Not wanting “algorithms” on mastodon’s feed because TWTR uses coersive algorithms is like not wanting to use any math because capitalism uses math.

Stop conflating bad, manipulative use of algorithms w/the general use of (open/visible) algorithms for personal control over data you see.

Chronological display IS AN ALGORITHM.

Mastodon’s feed ISN’T JUST CHRONOLOGY (it has filters, algos re boost freq, etc).

Mastodon’s feed could be a LOT better.

I WANT an algorithmic view I can adjust!

tiny 🧵

Look at this really old picture of a "Penny Farthing" (VeltePetter) in Oslo. Man they were crazy cycling around in weather like this back in the day. No concept of health and safety!

I wonder what year this was taken? 🤔

#PennyFarthing #VeltePetter

January 2023 European gas storage level is probably a little different than Putin imagined back when Russia invaded

2022 54%
2023 92%

Why is the bitcoin price heading for $20k?

The answer to this question is always, always "shenanigans."

It is never macroeconomic actions, regulatory announcements or the strength of the dollar. The bitcoin market is tiny and manipulated. So internal manipulations swamp all external indicators.

there's a paper mapping out a mild version of this claim: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3649475

The usual reason for pumps is bad news for major players, especially bad news for Tether. This week has been a flood of bad news - Genesis likely insolvent, DCG hit hard to cover them, Gemini and Genesis being sued by the SEC, and Nexo going down *hard*.

The other reason is because someone is trying to wreck a long or a short. It frequently costs less to rig the price of bitcoin than you will win on a margin bet. This is when you get a chart with "Bart" formations on it: sudden price-moves up and down. https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2018/12/17/the-bart-sudden-hundreds-of-bitcoin-pumps-or-dumps-to-burn-the-margin-traders/

The bitcoin price is whatever the large players need it to be. The market is very thin and trivially manipulable with the billions of pseudo-dollars in unbacked stablecoins on the unregulated offshore exchanges.

The price needs to be high enough so the big boys' loans don't get liquidated; but it needs to be low enough so that the bagholders don't attempt to cash out.

Look at this chart from yesterday morning. Note the two artificial price pumps starting the day.

More broadly: the narratives about wider market forces are part of the general delusion that well-behaved markets are natural. They are not. We've had nearly a century of a properly regulated US stock market, for example. It's not the wilderness, it's a garden.

But people in general, and even finance journalists who should absolutely know better, assume this is *normal* and you can talk about all markets like you can those few markets.

Bitcoin is utterly not the same sort of creature - it's a pile of manipulated trash, where the price discovery happens in unregulated offshore casinos who are under literally no rules except "don't spook the sucker".

FTX was a good worked example. These exchanges mess with prices and front-run their own customers whenever they can get away with it. Binance has been caught doing this repeatedly.

IN SUMMARY: there is still minimal organic interest in bitcoin. it's not the dollar, it's not interest rates, it's shenanigans.

EDIT: post version - https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2023/01/15/crypto-collapse-bitcoin-goes-up-nexo-charged-gbtc-still-wants-to-be-an-etf-crypto-exchanges-struggle-ftx-voyager/