Join me today for Episode 1010 of Bitcoin And . . .
Topics for today:
- EU Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Proposed
- SEC Serves Wells Notice to NFT Company
- Crypto[.]com Drops SEC Lawsuit After Trump Meeting
- FTX Repayments Begin January 3rd
#Bitcoin #BitcoinAnd
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https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/12/17/bitcoin-holder-semler-scientifics-shares-now-available-for-options-trading
https://decrypt.co/297027/sec-serves-nft-project-cyberkongz-with-wells-notice-citing-securities-violations
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https://atlas21.com/ftx-repayment-plan-for-customers-kicks-off-via-kraken-and-bitgo/
https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/foundation-announces-passport-prime-personal-security-platform/
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[00:00:00]
David Bennett:
Good morning. This is David Bennett, and this is Bitcoin and, a podcast where I try to find the edge effect between the worlds of Bitcoin, gaming, permaculture, podcasting, and education to gain a better understanding of all. Edge effect is a concept from ecology describing a greater diversity of life where the edges of 2 systems overlap. While species from either system can be found at the edge, it is important to note there are species in the overlap that exist in neither system, and that is what I seek to uncover. So join me in discovering the variety of things being created as Bitcoin rubs up against other systems. It is 9:19 AM. It is the 17th day of December 2024, and this is episode 10 10 of Bitcoin.
And how about that $108,000 Bitcoin price that lasted for 2 and a half seconds? You know what happened. Right? Yeah. I woke up and became conscious and saw the price. And then and then the time immediately flipped over to 7 AM Pacific Standard Time. And immediately, we got a huge red candle to the downside. And I have been I've noticed this I've said it on the show before it's it's weird because more often than not when I see the time flip over to 7 am Pacific Standard Time I start seeing a red candle on Bitcoin. And I've I've I've just I've seen it more times than I can count to the point that I don't think it's just coincidence.
I think it's something more. And I asked somebody or at and I put the question out there on Nostril this morning. And I was like, what the hell is this? And somebody came back with the name of an OG Bitcoiner that I got a lot of respect for and used to listen to quite a bit back in his days on the Bitcoin group, Tone Vase. And the person that responded to me said that Tone Vase used to call it the 10 AM effect. And, of course, Tone Vase lived in I don't know where he lives now. I I have a sneaky suspicion he moved to Vegas, but I know that he lived in New York City for a long time. So he was Eastern Standard Time, and he was a traditional trader before he got into Bitcoin. I I mean, futures, options, bonds, you name it. He had all kinds of plays out there. And, then he got into then he got into Bitcoin, but he never stopped playing the market, the legacy financial markets.
And he used to call it the 10 AM effect. And it was, you know, 10 AM Eastern Standard Time. And the other conjecture or the conjecture about this is that this is roughly the time that European and Russian markets start closing down for the day and that the 7 AM repositioning that I see on the West Coast or the 10 AM Eastern Standard Time, repositioning that Tone Vaz was seeing on the East Coast very well may be the European and Russian traders, making their closeout moves for their trading day. And that actually makes a lot of sense. So we somebody is, like, was able to posit a cogent reason for why I see bullshit occurring at 7 am.
I've always wondered what the hell that was. Maybe maybe my question has been finally answered, and I can only thank the people on Noster for digging stuff like that up for me. Okay. So let's let's begin with the theme of the last few days has been strategic Bitcoin reserves at the nation state level. And I talked about nation state FOMO yesterday, and we're gonna add one more to the list. Helen Parks, Cointelegraph, no to CBDC, and yes to Bitcoin. European member of parliament calls for an EU Bitcoin Reserve. We're not done by by by a stretch, man. We are not done with these people. European lawmaker Sarah Nafo called on the European Union to establish a strategic Bitcoin Reserve while rejecting the proposed adoption of the digital euro, a central bank digital currency.
NAFO, a French magistrate and a member of the European Parliament since June delivered a pro Bitcoin speech calling on European lawmakers to launch a strategic BTC reserve. Quote, no to the digital euro, yes to the strategic Bitcoin reserve, NATO said in a post on Twitter, which included a video of her speech before the European Parliament. The lawmaker said that it's time to stop totalitarian temptation, but that's like a good name for a boy band, by the ECB calling for a shift from regulatory overreach in crypto to adopting the decentralized nature of bitcoin. And in her speech, NAFO compared crypto regulation developments worldwide, citing El Salvador's bitcoin adoption and the crypto friendly agenda of United States president-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration.
She also mentioned that the US Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, referred to Bitcoin as digital gold in earlier of December. Europe has taken a different approach to crypto regulation, NAFO said, adding that local regulators have been primarily focused on regulation, taxation, and stifling innovation. Yeah. Because that's what socialist do. And they always have done it. And if you're a socialist out there listening to me shaking your head, I think you need to go back and read history about socialism, communism, Marxism.
It is not about empowering the people. It is about fooling them into doing your dirty work for you until you get installed into power, and then you line them up against the wall and shoot them all. Because that's what they did. I mean, honestly, if somebody brought you to power, why would you let them live? That's sort of like if you hire somebody to assassinate somebody, you might want to consider killing the assassin so that there's no loose ends. And in this case, when people bring socialists to power, they're usually lined up and shot because they were influential enough to change the perceptions and minds of a massive amount of people.
Why risk letting them do that again when you start stealing their money? Because that's what happens. Anyway, that's an aside. It is time, quote, it is time to change the paradigm. It is time to protect our people from inflation and the poor economic choices of our states. And she says, plural, states, all of them, all of the EU states. It is time to say no to the totalitarian temptations of the European Central Bank, which wants to impose a digital euro entirely in its own hands, NAFOS said, adding, quote, we do not want this dystopian world where a European bureaucrat will be able tomorrow to ban certain transactions and even eliminate us from the banking system with a click for a simple comment made on social networks or for an opinion that displeases.
It is time to bet on freedom, end quote. The ECB has officially been studying the concept of the CBDC for more than 4 years, and the European Central Bank published one of its first reports dedicated to the potential digital euro in 2020. European authorities have been struggling with the decision on a digital euro as many have expressed concerns about privacy risks and possible threats to private payment firms and other issues. In its latest rule book, the ECB said that it continues preparations for a potential digital euro launch and expects to make a final decision on the matter this coming October of 2025.
I like what this woman is saying. I have no idea who she is. She's only been a member of parliament since the summer. She looks like she's pretty young. So she may not have all that many teeth, but I do like what she's actually saying there. So Europe is now on deck for considering a strategic Bitcoin reserve. Again, this is not going to end. I suspect that we'll start hearing, you know, rumors in Australia, and then New Zealand, different member states of Southeast Asia. I would imagine that we'll start seeing a lot more rattling around in Eastern Europe because they're the ones that are gonna need it the most.
I'm surprised that I haven't heard any rumblings out of South and Central America about a strategic Bitcoin reserve other than, you know, the the old the people that are already on deck, and we all know who they are. But it's not going to stop. I mean, once you let that genie out of the bottle, that genie's gonna run around and start granting wishes. Okay. So, Turner Wright from Cointelegraph, also from Cointelegraph, has written this one. And I find this relatively interesting insofar as it's, gee, what a coincidence. Trump meets with Crypto dotcom CEO right as the firm drops their lawsuit against the security and Securities and Exchange Commission.
