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The Not Neutrality of Tech Reporting: Discussing the Economics of Lifting Data Caps During a Stay-at-home Crisis

The Not Neutrality of Tech Reporting: Discussing the Economics of Lifting Data Caps During a Stay-at-home Crisis

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[TOTM: The following is part of a blog series by TOTM guests and authors on the law, economics, and policy of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The entire series of posts is available here.

This post is authored by Justin “Gus” Hurwitz, (Associate Professor of Law & Co-director, Space, Cyber, and Telecom Law Program, University of Nebraska; Director of Law & Economics Programs, ICLE).]

I’m a big fan of APM Marketplace, including Molly Wood’s tech coverage. But they tend to slip into advocacy mode—I think without realizing it—when it comes to telecom issues. This was on full display earlier this week in a story on widespread decisions by ISPs to lift data caps during the ongoing COVID-19 crisis (available here, the segment runs from 4:30-7:30). 

As background, all major ISPs have lifted data caps on their Internet service offerings. This is in recognition of the fact that most Americans are spending more time at home right now. During this time, many of us are teleworking, so making more intensive use of our Internet connections during the day; many have children at home during the day who are using the Internet for both education and entertainment; and we are going out less in the evening so making more use of services like streaming video for evening entertainment. All of these activities require bandwidth—and, like many businesses around the country, ISPs are taking steps (such as eliminating data caps) that will prevent undue consumer harm as we work to cope with COVID-19.

The Marketplace take on data caps

After introducing the segment, Wood and Marketplace host Kai Ryssdal turn to a misinformation and insinuation-laden discussion of telecommunications policy. Wood asserts that one of the ISPs’ “big arguments against net neutrality regulation” was that they “need [data] caps to prevent congestion on networks.” Ryssdal responds by asking, coyly, “so were they just fibbing? I mean … ya know …”

Wood responds that “there have been times when these arguments were very legitimate,” citing the early days of 4G networks. She then asserts that the United States has “some of the most expensive Internet speeds in the developed world” before jumping to the assertion that advocates will now have the “data to say that [data] caps are unnecessary.” She then goes on to argue—and here she loses any pretense of reporter neutrality—that “we are seeing that the Internet really is a utility” and that “frankly, there’s no, uhm, ongoing economic argument for [data caps].” She even notes that we can “hear [her] trying to be professional” in the discussion.

Unpacking that mess

It’s hard to know where to start with Wood & Ryssdal discussion, such a muddled mess it is. Needless to say, it is unfortunate to see tech reporters doing what tech reporters seem to do best: confusing poor and thinly veiled policy arguments for news.

Let’s start with Wood’s first claim, that ISPs (and, for that matter, others) have long argued that data caps are required to manage congestion and that this has been one of their chief arguments against net neutrality regulations. This is simply not true. 

Consider the 2015 Open Internet Order (OIO)—the net neutrality regulations adopted by the FCC under President Obama. The OIO discusses data caps (“usage allowances”) in paragraphs 151-153. It explains:

The record also reflects differing views over some broadband providers’ practices with respect to usage allowances (also called “data caps”). … Usage allowances may benefit consumers by offering them more choices over a greater range of service options, and, for mobile broadband networks, such plans are the industry norm today, in part reflecting the different capacity issues on mobile networks. Conversely, some commenters have expressed concern that such practices can potentially be used by broadband providers to disadvantage competing over-the-top providers. Given the unresolved debate concerning the benefits and drawbacks of data allowances and usage-based pricing plans,[FN373] we decline to make blanket findings about these practices and will address concerns under the no-unreasonable interference/disadvantage on a case-by-case basis. 

[FN373] Regarding usage-based pricing plans, there is similar disagreement over whether these practices are beneficial or harmful for promoting an open Internet. Compare Bright House Comments at 20 (“Variable pricing can serve as a useful technique for reducing prices for low usage (as Time Warner Cable has done) as well as for fairly apportioning greater costs to the highest users.”) with Public Knowledge Comments at 58 (“Pricing connectivity according to data consumption is like a return to the use of time. Once again, it requires consumers keep meticulous track of what they are doing online. With every new web page, new video, or new app a consumer must consider how close they are to their monthly cap. . . . Inevitably, this type of meter-watching freezes innovation.”), and ICLE & TechFreedom Policy Comments at 32 (“The fact of the matter is that, depending on background conditions, either usage-based pricing or flat-rate pricing could be discriminatory.”). 

