology. The live broad­cast is then published as audio on the Swan Signal Podcast.   

Swan Signal Live 17: Jimmy Song and Aleks Svetski
Join us for a discus­sion on the merits of being “Bitcoin-only,” morality in Bitcoin, Bitcoin’s immune system, and the macro­eco­nomic impact of Bitcoin. 

Swan Signal Live 18: Stephan Livera and Marty Bent
We discuss every­thing from dominant Bitcoin narra­tives and the state of mining, to Austrian economics liter­a­ture and the future of Bitcoin.

Swan Signal Live 19: Ben Prentice and Mark Moss
Tune in to learn about defla­tion, the role of money in an economy, pushback from govern­ments, and Bitcoin’s game theory. 

Swan Signal Live 20: Samson Mow and Parker Lewis
Exploring geopol­i­tical tensions, Bitcoin mining, the integrity of Bitcoin businesses, and their expec­ta­tions for the next bull run. 

Swan Signal Live 21: Lyn Alden and Jeff Booth
Watch a great discus­sion about monetary manip­u­la­tion, deflation/inflation, Bitcoin as an invest­ment, the questions of a peaceful path to Bitcoin and price speculation. 

How to Delete Coinbase in 3 easy Steps
Learn why people are deleting their Coinbase accounts, step-by-step how to delete your account, and why the alter­na­tives are superior.

Behind the Scenes at Swan

We launched the Bitcoin Arsenal! The arsenal is a repos­i­tory of resources, memes, and art used to teach and advocate for Bitcoin. Check it out here and follow the Bitcoin Arsenal account on Twitter. This is just the begin­ning; we plan to continue to help the commu­nity to build out this resource. 

• A huge number of Swan members have increased their weekly purchase amounts over the past week.  As always, you can update your plan from your dashboard.
• We expect to launch one-time purchases in August. Stay tuned for that announce­ment soon!
• Our weekly Swan Signal Live video and podcast format is receiving rave reviews. We carefully pair two guests, leading to unique insights not found anywhere else. SSL airs on Twitter and YouTube or you can listen and subscribe to the audio podcast at swansignalpodcast.com
• Our referral program, “Swan Force,” is growing. If you want to earn BTC for refer­ring other users to Swan, join here. Earn 25% of your refer­rals’ fees for 3 years when they become a Swan member (annual plan of $50/wk or more).

Thank you!

We are deeply thankful for all of you, our early adopters. Thank you for helping us take flight. We are proud to fly along­side you on this Bitcoin adventure.

Your turn… Did you like this newsletter? What do you think about Swan? Any sugges­tions? We’d love to hear from you. Find us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Email us at hello@swanbitcoin.com, or just reply to this one!

Thanks,
The Swan Team

P.S. Subscribe to the Swan Signal YouTube channel for full episodes, highlights and our newly launched Bitcoin FAQ in which cofounder Yan Pritzker concisely answers common Bitcoin questions. 

Get paid to recruit new Bitcoiners! Click here for the details.