Isn't that that's gotta be a coincidence. Right? Well, let's find out. United States president-elect Donald Trump met with crypto.com CEO Chris Marcelin, I can't pronounce his name, at his home in Mar a Lago to discuss policies potentially affecting the cryptocurrency industry. Oh, Isn't that nice? According to a December 16th Twitter post, Marzalek traveled to Florida to meet with Trump, and the pair reportedly discussed the president elect's proposal to launch a national Bitcoin reserve and appointments in his administration related to the crypto industry. This sounds like a deal is being made.
The meeting came on the very same day that crypto.com dropped its lawsuit against the US Securities and Exchange Commission. And in a December 16th filing in the United States District Court of the Eastern District of Texas, the crypto exchange voluntarily dismissed a suit against the SEC and its commissioners with prejudice. For those of you who for those of you who don't know, that means that they are willingly saying that they will never ever not only will they not try to sue under the state same auspices again, the SEC, they are literally saying it is now precedent that we cannot sue the SEC under what the structure of this particular lawsuit was. That's what with prejudice means.
Anyway, anyway, after receiving a Wells notice warning of a potential enforcement action, miss Alex said in October that the exchange would be filing a suit against the SEC to protect the future of crypto. And then a crypto.com spokesperson told Cointelegraph that the firm withdrew the lawsuit given its intent to work with the incoming administration on a regulatory framework for the industry. Someone's getting appointed somewhere. That's what this is. Anyway, since winning the US presidential election November 5th, Trump has proposed appointments suggesting he intended to nominate individuals favoring the industry. The president-elect launched his own digital shitcoin, World Liberty Financial, before the election. In addition to Marzalek or however you pronounce his name, Trump reportedly talked with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong in November.
Since that event, the president-elect has announced former PayPal chief operating officer David Sacks as his AI and cryptos are and formed former commissioner Paul Adkins as his pick for the SEC chair. Yeah. Someone is making cutting a deal. This is backroom actually, this isn't even backroom shit, man. This is so in your face. It's not even funny. Crypto.com had one of the largest lawsuits, probably one of some of the best staffed lawyers for this lawsuit against the SEC, and it just went away on the very same day that Trump met with the head the head honcho of crypto.com. And, again, this is this is clear.
This guy or one of his lieutenants is going to be appointed to have something to do with the crypto industry under Trump. So Trump made this entire thing go away. And again, I have to reiterate, they dismissed it with prejudice. They are they have voluntarily said we cannot. Not that we won't and trust us. It means they can't. If they ever try to file against the SEC in this with the same complaint, because they their other own volition, they dismissed it with prejudice, anybody who reads that that motion or whatever you're gonna call it to sue the SEC again will say, no, dude. You dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice.
So you can't. We're it it's not ever going to see the light of day. So just that's that's sort of like a presidential pardon except on the other side of the fence. Just saying. Keep that in mind because that's the way these deals are gonna be made. Okay. Bitcoin holder, Semler Scientific Shares are now available for options trading. Yay. It's a derivative of a derivative, written by James Van Stratten. And CoinDesk bought. God. I I I don't know what that means, but it kinda scares me. It's out of CoinDesk, by the way. Shares of Similar Scientific, the small cap medical device maker that adopted a Bitcoin treasury strategy earlier this year, are now available for options trading. Yay.
This comes after 6 months of share price growth for the company driven by its Bitcoin pivot and capital raising initiatives. Semler had requested approval on December 5th from options exchanges to allow options trading as the company believed that it met the eligibility requirements. Though no official announcement has been made, a check of brokerage accounts on Tuesday morning US hours showed that the options are indeed available for trading. And if you didn't know, options are financial contracts that give the investor the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell a stock at a specified price before a certain date.
The introduction of options on a stock gives investors new tools to hedge risk and speculate on price movements. You spelled gambling wrong, but among the requirements needed for an options market to be granted are a minimum share price of 3 to $5, a minimum market capitalization of at least $75,000,000 and sufficient trading volume of around 500,000 to 1,000,000 shares per day. And, additionally, a minimum number of publicly available shares and sufficient number of shareholders are required. Similar stock price has almost tripled to more than $74 as of Monday's close since making public its initial bitcoin purchases on May of 28th sorry May 28th It has a market cap topping $600,000,000.
SMLR or similar scientific is ahead 5% in pre market action on Tuesday to $78.20. The company recently filed a second prospectus supplement under its s three shelf, which has seen an additional $50,000,000 in share offerings under its existing at the market program, increasing the total offering of a $150,000,000. And to date, the company has raised approximately $100,000,000 in proceeds through ATM issuance. That's what at the market stands for. ATM stands for at the market, if you're wondering. Because I keep seeing a bunch more ATM abbreviations in post and stuff on Twitter and Nostra, and I'm like, what? Anyway, it means at the market. Similar to date has acquired 2,000 Bitcoin for a $168,600,000 or an average price of around $81,000 each. And those holdings are worth now about $222,000,000 at Bitcoin's recent price of roughly a $106,500.
Semler may be looking to recreate the success mammoth Bitcoin holder, MicroStrategy, has achieved. Well, duh. Of course, they are, and that's the smart move. It doesn't mean that it's the right move. It okay. Hold on. It doesn't mean that it's an ethical move. It doesn't mean that it's a moral move. It is the right move because this is the way the wind is blowing. And if you've ever ridden a bike against the wind, you know how much that sucks. Of course, they're going to do it, and they have been doing it. It's going to continue, and it's going to accelerate. And anybody who thinks differently is going to have fun staying poor.
Now the SEC serves the NFT project Cyberkongs with their own Wells notice citing securities violations. If you thought that they weren't coming for NFTs, you're wrong. All of us told you that they were. We knew they were. It was clear that they were. And they are. Decrypt Vince Diocquino is writing about this one. The US Securities and Exchange Commission has issued a Wells notice to the gaming project CyberKongs, marking the latest regulatory probe into an entity of its type. Quote, the SEC's division of enforcement have approached us with very concerning rhetoric that you cannot have a token, an ERC 20, in tandem with a blockchain game without registering it as a security.
Oh my god, the project said in a statement posted on Twitter on Monday. A Wells notice informs recipients that the regulator is pissed off and getting kinda pissed off at you because you're doing wrong shit. I mean, they've got a a whole description here, but we don't need it means that you are you have an unregistered security. They're looking at what's going on, and they're saying this passes the Howey test with flying colors, which means that it's a security. And then they say, is it registered? And when they find out that these people have not gone through the registration process, they issue a Wells notice, which basically means we're going to put somebody in jail, and you're not going to be able to do this shit very much longer. So be prepared to be bit over the bench. A full blown investigation and subsequent charges against Cyberkong could present major implications for blockchain gaming industry.
