It’s All About Crypto Blog
Kazakhstan's $350M Crypto Plan and the Nature of Crypto
Yesterday, two senior executives of the National Bank of Kazakhstan said the central bank had created a $350 million reserve to invest in crypto. Their quotations are published by Reuters. I admire the way Kazakh officials phrase things when they talk about cryptocurrencies. Just a couple of months ago, Kazakhstan adopted a new banking law that, in my...
When War Can Start Anywhere, What Is the Safer Asset?
If you had enough spare cash right now, what would you buy: real estate in Dubai or Bitcoin? The answer seems obvious, doesn't it? And what if I slightly change the question: real estate somewhere else in the world - or Bitcoin? Recent years have shown that the choice of region hardly matters. War can break out unexpectedly almost anywhere. And real estate in such a...
ADA Arrives at SPAR - And Reminds Us What Crypto Was Meant For
The Cardano Foundation has announced that ADA is now accepted in 137 SPAR stores across Switzerland. At first glance, this might sound like just another routine headline. I have seen plenty of similar stories before: a retail chain starts accepting crypto payments, a gas station network adds support for digital assets, or a hotel group begins experimenting...
AI Investors Are Buying Bitcoin Miners - Just Not for Bitcoin
The investment structure of the Situational Awareness hedge fund, revealed today in a Cointelegraph article, looks quite surprising. According to the fund's year-end 2025 report, several Bitcoin mining companies are among its key holdings. Recently, a popular narrative has emerged claiming that AI is pulling capital away from the crypto market, and from Bitcoin in particular. Just a year...
Why Crypto Didn’t Crash During the Latest Middle East Escalation
The war in the Middle East has now been going on for four days, drawing in more and more countries. It feels far more serious than many of the previous flare-ups in the region. And yet crypto prices haven’t collapsed. Over these four days, they’ve moved both down and up - but only slightly. Overall, the market has been doing its own...
Crypto Outflows from Iran: Capital Escape or Defensive Withdrawal?
Today, many news sites reported that crypto outflows from the Iranian exchange Nobitex surged eightfold after after the United States and Israel launched military operations against Iran. Following Elliptic - whose blog was the first to publish the story - most commentators have interpreted this as evidence that capital is fleeing Iran for foreign destinations. My first reaction was: what...
Everything Looks Right - But the Transaction Fails. Part I
Among cryptocurrency users, there is a widely held belief: if you enter the correct address, choose the right network, and have enough of the native token to cover the fee, the transaction will go through. In the overwhelming majority of cases, that belief holds true. But every blockchain has its own hidden rules - rules that only surface in very specific...
The $4.8 Million Illusion
The back-to-back headlines in February about South Korean government agencies losing crypto have made a lot of people smile. And yes, it does sound almost comical: * a hacker steals 320.8 BTC from the prosecutor’s office, * 22 bitcoins stored in a police station’s cold wallet somehow vanish, * and the most spectacular episode - crypto confiscated by the tax authorities is drained...
Can Governments Accept Financial Systems They Cannot Control?
A bipartisan group of lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives has introduced a bill aimed at ending the prosecution of software developers who do not control other people’s crypto assets. The DeFi Education Fund (DEF) says the bill would likely put a stop to cases like those brought against the developer of Tornado Cash and the creators of the Samourai wallet. I agree...
Bitcoin Futures Signal Strength - But Is the Real Test Still Ahead?
CryptoQuant has released new data suggesting that the 2026 market cycle may be fundamentally different - and potentially healthier - than what we saw in 2018 and 2022. In both of those years, Bitcoin futures on the CME were trading below the spot price of Bitcoin. In other words, the market was pricing in further downside. Futures were in backwardation, reflecting...