The 2017 Restoring Internet Freedom Order (RIFO), which rescinded much of the OIO, offers little discussion of data caps—its approach to them follows that of the OIO, requiring that ISPs are free to adopt but must disclose data cap policies. It does, however, note that small ISPs expressed concern, and provided evidence, that fear of lawsuits had forced small ISPs to abandon policies like data caps, “which would have benefited its customers by lowering its cost of Internet transport.” (See paragraphs 104 and 249.) The 2010 OIO makes no reference to data caps or usage allowances. 

What does this tell us about Wood’s characterization of policy debates about data caps? The only discussion of congestion as a basis for data caps comes in the context of mobile networks. Wood gets this right: data caps have been, and continue to be, important for managing data use on mobile networks. But most people would be hard pressed to argue that these concerns are not still valid: the only people who have not experienced congestion on their mobile devices are those who do not use mobile networks.

But the discussion of data caps on broadband networks has nothing to do with congestion management. The argument against data caps is that they can be used anticompetitively. Cable companies, for instance, could use data caps to harm unaffiliated streaming video providers (that is, Netflix) in order to protect their own video services from competition; or they could exclude preferred services from data caps in order to protect them from competitors.

The argument for data caps, on the other hand, is about the cost of Internet service. Data caps are a way of offering lower priced service to lower-need users. Or, conversely, they are a way of apportioning the cost of those networks in proportion to the intensity of a given user’s usage.  Higher-intensity users are more likely to be Internet enthusiasts; lower-intensity users are more likely to use it for basic tasks, perhaps no more than e-mail or light web browsing. What’s more, if all users faced the same prices regardless of their usage, there would be no marginal cost to incremental usage: users (and content providers) would have no incentive not to use more bandwidth. This does not mean that users would face congestion without data caps—ISPs may, instead, be forced to invest in higher capacity interconnection agreements. (Importantly, interconnection agreements are often priced in terms of aggregate data transfered, not the speeds of those data transfers—that is, they are written in terms of data caps!—so it is entirely possible that an ISP would need to pay for greater interconnection capacity despite not experiencing any congestion on its network!)

In other words, the economic argument for data caps, recognized by the FCC under both the Obama and Trump administrations, is that they allow more people to connect to the Internet by allowing a lower-priced access tier, and that they keep average prices lower by creating incentives not to consume bandwidth merely because you can. In more technical economic terms, they allow potentially beneficial price discrimination and eliminate a potential moral hazard. Contrary to Wood’s snarky, unprofessional, response to Ryssdal’s question, there is emphatically not “no ongoing economic argument” for data caps.

Why lifting data caps during this crisis ain’t no thing

Even if the purpose of data caps were to manage congestion, Wood’s discussion again misses the mark. She argues that the ability to lift caps during the current crisis demonstrates that they are not needed during non-crisis periods. But the usage patterns that we are concerned about facilitating during this period are not normal, and cannot meaningfully be used to make policy decisions relevant to normal periods. 

The reason for this is captured in the below image from a recent Cloudflare discussion of how Internet usage patterns are changing during the crisis:

This image shows US Internet usage as measured by Cloudflare. The red line is the usage on March 13 (the peak is President Trump’s announcement of a state of emergency). The grey lines are the preceding several days of traffic. (The x-axis is UTC time; ET is UCT-4.) Although this image was designed to show the measurable spike in traffic corresponding to the President’s speech, it also shows typical weekday usage patterns. The large “hump” on the left side shows evening hours in the United States. The right side of the graph shows usage throughout the day. (This chart shows nation-wide usage trends, which span multiple time zones. If it were to focus on a single time zone, there would be a clear dip between daytime “business” and evening “home” hours, as can be seen here.)

More important, what this chart demonstrates is that the “peak” in usage occurs in the evening, when everyone is at home watching their Netflix. It does not occur during the daytime hours—the hours during which telecommuters are likely to be video conferencing or VPN’ing in to their work networks, or during which students are likely to be doing homework or conferencing into their meetings. And, to the extent that there will be an increase in daytime usage, it will be somewhat offset by (likely significantly) decreased usage due to coming economic lethargy. (For Kai Ryssdal, lethargy is synonymous with recession; for Aaron Sorkin fans, it is synonymous with bagel). 