It said, adding that it would defend against the stance for the wider space. Yes. Because we're not scamming for just us. We're scamming for everyone. And everyone's got the right to scam anyone because that's what NFTs are. They're just a scam. There are very, very few use cases that I've ever seen something like an NFT actually be useful for. I talked about it last week or the week before. But for 99.999 percent of the time, you're just going to give somebody else your money, and they're going to enjoy it on a beach sipping pina coladas. In particular, projects combining NFTs with utility tokens could be affected.
It's not just gaming, ladies and gentlemen. They're gonna come for all of you. Cyberkongs, which operates with out venture funding or significant treasury reserves, said that it plans to challenge the notice. Quote, we have been suffering in silence for the last 2 years ever since we first received contact from the SEC, Cyberkong said, alleging that the regulator has a complete lack of understanding of blockchain technologies, which has resulted in unjust accusations and information inaccuracies. Oh, bullshit. You're fucking scammers. Cyberkongs and the SEC did not immediately respond to decrypts request for comment.
The SEC's concern is centered on the NFT project's April 2021 Genesis Kong's contract migration, which regulators interpreted as a token sale according to the company's statement. And CyberKong's, of course, maintains it was purely a technical upgrade. If they cannot distinguish between a primary sale and contract migration, what hope do we currently have for a clear regulatory pathway going forward? It just sounds to me like you're obfuscating this bullshit that you're doing so that you can steal other people's money, calling it technicalities, But it's not.
You're selling a scam. I'm sorry. But it's just bullshit. Anyway, this is going to go on. Right? If you are an NFT project, you might as well go ahead and hang it up. Because they're coming for the lot of you. Now, let's run the numbers. West Texas Intermediate is taking it on the chin as is all the rest of the hydrocarbons, down 1.41%. We've got West Texas Intermediate sitting at 69.71 a barrel. Brent Norcey down 1 and a third to 72.92. Natural gas down 2.3 quarters of a point to $3.12 per 1,000 cubic feet. Gasoline down 1.67 percent to a buck 94 a gallon.
All of your shiny metal rocks are just pissing in the wind. Half a point to the downside for the shiny metal rock named as gold, $2,658.10. Silver down a half point, platinum down point 1%, copper down 1 a quarter percent, and palladium is down 1 a third. Biggest winner today in ag is lumber. Point 56% to the upside. Biggest loser is going to be sugar or 4% to the downside. And most futures in ag are in the red, including live cattle which is down 0.08%. Lean hogs are down 0.84%. But feeder cattle rebounding a half point this morning. The Dow is down 0.61%.
The S and P is down a third, as is the Nasdaq, and the S and P Mini is down just over 1 point. Why, you may ask? Well, retail sales numbers came in today, and they were higher than expected. What does that mean? It means people are buying more. Well, what does that mean? It means maybe there's a threat that the Fed won't lower interest rates, and that's why you're seeing blood flowing in the gutters and in the streets. It's simply perception. It doesn't and it doesn't mean that it might not affect the Fed's decision to actually lower rates by a quarter of a point come Wednesday. I think tomorrow is when they're supposed to have their meeting and then release, what they're actually going to do.
But any perception that inflation is under control means that the Fed might might consider holding off because they can say, oh, but see, but but it's working. Inflation is under control. And for the last couple of weeks, we've had we've had numbers that suggest that inflation isn't exactly under control. Right? At least as far as economists are concerned, we all know inflation sucks. We're talking about the numbers that that the the CPI stuff and all the stuff they use to lie to us to tell us whether or not we've got inflation. Alright? We all know that we've got inflation. But we're talking about main the way the mainstream legacy financial stuff works. Okay.
So if you've got more money or if you're buying more stuff, it means you've got more money. That means that you have a no problem spending it. That means you're not concerned about things on the ground. And that means that inflation must be it must be working. They might they're actually reining it in. And that's why you're seeing all the markets basically taking a shit today. And that may have been what caused, that may have been another pressure point of what caused the 7 AM pullback of Bitcoin from its high of over $8,000 to somewhere like 106,005.
Just I'm just saying. This is just conjecture, but this is my reading on it. Speaking of Bitcoin, we are back up to a 107,420. That is a $2,130,000,000,000 market cap. You can get 40.6 ounces of shiny metal rocks with your one Bitcoin, of which there are 19,797,226.62 of. And 0.09 BTC taken in fees on average on a per block basis. So fees are kinda low. There are a 112 blocks carrying 274,000 unconfirmed transactions waiting to clear high priority rates of 10 satoshis per vbyte. Low priority is gonna get you in at 10 at 8. And the hash rate is holding steady.
779.1 exahashes per second on a 1 week rolling average. Now from nation state FOMO, yesterday's episode of Bitcoin. And I got Evan with 1500 sats. Thank you, brother. Says, enjoy the holidays. Don't stress about missing some episodes. Well, I'll definitely have to miss a couple, but I don't I don't like missing episodes. It doesn't help me when I miss episodes, but I appreciate, I appreciate the, the well wishing there. God's death with 537. Thank you, sir. No. Thank you. Wartime with 333. He's got, cheers emoji. And Steve's got a 100 sat, says beware of wicked men with guns who want what you have pleb. Thank you, sir. No. Thank you. And Pies with a 100. Thank you, sir. No. Thank you. And that's the weather report.
Welcome to part 2 of the news that you can use. Let's see here. Where are we? LastPass Threat actor drains $4,500,000 in crypto from over 40 victim addresses according to Zac xbt. Now this actually happened some time ago, But it looks like this hack that happened on LastPass, which happened a long time ago well, we'll find out out of Danny Park and the block. An estimated $5,360,000 in crypto was stolen from over 40 wallet addresses in the latest exploit from attackers identified as the last pass threat actor, according to blockchain sleuth, Zac XBT.
Quote, stolen funds were swapped for ETH and transferred to various instant exchanges from Ethereum to Bitcoin. Yes. Of course, they're going to change it from Ethereum to Bitcoin because Ethereum is a piece of shit. The security breach is said to have originated from the 2022 hacking incidents in the password manager service, LastPass. Now remember, this happened in 2022. This is when the security breach happened. In these incidents, attackers stole vast amounts of data including customer keys, API tokens, and MFA seeds.
This theft of sensitive customer data from LastPass has already led to 2 batches of cryptocurrency hacks with Zac XBT identifying 1 in October of 2023, and that $4,400,000 stolen and another in February of this year, and that resulted in losses of 6,200,000. Quote, cannot stress this enough. If you believe that you may have ever stored your seed phrase or keys in LastPass, migrate your crypto assets immediately, he said in a Twitter post. What does he mean? He means that if you made the critical kind one error of storing your seed phrases in something like a password manager, you need to rotate your keys.
That means you need to build a new wallet. You need to test that wallet. That wallet should have completely new a completely new seed phrase, completely different than your last one, thereby having a completely different private key. And then you after testing it and you're you're, you know, satisfied that this is a working wallet and everything is kosher, you need to move all of your funds via transactions from your old wallet to the new wallet and promise yourself that you will never ever ever use a password manager to hold your private key or seed phrase or anything else that if hacked would allow an attacker to gain direct access and vector your Bitcoin away from you.
