By Bill Bonner
Fools and Rascals
And it’s time, time, time
And it’s time, time, time
It’s time, time, time that you love
And it’s time, time, time…
– Tom Waits
Tom Waits rasps about time
POITOU, FRANCE – “So how much did you make last night?”
“We made about $15,000,” came the reply from our eldest son, a keen cryptocurrency investor.
“Bitcoin briefly pierced the $3,500 mark – an all-time high. The market cap of the entire crypto market shot up, too… with daily trading volume also rising.
“And remember, this is still a tiny market. Most people don’t own any crypto-currencies. Most people don’t even know what crypto-currencies are. The whole market is only one sixty-fifth the size of the entire gold market. There’s a lot of room to grow. Eventually, everyone will be using cryptos.”
Bitcoin is going bonkers again – from a technical perspective, it has just overcome another major resistance level. The chart is highly reminiscent of the chart of gold in the late 1970s (see further below) – click to enlarge.
The rise of cryptocurrencies is our subject for this week. According to our source, cryptos are not only the most profitable investment in the history of mammon… but also the most important innovation in the financial world since King Croesus minted the first gold coin in Lydia, in modern-day Turkey, nearly 3,000 years ago.
Lydian gold stater minted under King Croesus ~540 BC.
We have been connecting the dots. Between money and economic growth. Between real money and real resources. Between gold and crypto-currencies. Between gold, crypto-currencies… and time.
Today, we stand back – and our mouth drops open as we behold a bigger picture – a breathtaking tableau worthy of Bruegel or perhaps Bosch. Yes, there are the sinners and the saints, the fools and the rascals, the blessed and the damned. All there.
The scene brought to light by the latest connecting of dots answers the No. 1 economic question of our time: What went wrong with the 21st century? The simple answer: Economists backed a truck over it.
Gold in the late 1970s: the chart pattern is eerily reminiscent of the one that has formed in BTC over the past few years. Of course, bubble patterns almost always display certain similarities, but they are particularly conspicuous in this case (if one zooms further out and includes the rally into the initial gold peak in 1974 and the subsequent mid-cycle correction into 1976, the similarities are even more striking – we will show such a longer-term comparison in an upcoming post) – click to enlarge.
Flaming Dud
To bring readers fully up to speed, the 21st century has been a flaming dud. In practically every way. Despite more new technology than ever, more PhDs, more researchers, more patents, more earnest strivers than ever before sweating to move things ahead…
And despite more “stimulus” from the Fed ($3.6 trillion) than ever in history, U.S. GDP growth rates are only half of those of the …read more
Source:: Acting Man
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