This illustrates one of the fundamental challenges with pricing access to networks. Networks are designed to carry their peak load capacity. When they are operating below capacity, the marginal cost of additional usage is extremely low; once they exceed that capacity, the marginal cost of additional usage is extremely high. If you price network access based upon the average usage, you are going to get significant usage during peak hours; if you price access based upon the peak-hour marginal cost, you are going to get significant deadweight loss (under-use) during non-peak hours). 

Data caps are one way to deal with this issue. Since most users making the most intensive use of the network are all doing so at the same time (at peak hour), this incremental cost either discourages this use or provides the revenue necessary to expand capacity to accommodate their use. But data caps do not make sense during non-peak hours, when marginal cost is nearly zero. Indeed, imposing increased costs on users during non-peak hours is regressive. It creates deadweight losses during those hours (and, in principle, also during peak hours: ideally, we would price non-peak-hour usage less than peak-hour usage in order to “shave the peak” (a synonym, I kid you not, for “flatten the curve”)). 

What this all means

During the current crisis, we are seeing a significant increase in usage during non-peak hours. This imposes nearly zero incremental cost on ISPs. Indeed, it is arguably to their benefit to encourage use during this time, to “flatten the curve” of usage in the evening, when networks are, in fact, likely to experience congestion.

But there is a flipside, which we have seen develop over the past few days: how do we manage peak-hour traffic? On Thursday, the EU asked Netflix to reduce the quality of its streaming video in order to avoid congestion. Netflix is the single greatest driver of consumer-focused Internet traffic. And while being able to watch the Great British Bake Off in ultra-high definition 3D HDR 4K may be totally awesome, its value pales in comparison to keeping the American economy functioning.

Wood suggests that ISPs’ decision to lift data caps is of relevance to the network neutrality debate. It isn’t. But the impact of Netflix traffic on competing applications may be. The net neutrality debate created unmitigated hysteria about prioritizing traffic on the Internet. Many ISPs have said outright that they won’t even consider investing in prioritization technologies because of the uncertainty around the regulatory treatment of such technologies. But such technologies clearly have uses today. Video conferencing and Voice over IP protocols should be prioritized over streaming video. Packets to and from government, healthcare, university, and other educational institutions should be prioritized over Netflix traffic. It is hard to take anyone who would disagree with this proposition seriously. Yet the net neutrality debate almost entirely foreclosed development of these technologies. While they may exist, they are not in widespread deployment, and are not familiar to consumers or consumer-facing network engineers.

To the very limited extent that data caps are relevant to net neutrality policy, it is about ensuring that millions of people binge watching Bojack Horseman (seriously, don’t do it!) don’t interfere with children Skyping with their grandparents, a professor giving a lecture to her class, or a sales manager coordinating with his team to try to keep the supply chain moving.

The post The Not Neutrality of Tech Reporting: Discussing the Economics of Lifting Data Caps During a Stay-at-home Crisis appeared first on Truth on the Market.

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Bitcoin on Wheels: The Story of Bitcoinetas

Meet the Bitcoinetas, a fleet of transformative vehicles on a mission to spread the bitcoin message everywhere they go. From Argentina to South Africa,…

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You may have seen that picture of Michael Saylor in a bitcoin-branded van, with a cheerful guy right next to the car door. This one:

Ariel Aguilar and La Bitcoineta European Edition at BTC Prague.

That car is the Bitcoineta European Edition, and the cheerful guy is Ariel Aguilar. Ariel is part of the European Bitcoineta team, and has previously driven another similar car in Argentina. In fact, there are currently five cars around the world that carry the name Bitcoineta (in some cases preceded with the Spanish definite article “La”).

Argentina: the original La Bitcoineta

The story of Bitcoinetas begins with the birth of 'La Bitcoineta' in Argentina, back in 2017. Inspired by the vibrancy of the South American Bitcoin community, the original Bitcoineta was conceived after an annual Latin American Conference (Labitconf), where the visionaries behind it recognized a unique opportunity to promote Bitcoin education in remote areas. Armed with a bright orange Bitcoin-themed exterior and a mission to bridge the gap in financial literacy, La Bitcoineta embarked on a journey to bring awareness of Bitcoin's potential benefits to villages and towns that often remained untouched by mainstream financial education initiatives. Operated by a team of dedicated volunteers, it was more than just a car; it was a symbol of hope and empowerment for those living on the fringes of financial inclusion.