Don't do that shit. For the love of God, don't do that shit. Now, we're coming into the new year. We've been at all time highs for the last couple of days in Bitcoin price. It just so happens it just so happens that the repayment plan for customers of FTX kicks off via Kraken and BitGo in the new year. In fact, starting January 3, 2025, distribution of funds, of creditors of the exchange will commence. On December 16th, FTX, the exchange that failed in 2022 announced that its fund distribution plan for creditors will take effect on January 3, 2025, with the first repayments expected within the following 60 days.
The company plans to distribute approximately $16,000,000,000 to creditors. The initial distribution will involve users with claims of $50,000 or less, representing about 90% of all creditors to receive any payment customers must register through the FTX customer portal. To manage the distribution FTX will rely on 2 partners: Kraken and BitGo. Kraken has already has hold on. Kraken already has experience in a similar role, having managed repayments for the Mt. Gox creditors. John j Ray the 3rd, CEO of FTX Debtors stated, quote, for the past 2 years, our team of professionals have meticulously and efficiently worked to recover 1,000,000,000 of dollars to reach this point, end quote. The plan, approved by judge John Dorsey of the Delaware Bankruptcy Court last October, provides that 98% of creditors will receive at least 118% of the value of their claims in stable coins.
Stable coins. They've I guess they've already converted everything to stable coins. Don't don't quote me on that. But it would be nice if we if they've already done all liquidations and converted it to stable coins, and we don't have to see red candles come, you know, January 4th or whatever. However, criticism has not been absent, particularly from Sunai Kavouri, representative of the largest group of creditors who argued for repayments to be made in cryptocurrencies rather than in dollars at their 2022 value. Well, maybe you shouldn't be, you know, jacking around with bullshit like FTX in the first damn place.
On to a hardware, what looks to be a hardware wallet, but I think it's a little bit more than that. Foundation Devices has announced Passport Prime personal security platform. Foundation has introduced Passport Prime, a personal security platform and signing device aimed at both first time and experienced users that comes with a hardware wallet, multi factor authenticator, encrypted flash drive, and a secure app platform. Okay. So I'm looking at the picture of passport prime. It looks like a phone. It's got a really nice big screen. I'm like just think of a smartphone. And that's what I'm looking at, and honestly, thing looks slick. Now, I don't I haven't used one. I've never used a foundation, device.
But I have to say, what I'm seeing in the pictures looks pretty sweet. Today, I am thrilled to introduce not a hardware wallet, but the world's first personal security platform. Introducing Foundation's 3rd generation device, Passport Prime, announced Zach Herbert, cofounder and CEO of Foundation. According to the announcement, the fully open source device is set to deliver robust Bitcoin wallet support, advanced features, and a secure yet smartphone like experience. The 3rd generation device by Foundation will run on Keys OS and feature a third party app store. It includes apps such as a 2 factor authenticator, a security keys app for multi factor authentication via USD and NFC, and seed vault for organizing seed phrases. Additionally, it targets encrypted flash drives with 50 gigabytes of memory for storing sensitive files secured by a feature called Air Lock.
Passport Prime is the only device anyone needs to safeguard the digital keys, passwords, and other authentication codes. Customers who previously used a range of devices including hardware wallets, security keys or encrypted flash drives can now use Passport Prime to safeguard their entire digital life now and forever on a single device and for a fraction of the cost, said Herbert. Over the last 2 years the foundation team has built KeyOS, which powers Passport Prime. It is an open source next gen kernel operating system written in Rust and built on XOUS. To guarantee security all apps on KeyOS will be sandboxed and receive hardened child seeds meaning that even if the app is malicious it has no access to the master seed and cannot communicate with other apps.
A microkernel is an ideal foundation for a personal security platform that offers better resistance and better modularity while also implementing key security features like process isolation and communication using only via messaging passing. KeyOS offers a highly modular yet locked down environment where apps run side by side in their own sandboxes while the operating system manages permissions. This is how we are going to enable third party apps and grow Passport Prime into a robust developer platform, said the CEO. By the middle of next year, developers will be able to create third party applications for KiOS without needing approval from the foundation.
KeyOS is set to provide an open platform for developers. The company also announced a partnership with Cake Wallet, which is set to introduce the first third party app running on KeyOS. For Passport Prime, Foundation also created a new Bluetooth protocol Quantum Link that is designed to provide security over Bluetooth. Interesting. Passport Prime contains a dedicated Bluetooth chip separate from the security processor running KeyOS The Bluetooth chip can only send and receive messages that are already encrypted using quantum resistant tech for establishing encrypted tunnels, explained the CEO.
The onboarding process has also been revamped to enhance personal security and simplify access for new users. Instead of the traditional method of recording seed words, Passport Prime will come with NFC key cards. And during setup users simply need to tap 2 of these cards to their Passport Prime device streamlining the initial configuration. Jesus, this actually sounds pretty cool man. The default onboarding experience of KeyOS uses a 2 out of 3 Shamir Secret Sharing scheme to split your seed into 3 parts. 2 of them on cards and 1 on the Envoy mobile app.
It's magic backup technology provides an Icloud like experience for passport prime by encrypting data and setting on device before sending them to foundation servers via envoy. I kinda don't like that one. Find out more. Without requiring usernames, passwords, or email addresses, KeyOS is set to ensure privacy by keeping seed words on the device. To restore your Passport Prime, simply connect it to Envoy and use one of the key cards. There's no username. There is no password. And there is no email address. We know absolutely nothing about you. And no seed words ever leave your device.
Okay? You store the key cards and we simply store an encrypted blob of your settings and your metadata. So if you ever need to replace your Passport Prime, simply connect it to Envoy and tap one of your 2 key cards and that's it. It's that simple. Your device will be restored exactly as it was. Envoy plus subscription with Magic backups will cost a great $5 per month following the expiration of the 6 month free trial. Developers interested in building apps on KeyOS can learn more on Foundation's website and sign up for updates as the team prepares to release the KeyOS developer kit. The device itself, the phone thing that looks like a phone, is priced at $300 and shipping is set to begin in the Q1 of 2025, the first one thousand customers can preorder the device through Foundation's early access program.
Passport Prime is the first device of its kind. A personal security platform that is fit for the future of decentralized economies, making it simple to safeguard all of your private keys in one offline device and sign every kind of transaction or contract with complete peace of mind. Okay. This I'm gonna I think we should probably be digging into, into this device pretty hardcore because it looks like they've done a lot of work. It's slick as shit, which means that they probably have a hell of a design team, and that generally means that they're not doing it because out of their, you know, kindness of their heart, they're going to market this thing and it's going to be out in the wild. So I suspect that their marketing team is probably well funded.
That means that people are going to buy this. And I think that that means that we should be looking really hard at this device to make sure that it's, you know, that it's I'm sure it's above board, but there was a couple of things in the description of this that made me kind of, not standoffish, but guarded. Let's just say guarded. I think we should take a good long look at this device because if it does what it says, this is gonna be a killer device. So if anybody has any more information than what has been released, if you have experience with foundation devices, get a hold of me. Let me know about your, experiences because I kinda like I kinda like what I'm seeing even though I'm a little guarded about it. We'll just leave it at that.
