Bitcoin Recovers Amid Stock Volatility While Putin and Xi Open Olympics

After trading hours earnings from Amazon and Snap however changed the mood with Snap jumping 56% due to reported revenue growth of 42%.

Yes, the bitcoining of the stock market continues while bitcoin itself becomes more stable with a somewhat upwards sideway.

Bitcoin price, Feb 2022

The currency is nicely nicely kind of moving up-ish on 4 hour candles, with eth gaining on the ratio to near 0.075 btc from 0.07.

So bitcoin is now kind of becoming safer than stocks with it not suffering from the earnings volatility that makes some stocks a bit of a gamble, like Facebook crashing down.

Amazon gained however 11% because its profits fell by 49% instead of 56%, making all this really a bit of a woodo because Qualcomm saw sales up 30%, but its stock down 5%.

Whale shenanigans with the supply and demand for the stock itself being the only thing that matters here as earnings etc are irrelevant unless they’re used to stocks buyback.

Unlike bitcoin, many of these stocks moreover have huge concentration of supply in their founders, early employees, or cartel colluding banks that can do whatever they like to the price.

So bitcoin may well be the less risky asset nowadays due to its global distribution with China able to only trade crypto during the past week due to their New Year holidays.

They end today as they open the winter Olympics with Monday being the first day of the Chinese stock trading year which should give us a better view of whether this Nasdaq volatility is temporary or will get a boost from Asia.

The Passing of the Old, and the Dawn of a New Era

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is the most important guest at these Olympics because no one else went there.

What a sea change from 14 years ago during their summer Olympics when Boris Johnson would have been happy to entertain the Chinese audience which you’d think would have admired quite a bit his yellow hair.

An optimistic China back then was a global China, full with a new dawn of a global golden age where Shanghai rises again as a great city of commerce with the Americans and the Brits, the Europeans and the Chinese, building tomorrow.

So long it took to create this great friendship, and so quickly it seems to be breaking with China at risk of isolation as it stands accused of most heinous crimes like ethnic cleansing, of covering up the pandemic and of spreading it to the entire world, and most importantly of breaching implied contractual relations whereby private business and innovation is left alone.

They’ve reduced themselves now to their most important guest being someone that has reduced his country’s GDP by 50% in the same eight years that Xi Jinping has ruled China.

Vladimir Putin, Russia’s President, probably finds himself in an even more sorry state than Xi for the good men of Russia have probably learned and very well that there is no prosperity in their country without Europe.

And however much some black magis may claim Romanticist ideas of glory would satisfy the people, it is of course in this millennial era prosperity and prosperity alone that rules the world.

And so, Russia has been given plenty to chew upon according to the leaked reply by the United States and Nato, including “indivisibility of security.”

This is a technical term that in a good reading at its base can be seen as the reverse of the arms race where one nation agrees to not gain security at the expense of another nation.

Russia has gained security however at the expense of Ukraine, and has even claimed Crimea, with US’ proposal being that even if Ukraine is brought into Nato to so balance that security between Russia and Ukraine, no permanent troops would be stations or missiles.

US has gone so far as to propose a “transparency mechanism” to verify the absence of Tomahawk cruise missiles, which are capable of reaching Russian territory, at the NATO anti-missile shield bases in Romania and Bulgaria, asking the same of Russia for two of their own bases in Russia.

Nato however has not quite offered this “indivisibility of security,” with Nato here presumably to be taken as Europe.

You could sense the understanding disappointment in the Russian response to this difference in Europe’s approach with Sergeĭ Viktorovich Lavrov, their Foreign Minister, calling it “idealistic.”

Our reading is that Russia is so desperate at Europe’s unwillingness to play geopolitics that you’d think they almost wish they did, knowing not quite what they’re wishing for because we know precisely where such devil games lead when they’re played in this Europe.

A Europe that maybe thinks Russia’s interpretation of “indivisibility of security” is more the old “spheres of influence” which are unacceptable as the modern geopolitical thinking in Europe is liberty and self determination.

Some backwards 19th century old men with their tarnished Romanticism may well think such views are idealistic, but what exactly is a man without ideals, and what exactly is a nation without them, but animals.

Europe should not and will not change to go backwards, Russia should change to move forward. However, Emmanuel Macron will go meet Putin to get his interpretation of this “indivisibility of security,” and if it isn’t quite spheres of influence but more technical aspects like how many troops Russia should keep next to its borders or Nato in Ukraine if it ever joins, then there is obviously room for negotiation.

However, if Russia can’t keep even a negotiating document confident, can they really be trusted much?

We did want to see it though as it is obviously an important and perhaps generational matter, but the heads of states had seen it so we didn’t mind too much as we were happy to trust them.

One charitable reading would be they more wanted to assure China, and so they leaked it, but it does raise the question of just how genuine Russia is under the current leadership to set the ground for potential normalization.

Still, reason knows very well how to deal with emotions as dogs may unease women or men, but tables control armies.

And so, with Russia being given plenty to chew on, you’d think it is unthinkable for Putin now to go in Ukraine as that would just be pure evil without any even fanciful basis for justification.

There are tensions however and accidents can’t be ruled out, but at this point he should send those freezing men home to get a nice meal from their poor mothers on a minimum wage of $170 a month.

A poverty that Putin’s attempts to revive geopolitics in this Europe has caused, a Europe that is finally willing to say enough.

So Mr. Xi may not even have whoever follows Putin next time, a Putin that probably can’t run a 7th term as the Russian people are fed up with him after ruling for decades.

That should refine thinking in China as well when their new leader is up for decision, and so this generation will maybe avoid the mistakes of previous ones and ditch the devil’s game of geopolitics, which is more war politics and war justification under the guise of ‘scientific’ thinking that is actually more svengali sophistry.

Under that prism, the actions of Germany and France may make more sense in calling Putin’s bluff on Ukraine, rather than playing it up as a vast danger to justify giving Russia any say over a country’s right to self determination, a right that in the case of Ukraine, UK might be obliged to protect.

But if Russia is genuine in wanting to end its antagonism, from the Caucus to the Balkans, then a half-way in Ukraine regarding troops and missiles if it joins Nato, may make sense.

In return they should obviously end propping up any secessionism in Ukraine and leave the country alone to prosper as a European nation which should benefit Russia plenty because it borders it and because Ukrainians and Russians have plenty of family in each other.

Because if he wants to starve his own people, then that’s the business of his people, but starving other peoples is arguably the business of all peoples.

And it is that poverty which maybe makes it necessary from the point of view of Russia to get some security understanding so that it can comfortably cooperate with Europe.

A cooperation they clearly need as from what we’ve seen in this space they clearly lack the skills and knowhow to pull off a lot of crypto related things that a more European Russia could have done if it wasn’t busy brain-draining their country.

Ukraine has plenty of bitcoiners too so from a wholistic view of the more talent the better, it would be nice if Europe, Russia and Ukraine normalized relations and became more like Germany and France.

But that might be too idealistic for Mr Lavrov who grew up in communism, so we might have to wait for a generational change with the millennials in Russia clearly sharing our view rather than Putin’s pointless devil games.