It seems that he actually did the math and spoke out loud about it.
MARA CEO: Bitcoin Has Missed Its Chance to Become a Payment Method
Fred Thiel @fgthiel , CEO of MARA, one of the world’s largest listed Bitcoin miners, said in a July 23 interview with Natalie Brunell that Bitcoin’s opportunity to serve as a payment method has passed. In commercial settings with thousands of transactions per second and thin margins, even small price fluctuations can alter the value received. He expects AI-related crypto payments to rely mainly on stablecoins. However, Bitcoin remains a useful store of value for keeping assets outside centralized control and transferring them quickly worldwide.
George retweeted
Please understand that I have been working directly with Lightning, in production, ever since it has been possible.
I have worked with builders, built out multiple implementations into wallets, LSPs, spearheaded the LSP specs group, etc.
The problem with Lightning is that it does not actually scale bitcoin, it coordinates credit.
Now that I realize this, I realize that the design of it is very bad at what people are trying to do with it. Like, very, very, bad.
Do some people use it? Obviously. But it 100% cannot scale to 10s of millions of users, and this can be shown objectively.
George retweeted
I believe the government creates demand for the dollar simply through creating volatility in markets, forcing everyone to desire a "stable" cash position.
Thoughts?
George retweeted
CRYPTO’S BIGGEST THREAT HAS NEVER BEEN REGULATORS. IT’S US.
People ask me sometimes:
“Why do you spend so much time critiquing projects instead of hyping the ones you like?”
Usually the question is worded with a lot less patience, but I get it.
Here’s the truth.
I wholeheartedly believe the scams, lies, hacks, and nonstop misinformation are destroying one of the greatest opportunities of our lifetime. Maybe permanently.
Think about that for a second.
This isn’t exaggeration. Look around. Freedom and self-sovereignty are shrinking everywhere. Twenty years ago, when I read 1984, I thought it was clever fiction. Today it feels like a warning label we ignored.
And then came Satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoin gave us a shot at rewriting the script, a chance to push back against a future of surveillance and control. But greed is threatening to ruin that chance.
That’s why I don’t shut up about it.
Imagine where Web3 could be if we didn’t have FTX, Luna, Celsius, BitConnect, or the graveyard of rug pulls. Each one didn’t just fail. They dragged the entire space down with them. Two steps forward. Two steps back.
And let's be real. People warned us. Every single time. We just didn't care. Five percent yield on Bitcoin sounded too good to pass up. "Number go up" was the only narrative we cared about.
So what did it cost?
Half the world now thinks crypto is a scam. Can you blame them? I don't.
Billions stolen in just the past five years. Probably double that if you count what never gets reported. And for every victim, a dozen friends and family hear about it. That's how you poison the reputation of an entire industry.
And it isn't just the cartoon villains like SBF or Do Kwon. It's the culture we let form around them.
Because here's the thing. Scams are obvious in hindsight. The manipulation is harder to see, but just as deadly.
Paid shills masquerading as thought leaders. Big media hyping garbage tokens because clicks matter more than truth. Whales staging pumps with carefully timed rumors just to dump on retail. Words like "decentralized" and "community-owned" tossed around as marketing slogans while the entire system is centralized in practice.
It's not bad luck. It's not isolated. It's by design.
And the worst part? The very foundation is cracked.
Most people don’t realize how much of the risk comes baked into the architecture itself. Ethereum’s ERC token model is fundamentally insecure. Approvals give infinite access. Wallets turn into ticking time bombs. Reentrancy attacks, approvals gone wrong, bridge exploits; it’s the same flaws on repeat. Over seventy percent of hacks in crypto history tie directly back to these design issues.
Bridges? They’re not innovation, they’re duct tape. Wrapped tokens are IOUs pretending to be assets, and every time one gets hacked, users lose everything. Billions gone because the system never fixed its core flaws.
So even if the scammers disappeared tomorrow, users would still be at risk simply by interacting with the infrastructure. That’s how broken it is.
Stay with me here, because this is where it gets worse.
Let’s talk memecoins.
They’re painted as harmless fun. Inside jokes, goofy mascots, and the thrill of a lottery ticket. But peel it back. Ninety-nine percent of holders lose money. They suck capital away from builders who are actually innovating. They train new users to see Web3 as a casino, not a revolution.
Think about that. Our biggest onramps today aren’t self-sovereign wallets or groundbreaking apps. They’re joke tokens. That’s the first impression most people get. Not digital freedom. Not ownership. Just gambling.
And once that perception sticks, good luck shaking it. Ask anyone outside crypto what comes to mind. Nine times out of ten, it’s Doge, Pepe, or whatever animal coin is trending this week. Not infrastructure. Not empowerment. Memes. Losses. Noise.
Memecoins aren’t culture. They’re corrosion.
So when I critique projects, when I call out scams, it isn’t because I enjoy being negative. It’s because I actually care about where this goes.
Web3 could change everything. But if greed, lies, and broken foundations keep running the show, that future never arrives.
Do you see the cost now?
More importantly... do you care?