The concept drawing for La Bitcoineta from December 2017.

Ariel was part of that initial Argentinian Bitcoineta team, and spent weeks on the road when the car became a reality. The original dream to bring bitcoin education even to remote areas within Argentina and other South American countries came true, and the La Bitcoineta team took part in dozens of local bitcoin meetups in the subsequent years.

The original La Bitcoineta from Argentina.

One major hiccup came in late 2018, when the car was crashed into while parked in Puerto Madryn. The car was pretty much destroyed, but since the team was possessed by a honey badger spirit, nothing could stop them from keeping true to their mission. It is a testament to the determination and resilience of the Argentinian team that the car was quickly restored and returned on its orange-pilling quest soon after.

Argentinian Bitcoineta after a major accident (no-one got hurt); the car was restored shortly after.

Over the more than 5 years that the Argentinian Bitcoineta has been running, it has traveled more than 80,000 kilometers - and as we’ll see further, it inspired multiple similar initiatives around the world.

Follow La Bitcoineta’s journey:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/labitcoineta

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bitcoineta/

El Salvador: Bitcoin Beach

In early 2021, the president of El Salvador passed the Bitcoin Law, making bitcoin legal tender in the country. The Labitconf team decided to celebrate this major step forward in bitcoin adoption by hosting the annual conference in San Salvador, the capital city of El Salvador. And correspondingly, the Argentinian Bitcoineta team made plans for a bold 7000-kilometer road trip to visit the Bitcoin country with the iconic Bitcoin car.

However, it proved to be impossible to cross so many borders separating Argentina and Salvador, since many governments were still imposing travel restrictions due to a Covid pandemic. So two weeks before the November event, the Labitconf team decided to fund a second Bitcoineta directly in El Salvador, as part of the Bitcoin Beach circular economy. Thus the second Bitcoineta was born.

Salvadoran’s Bitcoineta operates in the El Zonte region, where the Bitcoin Beach circular economy is located.

The eye-catching Volkswagen minibus has been donated to the Bitcoin Beach team, which uses the car for the needs of its circular economy based in El Zonte.

Follow Bitcoin Beach:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Bitcoinbeach

South Africa: Bitcoin Ekasi

Late 2021 saw one other major development in terms of grassroots bitcoin adoption. On the other side of the planet, in South Africa, Hermann Vivier initiated the Bitcoin Ekasi project. “Ekasi” is a colloquial term for a township, and a township in the South African context is an underdeveloped urban area with a predominantly black population, a remnant of the segregationist apartheid regime. Bitcoin Ekasi emerged as an attempt to introduce bitcoin into the economy of the JCC Camp township located in Mossel Bay, and has gained a lot of success on that front.

Bitcoin Ekasi was in large part inspired by the success of the Bitcoin Beach circular economy back in El Salvador, and the respect was mutual. The Bitcoin Beach team thus decided to pass on the favor they received from the Argentinian Bitcoineta team, and provided funds to Bitcoin Ekasi for them to build a Bitcoineta of their own.

Bitcoin Ekasi’s Bitcoineta as seen at the Adopting Bitcoin Cape Town conference.
Bitcoin Ekasi’s Bitcoineta as seen at the Adopting Bitcoin Cape Town conference. Hermann Vivier is seen in the background.
South African Bitcoineta serves the needs of Bitcoin Ekasi, a local bitcoin circular economy in the JCC Camp township.

Bitcoin Ekasi emerged as a sister organization of Surfer Kids, a non-profit organization with a mission to empower marginalized youths through surfing. The Ekasi Bitcoineta thus partially serves as a means to get the kids to visit various surfer competitions in South Africa. A major highlight in this regard was when the kids got to meet Jordy Smith, one of the most successful South African surfers worldwide.

Coincidentally, South African surfers present an intriguing demographic for understanding Bitcoin due to their unique circumstances and needs. To make it as a professional surfer, the athletes need to attend competitions abroad; but since South Africa has tight currency controls in place, it is often a headache to send money abroad for travel and competition expenses. The borderless nature of Bitcoin offers a solution to these constraints, providing surfers with an alternative means of moving funds across borders without any obstacles.

