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 Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks on stage during Bitcoin Conference 2023 at Miami Beach Convention Center on May 19, 2023 in Miami Beach, Florida.
(Jason Koerner/Getty Images)
SORTA KINDA NOT REALLY ALL IN

Does RFK Jr. really store “most” of his money in bitcoin? We found out

Some hard numbers on the size of RFK Jr.’s bitcoin stash.

Jack Morse

As an independent candidate for president, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. frequently talked up his love of cryptocurrency.

In July, the current nominee to lead the US Department of Health and Human Services said he put “most of his wealth into bitcoin.” That assertion again made headlines this week after Kennedy called bitcoin “the currency of freedom.”

Kennedy officially dropped out of the presidential race on August 23, but an early July ethics disclosure — amended by RFK Jr. on August 7 and 13 — put some hard numbers on his crypto holdings.

According to the US Office of Government Ethics disclosure form, as of the August 7 update, Kennedy had between $500,001 and $1,000,000 worth of bitcoin with Fidelity Crypto. On August 7, the price of BTC was about $55,000.

In June 2023, he had disclosed holding between $100,001 and $250,000 in bitcoin. At that time the coin’s price hovered between $25,000 and $30,000, meaning the increase in his holdings could be due to bitcoin’s price increase, not additional investments in the cryptocurrency.

Also notable in the August filing, Kennedy disclosed owning between $50,001 and $100,000 worth of Marathon Digital, a bitcoin-mining company.

A screenshot of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s financial disclosures.
Not his keys.

Finally, the disclosures also reveal that RFK Jr. has quite a lot of wealth that’s not in bitcoin, including somewhere between $1 and $5 million in a Northern Funds US Government Money Market Fund alone, as well money in many ETFs and real estate.

So, even if you add up the bitcoin holdings and add in his Marathon Digital assets, it’s still a far cry from most of his wealth being in bitcoin.

The price of bitcoin, as well as the share price of bitcoin-mining companies like Marathon Digital, has steadily climbed since Trump’s election win earlier this month. Kennedy endorsed Trump, who ran a loudly pro-crypto campaign, after he left the race.

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Ethereum rises amid market rally, but traders remain unconvinced price can break $2,500

Ethereum jumped 6.4% to trade at the $2,170 level on Monday morning, resulting in $208 million worth of liquidations in the last 24 hours with over 60% coming from short positions. 

That said, traders are not convinced the token has enough fuel to climb above $2,500. Prediction market-implied odds of ethereum trading above $2,500 in March have increased from 6% to 23% this morning, but the probability was 70% seven days ago. 

(Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC.)

Rather, the bearish mood remains, with traders pricing in an implied 67% probability the price of ethereum slips as low as $1,750 this year.

The price action comes as ethereum ETFs registered their first weekly outflow in March, as $59.9 million exited the investment funds last week, per SoSoValue

Elsewhere, the largest ethereum treasury firm, BitMine Immersion Technologies, announced acquiring 65,341 tokens last week worth around $141.8 million at current prices, bringing the value of its total ethereum holdings to $10.1 billion. The firm also stated it is the largest staking entity in the world, with over 67% of its ethereum stockpile contributing to the network’s security, according to a company press release.

“As many have noticed, crypto and particularly ETH have outperformed the broader market since the Iran war commenced, with ETH rising 18% and outperforming equities,” BitMine Chairman Tom Lee said in a statement. Lee added, “This is a marked contrast to Gold (a traditional store of value), which has fallen more than 15%. Crypto is demonstrating itself to be a good ‘war time’ store of value.” 

BitMine’s unrealized loss on its ethereum purchases currently stands at nearly $7 billion, per DropsTab data.

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Altcoin trading activity has lost its mojo

Non-bitcoin cryptocurrencies have seen their trading volume plummet in the past five months. The combined trading volume of ethereum, XRP, solana, dogecoin, SUI, and chainlink has decreased by 60% since crypto’s October 10 liquidation event, according to Thomas Probst, a research analyst at crypto markets data provider Kaiko.

Main Altcoins Trading Volume in USD
The trading volume of ETH, SOL, XRP, DOGE, SUI, and LINK.

For all altcoins, spot trading volume on Binance has declined between 80% and 85% to $7.7 billion, while altcoin volume on other exchanges has dropped to $18.8 billion, down from a range of $63 billion to $91 billion in October, a Friday report from Decrypt found, citing data from CryptoQuant.

“This trend may be explained by a contraction in market liquidity over the same period,” Probst told Sherwood News. “This phenomenon is also reflected in the average 1% market depth, which stood at approximately $2.6 million before the October 10 crash and is now closer to $1.7 million when aggregated across ETH, XRP, SOL, SUI, and LINK.” 

Market depth is used by investors and traders to gauge the scale of liquidity in a market. 1% market depth refers to the amount of liquidity needed to move the market by 1%. 

CoinGlass’s Altcoin Season Index, a measure to assess the performance of non-bitcoin cryptocurrencies, has been sitting above 50 this week, suggesting that the current market is neither in a bitcoin dominant phase nor an altcoin season.

Witch

“Triple witching” day may put further pressure on bitcoin’s price

This is not “a favorable environment for risk assets.”

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Sherwood Media, LLC produces fresh and unique perspectives on topical financial news and is a fully owned subsidiary of Robinhood Markets, Inc., and any views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of any other Robinhood affiliate, including Robinhood Markets, Inc., Robinhood Financial LLC, Robinhood Securities, LLC, Robinhood Crypto, LLC, Robinhood Derivatives, LLC, or Robinhood Money, LLC. Futures and event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC.