I knew something major happened last Sunday as soon as I wandered past my office and noticed a few anomalies on the computer screens, even from a distance.

Not only had the Bitcoin fees and mempool charts gone through the roof, the price and hash rate charts had gone through the floor. All at the same time.

Now, if I’m honest, as an analyst I love this sort of stuff. Charts, graphs and numbers that measure different things independently and tell a story are kind of, well, sexy.

In this case, it was pretty easy to work out was going…

I spend A LOT of time on Twitter. Far too much if you ask my other half.

The reality is in a fast moving, ever changing environment like the world of crypto, my feed constantly fills up with new opinions, discussion and news that’s very helpful for keeping on top with what’s going on. But it also means I often see the same clips, memes and articles over and over again.

Recently, Professor Nouriel Roubini’s February interview on Bloomberg keeps finding its way onto my screen — just another appearance where he repeats his traditional “anti Bitcoin” position ad nauseum…

It’s finally here. The giant $1.9 TRILLION stimulus package, also known as the “America Rescue Plan,” has been signed off and, to paraphrase a now outdated expression, the first “checks are in the post.”

Indeed, at the time of writing this article, a handful of Americans may already have received their money.

For once, I am going to resist providing my usual commentary on whether creating this much money is good for the economy or the value of the dollar in the long term and focus instead on where that money might go.

This is the third round of stimulus…

At first glance this seems to be a very bold claim.

After all, this is often cited as a reason that Bitcoin can’t succeed, specifically, the point that “they” will simply shut it down. We can assume that “they” is a faceless collection of powers represented in various forms including governments, regulators or even monarchies.

But the reality is that it’s already too late for that. In fact, it was probably too late within a few months of Bitcoin’s birth in 2009 when the practical applications rapidly became clear. …

Words are incredibly powerful.

The right words at the right time can change the world — both positively or negatively — and they can be as equally as uplifting or devastating on our own psyche if we let them.

So perhaps the most dangerous combination of all is that simple construction compromising of just two apparently innocuous words:

If only …

It’s easy to get lost down this rabbit hole of infinite possibilities and imagine reliving your life from a certain point with different choices, like replaying a level in a video game with the benefit of knowing what’s coming…

Recently, I was contacted by a student in Ireland via Twitter asking for information on the demographic and socioeconomic backgrounds of “typical” holders, users and investors of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. It was only at this point I realized I didn’t have a good enough answer for him.

It’s not like I hadn't thought about it. In fact, it had become a bit of a fun pastime of mine to ask other people how they would describe such a person, on a purely curious and anecdotal basis, whenever the chance came up in conversation. …

Prologue:

While this article can be enjoyed as a standalone piece, it is best read in conjunction with this earlier article that deals with another negatively perceived aspect of Bitcoin mining, namely power consumption.

The key points that can be taken from that piece are:

• Bitcoin mining is a huge industry that is growing rapidly, but has three significant environmental concerns which are: power consumption, heat generation and recycling of equipment.
• Whilst it’s true that power consumption is currently a problem, it is argued that it is not as big as it is made out to be and there are even…

I recently wrote an article about how Bitcoin’s mining operations could ultimately end up being good for the planet.

Some considered it controversial and pointed me to various facts and surveys indicating how damaging it is, many of which I had considered when doing research for the piece.

They’re right, of course. There’s little doubt that if we carried on down the existing path, Bitcoin’s mining impact could have a significantly adverse effect on the planet in the long term.

But the overriding point made in that article is that I firmly believe that the path we’ll ultimately end up…