To end it ending the day with this one, Samurais wallet pretrial hearing has been moved to March 12th. The trial is set for November 3, 2025. They're just taking forever to do this shit. A memo filed on December 11th postpones Samurais Wallet's next pretrial hearing from December 17th to March 12th, delaying it by 90 days. The filing reveals that an FBI team is reviewing 45 is reviewing 45 total devices seized from developers Keanu Rodriguez or sorry. Keon Rodriguez and William Longarian Hill for privileged material aiming to release the remaining data by early 2025.
To date, 17 terabytes of discovery, over half the total has been shared with additional data forthcoming. Quote, the government has completed its privileged review of approximately 16 electronic devices so far, and it will be providing identified data to the defendants on a rolling basis moving forward as it completes review of the remaining, 29 devices. That's a lot of electronic devices. In the latest hearing, Samurai Walt's defense compared discovery to 75% of the Library of Congress and printed out papers reaching to the moon and back 22 times. Today, Zach Cohen of the Bitcoin Policy Institute has also published a policy brief examining the DOJ's alarming legal theory and its implications for samurai wallet and Bitcoin self custody.
Okay. So they're not done in discovery is what this sounds like. They they have either found new devices or for some reason or another decided to have another go at devices they already had in their possession and it's causing them to move this entire thing back 90 days. It's this okay. How how to say this? Your right to trial in the United States is not a right to trial if they basically keep moving your trial and you're continuously under house arrest or you're just continuously cooling your heels in jail. Not everything about this is wrong.
I'm hoping that the incoming administration just scuttles this entire thing. But, again, we'll have to see. But 17 terabytes of data? Really? Seriously? I I don't know, man. A lot of me is calling bullshit on all this. But that is the end of the show. It's a little shorter today. But, hey, you know, news is as news comes. So I will just leave it there, and I will see you on the other side. This has been Bitcoin and and I'm your host, David Bennett. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and hope to see you again real soon. Have a great day.
Good morning. This is David Bennett, and this is Bitcoin and, a podcast where I try to find the edge effect between the worlds of Bitcoin, gaming, permaculture, podcasting, and education to gain a better understanding of all. Edge effect is a concept from ecology describing a greater diversity of life where the edges of 2 systems overlap. While species from either system can be found at the edge, it is important to note there are species in the overlap that exist in neither system, and that is what I seek to uncover. So join me in discovering the variety of things being created as Bitcoin rubs up against other systems. It is 9:19 AM. It is the 17th day of December 2024, and this is episode 10 10 of Bitcoin.
And how about that $108,000 Bitcoin price that lasted for 2 and a half seconds? You know what happened. Right? Yeah. I woke up and became conscious and saw the price. And then and then the time immediately flipped over to 7 AM Pacific Standard Time. And immediately, we got a huge red candle to the downside. And I have been I've noticed this I've said it on the show before it's it's weird because more often than not when I see the time flip over to 7 am Pacific Standard Time I start seeing a red candle on Bitcoin. And I've I've I've just I've seen it more times than I can count to the point that I don't think it's just coincidence.
I think it's something more. And I asked somebody or at and I put the question out there on Nostril this morning. And I was like, what the hell is this? And somebody came back with the name of an OG Bitcoiner that I got a lot of respect for and used to listen to quite a bit back in his days on the Bitcoin group, Tone Vase. And the person that responded to me said that Tone Vase used to call it the 10 AM effect. And, of course, Tone Vase lived in I don't know where he lives now. I I have a sneaky suspicion he moved to Vegas, but I know that he lived in New York City for a long time. So he was Eastern Standard Time, and he was a traditional trader before he got into Bitcoin. I I mean, futures, options, bonds, you name it. He had all kinds of plays out there. And, then he got into then he got into Bitcoin, but he never stopped playing the market, the legacy financial markets.
And he used to call it the 10 AM effect. And it was, you know, 10 AM Eastern Standard Time. And the other conjecture or the conjecture about this is that this is roughly the time that European and Russian markets start closing down for the day and that the 7 AM repositioning that I see on the West Coast or the 10 AM Eastern Standard Time, repositioning that Tone Vaz was seeing on the East Coast very well may be the European and Russian traders, making their closeout moves for their trading day. And that actually makes a lot of sense. So we somebody is, like, was able to posit a cogent reason for why I see bullshit occurring at 7 am.
I've always wondered what the hell that was. Maybe maybe my question has been finally answered, and I can only thank the people on Noster for digging stuff like that up for me. Okay. So let's let's begin with the theme of the last few days has been strategic Bitcoin reserves at the nation state level. And I talked about nation state FOMO yesterday, and we're gonna add one more to the list. Helen Parks, Cointelegraph, no to CBDC, and yes to Bitcoin. European member of parliament calls for an EU Bitcoin Reserve. We're not done by by by a stretch, man. We are not done with these people. European lawmaker Sarah Nafo called on the European Union to establish a strategic Bitcoin Reserve while rejecting the proposed adoption of the digital euro, a central bank digital currency.
NAFO, a French magistrate and a member of the European Parliament since June delivered a pro Bitcoin speech calling on European lawmakers to launch a strategic BTC reserve. Quote, no to the digital euro, yes to the strategic Bitcoin reserve, NATO said in a post on Twitter, which included a video of her speech before the European Parliament. The lawmaker said that it's time to stop totalitarian temptation, but that's like a good name for a boy band, by the ECB calling for a shift from regulatory overreach in crypto to adopting the decentralized nature of bitcoin. And in her speech, NAFO compared crypto regulation developments worldwide, citing El Salvador's bitcoin adoption and the crypto friendly agenda of United States president-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration.
She also mentioned that the US Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, referred to Bitcoin as digital gold in earlier of December. Europe has taken a different approach to crypto regulation, NAFO said, adding that local regulators have been primarily focused on regulation, taxation, and stifling innovation. Yeah. Because that's what socialist do. And they always have done it. And if you're a socialist out there listening to me shaking your head, I think you need to go back and read history about socialism, communism, Marxism.
It is not about empowering the people. It is about fooling them into doing your dirty work for you until you get installed into power, and then you line them up against the wall and shoot them all. Because that's what they did. I mean, honestly, if somebody brought you to power, why would you let them live? That's sort of like if you hire somebody to assassinate somebody, you might want to consider killing the assassin so that there's no loose ends. And in this case, when people bring socialists to power, they're usually lined up and shot because they were influential enough to change the perceptions and minds of a massive amount of people.
Why risk letting them do that again when you start stealing their money? Because that's what happens. Anyway, that's an aside. It is time, quote, it is time to change the paradigm. It is time to protect our people from inflation and the poor economic choices of our states. And she says, plural, states, all of them, all of the EU states. It is time to say no to the totalitarian temptations of the European Central Bank, which wants to impose a digital euro entirely in its own hands, NAFOS said, adding, quote, we do not want this dystopian world where a European bureaucrat will be able tomorrow to ban certain transactions and even eliminate us from the banking system with a click for a simple comment made on social networks or for an opinion that displeases.
