Recent Developments

"At night I dream of a golden child with the same face as me. Separated by the vastness of space I miss my Monchichi. I take solace knowing we see the same stars twinkling high above. Without question, the most dangerous drug in the world...is love."

2023 Has been full of surprises. The relief rally finally showed up and BTC is pumping up like a new tire. If the momentum continues 30K is on the way. As I said in a previous blog, I don't think the bear market is completely over. If the weekly 50 ema moves back above the 100 ema I call that the silver cross (like the golden cross), then I'll become a believer that the next bull run has begun. In the mean time futures trading the swings has been a wild experience. Talking about riding turbulent waves. 

The recent developments in the Celsius case have revealed enough information on insider corruption that it's hard to believe Alex Mashinsky won't go to jail. I never wish incarceration on anyone but some people really ask for it. I won't bore u with all the litigious details. The most criminal evidence presented during the court hearing was, that Celsius encouraged new members to deposit funds. Then, they would take those funds and use them to pay for other members withdrawals. Alex knew they didn't have the money and continued to take yours. 

The situation is just as bad as it looks when reading it. What was just described is straight up theft! Even when u take in consideration FTX's role in the case, the operators of Celsius are still guilty. I don't rule out collusion between the two companies. There was a lot of backdoor dealings and greed that resulted in our funds being confiscated. The money is currently being gobbled up by lawyers while we creditors wait for the crumbs. The way things look there are two outcomes. The first, is that a big company buys Celsius and possibly repays creditors between thirty and fifty percent of their assets back. This is based on the value of the assets at the time of bankruptcy. The second, which is least appealing is that no suitable bid is presented and the case goes into Chapter 7 which is liquidation. In that case very similar to what is already occurring the lawyers get paid and the creditors receive nothing. Case over. 

When comparing the two option neither is very appealing. Still. Getting something back is better than nothing. According to the hearing dates we will know the verdict sometime in the next six months. If Alex does go to jail he won't be alone. He can hangout with his old buddy SBF and trade investing tips. Not long after my last post SBF was arrested for his role in the downfall of FTX exchange. When the police showed up at his door I bet SBF was more nervous than a long tail cat in a room full of rocking chairs. You know he never expected to go to jail. Getting guys like them out of crypto is the right move for the industry. Now that so many big players are gone from the space a vacuum has been created. It will be interesting to see who steps in to fill it. 

One of my favorite places to create is ending next month. Bored.ai the place where I discovered digital painting and learned to appreciate the craft. They're closing the discord server March 15th. After spending the last year evolving with the system upgrades and running a community club...its a sad feeling for the journey to end. The upper management stopped providing funds for the discord but let the NFT project continue. Since the announcement several community members have put in bids to buy the server. It's a nice ideal but I'm not getting my hopes up. Digital painting is a great way to expand your vocabulary while exercising the imagination at the same time. Since learning "prompt engineering" (which is using descriptive words to generate an image.) I've found there are a lot of new AI digital painting companies.  Lucky for me a fellow club leader opened his own server call the the Alien Tech Club where I practice using many of them.

To be honest I haven't had a lot of time for painting, digitally or on canvas. Aside from doing some home renovations, and navigating difficult tax situations. I've been writing music and preparing for my show next month. I'm performing at the seventh edition of the RAHH (Raw Amsterdam Hip-Hop) event. It's the same crew, same place, dope beats and chill vibes. If you're in the area come through and party with us. 2023 has been keeping me busy and I'm enjoying the momentum. Hopefully things continue moving in a positive direction. 

Until Next We Speak, Be Well

Tha One an Only    

Lost Faith

"They say, see the good in strangers believe your neighbor no one questions why? Never trust in people's words because...all humans lie." 

Let me start off by offering apologies to all readers for the situation with Celsius. I've been using their services since they started in 2018. Full disclosure, I am part of their ambassador program and have funds locked on the platform. Also I invested a large amount of capital in their fund raising round on bnktothefuture. To put it bluntly I have allot of money staked into Celsius and it suxxs that I have zero access to it. We're deep in the bear market and they've halted all swaps and withdrawals on their platform. 

That means nobody can touch their money. I'm not going to speculate on if we're going to get our money back or not. Nor will I address the torrent of rumors that this bank run is a targeted attack against the owner Alex Mashinsky. Hypothesizing is a guessing game. I only deal in facts. What I can say factually is that I did get the interest payment Monday on my crypto like usual. If they're still paying out interest I can't call them a scam. I'm hoping Celsius recovers and makes it through this public maelstrom of bad press. 

Why did I use Celsius and recommended them to my network? The pattern is to sell some crypto at the market peak for profit then save the rest for later. By staking on Celsius I could borrow cash and not sell my crypto. It was that simple. Now that my money is trapped and inaccessible I've permanently lost faith in CeFi platforms. If you're unfamiliar with the term CeFi (Centralized Finance) means a centralized entity maintains custody of your assets. DeFi (Decentralized Finance) means u maintain complete ownership and self sovereignty of your assets. This situation epitomizes the classic euphemism. "Not your keys, not your crypto." To insure u don't lose all your crypto its always good to keep some on DeFi wallets like metamask and coinbase wallet (not connected to the coinbase platform) or cold storage wallets like Trezor and Ledger. 

For me there are no safe centralized platforms. Just to give perspective Binance one of the biggest exchanges in the world halted bitcoin withdrawals. It was only supposed to be for a half an hour but took much longer. If Binance is having problems no place is safe. The effect it had on the already panicked market was like throwing gasoline on a blazing inferno. Trust is low and fear is high. Not just high like a skyscraper or smoking to much weed high. I'm talking about fear at a cosmic level. The best thing to do in these uncertain times is to take control of your assets by moving them off centralized platforms. (not financial advice) 

That way if we have another Terra Luna debacle or Celsius asset freeze the money is already in your hands. I'm taking everything that's not staked and stashing it away until the relief rally, then I'm going to sell everything faster than a lightening strike. Believe it! I can buy it back later. There's time to accumulate in a bear market.   

I wish u all, health wealth and success

Until Next We Speak, Be Well

Tha One an Only