US economist and Bitcoin critic Peter Schiff’s Puerto Rican-established bank has been suspended by regulators on the grounds of lack of compliance and solvency, and Bitcoiners seem delighted.

If you’ve followed Schiff’s Twitter account over the past few years, you’ll know he’s not only a gold-spruiker extraordinaire, but has also pretty much become the CEO of Bitcoin Hating in that time.

The amount of shade he throws at Bitcoin, it’s easy to imagine he sets his alarm early to hate the digital asset and goes to bed late so he can despise it just a little longer.

According to Associated Press, Puerto Rico regulators have halted the operations of Schiff’s Euro Pacific International Bank for not maintaining the net minimum capital requirements. An ongoing investigation has reportedly revealed the bank’s capital was supposedly negative US$1.3 million by the end of 2020.

Partly the subject of a 60 Minutes ambush of sorts that year, Schiff’s bank has also been under a taxation cloud, reportedly receiving a cease and desist order from the Joint Chief of Global Tax Enforcement.

According to the Washington Post, the bank has suffered overall cumulative losses of nearly US$4 million as well as a net loss of about $550,000 in the first three months of 2022.

In a Twitter thread, Schiff acknowledged that “customers may lose money” while also explaining he was unaware of the regulatory minimums and was not presented with any form of legal notice prior to the abrupt closure.

“It costs a fortune to run a small bank,” he added. “That’s why I never really made any money. The compliance costs are outrageous.”

The sense of schadenfreude from Bitcoiners, such as “maxi” Max Keiser, has been swift to materialise on Twitter…

… with some pointing out the risks of operating financially under centralised supremacy – which, er, is of course how most businesses operate.

But it’s something Bitcoin apparently fixes through being the most decentralised form of money on the most decentralised and secure digital system in the world, and thus maintaining a level of resistance to judicial control.

 

Deutsche Bank thinks Bitcoin will recover to $28k this year

As reported by Bloomberg late last week, Deutcshe Bank analysts seem to have it in mind that Bitcoin (BTC) will be trading around the US$28k level by the end of the year.

It’s about US$8,500 up from its current level, so that’s something, but it’s hardly a bullish prediction. It’s a far cry from the numerous $100k end-of-year predictions we were hearing 12 months ago, but it’s a clear testament to the vastly different macro-market conditions this year.

The multinational investment bank’s analysts Marion Laboure and Galina Pozdnyakova suggest that the crypto market has been closely correlated to the movements of the tech-stock-heavy Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 since late 2021. Probably not a major revelation to anyone who follows these markets with even a passing interest.

Their forecast for the S&P, for instance, is an end-of-year rebound to January levels, which they say could bring Bitcoin along for the ride with a potential 30 per cent increase in value from its present position.

In the meantime, however, the analysts also believe the crypto market could well slide further, although they didn’t provide a prediction of how far.

“Stabilising token prices is hard because there are no common valuation models like those within the public equity system,” wrote the analysts. “In addition, the crypto market is highly fragmented. The crypto freefall could continue because of the system’s complexity.”

The digital currency is “more like diamonds – a highly marketed asset – rather than gold, a stable safe-haven commodity,” the Deutsche Bank pair also reasoned, noting Bitcoin’s failure, at this stage, to live up to expectations it could be a refuge for investors.

Pretty sure Peter Schiff would agree with them on that point.

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