Photo taken at the South African Junior Surfing Championships 2023. Back row, left to right:

Mbasa, Chuma, Jordy Smith, Sandiso. Front, left to right: Owethu, Sibulele.

To find out more about Bitcoineta South Africa and the non-profit endeavors it serves, watch Lekker Feeling, a documentary by Aubrey Strobel:

Follow Bitcoin Ekasi:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BitcoinEkasi

Fundraiser: https://support.bitcoinekasi.com/

Europe: Bitcoineta Europa

The European Bitcoineta started its journey in early 2023, with Ariel Aguilar being one of the main catalysts behind the idea. Unlike its predecessors in El Salvador and South Africa, the European Bitcoineta was not funded by a previous team but instead secured support from individual donors, reflecting a grassroots approach to spreading financial literacy.

European Bitcoineta sports a hard-to-overlook bitcoin logo along with the message “Bitcoin is Work. Bitcoin is Time. Bitcoin is Hope.”

The European Bitcoineta is a Mercedes box van adorned with a prominent Bitcoin logo and inspiring messages, and serves as a mobile hub for education and discussion at numerous European Bitcoin conferences and local meetups. Inside its spacious interior, both notable bitcoiners and bitcoin plebs share their insights on the walls, fostering a sense of camaraderie and collaboration.

Inside the European Bitcoineta, one can find the wall of fame, where visitors can read messages from prominent bitcoiners such as Michael Saylor, Uncle Rockstar, Javier Bastardo, Hodlonaut, and many others.
On the “pleb wall”, any bitcoiner can share their message (as long as space permits).

Follow Bitcoineta Europa’s journey:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BitcoinetaEU

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bitcoinetaeu/

Ghana: Bitcoineta West Africa

Embed: https://youtu.be/8oWgIU17aIY?si=hrsKmMIA7lI6jX4k

Introduced in December 2023 at the Africa Bitcoin Conference in Ghana, the fifth Bitcoineta was donated to the Ghanaian Bitcoin Cowries educational initiative as part of the Trezor Academy program.

Bitcoineta West Africa was launched in December 2023 at the Africa Bitcoin Conference. Among its elements, it bears the motto of the Trezor Academy initiative: Bitcoin. Education. Freedom.

Bitcoineta West Africa was funded by the proceeds from the bitcoin-only limited edition Trezor device, which was sold out within one day of its launch at the Bitcoin Amsterdam conference.

With plans for an extensive tour spanning Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, and potentially other countries within the ECOWAS political and economic union, Bitcoineta West Africa embodies the spirit of collaboration and solidarity in driving Bitcoin adoption and financial inclusion throughout the Global South.

Bitcoineta West Africa surrounded by a group of enthusiastic bitcoiners at the Black Star Square, Accra, Ghana.

Follow Bitcoineta West Africa’s journey:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BitcoinetaWA

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bitcoinetawa/

All the Bitcoineta cars around the world share one overarching mission: to empower their local communities through bitcoin education, and thus improve the lives of common people that might have a strong need for bitcoin without being currently aware of such need. As they continue to traverse borders and break down barriers, Bitcoinetas serve as a reminder of the power of grassroots initiatives and the importance of financial education in shaping a more inclusive future. The tradition of Bitcoinetas will continue to flourish, and in the years to come we will hopefully encounter a brazenly decorated bitcoin car everywhere we go.

If the inspiring stories of Bitcoinetas have ignited a passion within you to make a difference in your community, we encourage you to take action! Reach out to one of the existing Bitcoineta teams for guidance, support, and inspiration on how to start your own initiative. Whether you're interested in spreading Bitcoin education, promoting financial literacy, or fostering empowerment in underserved areas, the Bitcoineta community is here to help you every step of the way. Together, we will orange pill the world!

This is a guest post by Josef Tetek. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

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Digital Currency And Gold As Speculative Warnings

Over the last few years, digital currencies and gold have become decent barometers of speculative investor appetite. Such isn’t surprising given the evolution…

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Over the last few years, digital currencies and gold have become decent barometers of speculative investor appetite. Such isn’t surprising given the evolution of the market into a “casino” following the pandemic, where retail traders have increased their speculative appetites.

