Bitcoin

• Global Stocks Take Breather After Oil-Fueled Rally (WSJ)
• Junk Investors Evade the Trade (WSJ)
• How the Third Avenue Fund Melted Down (WSJ)
• Oil Traders Set to Pounce as U.S. Prepares to Lift Export Ban (BBG)
• JPMorgan Says Japan Inc. Must Prepare for Yen Below 100 a Dollar (BBG)

• Oil up after U.S. crude stocks drop, still close to 11-year lows (Reuters)
• Global Stocks Rally; Mining, Metals Shares Lead Gains (WSJ)
• OPEC Sees Demand for Its Crude Oil Falling for Rest of Decade (BBG)
• The Trouble With Sovereign-Wealth Funds (WSJ)
• U.S. Calls for 256% Tariff on Imports of Steel From China (BBG)
• Iraqi troops expected to drive ISIS from Ramadi in days (Reuters)

A world where money is decentralized means a world where nothing you’ve ever seen before will become the new norm and the new norm is unlikely to include a scrap of paper issued by a bankrupt government.

How much money exists in the world? Strangely enough, there are multiple answers to this question, and the amount of money that exists changes depending on how we define it. The more abstract definition of money we use, the higher the number is.

Alleged bitcoin founder Craig "Coldfish" Wright once tried to trade nearly $85 million of virtual currency for gold, according to transcipts from ATO meetings and an account penned by The Australian. The transaction, purportedly conducted with controversial businessman Mark Ferrier, suggests that the man some say is the fabled Satoshi Nakamoto may have believed that his creation was nothing more than "funny money" after all. 

Massive change is coming but don't expect your local banker to see it coming and let you know about it

When we first detailed the link between a devaluing currency, increasing restrictions on outflows of China capital, and Bitcoin, the virtual currency soared (driven by Chinese flows, just as predicted). The last few days, as China has once again started devaluing its currency, authorities once again moved to tighten capital outflows - this time through caps on credit-card withdrawals (as warned here) - and sure enough, Bitcoin has been soaring recently. Specifically, a nationwide crackdown on illegal UnionPay point-of-sale devices, has sparked capital flight (on heavy volume) through the vurtual currrency.

On Tuesday, Wired and Gizmodo revealed the identity of the man they say is Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin. Hours later, Australian authorities stormed his home and businesses in what was descrbed to reporters only as "an operation." According to the reports released yesterday, "Cold fish Craig" - as the man is known in the Austrailian suburb where he resides with his wife - may be in for a protracted standoff with the country's tax authorities.

At 1815ET, after trading in a very narrow $1 range for hours, Bitcoin suddenly exploded $17 higher on very heavy volume. Normally this wouldn't warrant an explicit mention, but this time... something odd happened in Chinese currency markets...

China burned through some $40 billion in FX reserves in November in support of the yuan while the headline drawdown came in at a whopping $87 billion inclusive of valuation effects. It was the third largest decline in history and suggests that despite a misleading $11 billion increase in October, capital flight continues unabated.

Year end 2015, we go from Ponzi scheme to failure to the thing every major global bank desires. The dilemma is, the ingenuity to excel in this space lies in scrappy young startups, not trillion dollar mega banks. Let me prove this to you, step by prior art step.

Our condolences to the Fed: as Chinese buyers exit US luxury housing double time, watch as the bottom falls off the top in housing, and slowly at first then very fast drags the rest of the market lower, forcing the Fed to undo whatever tightening in monetary conditions it may have launched, or is contemplating.

As evidenced by the Greek, Chinese, and now Argentine 'jumps', the world remains increasingly aware of the inevitable worth of fiat currencies (and is looking for alternatives). From miners to merchants, the Bitcoin universe continues to expand dramatically as we noted previously, "There are more people in the world who need a currency they can trust, than there are people in the world who can trust their currency."

"There are more people in the world who need a currency they can trust, than there are people in the world who can trust their currency."

On Friday, we previously reported that "Europe Cracks Down On Bitcoin, Virtual Currencies To "Curb Terrorism Funding." That was the appetizer because today we read, again with little surprise, that "as part of a push to clamp down on the financing of militant groups" French Finance Minister Michel Sapin European said that authorities need to be able to tap into data from the SWIFT bank payments network.