Clown World very strong heading into 2025
Days ago Biden pardoned his son with blanket forgiveness for 11 years of crime. Hm, 11. That's a very specific non-round number. I wonder what was going down a decade plus one year ago.
Today South Korea has declared a state of emergency and in enacted martial law. It's hard to tell exactly what's going on over there but the story being spun revolves around the parliament being taken over and potentially corrupted by their northern neighbors. Classic "communism" scare I suppose. I heard another rumor saying more specifically it was about passing some kind of government budget. Classic money printers doing money-printer things.
Yeol had accused the country’s opposition party of sympathising with North Korea and paralysing the government with “anti-state” activities.
On Tuesday night local time, Woo Son-shik, speaker of the National Assembly, said the declaration had been rendered “null and void” following passage of a resolution, according to The New York Times.
So it's already over then?
In case you're wondering it's 4 AM there as I write this sentence. This was an hour's lived event but also seemed to send shockwaves throughout the economy and, more importantly, crypto.
The won fell 1% to the US dollar in trading Tuesday, the lowest it’s been in two years.
Bitcoin briefly fell 33% to $61,200 on South Korea’s Upbit exchange, while the cryptocurrency traded around $95,000 on Coinbase, Binance, and other exchanges.
Ethereum also declined by double digits and traded at a 7% discount to the rest of the world while the political crisis unraveled. And XRP, the darling of a recent rally, shed more than half its value.
Reverse Kimchi Premium
The Kimchi Premium is something I've blogged about as far back as 2018. Essentially supply & demand in South Korea creates scenarios where product is more expensive. As you might imagine the most famous one is Kimchi; a food consisting of fermented vegetables popular in the culinary cuisine.
Within the context of crypto it means that the South Korean economy is so segregated from the world, due to regulations, that arbitraging the market is difficult and many cryptocurrencies trade at a higher value than the rest of the world. This national emergency scare flipped the premium negative making it a great opportunity to buy rather than sell; for those who had access to the market during this panic flash-crash.
Hive also crashed from 30 cents to 26
If I'm being honest I find it a bit shocking that we only pulled a quick 10% loss before quickly recovering to 28 cents. After all Hive is often pushed around pretty hard by what happens on South Korean exchanges, namely UpBit. I personally take this as a signal of strength so I'm buying back in at 28 cents with a couple hundred HBD I was day-trading with. Our ~300 sats/hive value continues to be a solid support so I'm considering rolling some Bitcoin into our dear chain as well considering how well this seems to be turning out. Updates to follow on that front I'm sure.
Analysis
Now that the market is performing well everyone is wondering when to take gains. They look for top signals that aren't there. This peculiar event was one such false top. From here on out everyone will be saying everything is a top signal. Make a plan in advance and stay the course. We haven't even entered 2025 yet. Stop trying to scry for top signals in the heat of the moment. That strategy isn't going to end well. It may even be time to double down considering how resilient the market seems to be. Worry about the top in 6-12 months.