George retweeted
📂 Trading Mastery Lesson: HEDGING
Hedging is one of the best ways to protect yourself against downside moves and to prevent selling before 1 year for capital gains if your position goes parabolic and you’re worried it might crash again.
📌 Bookmark this thread so you have it in the future if you need it.
This is a thread of why and how to hedge using derivatives and leverage:
- Hedge to reduce taxable events
- Hedge to lock in notional profit
- Hedge to protect from downside
- Hedge to take advantage of high funding rates against longs and for additional yield
- Hedge into mania/euphoria
What is hedging?
It is using a secondary market to take a position that is equal and opposite of your original position to reduce risk.
Side Note: The real reason to use leverage is to reduce counter party risk, not to be a degenerate gambler, as I mentioned in a prior thread.
Here is a real world example of hedging and the reasoning behind it.
Example to avoid selling to create a taxable event:
I buy $50k of Solana at $10.
Solana goes to $200 and it’s now worth $1,000,000 but the market is euphoric but I won’t want to sell because it’s been less than a year and I’ll get hit with 37% cap gains.
If I want to lock in the value because I’m afraid the markets are overheated and a correction is due, I can then use the derivatives or futures market to short the same asset.
I can instead short $1,000,000 with 10x leverage ($100,000 position size) on the SOLUSDT.P contract on Bybit or Binance so I am 1:1 hedged and if price goes up, I don’t lose any money and if price goes down I don’t lose money and I am break even.
Note: This strategy requires that you have enough capital to avoid liquidation in case the market continues running.
Funding Rate Arbitrage Trade:
If funding rates are overly positive because we are in a euphoric environment and the ratio of longs:shorts is high, then you can also make a decent amount of money by holding the short position.
This is also the basis for @ethena USDe stable coin that uses Ethereum emissions + funding rates for yield.
You can hold the short open for as long as you want and if price ends up crashing you can close the short whenever and you still have $1,000,000 because the gains in the short offset the losses of your spot position.
The key to hedging is to be comfortable with price moving against you and losing out on the spot gains because you are locking in the value and expect the euphoria to eventually come back down to earth.
Another example is if you are a major influence and your wallets are being tracked. If you hold a large position in a meme coin or a protocol you invested in, but don’t want to sell when the price exceeds your expectation or hits your ideal exit, you can take out a short against it to lock in the notional gains.
Example:
Influencer A buys 2% of *NEW MEME* and everyone buys alongside him that tracks his wallet.
The market cap runs to $1 billion, putting his position at $20 million.
The influencer may believes that it is significantly overbought and wants to lock in the value without causing panic.
He can take a short to hedge using much less capital than $20 million due to leverage to lock in the value and when price comes back down 50-60%, he can close the short.
Funds or influencers that have significant holdings from VC investments and angel rounds for altcoins can take out short positions after airdrops or to cover the value that is stuck in a TGE/vesting contract AND sell onchain/spot to profit on both sides of the trade or wait until tokens are released.
There are a ton of variations to hedging with a lot of different financial instruments, but this is a nice basis to get you started.
You can also hedge with options, dated futures contracts, etc.
The strategy I provided is the simplest you can do for a beginner.
Like and repost if you enjoyed the thread and follow for more.
George retweeted
JUST IN: 🇺🇸 Grayscale spot #Bitcoin ETF options trading to launch tomorrow.
George retweeted
The most valuable commodity in 10 years will be privacy.
Unfortunately the ability to have it will be out of reach for lower income classes.
Remember, if the product is free… you are the product.
George retweeted
I'm pretty sure something is happening behind the scenes.
404,448 #Bitcoin have moved to permanent holder addresses over the past 30 days, and it's clearly accumulation.
We'll know within a year.
#Bitcoin is in an accumulation phase.
Over the past month, 358K BTC has moved to permanent holder addresses. In July, global spot ETF inflows were 53K BTC.
Though not all remaining BTC is in custody wallets, whales are clearly accumulating. And it's an unprecedented level.
George retweeted
Left: Measuring open interest, funding rate, liquidation levels on hyblock, spot premium, onchain flows, miner outflows, exchange inflows, order flow on tradinglite, moving averages, OBV, twaps and slightly profitable.
Right: Buys on support. Sells at resistance. Massive profit
George retweeted
The trilemma is a comment made about the state of the art of DLTs a decade ago. It was never meant to be taken as a universal truth. It can be solved, and has been solved by $kas. It takes a maxi imagination to elevate it to a law of nature.
This Post is from a suspended account. Learn more
George retweeted
Instead of health care, they should call it health no one gives a fuck.
The level of laziness and incompetence in western medicine has to be at an all time high.
They barely make an attempt to diagnose and just throw the newest drug at the problem and hope it manages the symptom.
The number of stories I’ve heard of this and the exorbitant costs is mind bugging.
George retweeted
People that bought on the dip are going to sell way too early fearing another sell off to the lows.
The reaction from altcoins during the #Bitcoin sell off to sub $59k was the big clue we needed to know that sellers are exhausted.
Just need a little tail winds to get the market running again.
Nothing wrong with taking profit, but I think it’s going to be hard to find good entries if the market starts moving again.
