Season's Beatings: XRP, array of alts, get pummeled

On the morning of Christmas Eve, one Bitcoin was worth, in terms of U.S. dollars, roughly $23,500, making it feel like 2017.

Time doesn't fly; it quietly does math – one second per second – although was it not only yesterday that we were prepping material for the inaugural Uphold Unboxed emails, and chronicling BTC just south of $12,000?

That was late August. Halloween-time took us to into the teens. November was like high school, a blur.

A 100% price move in 2020 would have been head-spinning enough; 200%, really? And then it hits you: 2020 isn't over.

Triple-digit percentage leaps have not been time-stamped, not yet.

Widespread institutional buy-in (lacking three years ago) “does not guarantee that BTC isn’t in a bubble or that it won’t crash to zero," Quartz said in a recent year-end reflection on the "horrible except for Bitcoin year," which in Latin is "annus horribilis exceptus for Bitcoinis."

"For every buyer who claims Bitcoin can rise to $100,000 or $400,000," Quartz said, "there are still several other respected investors, bankers, and economists who call the digital currency garbage.”

Taken together, the entire crypto market lost 6% in the past 24 hours as of 7 a.m. (EST), with some assets coming down the chimney more clumsily than others.

XRP dropped 30%. It was worth a quarter-dollar when we started this newsletter – and it's almost back there again.

Crypto analyst Michaël van de Poppebest's best-case scenario for the besieged XRP in the near-term: a relief rally towards a $0.40 range, then sideways again (The Daily Hodl).

Chainlink was barely $10 when the first Unboxed prototypes were coming together in early August. LINK’s back there again after a 30-day stretch being down 30%.

Severe shellackings are being administered across the altcoinscape.

Ten lords may be a-leaping but Litecoin is limping, down 3% over the past day.

TRON was torn into. DOT got drubbed. XMR, XEM, eviscerated.

Merry Christmas, everybody!

In 1984, The Boomtown Rats' lead singer Bob Geldof saw a BBC television report about horrific famine in Ethiopia and very quickly formed a supergroup, Band Aid, to raise money. The scruffy Irishman has since been knighted for his work fighting extreme poverty in Africa. And he has never stopped advocating for profound changes, both as a type of political ambassador but also, more recently, as a middle-market private equity investor.

Geldof told the George W. Bush institute in 2017 that he finds "a great exuberance in Africa where the potential is absolutely enormous."

Africa, the cradle of virtual currency, is changing fast. Urbanization. The rise of the consumer. Africa is on the brink of becoming a major economic force. China is all in, recognizing the continent could drive the next decade of global growth.

"This is a vast part of the world," Geldof has said. "It is immensely to America’s benefit to engage with them. And I just don’t mean on the political level, I mean on a huge economic level. It seriously must."

So it turns out Hodlmoon sells $60 ugly Christmas sweaters combining traditional Nordic elements with bold crypto logos in outlandish color schemes. The BTC one is black and gold and while definitely outlandish is no worse than the sweaters worn by the Boston Bruins of the National Hockey League.

Editor's Note:  

We're overjoyed that Uphold Unboxed has become a part of your routine and now embark on a brief holiday break.

But don't worry. Unboxed will resume publication on Monday, 4th January 2021.

Here's to a joyous New Year! And please try to remember the less fortunate.