This week, a US court told US regulators to find new reasons to deny spot Bitcoin ETFs, but the media made it sound like the court compelled regulators to approve spot Bitcoin ETFs.

Shortly after the news hit, Bitcoin’s price went up 6% in one day and the bull market champions started waving their flags.

Then, its price went down 6% in two days and the market experts reminded you that everything will collapse.

I know an analyst who told people to throw money into the market above $60,000 and sell at $25,000, who now says to wait for Bitcoin’s price to either go below $14,000 again or “confirm a bull market.”

Don’t worry about bull or bear. It’ll be years before we know whether this is a bull market or not. Bitcoin’s price has only gone up for ten months and it’s only up 57% this year.

A bull market for any other asset, but nobody knows whether that standard applies to crypto.

Fortunately, that doesn’t mean we can’t have a clear picture of what’s going on, some realistic expectations, a plan to navigate the market, and enough information to identify meaningful changes in trends.

Start with my most recent update.

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UNI price unfazed despite positive development in Uniswap class action lawsuit at SDNY court

Bottom line: some Uniswap users sued Uniswap Labs for selling unregistered securities and scams to unsuspecting users. A US court threw out their case because crypto protocol developers aren’t liable when others (frauds) misuse their creations. The judge also said the courts can’t determine whether cryptos are securities or not. UNI’s price fell after the news came out.

My take: sometimes the news has nothing to do with price movements. Another US court set a valuable, positive precedent for crypto, this time for the biggest DEX on earth. Take the W and don’t worry about prices. That’ll come. More importantly, the US courts continue to defend crypto against laws that make no sense. Crypto entities have won most of the civil cases where they haven’t settled. Isn’t that good enough?

(Criminal cases are a different story, for good reason.)

Why we care: US regulators aren’t as effective as your friends and influencers think and news doesn’t matter as much for Bitcoin’s price you think.

Hey Mark, in last week’s rundown, you said we’d go mostly sideways with big upswings and downswings for the next 140 days. How do you know that?

I don’t know that and I didn’t say that.

Go back to the Confronting Obstacles section of the August monthly issue. When you look at each crypto cycle as a story in three acts, we’re in Act 2. Act 1 is the bear market, Act 2 is the upswing that everybody misses, and Act 3 is the upswing that everybody sells too early.

When you average the number of days of each previous Act 2, you get 300 days. Since that’s an average, it gives you a sense of perspective about the timeframe that I’m thinking about.

Months, not days. Only Bitcoin knows how long it will take.

Do you think Tether’s shady?

It’s been around longer than any other stablecoin. It has processed 100% of withdrawals without any halts or delays. Its attestations show it has 100% reserves (just not where the reserves came from or where they’re kept). It’s passed as many audits as the US military.

The worst proven accusation? For a few years, Tether had only 77% reserves, which is infinitely more than your average US bank.

Does that mean you should trust Tether?

No. Until they provide full transparency, we can only trust that they and their auditor are being honest.

Watch this Defiant video and decide for yourself. Or, get the podcast version.

For the record, I suspect Tether has enough reserves to redeem every penny that people deposit. They have a very high minimum withdrawal limit and serve some large entities who operate outside of the US financial system and might resort to extreme, unpleasant methods of justice if they couldn’t get every penny they deposited. The people who run Tether might worry about those entities more than they worry about US authorities.

For example, you might wonder why Tether doesn’t provide CUSIPs, a code that identifies US treasuries and other securities. Tether says it’s to protect their brokers. CUSIPs contain no information on their owners. Without further evidence, you can’t use them to prove that anybody has a specific T-bill. In fact, anybody can paste somebody else’s valid number on any form and claim it as their own.

So, why is Tether concerned about sharing this information?

Because expert sleuths can use CUSIPs to narrow down the list of buyers and follow footprints to figure out who Tether’s doing business with. US authorities are expert sleuths. The people who do business with Tether are probably doing things that US authorities want to stop.

Am I saying Tether’s doing something illegal or wrong?

No, I have no idea what they’re doing. Neither do you.

That’s the problem. They hold the fate of the entire crypto market in their hands and nobody knows if they’re doing what they say they’re doing.

If they’re lying and the market calls their bluff or US authorities take them down, it’ll make Celsius’s collapse look like a children’s party.

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Relax and enjoy the ride!