“Such is unsurprising, given that retail investors often fall victim to the psychological behavior of the “fear of missing out.” The chart below shows the “dumb money index” versus the S&P 500. Once again, retail investors are very long equities relative to the institutional players ascribed to being the “smart money.””

“The difference between “smart” and “dumb money” investors shows that, more often than not, the “dumb money” invests near market tops and sells near market bottoms.”

Net Smart Dumb Money vs Market

That enthusiasm has increased sharply since last November as stocks surged in hopes that the Federal Reserve would cut interest rates. As noted by Sentiment Trader:

“Over the past 18 weeks, the straight-up rally has moved us to an interesting juncture in the Sentiment Cycle. For the past few weeks, the S&P 500 has demonstrated a high positive correlation to the ‘Enthusiasm’ part of the cycle and a highly negative correlation to the ‘Panic’ phase.”

Investor Enthusiasm

That frenzy to chase the markets, driven by the psychological bias of the “fear of missing out,” has permeated the entirety of the market. As noted in This Is Nuts:”

“Since then, the entire market has surged higher following last week’s earnings report from Nvidia (NVDA). The reason I say “this is nuts” is the assumption that all companies were going to grow earnings and revenue at Nvidia’s rate. There is little doubt about Nvidia’s earnings and revenue growth rates. However, to maintain that growth pace indefinitely, particularly at 32x price-to-sales, means others like AMD and Intel must lose market share.”

Nvidia Price To Sales

Of course, it is not just a speculative frenzy in the markets for stocks, specifically anything related to “artificial intelligence,” but that exuberance has spilled over into gold and cryptocurrencies.

Birds Of A Feather

There are a couple of ways to measure exuberance in the assets. While sentiment measures examine the broad market, technical indicators can reflect exuberance on individual asset levels. However, before we get to our charts, we need a brief explanation of statistics, specifically, standard deviation.

As I discussed in “Revisiting Bob Farrell’s 10 Investing Rules”:

“Like a rubber band that has been stretched too far – it must be relaxed in order to be stretched again. This is exactly the same for stock prices that are anchored to their moving averages. Trends that get overextended in one direction, or another, always return to their long-term average. Even during a strong uptrend or strong downtrend, prices often move back (revert) to a long-term moving average.”

The idea of “stretching the rubber band” can be measured in several ways, but I will limit our discussion this week to Standard Deviation and measuring deviation with “Bollinger Bands.”

“Standard Deviation” is defined as:

“A measure of the dispersion of a set of data from its mean. The more spread apart the data, the higher the deviation. Standard deviation is calculated as the square root of the variance.”

In plain English, this means that the further away from the average that an event occurs, the more unlikely it becomes. As shown below, out of 1000 occurrences, only three will fall outside the area of 3 standard deviations. 95.4% of the time, events will occur within two standard deviations.

Standard Deviation Chart

A second measure of “exuberance” is “relative strength.”

“In technical analysis, the relative strength index (RSI) is a momentum indicator that measures the magnitude of recent price changes to evaluate overbought or oversold conditions in the price of a stock or other asset. The RSI is displayed as an oscillator (a line graph that moves between two extremes) and can read from 0 to 100.

Traditional interpretation and usage of the RSI are that values of 70 or above indicate that a security is becoming overbought or overvalued and may be primed for a trend reversal or corrective pullback in price. An RSI reading of 30 or below indicates an oversold or undervalued condition.” – Investopedia

With those two measures, let’s look at Nvidia (NVDA), the poster child of speculative momentum trading in the markets. Nvidia trades more than 3 standard deviations above its moving average, and its RSI is 81. The last time this occurred was in July of 2023 when Nvidia consolidated and corrected prices through November.

NVDA chart vs Bollinger Bands

Interestingly, gold also trades well into 3 standard deviation territory with an RSI reading of 75. Given that gold is supposed to be a “safe haven” or “risk off” asset, it is instead getting swept up in the current market exuberance.

Gold vs Bollinger Bands

The same is seen with digital currencies. Given the recent approval of spot, Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), the panic bid to buy Bitcoin has pushed the price well into 3 standard deviation territory with an RSI of 73.

Bitcoin vs Bollinger Bands

In other words, the stock market frenzy to “buy anything that is going up” has spread from just a handful of stocks related to artificial intelligence to gold and digital currencies.

