Citi put out an all-time basic of a report on bitcoin yesterday, as you’ll have already examine right here. And once we say basic, we imply probably the most execrable items of propaganda masquerading as “analysis” that we’ve got ever come throughout.
Not solely was this “report” truly only a large bitcoin-shilling train, it additionally contained some actually fairly embarrassing errors from what is supposed to be one of many high banks on the planet (and their “premier thought management” division at that).
The error that was most likely most surprising was the obvious failure of the six Citi analysts who authored the report to understand the distinction between foundation factors and share factors. As a refresher, the report mentioned the next about illicit transactions in bitcoin, after which proceeded to check that with these carried out on common credit score and debit playing cards:
The extent of such exercise can typically appear overblown based mostly on information headlines alone. In whole, simply over 2% of the exercise within the cryptocurrency area was linked to illicit exercise in 2019 and that whole was all the way down to solely 0.3% in 2020.
To place that determine in context, a funds examine commissioned by the Federal Reserve discovered that fraud represented 13.46% of combination credit score and debit card community exercise within the U.S.
Because it turned out, the Fed examine they refer to really mentioned that fraud represented 13.46 foundation factors — simply the 100-fold distinction, then. So we pointed this out to Citi who informed us they might right the report, they usually stayed true to their phrase. Right here’s the brand new graphic placing issues proper:
Humorous, isn’t it? Why didn’t Citi write that “13.46bp” determine as “0.1346%” in order to make the comparability simpler to see? It’s nearly as in the event that they need their readers to be confused with this crime towards charts. Additionally do be aware the textual content on the high of the graphic, particularly this bit:
Safety points with cryptocurrency do happen, however when in comparison with conventional funds, it performs higher.
Doesn’t fairly work now, that, does it? They should have been pressed for time. This, in the meantime, is how that part of the principle textual content now reads:
In whole, simply over 2% of the exercise within the cryptocurrency area was linked to illicit exercise in 2019 and that whole was all the way down to solely 0.3% in 2020.
To place that determine in context, a funds examine commissioned by the Federal Reserve discovered that fraud represented 13.46 foundation factors of combination credit score and debit card community exercise within the U.S.
So the numerical mistake is mounted however not the implication. Absolute jokers.
And now that we’ve obtained by way of the wordy stuff, feast your eyes on a number of the different charts within the report. We’ll let the charts do the speaking:
Later we’re given one other model of that chart:
They should have been fairly happy with the “North Star” concept. The time period is used 18 instances within the report.
Then there’s:
And:
And:
Oh and we must always simply depart you with Citi’s “acknowledgment” — they’re variety sufficient to not take all the reward for his or her steaming pile:
In getting ready to jot down this report, we accomplished a collection interviews [sic] with CEO’s [sic] and professionals of a number of the main custodians, prime brokers, exchanges, infrastructure, and asset administration corporations, along with choose consultants inside Citi. We thank them for all of their sharing their [sic] data and experience.
We’d additionally prefer to thank these “CEO’s” and “professionals of a number of the main custodians” for “all of their sharing their data and experience”, and for ensuring all viewpoints have been coated, so we depart you with an image of the actually wide-ranging bunch Citi selected for his or her report:
Associated hyperlinks:
Hey Citi, your bitcoin report is embarrassingly dangerous — FT Alphaville
Axes of evil — FT Alphaville