It is time to bet on freedom, end quote. The ECB has officially been studying the concept of the CBDC for more than 4 years, and the European Central Bank published one of its first reports dedicated to the potential digital euro in 2020. European authorities have been struggling with the decision on a digital euro as many have expressed concerns about privacy risks and possible threats to private payment firms and other issues. In its latest rule book, the ECB said that it continues preparations for a potential digital euro launch and expects to make a final decision on the matter this coming October of 2025.
I like what this woman is saying. I have no idea who she is. She's only been a member of parliament since the summer. She looks like she's pretty young. So she may not have all that many teeth, but I do like what she's actually saying there. So Europe is now on deck for considering a strategic Bitcoin reserve. Again, this is not going to end. I suspect that we'll start hearing, you know, rumors in Australia, and then New Zealand, different member states of Southeast Asia. I would imagine that we'll start seeing a lot more rattling around in Eastern Europe because they're the ones that are gonna need it the most.
I'm surprised that I haven't heard any rumblings out of South and Central America about a strategic Bitcoin reserve other than, you know, the the old the people that are already on deck, and we all know who they are. But it's not going to stop. I mean, once you let that genie out of the bottle, that genie's gonna run around and start granting wishes. Okay. So, Turner Wright from Cointelegraph, also from Cointelegraph, has written this one. And I find this relatively interesting insofar as it's, gee, what a coincidence. Trump meets with Crypto dotcom CEO right as the firm drops their lawsuit against the security and Securities and Exchange Commission.
Isn't that that's gotta be a coincidence. Right? Well, let's find out. United States president-elect Donald Trump met with crypto.com CEO Chris Marcelin, I can't pronounce his name, at his home in Mar a Lago to discuss policies potentially affecting the cryptocurrency industry. Oh, Isn't that nice? According to a December 16th Twitter post, Marzalek traveled to Florida to meet with Trump, and the pair reportedly discussed the president elect's proposal to launch a national Bitcoin reserve and appointments in his administration related to the crypto industry. This sounds like a deal is being made.
The meeting came on the very same day that crypto.com dropped its lawsuit against the US Securities and Exchange Commission. And in a December 16th filing in the United States District Court of the Eastern District of Texas, the crypto exchange voluntarily dismissed a suit against the SEC and its commissioners with prejudice. For those of you who for those of you who don't know, that means that they are willingly saying that they will never ever not only will they not try to sue under the state same auspices again, the SEC, they are literally saying it is now precedent that we cannot sue the SEC under what the structure of this particular lawsuit was. That's what with prejudice means.
Anyway, anyway, after receiving a Wells notice warning of a potential enforcement action, miss Alex said in October that the exchange would be filing a suit against the SEC to protect the future of crypto. And then a crypto.com spokesperson told Cointelegraph that the firm withdrew the lawsuit given its intent to work with the incoming administration on a regulatory framework for the industry. Someone's getting appointed somewhere. That's what this is. Anyway, since winning the US presidential election November 5th, Trump has proposed appointments suggesting he intended to nominate individuals favoring the industry. The president-elect launched his own digital shitcoin, World Liberty Financial, before the election. In addition to Marzalek or however you pronounce his name, Trump reportedly talked with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong in November.
Since that event, the president-elect has announced former PayPal chief operating officer David Sacks as his AI and cryptos are and formed former commissioner Paul Adkins as his pick for the SEC chair. Yeah. Someone is making cutting a deal. This is backroom actually, this isn't even backroom shit, man. This is so in your face. It's not even funny. Crypto.com had one of the largest lawsuits, probably one of some of the best staffed lawyers for this lawsuit against the SEC, and it just went away on the very same day that Trump met with the head the head honcho of crypto.com. And, again, this is this is clear.
This guy or one of his lieutenants is going to be appointed to have something to do with the crypto industry under Trump. So Trump made this entire thing go away. And again, I have to reiterate, they dismissed it with prejudice. They are they have voluntarily said we cannot. Not that we won't and trust us. It means they can't. If they ever try to file against the SEC in this with the same complaint, because they their other own volition, they dismissed it with prejudice, anybody who reads that that motion or whatever you're gonna call it to sue the SEC again will say, no, dude. You dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice.
So you can't. We're it it's not ever going to see the light of day. So just that's that's sort of like a presidential pardon except on the other side of the fence. Just saying. Keep that in mind because that's the way these deals are gonna be made. Okay. Bitcoin holder, Semler Scientific Shares are now available for options trading. Yay. It's a derivative of a derivative, written by James Van Stratten. And CoinDesk bought. God. I I I don't know what that means, but it kinda scares me. It's out of CoinDesk, by the way. Shares of Similar Scientific, the small cap medical device maker that adopted a Bitcoin treasury strategy earlier this year, are now available for options trading. Yay.
This comes after 6 months of share price growth for the company driven by its Bitcoin pivot and capital raising initiatives. Semler had requested approval on December 5th from options exchanges to allow options trading as the company believed that it met the eligibility requirements. Though no official announcement has been made, a check of brokerage accounts on Tuesday morning US hours showed that the options are indeed available for trading. And if you didn't know, options are financial contracts that give the investor the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell a stock at a specified price before a certain date.
The introduction of options on a stock gives investors new tools to hedge risk and speculate on price movements. You spelled gambling wrong, but among the requirements needed for an options market to be granted are a minimum share price of 3 to $5, a minimum market capitalization of at least $75,000,000 and sufficient trading volume of around 500,000 to 1,000,000 shares per day. And, additionally, a minimum number of publicly available shares and sufficient number of shareholders are required. Similar stock price has almost tripled to more than $74 as of Monday's close since making public its initial bitcoin purchases on May of 28th sorry May 28th It has a market cap topping $600,000,000.
SMLR or similar scientific is ahead 5% in pre market action on Tuesday to $78.20. The company recently filed a second prospectus supplement under its s three shelf, which has seen an additional $50,000,000 in share offerings under its existing at the market program, increasing the total offering of a $150,000,000. And to date, the company has raised approximately $100,000,000 in proceeds through ATM issuance. That's what at the market stands for. ATM stands for at the market, if you're wondering. Because I keep seeing a bunch more ATM abbreviations in post and stuff on Twitter and Nostra, and I'm like, what? Anyway, it means at the market. Similar to date has acquired 2,000 Bitcoin for a $168,600,000 or an average price of around $81,000 each. And those holdings are worth now about $222,000,000 at Bitcoin's recent price of roughly a $106,500.
Semler may be looking to recreate the success mammoth Bitcoin holder, MicroStrategy, has achieved. Well, duh. Of course, they are, and that's the smart move. It doesn't mean that it's the right move. It okay. Hold on. It doesn't mean that it's an ethical move. It doesn't mean that it's a moral move. It is the right move because this is the way the wind is blowing. And if you've ever ridden a bike against the wind, you know how much that sucks. Of course, they're going to do it, and they have been doing it. It's going to continue, and it's going to accelerate. And anybody who thinks differently is going to have fun staying poor.
