What do Ghana and BlackRock Have in Common?
They're Both Bullish on Bitcoin
This week, I had the distinct pleasure of speaking with ‘Cowries’ Kumi Owusu Nkansah.
I first came across Nkansah on Twitter, when I saw him post about educating people from the Volta region of Ghana about Bitcoin.
I lived in the Volta region of Ghana for a bit back in 2009 and 2010, and I’ve wanted to teach the people with whom I worked there about Bitcoin but haven’t been sure how to approach it.
But it looks like I’ll be heading back to the village in which I lived there with Nkansah in December, and we’ll hopefully do some educating together!
I’m getting too far ahead of myself, though...
In the episode above, Nkansah — a successful and experienced broadcast journalist and digital marketer — shares about how he came to find Bitcoin, how he gained the confidence to become a full-time Bitcoin educator and he now advises higher up members of the Ghanaian government about Bitcoin.
Truly inspiring stuff.
By the end of the episode, we both had huge smiles plastered across our faces.
Nkansah’s words resonated deeply with me, and I feel more inspired than ever to step by my Bitcoin education efforts.
I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did!
BlackRock Wants to Enter the Bitcoin Arena
BlackRock filed for a spot Bitcoin ETF this week.
There’s a fair change it will get the green light for it, as it’s track record for ETF approvals is 575-1.
Will this be a boon for the price of Bitcoin? Most likely.
Am I happy about it BlackRock hosting a Bitcoin ETF? No.
BlackRock already owns everything. It’s the largest asset manager in the world with $8.49 trillion in assets under management (AUM) as of Q2 2022.
I don’t like the idea of BlackRock owning a large portion of the world’s bitcoin. It seems antithetical to the idea of a Bitcoin, a decentralized network that allows people to send value peer-to-peer with no institutional intermediaries.
Having the largest one of the largest financial intermediaries in the world holding a big chunk of BTC just feels wrong.
Not Just BlackRock
And it’s not just BlackRock that wants into the Bitcoin/crypto space.
Fidelity, Charles Schwab and Citadel are backers for EDX, a crypto trading platform that recently went live.
Deutsche Bank recently applied for a digital asset license in Germany.
And Fidelity recently launched Fidelity Crypto, a platform on which you can buy (claims for) bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH).
Here’s my review of that platform: “Fidelity Crypto review 2023” (Finder)
Now, doesn’t all of this make you think: Has the SEC been waging war with the crypto industry so that TradFi firms can swoop in and take it over?
Weird… It made me think the same thing…
The SEC, a Trash Institution
(The answer to that third tweet screenshot above is “no” for the record.)
The fact that our tax dollars fund the SEC when it’s working so hard to destroy native Bitcoin/crypto exchanges to make way for the Wall St. takeover of Bitcoin/crypto is disgusting.
Luckily, some members of the House have introduced a bill remove Gary Gensler as the head of the SEC.
He’s a spineless bureaucrat moonlighting as wannabe mafia boss. We deserve a lot better.
Oh, and apparently this got approved this week.
Again, stunning.
Rule #1 of Bitcoin is don’t buy bitcoin is with leverage.
Yet this is the type of trash Wall St. product we get from the SEC. It’s a trash product from a trash institution.
And that’s all the ranting I’d like to do for this evening :)
I hope you all have a lovely week.
If you’d like for it to be lovelier, check out what Nkansah had to say in my interview with him above! You’ll feel many good feels.
Best,
Frank
Twitter | LinkedIn | YouTube | MuckRack | Finder | QWOTED
Currently re-watching: The Bear, season 2
Great read.