2025, Jan 8 - Jan 14

After a short pump to $102,000, Bitcoin has fallen back down to $94,000, this Wednesday. Expecting the rally to continue up, the crypto market still seems to struggle. Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, announced his resignation until a new prime minister is elected. His potential replacement, Pierre Poliviere, the leader of Official Opposition, has been publicly praising Bitcoin, and has a view on promoting a Canadian digital currency. He tweeted, “We need sound money again—and also the freedom for buyers and sellers to choose #bitcoin.” Prediction rates of being the Prime Minister is currently a stunning 94%, according to Global News. Bitcoin on Thursday however, saw some major volatility with a hitting a little below $91,000. This may be an ongoing phase in the immediate short term, being Wall Street selling off the returns in fear of inflation, stopping Jerome Powell from cutting FED fund rate more than the two cuts he promised. In Bloomberg’s live interview, SEC Chair Gary Gensler stated his scam views on crypto claiming the eventual fall. He claimed, “it is raised by the public and the public is investing, hoping for a better future… I’ve never been in a field that has so much sentiment.” Speaking of Gensler, in a recent CNBC interview though, he states “it might be something in the future.” Based on his way of describing crypto, the public assumes he secretly holds BTC even with his views that say otherwise, “I have never owned any of these and I have been consistent for seven or eight years on this.” On Friday, a jobs and unemployment report, with 155,000 to a 255,000 job increase and an unemployment rate from 4.2% to 4.1% when it was anticipated to increase to 4.3%. It recovered the price of BTC to $95,000 but Wall Street objectively doesn’t seem to like this good news just because of that fear of spending and further inflation. From my last article, I covered the topics of the possible US Bitcoin strategic reserve and the ripple effect for other countries to utilize blockchain technology. Russia also has now made Bitcoin mining legal after strong demands and as mining becomes harder than ever. This is mainly because they do not want America to dominate with BTC mining. After having a very steep drop below $90,000 on Monday, it is now up over $97,000 with a very nice recovery. Analysts call this “normal” because historically, we have seen some volatility the week before Inauguration day.

The Pacific Palisades fire is currently in an emergency state. It is tragic of course and the US economy agrees. In a research done by AccuWeather, the damage and economic losses are around $250 billion to $275 billion. This includes real estate, salvage cars, totally burnt luxury goods, and etc. California has always been prioritizing the environment more than anything else. As a result, fire hydrant tests were not run, ultimately ending up with multiple malfunctions and the mayor Karen Bass is being highly criticized for lowering the budget for LAFD, prior to the fires, according to CNN. This was all because the water that was cut from fire departments, are reserved for a preservation of a natural delta smelt fish. Debates on prioritization broke out with Gavin Newson also being fiercely criticized and insurances and banks panic responding to these fires. As property tax revenues decline, schools earn less money, resulting in a lower budget on infrastructure. Public services and insurance are disrupted, putting even more financial pressure on the city. Uc Berkeley News state “It’s possible that the FAIR Plan could have losses from the wildfires that exceed its reserves and reinsurance and then assess insurers for $1 billion and then assess all policyholders in the state… rate increases that were anticipated before the fires for all Californians and which will be even higher now.”

BBC News writes that China uses its own tariffs of sometimes 25% against the US leading to the loss of billions of dollars. Now, China has been America’s top trading partner and over $35 billion of retaliatory tariffs were paid, even with ongoing political and economic support. President-Elect Trump has recently called to increase tariffs on Chinese goods by 10% and Canadian and Mexican goods by 25%. “Some might say it’s economic nationalism. I call it common sense. I call it America first.” announced Trump. He also stated his plans to buy Greenland and the Panama Canal, and potentially make Canada, the “51st state of America,” making it an economic powerhouse. However, to better understand why he is doing this, it makes sense for Mr. Trump to pressure Canada and Mexico for their increased illegal immigration and smuggling networks. He saw a chance for the US government to advantage over the border countries, because of their uncontrolled crimes, falling onto American territory. According to public figure Andrei Jikh, Trump has been strategically using the concept of “anchoring,” presenting an initial extreme demand, making follow up demands more reasonable, while it is “significantly favorable to the initiator.” Despite the “FUD” over rate cuts and inflation, this current state of crypto might just be a buying season, until Inauguration day.