OK, I promise, no more Bitcoin analysis
I have a fundamental character flaw, which means that I cannot resist making snarky points on Twitter through the use of oblique satire. In particular, as some of you may have noticed, I cannot resist poking fun at Bitcoin astrologers by tweeting purported explanations for Bitcoin price changes together with my own recommendations. Here’s the last one I posted...
Now that the fiat turtles are flip-ramming BTC in both directions, the 7-day moving high wire is fractal. There is no swoon. Recommendation: Ecclesiastes 7:12 "Wisdom is a shelter as money is a shelter, but the advantage of knowledge is this: Wisdom preserves those who have it"
— Dave "Payments = Identity + Spreadsheet" Birch (@dgwbirch)
Just to be clear: this is utter nonsense that I made up in a few seconds, except for the recommendation, which is always real (from a poem, a song, a Bible verse, a famous quote or wherever). Here’s another example from earlier in the year which I just came across while searching for something else. I saved because it is special.
BTC caught in Nigerian election twin buffer overload and Kashmir panic buying ahead of North Korea summit. Inverse window reopens at midnight but record highs in Wales may block. The otters are paddling https://t.co/ZpYS2wBP8o Recommendation: semper inops quicumque cupit
— © Dave Birch (2019) (@dgwbirch)
Now, this tweet is utterly random (again, except for the Latin motto at the end: I googled for that). The point I am making is that this analysis is factually equivalent to any one of millions of reports from analysts about why Bitcoin is going up or down and whether you should buy or sell. Other than the rampant manipulation of a thin and opaque market, there are no fundamental reasons for the Bitcoin exchange rate to go up or down. As David Gerrard is fond of saying “because… number go up”.
Anyway, I made that tweet up in about 12 seconds by looking at the BBC News homepage. It is meaningless garbage. So why is it special? Well… you can imagine my surprise when I was contacted by a journalist asking if I could be interviewed for a cryptocurrency podcast*. I was very tempted but decided it would be dishonest to propagate fake news when I spend so much time complaining about it.
I contacted the journalist and explained that it was garbage that I’d made up. The journalist replied with good grace and said that my “appearance of wisdom” had fooled them. I liked this phrase so much that I wanted to change the name of this blog to it, but I decided that 15Mb is more obscure, so I’ll just make it my Twitter name for a while instead.
And no more Bitcoin analysis!
(I wanted to tell her that my basic knowledge of management consultancy meant that I could have provided a spreadsheet and a Powerpoint deck to back it up, but decided not to pull back the curtain on one of our vital industries.)
*Please note: this actually happened.