Now the SEC serves the NFT project Cyberkongs with their own Wells notice citing securities violations. If you thought that they weren't coming for NFTs, you're wrong. All of us told you that they were. We knew they were. It was clear that they were. And they are. Decrypt Vince Diocquino is writing about this one. The US Securities and Exchange Commission has issued a Wells notice to the gaming project CyberKongs, marking the latest regulatory probe into an entity of its type. Quote, the SEC's division of enforcement have approached us with very concerning rhetoric that you cannot have a token, an ERC 20, in tandem with a blockchain game without registering it as a security.
Oh my god, the project said in a statement posted on Twitter on Monday. A Wells notice informs recipients that the regulator is pissed off and getting kinda pissed off at you because you're doing wrong shit. I mean, they've got a a whole description here, but we don't need it means that you are you have an unregistered security. They're looking at what's going on, and they're saying this passes the Howey test with flying colors, which means that it's a security. And then they say, is it registered? And when they find out that these people have not gone through the registration process, they issue a Wells notice, which basically means we're going to put somebody in jail, and you're not going to be able to do this shit very much longer. So be prepared to be bit over the bench. A full blown investigation and subsequent charges against Cyberkong could present major implications for blockchain gaming industry.
It said, adding that it would defend against the stance for the wider space. Yes. Because we're not scamming for just us. We're scamming for everyone. And everyone's got the right to scam anyone because that's what NFTs are. They're just a scam. There are very, very few use cases that I've ever seen something like an NFT actually be useful for. I talked about it last week or the week before. But for 99.999 percent of the time, you're just going to give somebody else your money, and they're going to enjoy it on a beach sipping pina coladas. In particular, projects combining NFTs with utility tokens could be affected.
It's not just gaming, ladies and gentlemen. They're gonna come for all of you. Cyberkongs, which operates with out venture funding or significant treasury reserves, said that it plans to challenge the notice. Quote, we have been suffering in silence for the last 2 years ever since we first received contact from the SEC, Cyberkong said, alleging that the regulator has a complete lack of understanding of blockchain technologies, which has resulted in unjust accusations and information inaccuracies. Oh, bullshit. You're fucking scammers. Cyberkongs and the SEC did not immediately respond to decrypts request for comment.
The SEC's concern is centered on the NFT project's April 2021 Genesis Kong's contract migration, which regulators interpreted as a token sale according to the company's statement. And CyberKong's, of course, maintains it was purely a technical upgrade. If they cannot distinguish between a primary sale and contract migration, what hope do we currently have for a clear regulatory pathway going forward? It just sounds to me like you're obfuscating this bullshit that you're doing so that you can steal other people's money, calling it technicalities, But it's not.
You're selling a scam. I'm sorry. But it's just bullshit. Anyway, this is going to go on. Right? If you are an NFT project, you might as well go ahead and hang it up. Because they're coming for the lot of you. Now, let's run the numbers. West Texas Intermediate is taking it on the chin as is all the rest of the hydrocarbons, down 1.41%. We've got West Texas Intermediate sitting at 69.71 a barrel. Brent Norcey down 1 and a third to 72.92. Natural gas down 2.3 quarters of a point to $3.12 per 1,000 cubic feet. Gasoline down 1.67 percent to a buck 94 a gallon.
All of your shiny metal rocks are just pissing in the wind. Half a point to the downside for the shiny metal rock named as gold, $2,658.10. Silver down a half point, platinum down point 1%, copper down 1 a quarter percent, and palladium is down 1 a third. Biggest winner today in ag is lumber. Point 56% to the upside. Biggest loser is going to be sugar or 4% to the downside. And most futures in ag are in the red, including live cattle which is down 0.08%. Lean hogs are down 0.84%. But feeder cattle rebounding a half point this morning. The Dow is down 0.61%.
The S and P is down a third, as is the Nasdaq, and the S and P Mini is down just over 1 point. Why, you may ask? Well, retail sales numbers came in today, and they were higher than expected. What does that mean? It means people are buying more. Well, what does that mean? It means maybe there's a threat that the Fed won't lower interest rates, and that's why you're seeing blood flowing in the gutters and in the streets. It's simply perception. It doesn't and it doesn't mean that it might not affect the Fed's decision to actually lower rates by a quarter of a point come Wednesday. I think tomorrow is when they're supposed to have their meeting and then release, what they're actually going to do.
But any perception that inflation is under control means that the Fed might might consider holding off because they can say, oh, but see, but but it's working. Inflation is under control. And for the last couple of weeks, we've had we've had numbers that suggest that inflation isn't exactly under control. Right? At least as far as economists are concerned, we all know inflation sucks. We're talking about the numbers that that the the CPI stuff and all the stuff they use to lie to us to tell us whether or not we've got inflation. Alright? We all know that we've got inflation. But we're talking about main the way the mainstream legacy financial stuff works. Okay.
So if you've got more money or if you're buying more stuff, it means you've got more money. That means that you have a no problem spending it. That means you're not concerned about things on the ground. And that means that inflation must be it must be working. They might they're actually reining it in. And that's why you're seeing all the markets basically taking a shit today. And that may have been what caused, that may have been another pressure point of what caused the 7 AM pullback of Bitcoin from its high of over $8,000 to somewhere like 106,005.
Just I'm just saying. This is just conjecture, but this is my reading on it. Speaking of Bitcoin, we are back up to a 107,420. That is a $2,130,000,000,000 market cap. You can get 40.6 ounces of shiny metal rocks with your one Bitcoin, of which there are 19,797,226.62 of. And 0.09 BTC taken in fees on average on a per block basis. So fees are kinda low. There are a 112 blocks carrying 274,000 unconfirmed transactions waiting to clear high priority rates of 10 satoshis per vbyte. Low priority is gonna get you in at 10 at 8. And the hash rate is holding steady.
779.1 exahashes per second on a 1 week rolling average. Now from nation state FOMO, yesterday's episode of Bitcoin. And I got Evan with 1500 sats. Thank you, brother. Says, enjoy the holidays. Don't stress about missing some episodes. Well, I'll definitely have to miss a couple, but I don't I don't like missing episodes. It doesn't help me when I miss episodes, but I appreciate, I appreciate the, the well wishing there. God's death with 537. Thank you, sir. No. Thank you. Wartime with 333. He's got, cheers emoji. And Steve's got a 100 sat, says beware of wicked men with guns who want what you have pleb. Thank you, sir. No. Thank you. And Pies with a 100. Thank you, sir. No. Thank you. And that's the weather report.
Welcome to part 2 of the news that you can use. Let's see here. Where are we? LastPass Threat actor drains $4,500,000 in crypto from over 40 victim addresses according to Zac xbt. Now this actually happened some time ago, But it looks like this hack that happened on LastPass, which happened a long time ago well, we'll find out out of Danny Park and the block. An estimated $5,360,000 in crypto was stolen from over 40 wallet addresses in the latest exploit from attackers identified as the last pass threat actor, according to blockchain sleuth, Zac XBT.
