Crypto Spikes As Mexican Billionaire Says Bitcoin Is A "Better Option Than Fiat Money"

By Tyler Durden

Cryptos are on the rise this morning following the better than expected payrolls print, following comments from Mexico’s third richest man, Ricardo Salinas, who said bitcoin is a better option than fiat money, noting that the cryptocurrency is unseizable and can be transferred instantly worldwide, contrary to fiat and the gold standard.

“The gold standard has always been subject to governmental intervention,” Salinas said.

“And fiat allows you to finance endlessly.”

Bitcoin has spiked back above $40,000…

…for the first time since the ‘Russia bans crypto’ headlines hit…

And Ethereum is back up near $3,000 at 2-week highs…

Ethereum is now back in line with forward inflation expectations…

As Glassnode noted this week, whilst both experienced 50%+ drawdowns in price, the current market appears to have a resilient and persistent class of HODLers, whom appear to be accumulation mode through rain, hail or shine.

On-chain settlement volumes are down from the highs, however are increasing relative to market valuation, suggesting Bitcoin is now closer to a ‘fair value’, than it is to a cycle top.

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Meanwhile, derivatives markets appear to be betting on further downside. Within the context of a macro bear, this begs the question; is the market late to hedge out risk, or is it due for an upside correction to shake-out this peak in leveraged negativity?

Glassnode’s NVT Premium model is currently trading at lows that are historically considered undervalued.

Previous instances where settlement volumes have been this high relative to the market cap have preceded strong bullish impulses in bear markets, or at macro market bottoms such as Dec 2018, and Mar 2020.

With this observable shift from long into short bias across derivatives markets, the dominance of futures liquidations has started to creep towards the short side. With high negativity, elevated leverage, and a overall short bias, a reasonable argument could be made for a potential counter-trend short squeeze in the near-term.

Technically speaking, there is a large $730 million options expiration with bitcoin bulls placed heavy bets between $40,000 and $44,000… which may suggest this price action is gamma-driven pinning.

No obvious catalyst from a news perspective for today’s jump, but we note that coverage of Salinas’ comments are drawing considerable attention.

As NAMCIOS writes at Bitcoin Magazine, bitcoin’s peer-to-peer nature makes the digital currency much harder to be banned or controlled as transferring value through the network doesn’t involve an intermediary that could be subpoenaed by the government. This property, paired with its supply limit of 21 million coins, enables bitcoin holders to preserve wealth for the long term in a more sovereign way than what is possible with fiat currencies or even gold.

“Everything we have in fiat is 100% seizable by the government,” Salinas added.

“It’s not in the government’s interest to make it easy for people to use bitcoin.”

Salinas is the founder and chairman of Grupo Salinas, a cohort of companies in the sectors of telecommunications, media, financial services, and retail stores.

“We were the first ones to accept bitcoin in our stores,” Salinas said, adding that his companies will soon add support for receiving transactions through the Lightning Network, Bitcoin’s layer-2 scaling solution for cheaper and faster payments.

When asked what people should focus on as they start learning about Bitcoin, Salinas said gaining good foundational knowledge about the history of money and fiat currency will help people understand the value proposition of BTC.

“There is a lot of confusion regarding money in general,” Salinas said.

“At the end of the day, it all boils down to human beings doing really well when we cooperate and work together. Cooperation necessarily means division of labor and specialization, and that must bring trading.”

The entrepreneur added that money came about as a means to improve the trading of goods between people as it provided a more liquid and ubiquitous form of value far better than barter, the original way of doing business. Bitcoin, Salinas elaborates, is a better money than fiat and gold because it brings additional qualities.

“Gold is hard to transport and hard to store,” he said.

“The gold price has been manipulated quite easily by central banks around the world. Bitcoin comes in as a new asset that is harder to manipulate, it’s a better asset as you can sell it easier and you can transport and store it basically for free.”

However, Salinas cautioned investors seeking a quick way to make money that he sees Bitcoin as a long-term investment instead, akin to a savings account.