A trillion dollars. That’s a thousand billions or one million millions.

It’d take a helpful middle schooler on TikTok to demonstrate using several large piles of rice — or maybe sand if we can verify the grain count — for us to begin to comprehend that number.

And, as astronomically high as that number might be, the crypto market may be worth two trillion in the coming months.

But have current market conditions prepared crypto for a new, sky-high market cap?

Espresso Shots

☕️ SBF Found Guilty on All Counts

On Friday, Sam Bankman-Fried was found guilty on all seven counts of fraud and conspiracy.

“We respect the jury’s decision. But we are very disappointed with the result,” said lead defense attorney Mark Cohen in a statement, according to a CNN report. “Mr. Bankman Fried maintains his innocence and will continue to vigorously fight the charges against him.”

Though SBF’s defense team has yet to officially announce any action, that “vigorous fight” will most likely include an appeal.

Bankman Fried’s sentencing hearing date is set for March 28, 2024. And, he could face up to 110 years in prison.

Once SBF’s sentencing is determined, it’s just a matter of deciding which coastal, nerd prison to send him to: Azkaban or Arkham Asylum?

☕️ Who’s Next?

SBF’s fate has been mostly decided, but the public is still wondering what will happen to Caroline Ellison, Nishad Singh, Gary Wang, and the other complicit FTX and Alameda executives.

Former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison, FTX Engineering Director Nishad Singh, and Chief Technical Officer Gary Wang currently face maximum sentences of 110, 75, and 50 years respectively for their roles in the collapse of FTX.

Though their testimonies in cooperation with the prosecution against Sam Bankman-Fried will almost certainly earn them lighter, more lenient sentencing.

“It's horrible for them,” Christopher Zoukis, a federal prison consultant, told Decrypt. “Right off the bat without any departures, they're all likely looking at 210 to 262 months. And that doesn't account for the other aggravating factors—but it also doesn't account for mitigating factors.”

Wang, Ellison, Singh, and Bankman-Fried once all cohabitation in a $35 million condo in the Bahamas.

Do you think they ever looked out over the sea and fantasized about having a LAN party in a 6-by-8-foot prison cell?

☕️ Mining Bitcoin From Dead Cows

Sergio Massa, a candidate for the Argentinian presidency, is proposing using the excess gas from the “Vaca Muerta” or “Dead Cow” oil fields to power Bitcoin mining.

The Vaca Muerta oil fields are a major shale oil and gas deposit in Western Argentina. They were named for the many Jurassic and Cretaceous era fossils discovered in the region.

Massa feels that the current gas surplus should be used toward crypto mining, rather than the excess gas being flared or vented.

Though Massa has received some criticism regarding his push for government-backed crypto mining, he’s not without his supporters.

"This excess gas often means that the well has to be closed. Right there Bitcoin appears as the perfect partner. This gas has no way of being used because it cannot be vented and through mining it can be reused by consuming it, without having to release it into the atmosphere," said José María Sarasola, CEO of startup Cryptogranjas, in an interview with CriptoNoticias.

But if this new crypto-mining operation fails to garner further support, it may just be another instance of beating a dead cow.

Polled Brew

Spilling the Beans

$2 Trillion, and Beyond!!! 📈 💸

Crypto is feeling like itself.

It just finished a mall makeover montage with its best gal-pals, complete with a thumbs-up/thumbs-down outfit montage, and now it’s strutting out of the food court with something to prove.

Because, like our protagonist who was dumped by her jock boyfriend in the first act, crypto has a score to settle.

In April of 2022, crypto lost its $2 trillion market cap. But now it’s looking to get it back.

But what happened then? And what’s different now?

Well, before we get into crypto’s bright future, we need to examine its dark past.

The road to the loss of crypto’s $2 trillion market cap started in December of  2021 when Bitcoin started to tumble.

The price drop was likely a response to the Fed hiking interest rates, but it resulted in the first use of a term that, unfortunately, would stick around for years to come.

Yes, David Marcus, a crypto entrepreneur who had recently left Meta, coined the concept of crypto winter as we know it.

But at the time, we had no idea how cold crypto winter could get.

It wasn’t just that prices started to drop, institutions started to implode.

First, there was LUNA de-pegging and the subsequent collapse of Terra Labs. Then Three Arrows Capital. Voyager Digital. FTX, of course. Then a whole slew of crypto-friendly banks.

Yes, crypto took a lot of lumps to drop down to the $1.37 trillion global market cap that it occupies as of writing.

However, we’re only revisiting the dark chapters of yesteryear because crypto’s future looks extremely bright.

But don’t just take our word for it: Michaël van de Poppe is a crypto expert, analyst, and founder of MN trading, and he was generous enough to share a chart predicting a rosy future for crypto’s market cap in the coming years.

And van de Poppe’s projection isn’t just blind optimism — several very real factors could potentially bring the market capitalization back to high-tide levels. In fact, based on van de Poppe’s analysis, crypto could even hit the $3-trillion mark by 2025.

It’s not just about patterns: macro adjustment to the global crypto market needs to be driven by real-world events, and we’re in luck — because we’ve got a couple of those events coming up.

In terms of routine, there’s the next anticipated Bitcoin halving in April of 2024, which generally pushes prices up.

Of course, a wave of ETF applications is still on the horizon. We can’t predict what that marriage of TradFi and DeFi will look like, but it’s safe to say it means a lot more investors and a lot more money.

Additionally, with the current geopolitical conflict in the Middle East, as grim and unfortunate as that may be, governmental instability and conflict tend to send investors out of financial institutions and into crypto.

So it seems we’re finally entering an era when we can put crypto winter behind us — and look forward to the warm, balmy breeze of crypto summer.

While a spirited debate is a fun, rigorous exercise for even the most mildly curious mind, there’s nothing that hits quite like an expert like Michaël van de Poppe lending more credibility to something you already know in your bones.

Here’s hoping that in a few years, maybe less, as we discuss crypto market capitalization, we can stick our pinkies in our mouths and say “three trillion dollars” in our best Dr. Evil impressions.

Crypto 101

Hash Rate: In crypto mining, this is the measure of computational power per second.

The higher the hash rate, the more calculations can be performed per second, which sets the speed and output for the entire crypto-mining operation.

The Last Sip

The Last Sip: Yes, Michaël van de Poppe is an expert crypto analyst, but based on his name, we assumed that he was a wooden figure living inside a German cuckoo clock.

Stay Caffeinated,

Coffee & Crypto Team

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