Airdrop #10: Welcome to Uptober ?​

Arry's Airdrop #10: Welcome to Uptober 🚀​
Hope your "Uptober" is going well and whatever bags you're holding are mooning. "Rektember" was certainly overfilled past the brim with news, highlights and lowlights I can't even begin to summarize without going over the top in this intentionally summarized newsletter to you. And less than a dozen days into "Uptober", we're already seeing all kinds of noise and signals - and it's certainly has been tricky picking the ones to pay attention to. 

I'd say if anything, take some time when the noise is high to take a step back to learn the fundamentals. Some ideas to start with (if you haven't already started down the rabbit hole):

• Always, back to Bitcoin: monetary/fiscal policies, Austrian economics, the protocol, etc. It's the oldest and most mature and deserves our respect.
• Learn the basics of economics - not just the one that was and continues to be spoon fed to us globally (Keynesian/Modern Monetary Theory). 
• How the US government functions. It's a high-friction government system, by design. Back to high school U.S History and Government - refresh your memory about our legislative, judicial and executive branches, our various agencies (SEC, CFTC, FinCEN, IRS, Treasury, etc...). And as you refresh your memory of how this all works, pay more attention to what's going on in the market and in our politics (federal and local). Pay attention. 

Most of us Americans, we have a lot of waking up, catching up to do - whether it's learning the fundamentals or even learning some financial basics. Don't push it to "doing it later", do a little bit, every day. It's not easy - I know firsthand. If you ever want to trade notes, ask questions/for pointers, or need resources, I'm doing whatever I can every day to help:

• AMA every Friday 12-1pm - Join us.
• Shy? Curious about what an AMA is like? Check out our previous ones.
• Find me in the community Slack channel - Feel free to DM me. I reply to every single one daily.
• Join the waitlist to my next personal cohort - I'm currently trying to figure out how to launch a 3 day workshop version of it.
• Find me on Twitter @ArryinSeattle. I respond to all DMs.
• Email me. I'm actually NOT the best at staying on top of my email to be frank - I do my best to reply to every email personally, and really have been touched by all the supportive emails from you/the community these past fews. It keeps me going with these newsletters burning the midnight candle every Monday night. :)

Thank you to everyone for reading and engaging. I know we're all so busy and have so many other (maybe more fun) things vying for your attention. Hope you have an awesome rest-of-the-week.

Crypto Market Cap Swells to $2.1 Trillion as 'Uptober' Continues
​With ‘Rektember’ done and dusted, it appears that ‘Uptober' is officially here. Bitcoin’s historical month over month price action has continued this year with October seeing BTC punch through the $50k barrier.
Bitcoin is now back over a $1T market cap (about half the total crypto market cap) up from $40,996 on September 29, to $57,538.85 at the time of writing on late night Monday, October 11th. 

Why this matters:
"Rektember" to "Uptober", in these cycles of bulls and bears, it's important to remember that there's an incredibly rich history, especially in bitcoin that demonstrate the foundational fundamentals of this space. The third alt coin bull run we've seen is definitely fun. NFT parties attracting enthusiasts left and right is incredible. Don't forget, all of this was incepted almost 13 years ago (10/31/2008) with the Satoshi Nakamoto white paper. Here's a quick 12 minute video where on 10/06/2014 was a famous incursion now known as the "Slaying of the Bitcoin Bear Whale". Click this link to view.

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Yang Launches ‘Forward Party’ & Supports Bitcoin
Andrew Yang, former Presidential Candidate and ex-member of the Democratic Party, announced this week that he’s starting a new political party, The Forward Party with the slogan, “Not left, not right, forward”.
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Yang tweeted: “[I’m a] Big proponent of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies generally - [I] want to allow fiat prices to go down as they should as things get more efficient instead of assuming the inflation model".

See a summary of Yang’s thoughts on Bitcoin, and track this story as it develops.

Why this matters:
Something to note is the stance from the more "OG" Bitcoiners. Seemingly positive is that this national influencer, Yang is evangelizing Bitcoin, advocating it, and even seemingly helping educate the masses about the perils ahead for us in "fiat money". The problem to watch out for is that Yang will and currently has not been able to make sense of his prior advocacy of the UBI (universal basic income) and the true understanding of the economic institution driving bitcoin. It's something to watch to see IF and how he will be able to come to terms with this major difference in the fundamentals.

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​SEC Green-Lights Volt Bitcoin Revolution ETF
Volt Equity (California) filed SEC documents to launch a new type of exchange-traded fund with direct exposure to Bitcoin (Volt Bitcoin Industry Revolution ETF).

According to their recent filing on Oct. 1, the Volt Crypto Industry Revolution and Tech ETF will track the performance of “Bitcoin Industry Revolution Companies” – publicly listed companies that either hold a majority of their net assets in bitcoin, like MicroStrategy (NASDAQ: MSTR), or that make a majority of their profits through mining or building mining equipment, like Marathon Digital Holdings (NASDAQ: MARA).

Why this matters:
In the past, the SEC has been reluctant to approve any product that directly holds and tracks the performance of Bitcoin, so this news is in the line of bullish for American bitcoin supporters. Take note however, that a LOT of companies have applied for the elusive ETF that actually holds BTC. And MORE companies will continue to apply. The SEC is bound to approve at least one eventually. As a side note, there is already a Canadian ETF holding BTC.  What's taking so long? Word on the street in a conspiracy theory kind of way is that until the US has created solid footing for itself on its specifically BTC strategy, the US will continue with its "regulation through enforcement" or "dodgy appearance" on the topic overall to continue to "buy more time" in the global market game theory underway. The U.S. government is powerful - don't underestimate it. It intends to continue to hold its #1 position for a very long time.

As indicated in the above writeup, and if you've taken my recent course in the cohort that just graduated a little over a week ago, after over 5 years in this space studying, I'm of the current position that respect should be paid to the fundamentals, which come from understanding the culture, the economic institution, the monetary/fiscal policies, the protocol, and the network driving Bitcoin. Bitcoin is the oldest, most stable blockchain and cryptocurrency in the space with the largest network effect, of which all blockchains and cryptocurrencies were born. After a few years of studying, I'm still learning something new every single day and am continually humbled by how little I really know. 

I'll point to all the joy and positive rush many of us are experiencing in "Uptober" - and say take 12 minutes, and watch the "Slaying of the Bitcoin Bear Whale", especially if you didn't yet from above. Remember, history has a tendency to rhyme. 

COMING UP:

• AMA with Neil Bergquist, CEO of Coinme on October 15th, 12-1pm PST
• AMA with Jesse Proudman of Markara on October 22nd, 12-1pm PST
• More coming up --- stay tuned! 

​In case you didn't know, all AMAs with guests are recorded and posted on our podcast and YouTube show, Windshield Time. Here are some recent AMA videos:

• Hong Fang, CEO of Okcoin
• Alex Mashinsky, CEO of Celsius
• NFTs with Maggie Xu, CEO of MetaSpace
• Crypto Taxes with Patrick Larsen (ZenLedger)
• [NEW!] Jerry David Chan (OG Bitcoiner) 

Coming soon... AMA recordings with the TaxBit team and Nick Soman (Decentralized Healthcare)!!

Join my weekly AMA , every Friday, 12-1pm PSTBlockchain is a game changer as a powerful alternative technology to what most businesses use today. Cryptocurrencies and other kinds of digital tokens are fascinating. This meetup is all about focusing our time on global impactful topics, not just crypto-fluffery.

Join us if you want to get into real authentic discussions about what really matters in the blockchain space and have some actual FUN while we're at it, via the Blockchain Underground.

See you next week!
– Arry (@ArryinSeattle)