The Crypto Comms #56; Scams & fraud everywhere

Chris on Crypto
5 min readJun 6, 2023

Bitcoin pulled a fast one and rug pulled the entire market, dropping 6% on Monday. The summer lull appears to have settled in and may drag on for a another week or two as the industry finds its footing. There are three choices before investors: VC-backed scams, government-sanctioned scams, or Bitcoin and Litecoin.

In this issue

  • Bitcoin analysis
  • Summer lull
  • Scams everywhere
  • Latest happenings
  • Listening material

Bitcoin/Dollar dropped 6% week-on-week and exchanges hands at $25,700 at press time. On Monday morning, the odds shifted in favour of sellers as prices rejected off $27,300. Right on time, as if by some mysterious coordinated effort, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced it filed 13 charges against Binance, tanking the market.

It’s almost as if there are no coincidences, only the illusion of coincidence.

At any rate, BTC/USD is in a downward channel which began in April. The next area for support is $25,000. If broken, a flush to $22,000 is on the cards.

The sell-off triggered a large volume spike not seen since May 10, indicating large players took part in the move. As noted by on-chain analyst James Straten, many short-term holders sold at a loss; some 21,000 BTC exchanged hands.

Should the summer lull continue, traders can expect range-bound price-action between $25,000 and $27,000 for the coming week or two. At the moment, price rests on a cluster of daily and weekly supportive moving averages (20, 50, 200 EMAs), which tend to offer confluence for buyers to step in.

On the upside, $35,000 remains a key area of interest for bulls. Until price reclaims $27,300 on the daily time-frame, then range-bound/bleeding price-action should be anticipated. On lower time-frames (H4), price is oversold.

Despite the disappointing technical picture, Bitcoin is still in the early stages of a bull market. The number of coins on exchanges is plummeting, and threatens to drop below 2.15 million coins, per data from cryptoquant.

The secular trend is in keeping with the general ethos of decentralisation, i.e. less Bitcoin for centralised entities and more for entities outside the fiat system.

Summer lull

Regardless, the summer lull is real and might drag on for a while longer. I have shifted some of my focus to non-public work, and might return during Bitcoin summer since I finance my public writings myself. It is all pro bono; all three years of it.

This is a waiting game that ultimately shakes out low-conviction hands. Whether it’s by design or whale players grinding each-other’s position(s) to see who blinks first can be an entertaining speculative exercise, but the result is all the same in the end — up and to the right.

Scams everywhere

Come Q4 2023, I expect crypto conferences to give birth to the next round of VC-backed ponzi tokens, besides promoting CBDCs of course (government-sanctioned scams). Their relative success is dependent on the general public’s ability to discern whether they’re getting screwed or not. Judging by the public’s wilful blindness in figuring out how screwed they got during covid lockdowns, the introduction of health passports and mRNA jabs which make you unhealthy, I wouldn’t get my hopes up. The public wants to be fooled — there is no other explanation.

Besides this deliberate abdication of their faculties of reason, the public — which likes to think itself innocent in fiat ponzi games — is also invested in scam tokens, perhaps still hoping to exit at break even, or better yet, for greater fools to pump prices to the stratosphere. Right on queue, the artificial intelligence narrative is gaining steam, and the opportunity to gamble your life savings away on shiny new narrative-based vapourware has come again. After all, this is the golden age of fraud and there is no time to waste on paradigm-shifting innovation! Narratives trump facts!

If the ponzi problem gets bad enough it’ll eventually become politically unfeasible to ignore the bodies rising to the surface, as was the case in 2022. And even when regulators act, it’s a botched job that takes years to resolve.

If you, as a retail or institutional investor wish to avoid scams within a reasonable time-frame (where you can react to the market), then valuing those who speak about scams is a start. Share an article — make a donation, commission a piece of work. There is no safety regulators can provide that can avail you — none. All they can provide is the illusion of safety, funded entirely by your taxes, and yet you aren’t whom they represent.

If you’re tired of scams and are interested in long-form write-ups regarding financial fraud, criminal VCs or their criminal friends in government, or analysis pieces of any kind which doesn’t necessarily involve crime/fraud, get in touch. I write such reports from time to time. If you’re promoting a ponzi token, don’t bother. Neither entrepreneurs nor regulators have earned any trust. Their actions speak louder than I ever could.

No confidence. All in Bitcoin.

Cheers.

Latest happenings

Listening material

Dear readers,

The purpose of this newsletter analysis is to provide context to current events and cryptocurrency markets. It is released every Tuesday. I am not perfect and this is not a science — nor is this newsletter analysis a signals service or financial advice. While I cannot promise perfection I do my best to be honest and transparent.

Thank you for reading.

Kindly consider sharing this write-up if you find it useful.

Contact

  • Contact me with feedback on contact@chrisoncrypto.com.
  • Join the Telegram channel for live updates.
    Follow me on Twitter.
  • Get in touch. Let’s work together.
  • Telegram: @chrisoncrypto

Support

You can show your support through the Bitcoin Lightning network or Litecoin’s MWEB.

LTC MWEB:

ltcmweb1qqt793qmlrvmj2ldu50ecxaud358fegsayls59wttgxc3f8cahdu7jq6np8le3g88q9p77w2dr2ennh2nuxzjg5ujkvq8x434pg74std0yg7kc4g6

BTC LN:

lnurl1dp68gurn8ghj7ampd3kx2ar0veekzar0wd5xjtnrdakj7tnhv4kxctttdehhwm30d3h82unvwqhhymm5w3jku6n0w4exuetexccs6pklqf

--

--

Chris on Crypto

Journalist-turned crypto-writer & analyst; forging the narrative, stacking sats.