Hello all,

Welcome to a very special Christmas edition of the Blacklynx Brief.

First of all sorry for the clickbaity title but you’re forcing my hand here. You’ve all got “Tiktok-brain” and a 7 second attention span so in order to get you even here I need to pull out all the plugs.

Anyway , welcome to volume 20 of the Blacklynx Brief.

Twenty weeks of covering the latest in cybersecurity and AI.

And what a ride it has been already !

Like an angsty teenager we're still trying to define our identity and we'll continue our mission to be a value-spewing machine in 2024. We want to become so valuable and fun to read that our readers get restless when it's 8:31 on a Friday morning and the newsletter hasn't dropped yet.

That being said, next week we're on a small one week hiatus so there'll be NO newsletter.

As Christmas is the holiday of hope, this edition is dedicated to what is going on in the world of cryptocurrency and specifically Bitcoin.

We're going to leave the AI and cyber news for what it is and focus on something else this week.

Parallel to the developments in AI and cybersecurity there are two other tracks I'm keeping my eye on : cryptocurrency and quantum computing.

Bitcoin is especially interesting as more and more people are becoming aware of what it really is and how it works. And how extremely useful it can be as a store of value in economies where the local currency is subject to inflation and hyperinflation.

Did you know roughly half the Turkish population owns some form of cryptocurrency ?

2024 might well be the year for Bitcoin and we're going to be explaining what is going on exactly that has piqued our interest.

BTC Today

But first. Let's look at what happened to Bitcoin in 2023. Exactly one year ago 1 BTC was worth 15.500€. Today - as of writing- it's worth 39.500€.

That's a 145% raise. The reasons for this price raise might be in anticipation of what I'm about to lay out here.

Before that, cryptocurrencies as a whole went through a series of scandals. Famously, FTX imploded and its founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) is now serving a few lifetimes in jail. You had Binance's founder paying a 4Billion dollar penalty to the US for laundering money and we had the collapse of TERRA, LUNA and Circle.

2024 is the “make or break” year for this digital asset.

Two elements are at play.

IF these elements play out like I think they will - the value of BTC and crypto in general will SKYROCKET. Even more than the 150%.

And it will lead to BTC becoming mainstream.

By the way - THIS IS NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE. DON’T SELL YOUR HOUSE AND BLAME IT ON ME.

There are 2 reasons why BTC might explode upwards in 2024.

Reason 1 : The Bitcoin Halving will come around April 2024

Reason 1 : The Halving

I told you already that BTC is being used as a safe haven in countries where the local currency is being devalued by hyperinflation.

Bitcoin is - by design - deflationary. In April 2024 the Bitcoin "Halving" will occur. The Bitcoin halving is a significant event in the Bitcoin network that occurs approximately every four years, or more precisely, every 210,000 blocks.

The halving reduces the reward that Bitcoin miners receive for adding new blocks to the blockchain by half. This event is a part of Bitcoin's monetary policy, which is encoded in its software and is a key feature that distinguishes Bitcoin from traditional fiat currencies.

We’ve had halvings before as you can see in the table above and traditionally the price always went up after a halving.

There will also never be more than 21.000.000 BTC. That is also fixed into the protocol.

Not like our money where the government can just print some extra money to bail out some banks or keep corporations from going bankrupt.

If the supply goes down the demand and the price will go up.

Reason 2 - Spot Bitcoin ETFs

Secondly - and a LOT more interesting (congrats on still being here by the way) is the hugely anticipated potential approval of a bunch of "Spot Bitcoin ETF's"

Let's meet the protagonists in this story.

This is Larry.

Larry is the most powerful man on earth you have never heard of. More powerful than whatever political leader on earth.

Larry Fink is the CEO of Blackrock. The largest asset manager in the world. It holds 9.42 trillion dollars in assets and has been on the forefront of ESG-based investing.

Larry Fink used to be sharply against Bitcoin, notoriously calling it "an index for money laundering".

Last few years Larry has changed his tune. He acknowledged the potential of Bitcoin to revolutionize finance, comparing its impact to that of gold as a hedge against inflation and various economic challenges. Fink highlighted the international nature of Bitcoin, suggesting it as an alternative asset that is not based on any one country's currency.

Blackrock's belief in Bitcoin as a store in value resulted in the filing of an application of a “Spot Bitcoin ETF”.

An ETF is an Exchange Traded Fund. There are thousands of ETF's retail investors like you and I can buy and sell. For example there's a cybersecurity ETF (ticker: IHAK) that is comprised of multiple cybersecurity companies. If you think cybersecurity will be more important in the future you can buy the ETF and in the background Blackrock will buy the individual stocks for the companies that are in the ETF.

They're now for the first time doing this with Bitcoin. If you want to buy Bitcoin now it's a hassle. You have to go on an exchange - which can be dangerous - or use a hardware wallet - for which you need to be a bit technical to pull that off.

A spot bitcoin ETF would mean that retail investors can buy BTC directly without actually owning the actual bitcoin. Blackrock would hold the actual Bitcoin.

Why is this important ?

If this is approved it will effectively plug Wall Street into the Bitcoin ecosystem. Large institutions and retail investors will be able to buy Bitcoin without going through the hassle of actually buying it and risking to lose it all on exchanges like FTX or Binance.

Big pension funds will also come in buy Bitcoin as part of a diversified portfolio.

It will bring Bitcoin into the mainstream and drive the price higher.

If this is approved some analysts predict a 500x price hike for Bitcoin. It sounds crazy but yes there are people predicting the Bitcoin price will go to 2.000.000€ for one BTC.

Blackrock is not the only asset manager who filed for such an ETF. All the other large asset managers followed suit : Fidelity, Ark Invest, Vanguard, VanEck, WisdomTree, ... etc.

Why hasn’t this been approved yet ?

Well , every good story needs a villain.

Meet Gary

Gary Gensler is the chairman of the Securities and Exchanges Commission and Gary is doing everything he can to keep this from happening. This is extremely confusing because when you wanted to learn about Bitcoin there was one free course online you could follow to go deep into the details. The course is still available from MIT and the teacher ? Well , it's Gary !

In this course he show considerable understanding and support for Bitcoin.

So what's going on. Well ,the rumour is that he's in the back pocket of Sen. Elizabeth Warren who is opposed to anything that is crypto - because she's in the back pocket of the major US banks.

As you can imagine they are trying to do anything to stop BTC from going mainstream.

Gensler already tried to deny the Fidelity ETF. Fidelity went to court and the court ruled against the SEC

[Closing Thoughts]

There you have it.

2024 will be a pivotal moment in monetary history.

This is the make-or-break moment for cryptocurrencies in general.

An ETF approval will open the floodgates and change everything.

Is it worth skipping the AI and cyber news to learn about this? I think so!

Anyway, I wanted to close off this year by wishing you all the best for 2024. Thank you for reading the Blacklynx Brief and all the very best going forward.

Happy holidays !!