I
I have been trying to avoid checking Crypto Twitter since the start of the year because I have other more important stuff to focus on in 2023 but when I do my quick glance on a couple of CT traders, NFT and ETH maxi accounts, I noticed that they kept talking about the Binance Cartel and how bears are salty and blaming the Binance Cartel for causing this ‘fake’ rally from $16k to $23k BTC.
Apparently the doomer Crypto Twitter accounts who were euphoric about the FTX collapse and its aftermath are continuing to focus on the shadiness of Binance and sharing stuff like “Binance printing fake USD to manipulate volume and pumping BUSD coins”.
<iframe src="https://www.sharvesh.com/embed" width="480" height="320" style="border:1px solid #EEE; background:white;" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>
I don’t think they are completely wrong and there are elements of truths to the bears but when you zoom out the bulls have been right on crypto trending up and to the right. But it is also important to note patterns on Binance that are shady and accepted as normal things by users.
One thing is BUSD pair shitcoins pumping. It is meme’d that CZ coins and BUSD pair coins will always pump and do random 10x wicks out of nowhere to pump and promote BUSD trading. These random BUSD pairs pumping 10x out of nowhere are a definitely form of marketing to BUSD.
Also wonder where else people meme’d an exchange into pumping their own shitcoins. Yeah it was SBF. FTT, SOL, SOL eco and more FTX perp only coins were all Sam coins that when pumped benefitted Sam.
II
While these bears may be salty about ‘missing’ this move, it is important to note that you can never really miss anything in investing. True bottoms and tops to markets take time to form. Also it’s never worth spending your time on things you dislike and ‘hate’.
I like reading web3isgoinggreat and Molly White’s newsletter about the messed up stuff going on in Crypto and Web3 but a part of me remembers that she writes this newsletter and keeps this website updated with hundreds of posts a year on stuff that she like and despises. That’s weird.
Here’s the about page on web3isgoinggreat.
Web3 is Going Just Great is a project to track some examples of how things in the blockchains/crypto/web3 technology space aren’t actually going as well as its proponents might like you to believe. The timeline tracks events in cryptocurrency and blockchain-based technologies, dating back to the beginning of 2021.
and here’s a snippet of her thoughts on blockchains on her personal website
But instead of going from apathy to acceptance, I have instead come to believe that these technologies are so harmful that I cannot ethically continue to ignore them, and must instead do my best to educate and advocate against their wider adoption. I am picking my battles, and this is one of them.
Sure you can pick your own battles and do whatever you want as long as it doesn’t harm people but I think that living a life focusing on something you dislike is not something 99.9% of people would find enjoyable and fulfilling.
Don’t get me wrong, people love to spend time and energy on things that they dislike. Spending this time on useless things feel great at the moment but these don’t bring long term fulfilment.
You won’t be on your death bed at 85 years old and think “Thank god I spent 5 years of my 20s arguing why crypto is a scam instead of spending time improving myself and figuring out my purpose in life”.
This is what Bezos called the Regret Minimisation Framework.
In a nutshell, when debating within yourself as to whether or not you should do something, the question Bezos asks is, “At the end of my life, will I regret not having done this?” If the answer is no, well then it’s probably not worth doing. But if the answer is yes, or even “maybe,” then there’s your answer.
Of course there are obvious counters to this you can point to about activists or people who changed the world for the better who focused on things they hated and felt were wrong but these things were much bigger and much more harmful than crypto even with the assumption that it is all a scam and harmful.
Being a doomer bear who posts about Bitfinex and Tether propping up the crypto markets and about Binance and BUSD propping up this 2023 rally isn’t as big as decolonisation, women’s suffrage, gaining independence for your nation or abolishing slavery.
It might be nice to be against the herd of dumb cattle and bet against them but at the end of the day you would rather spend your valuable time on things that you believe in rather than things you DO NOT believe in.
So stop crying on Twitter about the Binance Cartel and find something that you enjoy in life instead of being a hater of crypto on Twitter. Your 85 year old self would probably thank you.
III
Back to the Binance Cartel, the conclusion is that most moves are predetermined by insiders. Either suck up to enough CT traders to get invited to the more prestigious cartels or find an edge to detect their insider trades without being an insider (Twitter, exchange trading data, block explorers etc).
Also stop crying on Twitter, ‘real’ bottoms and tops in markets take time to form. I have no idea what is going to happen in the future but there will probably be time before BTC breaks 69k and ETH breaks 4.8k and pumps to 100k, 10k and everyone lives in the metaverse. Especially if you got rekt by the crypto clownery that unfolded in 2022 and continues to unfold in 2023.
The trains not leaving (I think lmao). Would be hilariously (depressing) if BTC went to new all time highs but even the Echo Bubble Main Character GCR doesn’t think that’s going to happen soon.
IV
While writing this article I saw this tweet on the timeline.
Lmao. Insider trading in crypto is so common. This address and linked addresses probably won’t ever be used again but if you had found out this information before it was made public knowledge, hypothetically you could have set alerts for this address and done stuff.
This guy at Binance is probably going to be caught and face some time though. The only thing is that Binance is not a US based company and doens’t have operations there.
Also what’s weird is that this account was in a pretty popular Wall Street Journal article in 2022 about Crypto Insider Trading and apparently nothing has happened since then.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/crypto-might-have-an-insider-trading-problem-11653084398
There have been other examples of people this year who learnt that insider trading crypto is illegal.
Nate Chastain, former OpenSea employee, was caught insider trading and profiting $50k in the middle of the golden age of NFTs. It was quite embarrasing actually. Imagine getting caught for insider trading and profiting $50k when new 10k PFP collections of pigeons and bulls were selling for $10k 2 days after launch with no roadmap.
There was also another case of insider trading at a crypto exchange. This time it was at Coinbase and the person who got caught faces 10 months in prison.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/10/23548507/coinbase-crypto-insider-training-prison-nikhil-wahi
This guy got caught by the FBI due to a Cobie tweet lmao.
Also the only reason why all three of these people who did insider trading got caught was due to poor opsec. They executed the transactions from the same wallet like a noob or used the same exchange deposit address for all their criminally tainted wallets.
This is in no way insider trading advice but at least obfuscate your trail using other exchanges, coins, chains or straight up using money mixers that are meant for money laundering.
If these 3 high profile cases get caught, I wonder how many thousands more are living in their penthouses retired from insider trading at crypto companies.
Justin Sun is definitely one of them but he is pretty public about his lack of following rules and insider trading. It’s so public that is basically a meme at this point.
The Tales of His Excellency Justin Sun
V
So in conclusion, don’t be dumb cattle or bear. binance cartel is real but there’s no point crying about it. either join the cartel, stalk them or pick up sewing as a hobby.
