Each passing day brings us closer to the complete end of international relations and hyperinflation. And yet, bitcoin keeps to the floor.
News from the front
Torpedoed the sabotage of the gas pipelines under the sea and the Crimean bridge possible torpedoes back to the negotiating table. Moscow is now waging an all-out war on Ukraine and a new beginning could soon open north of kyiv.
General Sergueï Surovicine who oversees the warfare did not go there in four ways:
“I am not willing to sacrifice any more Russian soldiers in a guerilla war against the fierce hordes of armed NATO followers. We have enough forces and technical means to lead Ukraine to full capitalization. »
In response, EU Foreign Affairs Commissioner Josep Borrell promised to increase EU military aid to 3.1 billion euros and train the Ukrainian military. [2000 en France].
The recent Russian bombing “They will not hang our resolve, they will only strengthen it”he said from the top of his ivory tower in Brussels.
President Zelensky sent from his part this Tuesday that it is “There is no room for negotiation with Putin”. This bravado comes because the Russian military has just destroyed much of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, something Moscow had not done until now.
Many cities, including the capital Kyiv, will be without water and electricity this winter.
Some media claim that the authorities are preparing residents for the fact that they may be without electricity for a while. »
The President of Russia said that “Russia could deliver about 27 billion cubic meters of gas [via Nord Stream II] “. “The ball is in the court of the European Union, if it wants”.
I don’t want thank you. The old sector chose to align itself with American foreign policy and flirted with the third world war.
European politicians prefer hyperinflation, years of recession, and themselves in captivity of gas from the United States, very happy to be able to sell us their surpluses five to six times more expensive than gas from Siberia.
Bruno Le Maire, the one he wanted, was very unhappy “The cause of the collapse of the Russian economy”and today takes offense when Uncle Sam is being ripped off:
Europe was being kindly rolled in flour by the Americans. Its industry will atrophy and it will be necessary to say thank you more for the gas sold at the price of gold.
Mr. Biden will do anything to elevate the situation, even at the cost of destroying Ukraine. On the contrary, the Kremlin will not accept anything other than a neutral government in Kyiv, the denaturalization of the country and the annexation of the Russian-speaking regions.
In short, we are heading towards ever-increasing scarcity and inflation. That will encourage more and more people to convert some of their euros into bitcoins.
And now the inflation of electronics?
Many do not know that the United States dropped a bomb on China last week. All American engineers working in China’s semiconductor and memory card industries had to choose between quitting their jobs and losing their US citizenship.
The goal is to curb China’s advances in artificial intelligence, supercomputers and weapons. Ultimately, it is clearly a matter of bringing about regime change.
That said, American firms only control 10% of the market. The semiconductor heavyweights are now Taiwanese TSMC and Korean Samsung.
However, these two countries are allied with the United States and will probably not be asked to stop selling the latest generation semiconductors to China, which can continue to build basic things like with washing machines.
The European bishop is not left out. The Dutch ASML plans to comply with this electronic embargo as well. ASML (Advanced Semi-conductor Materials Lithography) is the only company in the world to build lithography machines in the extreme ultraviolet necessary for the manufacture of the best semiconductors.
Semiconductors are the Middle Kingdom’s Achilles heel. It imported 369 billion units from January to August. These imports cost $277 billion, more than oil imports.
However, it should be noted that China controls almost 20% of the market. Admittedly, we are far from Samsung’s 3 nm chips. Not to mention TSMC, which aims for 1.4 nm within five years. But Shanghai produces semiconductors industrially in 14 nanometers.
Moreover, the Shanghai-based firm SMIC seems to have mastered the manufacturing of 7 nm chips. They are especially used in MinerVa bitcoin mining machines. Seven nanometers… It is as good as the American Intel, even if production volumes remain low.
It should also be remembered that China controls more than 90% of rare earths refining, which is vital in high technology. An F-35 fighter jet requires 417 kg of materials containing rare earths. In other words, each is owned by the goat.
All this means more penalties and disruption to potentially critical long-term supply chains. If you thought the war with Russia was inflationary, the semiconductor shortage will be even worse.
Especially if China decides against invading Taiwan…
Unfortunately, everything points to more inflation, which sooner or later will do business with bitcoin.
“Every road leads to Bitcoin”as Greg Foss aptly mentioned at the Amsterdam Bitcoin conference.
Glassnode Summary of Weekly Reviews On Chain
Much of this week’s analysis was based on the Futures market. Simply note that the trading volumes on this market are relatively low (24 billion dollars per day as well).
We are back to levels last seen in December 2020, just before the last bull cycle that took us up to $67,000:
Glassnode expects volatility to come, and it could ” Break out ” in question…
Let’s finish by saying that the bear Nassim Nicholas Taleb closed his shorts. Signs are unmistakable. There is a bottom in…
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Journalist reporting on the Bitcoin revolution. My papers deal with bitcoin through geopolitical, economic and libertarian prisms.
