So I was uncharacteristically able to short the top for the Trump token twice today. Didn't make that much money because it was for casual amounts but still fun to siphon value away from this grift and into something with more substance. Apparently a bunch of new Trump memes dropped today and sucked value out of the first scam.
A few days ago I sold my entire trading account into USDT right under the $100k mark with the intent of increasing my leverage as we approach the obvious sell-the-news event that is Trump's inauguration. We already got our Trump Pump and $100k unit bias milestone. Now it's time to bleed a bit. I setup a decent short around $105k so I'm already up a little... hopefully it stays that way.
A lot of crypto users have deluded themselves into thinking Trump is going to come in like a wrecking ball and rollback every crypto regulation in the book on day one. Oh yeah also he's going to deport all the "illegals" on day one as well... and pardon Ross Ulbricht. Well guess what? He's not going to do shit, and the market is going to crash when people realize they've put this scammer on a pedestal.
I was already fairly certain this was going to happen a while back... but now if feels pretty guaranteed with how salty everyone in crypto is about these obvious pump and dump pieces of garbage. Expectations will never meet reality. This is especially true in a market that always over-prices in the expectation on day one with zero discipline to wait for actual fundamentals to kick in. I expect it to be a rough couple of days, weeks, or potentially even months. Still holding out hope that the wildcard that is February flips in our favor. I give that like a coinflip so we'll see.
Hive is also down 14% to 40 cents today...
Obviously this is not as unexpected as it is disappointing, especially with a new wave of scams making into the top 100 with zero effort. That being said there is a silver lining in that I'd like to buy a tiny bit more Hive before it pops off again. We got our three pumps and we might bleed out for a while. I'm thinking double the floor is a good entry-point (32 cents). If we don't get that low I expect there will be plenty of time to pull the trigger at another price. Hive has a habit of going from extremely volatile and unpredictable to a slow gut-wrenching bleed in these situations.
TikTok ban?
So TikTok was banned for about 12 hours and popped back online today compliments of "Trump" "saving" it. If there was every a better way to make Gen Z cross party lines into the MAGA camp that was it right there. These people are hopelessly addicted and can be publicly seen freaking out about it in real time. Saying things like they're going to drop their data off directly to the Chinese consulate.
https://x.com/IanCarrollShow/status/1881096879343329751
The TikTok ban also reminds the world (especially controversial speakers) that they need to be looking for a decentralized permissionless solution. Ian Carroll here has become one of my favorite "conspiracy theorists" because of how data oriented he is and how he likes to steer clear of making assumptions and extrapolations whenever possible.
Ian has seemed to have found NOSTR, which we all know is garbage because it's slow and it can't scale. When will they find Hive? No clue... but he is legit describing Hive here without even realizing it. Seems to be a theme with our network, does it not?
Red Note
There's also the weirdness that is Red Note, which is the ACTUAL Chinese version of TikTok that everyone was clamoring onto like a lifeboat. It was pretty interesting to watch people swap notes. Americans asking the Chinese if they have a social credit score (they don't) and the Chinese asking us if we have to pay for an ambulance or if that's just propaganda. Wild stuff. After like a day of integration it was considered rude to not post videos with both English and Mandarin subtitles (for everyone on the platform) and many Americans have literally started learning Mandarin to bridge the language barrier... which is pretty crazy to me. They always told us we'd be learning Chinese but acted like it would be the result of World War 3, not banning a social media app under false pretenses.
It seems that a good number of people realize that the government's reason for banning TikTok (BECAUSE CHINA) is complete bullshit. There are much more credible theories circulating: like our government just wants that data for themselves or Israel is looking to censor it because they don't like the content. Pretty sure that one's in the video above.
Conclusion
Number is going to go down for a few days...
And I plan on making some money on it.
I see we've already broken below $100k as I finish this out.
But don't worry the bull will be back in no time.
Just like we saw with Blackrock ETF approval.
SELL! THE! NEWS! DAMMIT!
this time is not different™