ARB Letter - SOL, Mandates, Sell Offs
008 - We are living in insane times
EXOTIC MARKET INTELLIGENCE.
Friday - September 9th 2021
Markets
Sup savages. Wild week on Wall Street and for the United States. A massive violent crypto shakeout and the closest thing we have seen to nationwide vaccine mandates from President Biden. I spent the week selling some short term defense plays (PPA) I got impatient with, sold a small piece of BTC for cash and bought more ADA, ETH, LINK, and DOT on the crypto correction.
Crypto sold off broadly Wednesday, with BTC falling nearly 11% and ETH 14% before recovering slightly through Friday morning. Some alts showing strength.
Crypto Liquidations Wednesday from Leveraged Long Positions | BowTiedBull Bain Capital Ventures has filed for a new crypto investment fund
A rogue group of Guinea’s military claimed to have taken charge of the mineral-rich nation on Sunday, as officers from an elite special forces detained President Alpha Condé following gun fights in the West African capital.
Members of the Guinea Military mobbing and committing mutiny | WSJ - Note the rusty DSHK Russian Heavy MG On Tuesday, Coinbase co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong went public with the battle he says the SEC in a petty af twitter thread
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong Wells Fargo got cock-slapped with a $250 million fine from a banking regulator after it failed to properly execute a mortgage loss mitigation program. Scumbag wells lmao.
Federal Reserve regional presidents Robert Kaplan and Eric Rosengren said Thursday they will sell individual stock holdings amid “ethics” concerns regarding trading in 2020. Sounds sketch as fuck guys.
Wall Street ended lower on Thursday as weekly jobless claims fell to a near 18-month low (Reuters) - anyone else notice how many fast casual places need workers?
The FDA has announced it needs to take more time before deciding whether e-cigarettes made by Juul Labs Inc. can remain on the U.S. market. Glad I ditched the Juul in 2019 - good times.
EXOTIC NEWS
Solana (SOL) has had an absolutely parabolic run over the last several weeks. Admittedly I do not have a position in SOL. Pains me, but if I have learned one thing trading crypto and specifically alt coins, you have to pick your horses and wait. My primary horses right now being ADA, DOT, AAVE, and LINK. In my opinion if you try to actively trade too much or spread yourself thin you’ll like get too emotional and underperform. I will likely try to add some SOL on the next size-able pullback.
SOL is the sixth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap and remains one of the best performers despite the recent overall crypto market losing more than $200 billion this week.
The price of SOL rebounded to another new all-time high shortly after the sell off we saw this week - showing resilience and strength. SOL appears to be a favorite pick for VC firms. Always be cautious when the bigger money shows up.
Bulls argue SOL is taking over the blockchain world and edging out competitors with fast transactions and low fees, which could continue to be true, so certainly worth monitoring. The SOL NFT space at a high level, seems to be gaining traction in recent weeks as users and traders can avoid the high gas fees native to ETH based protocols.
So what is SOL? Solana is a blockchain platform for decentralized apps. It's an open-source project maintained by the Geneva-based Solana Foundation, and built by developers at San Francisco-based Solana Labs.
Let me know in the comments if you guys would like a SOL specific write up like our Chainlink one.
VACCINE MANDATES
While I am quite exhausted and tired of discussing vaccine mandates, Covid - 19, and relevant topics, Biden’s address last night was not only a historical anomaly but arguably contained unconstitutional aspects regardless of how you feel about vaccines. I would also argue this aggressively contributes to sowing division in an already hyper polar political environment. Biden came out of the gate swinging hard against the dirty “unvaxxed”.
"My job as president is to protect all Americans," Mr. Biden said Thursday. "So tonight, I'm announcing that the Department of Labor is developing an emergency rule to require all employers with 100 or more employees that together employ over 80 million workers to ensure their workforces are fully vaccinated or show a negative test at least once a week." (CBS).
Sweeping new mandates apply to businesses with more than 100 employees, whose workers would have to be inoculated or face weekly testing. Sounds like tyranny lmao. The White House estimates new policies will impact about 80 million workers, or two-thirds of the country’s workforce (CNBC).
I want to state that I completely see both sides of what is going on and do ultimately believe vaccines can help, but just for a second consider this. It is likely most of the data you are being told about is not reliably accurate. How could it be? The goal for some reason is to absolutely vaccinate everyone against a virus with a 99.98% survival rate that still infects the vaccinated and continues to mutate. Think about that. Fucking wild that we’ve turned 2 weeks to slow the spread into literal medical apartheid over something slightly more annoying than the cold (99% chance it was man made as well).
Additionally - why would the government allow 1. Diverging material to disseminate or 2. Let evidence of adverse effects spread? Imagine if something truly alarming got out with current vaccine rates. It would be absolute panic in the streets. Now look - is the vaccine additive in Covid 19 defense - Yes. Is it likely safe? Seems to be for the most part, despite actively suppressed instances of Myocarditis, kidney issues, irregular periods, strokes and other complications.
Can we possibly know what long term side effects there COULD be? Absolutely fucking not. Again - I believe most will be and are fine, but it’s our responsibility as liberty loving citizens to think critically when the government says jump.
I have nurses, doctors, and prominent healthcare professionals in my immediate family, and while they have fought the horrific real impacts of this virus in person, there are still many many anecdotal experiences that suggest something sinister/odd is in fact occurring. My humble opinion is that it’s purely about compliance and power now. It’s also a welcomed distraction from the fuck fest we just witnessed in Afghanistan and the crippling inflation that is eroding the country.
Almost all counter narrative points, natural immunity statistics, and diverging opinions by health professionals are not being allowed to permeate. CNN is straight up lying about the regimen Joe Rogan took. Ask yourself why that is?
Also by the way - if you were living under a rock the last couple weeks you may have also missed that Fauci is likely 100% linked to the funding of Covid and Gain of Function research in Wuhan lmao. How does that factor into what the fuck is actually going on? Do people even give a shit? China’s involvement is blatant as well.
Ultimately the desperation and aggression with which this administration is attempting to implement mandatory vaccines does not match the situation on the ground. Hospitals are not rapidly overflowing - they stay at 80% ICU capacity in normal times, because that’s how they get the most money from the - you guessed it - government. But Andy!? Hospitals want money too?! This is absolutely NOT about the virus or vaccine anymore. It’s Orwellian as fuck and deeply, deeply unsettling if you are a student of history. End rant.
With that being said make the best choice for you and stay safe. Believe it or not putting an experimental vaccine into your body is your choice. Not the governments. Anything else is tyranny, doesn’t matter how much fear mongering or unvaxxed blaming they are doing. Look ARB readers - my writing style is not for everyone. I call shit like I see it and I generally diverge from how most people think about things. I am a avid student of history. If you want to learn more about some of the historical implications of some of the patterns we are seeing I highly suggest you read the books below. Before you get triggered or tell me these things aren’t related or comparable just look to Australia as a precursor of things likely to come.
For more, check out the Arbitrage Andy (Instagram, Twitter, Merch Store).
Archipelago Gulag is a must read for everyone
Fuck yeah Andy. Thanks for the willingness to speak out and not just run with the herd