It’s All Relative

We can see the correlation between stock market exuberance and gold and digital currency, which has risen since 2015 but accelerated following the post-pandemic, stimulus-fueled market frenzy. Since the market, gold and cryptocurrencies, or Bitcoin for our purposes, have disparate prices, we have rebased the performance to 100 in 2015.

Gold was supposed to be an inflation hedge. Yet, in 2022, gold prices fell as the market declined and inflation surged to 9%. However, as inflation has fallen and the stock market surged, so has gold. Notably, since 2015, gold and the market have moved in a more correlated pattern, which has reduced the hedging effect of gold in portfolios. In other words, during the subsequent market decline, gold will likely track stocks lower, failing to provide its “wealth preservation” status for investors.

SP500 vs Gold

The same goes for cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is substantially more volatile than gold and tends to ebb and flow with the overall market. As sentiment surges in the S&P 500, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies follow suit as speculative appetites increase. Unfortunately, for individuals once again piling into Bitcoin to chase rising prices, if, or when, the market corrects, the decline in cryptocurrencies will likely substantially outpace the decline in market-based equities. This is particularly the case as Wall Street can now short the spot-Bitcoin ETFs, creating additional selling pressure on Bitcoin.

SP500 vs Bitcoin

Just for added measure, here is Bitcoin versus gold.

Gold vs Bitcoin

Not A Recommendation

There are many narratives surrounding the markets, digital currency, and gold. However, in today’s market, more than in previous years, all assets are getting swept up into the investor-feeding frenzy.

Sure, this time could be different. I am only making an observation and not an investment recommendation.

However, from a portfolio management perspective, it will likely pay to remain attentive to the correlated risk between asset classes. If some event causes a reversal in bullish exuberance, cash and bonds may be the only place to hide.

The post Digital Currency And Gold As Speculative Warnings appeared first on RIA.

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Aging at AACR Annual Meeting 2024

BUFFALO, NY- March 11, 2024 – Impact Journals publishes scholarly journals in the biomedical sciences with a focus on all areas of cancer and aging…

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BUFFALO, NY- March 11, 2024 – Impact Journals publishes scholarly journals in the biomedical sciences with a focus on all areas of cancer and aging research. Aging is one of the most prominent journals published by Impact Journals

Credit: Impact Journals

BUFFALO, NY- March 11, 2024 – Impact Journals publishes scholarly journals in the biomedical sciences with a focus on all areas of cancer and aging research. Aging is one of the most prominent journals published by Impact Journals

Impact Journals will be participating as an exhibitor at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2024 from April 5-10 at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California. This year, the AACR meeting theme is “Inspiring Science • Fueling Progress • Revolutionizing Care.”

Visit booth #4159 at the AACR Annual Meeting 2024 to connect with members of the Aging team.

About Aging-US:

Aging publishes research papers in all fields of aging research including but not limited, aging from yeast to mammals, cellular senescence, age-related diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s diseases and their prevention and treatment, anti-aging strategies and drug development and especially the role of signal transduction pathways such as mTOR in aging and potential approaches to modulate these signaling pathways to extend lifespan. The journal aims to promote treatment of age-related diseases by slowing down aging, validation of anti-aging drugs by treating age-related diseases, prevention of cancer by inhibiting aging. Cancer and COVID-19 are age-related diseases.

Aging is indexed and archived by PubMed/Medline (abbreviated as “Aging (Albany NY)”), PubMed CentralWeb of Science: Science Citation Index Expanded (abbreviated as “Aging‐US” and listed in the Cell Biology and Geriatrics & Gerontology categories), Scopus (abbreviated as “Aging” and listed in the Cell Biology and Aging categories), Biological Abstracts, BIOSIS Previews, EMBASE, META (Chan Zuckerberg Initiative) (2018-2022), and Dimensions (Digital Science).

Please visit our website at www.Aging-US.com​​ and connect with us:

  • Aging X
  • Aging Facebook
  • Aging Instagram
  • Aging YouTube
  • Aging LinkedIn
  • Aging SoundCloud
  • Aging Pinterest
  • Aging Reddit

Click here to subscribe to Aging publication updates.

For media inquiries, please contact media@impactjournals.com.


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