If you’re offended by sex, violence, and salty language, then you should skip this article…
Deadwood was an acclaimed Western series that ran on HBO from 2004–2006.
The series was set in the town of Deadwood, South Dakota during the Black Hills Gold Rush of the late 1870s.
As you can imagine, the show was full of shootouts, filthy language, and quite a few sex scenes… Certainly not a show you’d want to watch with your kids.
But there is an episode of Deadwood that holds a valuable lesson for crypto investors…
During the Dakota gold rush, regular folks who got in early made fortunes. These weren’t mining magnates or industrialists. Much like today’s crypto investors, they were savvy speculators pouncing on an opportunity.
What happened to all those early-stage prospectors?
In the fictionalized Deadwood version, wealthy miner George Hearst (father of publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst), swindled them out of their mining shares.
This wasn’t too far from the truth. According to rumors at the time, Hearst used murder, intimidation, and misinformation to force people to sell their claims. He even purchased newspapers in the town to influence public opinion.
Crypto investors will recognize the strategy Hearst used.
In a bid to buy in cheap, Hearst’s agents started to float rumors that the government would seize all land in the town. Prospectors believed the rumors—and sold their mining stakes for pennies to Hearst’s agents.
The conspiracy worked. Hearst and his partners bought the biggest mine in the region—Homestake—for a bargain-basement price of $70,000 ($1.7 million in today’s dollars).
Homestake would become the richest gold mine in U.S. history. From 1879 to 2002, the mine produced 44 million ounces of gold and 9 million ounces of silver.
At today’s prices, that’s a combined $56.5 billion in precious metals.
I’m seeing a similar heist play out in today’s crypto markets.
Who’s Behind the Conspiracy
Every day, we hear in the press how the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is cracking down on cryptocurrencies.
We hear that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is starting a new investigation.
We hear JPMorgan’s CEO saying he’ll fire any of his employees buying cryptos—then we find out his traders in London are buying with both hands.
We hear central banks float stories designed to scare and ward off crypto investors.
In February 2018, the Polish central bank even admitted it hired a firm to spread a “smear campaign” against cryptos. (And do you remember IMF head Christine Lagarde saying central banks need to band together against cryptos?)
Friends, the great crypto conspiracy of 2018 is upon us.
All year long, we’ve been under assault by rumors of central bank collusion against cryptos: threats of bans… endless investigations… and the ceaseless drumbeat of negativity from the traditional press.
And yet—amid this shower of negative news—careful observers will have noticed institutions are actually running into crypto investments.
Today, I’m seeing banks, regulators, and the press drown the market in negative news. They’re using the same old trick Hearst used to scare speculators so he could scoop up the Homestake mine for pennies…
Guess what? It’s working.
Institutions are getting the best prices on cryptos since mid-2017… While the average investor is panic-selling, big investors are buying.
Crypto Wealth Is Being Redistributed
Over the last 90 days, we’ve seen some of the biggest investors in the world flood into cryptos:
- Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs announced that it would launch a crypto trading desk.
- Susquehanna—the 12th-largest trading firm in the world by volume—announced it would start trading cryptos, too. The firm even went as far as creating its own custody company to hold its cryptos.
- Billionaire investor George Soros—one of the world’s greatest moneymakers—gave the green light to his team to buy cryptos.
- Coinbase—one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges—launched a crypto index fund for wealthy investors and institutions.
- Financial services company State Street said it’s considering acting as a custodian for bitcoin. State Street has $2.7 trillion under management.
- Wellington Capital—with over $1 trillion of assets under management—stated its intention to start trading bitcoin.
- The Rockefeller family’s venture capital firm, Venrock, said it’s also buying cryptos.
Every important lawyer I talk to in the investment space is overwhelmed with crypto questions from their institutional clients. That’s just the latest evidence that institutions are trying to get into this market—not stay out of it.
Don’t Fall Victim to This Conspiracy
Friends, make no mistake… We’re in the middle of a massive handover of wealth from individuals to institutions.
I saw this happen after the housing crisis in 2010–2012, when institutions started buying up foreclosures by the thousands… but individual investors couldn’t get a mortgage.
I saw it in 2003 after the dot-com crash, when institutions started buying up internet and technology stocks on the cheap… But on CNBC, they kept telling the public it was too early to buy.
I saw it during 1994–1995, when institutions scoffed outwardly about how “dumb” money was buying internet stocks… while they were loading up as individuals were selling.
I’ve seen this institutional blueprint for stealing wealth play out again and again.
Don’t be a victim of this strategy. The key is to focus on what institutions are doing…not on what they’re saying.
Across the world, institutional investors are embracing cryptos—not rejecting them.
Just as George Hearst made a fortune using misinformation to buy the Homestake mine on the cheap… institutions know they will make vast fortunes buying cryptos at depressed prices. Otherwise, they just wouldn’t bother with it.
Don’t be a statistic. Stay strong. Keep your position sizes rational.
We will ride the wave of misinformation through this dark valley of despair and into the bright sunlight of the life-changing future ahead of us.
This is an area I’m personally investing in now, to build a financial legacy I can leave to my daughters.
Nobody else sees this coming.
Let the Game Come to You!
Editor, The Palm Beach Letter and Palm Beach Confidential
And Official Cryptocurrency Expert to Townhall Media
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