Key Takeaways
- • The newsletter is authored by Shanaka Anslem Perera, a crypto market analyst whose Substack "Chain of Custody PRO" issue 01 is titled "The Raise Was Not the Bid," with the full text unavailable to this summary.
- • Available headlines tie the author's recent commentary to Bitcoin's decline from roughly $126,000 to $105,000, which he has described as a "bear trap" in some posts.
- • Perera has argued that Bitcoin is nearing its realized price with capitulation signals still incomplete, and that the flush that typically ends a bear market has not yet occurred.
- • Custody concentration is a recurring theme: per publisher-linked reporting, Coinbase custodies nine of eleven U.S. Bitcoin ETFs, holding $245 billion in assets against $255 million in insurance coverage.
- • A separate October 1 development reported that the SEC proposed rules allowing advisers to self-custody certain client crypto assets when no permitted custodian is available.
Summary
Perera's recent commentary, as reported in available excerpts, frames Bitcoin's slide toward its realized price as a test of market structure rather than a conventional capitulation. He has argued that the decline from about $126,000 to $105,000 represents a bear trap, and that the behavior that normally clears weak hands and ends a bear market has not yet appeared. He has also described Bitcoin as having reached the bottom's price level without the bottom's behavior.
Custody is a central theme in the author's work. According to publisher-linked material, nine of eleven U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs custody assets with Coinbase, which held $245 billion in total assets against $255 million in total insurance coverage. Perera has characterized this concentration as a custody monopoly with systemic implications.
Regulatory context came from a separate report that on October 1 the U.S. SEC proposed rules permitting investment advisers to hold certain client crypto assets themselves when no permitted custodian is available, subject to required safeguards. Its relationship to the newsletter's specific arguments is not established in the available material.
Because the newsletter's full analysis was unavailable, the specific claims in "The Raise Was Not the Bid" should be verified against the original publication.
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