The Case of the Bankerless Bubble

When I first started writing about and accumulating Bitcoin this summer, I had a vague inkling that at some point real money was going to start rushing in as it was “discovered” by the real money crowd. I’ve seen a few cycles by now and I have a rough idea of the cadence of these things.

By September, 10,000 points ago, I was sure of it (see: You can practically smell it in the air).

And now, the race is on. Wall Street is banging down the doors. There are meetings and events being held all over The Street to try to figure out a way in. One major global financial institution, I’m told by employees, has made “figuring out the custody issue” a top priority internally.

But here’s the funny thing – what if they missed it already? On the Gemini Exchange, the price of a Bitcoin just changed hands for over $14,000! We have a full-blown mania on our hands and Wall Street is still at the drawing board!

It’s the first ever Bankerless Bubble. And I’ve read all the market history books. There’s never been a phenomenon like this where the general public beats the Big Money in. It usually works the other way ’round – Wall Street pumps up a story, enriching themselves, finally retailing exposure out to the moms & pops when they’re ready to take profits.

They have no profits currently, because they own none of it. No one needed them to create it, promote it, trade it, package it, hype it, hold it, analyze it, manage it, custody it, store it, move it, leverage it or even talk about it. 

So either the banks missed it or we’re really just getting started. I have no idea, but I find the whole idea of a speculative bubble that moved too fast for the banks to be a delicious one.

The irony of it all is that the Bitcoin whitepaper sprung directly from the crisis itself in 2008. It was a reaction to the bailouts and money-printing that generated the idea and the Genesis block to begin with.

So does that make this karma?