Bitcoin has fallen again after briefly rising above $39,000 overnight with it suddenly turning downwards as Europe rose to just above $37,000, to only rise again to $38,800.
The upward rise coincided with an announcement that US president Joe Biden and Russia’s Vladimir Putin had agreed in principle to a new summit.
It followed by a dip may well suggest that this market action is not so much about Russia and Ukraine.
Russia’s total trade with Europe amounts to less than 1% of Europe’s GDP, so they’re a small economy even for the continent, let alone globally.
Moreover any Russian capital flight from foreign investors may end up in European and US markets, and bitcoin would be one way to transport that value.
So cryptos should rise, but they’ve dipped for now as Putin tries to manipulate markets and perhaps because Germany may be entering a recession according to their central bank.
Unlike the United Kingdom, Germany had strict restrictions during much of this winter, leading to a fall of 0.7% in their GDP.
As of today, England no longer has any restrictions at all and is stopping the provision of free testing while removing the requirement to isolate if tested positive.
Germany and the rest will probably be following, so the economy should improve but as if immaculately planned the fear porn has not even been given a break yet with the Cold War generation seemingly foreplaying their nostalgia.
In one breath the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will say covid over, and in another that we will make sure Russia loses if it goes further into Ukraine.
As it happens Ukraine has a British guarantee under the Budapest Memorandum. Now American guarantees maybe wave, but as history shows a British guarantee is actually a guarantee.
As such, will them Russian soldiers really want to fight the Brits, indirectly of course, or will they coup Putin instead?
Whatever their choice, the United Kingdom will have to do what the United Kingdom has to do because a guarantee is a guarantee.
A UK involvement of course means the French too, and that then means the Germans, and of course the Italians, and also the Spanish, and so you get the Generals in Russia wondering whether they would be making a catastrophic mistake by breaching their own guarantee that Russia gave to Ukraine.
A breach that makes matters very black and white, because there would be no doubt in anyone’s mind about who exactly is the aggressor, about who breached their own treaty and security guarantees.
As such, with matters now clear and fully, markets should start becoming less affected by Putin’s five minutes of fame, except Russian markets of course which have to live with him.
To global markets however, this is a very localized matter somewhat far away from main economies with little opportunity for it to escape its – at worst – proxy character not least because Americans and Russians are fighting each other in Syria and Russia put bounties on American soldiers in Afghanistan.
Nato jets further patrol the border, with it anyone’s guess what the real response of the many European actors would be if Putin has sufficiently lost his mind to invade and his generals don’t coup him.
Which is maybe why markets have had enough and it’s now time to move on as you’d think only fools would mess with British guarantees, and if they do, well, we know who wins.
Source: https://www.trustnodes.com/2022/02/21/bitcoin-dips-to-37000