Quote, stolen funds were swapped for ETH and transferred to various instant exchanges from Ethereum to Bitcoin. Yes. Of course, they're going to change it from Ethereum to Bitcoin because Ethereum is a piece of shit. The security breach is said to have originated from the 2022 hacking incidents in the password manager service, LastPass. Now remember, this happened in 2022. This is when the security breach happened. In these incidents, attackers stole vast amounts of data including customer keys, API tokens, and MFA seeds.
This theft of sensitive customer data from LastPass has already led to 2 batches of cryptocurrency hacks with Zac XBT identifying 1 in October of 2023, and that $4,400,000 stolen and another in February of this year, and that resulted in losses of 6,200,000. Quote, cannot stress this enough. If you believe that you may have ever stored your seed phrase or keys in LastPass, migrate your crypto assets immediately, he said in a Twitter post. What does he mean? He means that if you made the critical kind one error of storing your seed phrases in something like a password manager, you need to rotate your keys.
That means you need to build a new wallet. You need to test that wallet. That wallet should have completely new a completely new seed phrase, completely different than your last one, thereby having a completely different private key. And then you after testing it and you're you're, you know, satisfied that this is a working wallet and everything is kosher, you need to move all of your funds via transactions from your old wallet to the new wallet and promise yourself that you will never ever ever use a password manager to hold your private key or seed phrase or anything else that if hacked would allow an attacker to gain direct access and vector your Bitcoin away from you.
Don't do that shit. For the love of God, don't do that shit. Now, we're coming into the new year. We've been at all time highs for the last couple of days in Bitcoin price. It just so happens it just so happens that the repayment plan for customers of FTX kicks off via Kraken and BitGo in the new year. In fact, starting January 3, 2025, distribution of funds, of creditors of the exchange will commence. On December 16th, FTX, the exchange that failed in 2022 announced that its fund distribution plan for creditors will take effect on January 3, 2025, with the first repayments expected within the following 60 days.
The company plans to distribute approximately $16,000,000,000 to creditors. The initial distribution will involve users with claims of $50,000 or less, representing about 90% of all creditors to receive any payment customers must register through the FTX customer portal. To manage the distribution FTX will rely on 2 partners: Kraken and BitGo. Kraken has already has hold on. Kraken already has experience in a similar role, having managed repayments for the Mt. Gox creditors. John j Ray the 3rd, CEO of FTX Debtors stated, quote, for the past 2 years, our team of professionals have meticulously and efficiently worked to recover 1,000,000,000 of dollars to reach this point, end quote. The plan, approved by judge John Dorsey of the Delaware Bankruptcy Court last October, provides that 98% of creditors will receive at least 118% of the value of their claims in stable coins.
Stable coins. They've I guess they've already converted everything to stable coins. Don't don't quote me on that. But it would be nice if we if they've already done all liquidations and converted it to stable coins, and we don't have to see red candles come, you know, January 4th or whatever. However, criticism has not been absent, particularly from Sunai Kavouri, representative of the largest group of creditors who argued for repayments to be made in cryptocurrencies rather than in dollars at their 2022 value. Well, maybe you shouldn't be, you know, jacking around with bullshit like FTX in the first damn place.
On to a hardware, what looks to be a hardware wallet, but I think it's a little bit more than that. Foundation Devices has announced Passport Prime personal security platform. Foundation has introduced Passport Prime, a personal security platform and signing device aimed at both first time and experienced users that comes with a hardware wallet, multi factor authenticator, encrypted flash drive, and a secure app platform. Okay. So I'm looking at the picture of passport prime. It looks like a phone. It's got a really nice big screen. I'm like just think of a smartphone. And that's what I'm looking at, and honestly, thing looks slick. Now, I don't I haven't used one. I've never used a foundation, device.
But I have to say, what I'm seeing in the pictures looks pretty sweet. Today, I am thrilled to introduce not a hardware wallet, but the world's first personal security platform. Introducing Foundation's 3rd generation device, Passport Prime, announced Zach Herbert, cofounder and CEO of Foundation. According to the announcement, the fully open source device is set to deliver robust Bitcoin wallet support, advanced features, and a secure yet smartphone like experience. The 3rd generation device by Foundation will run on Keys OS and feature a third party app store. It includes apps such as a 2 factor authenticator, a security keys app for multi factor authentication via USD and NFC, and seed vault for organizing seed phrases. Additionally, it targets encrypted flash drives with 50 gigabytes of memory for storing sensitive files secured by a feature called Air Lock.
Passport Prime is the only device anyone needs to safeguard the digital keys, passwords, and other authentication codes. Customers who previously used a range of devices including hardware wallets, security keys or encrypted flash drives can now use Passport Prime to safeguard their entire digital life now and forever on a single device and for a fraction of the cost, said Herbert. Over the last 2 years the foundation team has built KeyOS, which powers Passport Prime. It is an open source next gen kernel operating system written in Rust and built on XOUS. To guarantee security all apps on KeyOS will be sandboxed and receive hardened child seeds meaning that even if the app is malicious it has no access to the master seed and cannot communicate with other apps.
A microkernel is an ideal foundation for a personal security platform that offers better resistance and better modularity while also implementing key security features like process isolation and communication using only via messaging passing. KeyOS offers a highly modular yet locked down environment where apps run side by side in their own sandboxes while the operating system manages permissions. This is how we are going to enable third party apps and grow Passport Prime into a robust developer platform, said the CEO. By the middle of next year, developers will be able to create third party applications for KiOS without needing approval from the foundation.
KeyOS is set to provide an open platform for developers. The company also announced a partnership with Cake Wallet, which is set to introduce the first third party app running on KeyOS. For Passport Prime, Foundation also created a new Bluetooth protocol Quantum Link that is designed to provide security over Bluetooth. Interesting. Passport Prime contains a dedicated Bluetooth chip separate from the security processor running KeyOS The Bluetooth chip can only send and receive messages that are already encrypted using quantum resistant tech for establishing encrypted tunnels, explained the CEO.
The onboarding process has also been revamped to enhance personal security and simplify access for new users. Instead of the traditional method of recording seed words, Passport Prime will come with NFC key cards. And during setup users simply need to tap 2 of these cards to their Passport Prime device streamlining the initial configuration. Jesus, this actually sounds pretty cool man. The default onboarding experience of KeyOS uses a 2 out of 3 Shamir Secret Sharing scheme to split your seed into 3 parts. 2 of them on cards and 1 on the Envoy mobile app.
It's magic backup technology provides an Icloud like experience for passport prime by encrypting data and setting on device before sending them to foundation servers via envoy. I kinda don't like that one. Find out more. Without requiring usernames, passwords, or email addresses, KeyOS is set to ensure privacy by keeping seed words on the device. To restore your Passport Prime, simply connect it to Envoy and use one of the key cards. There's no username. There is no password. And there is no email address. We know absolutely nothing about you. And no seed words ever leave your device.
Okay? You store the key cards and we simply store an encrypted blob of your settings and your metadata. So if you ever need to replace your Passport Prime, simply connect it to Envoy and tap one of your 2 key cards and that's it. It's that simple. Your device will be restored exactly as it was. Envoy plus subscription with Magic backups will cost a great $5 per month following the expiration of the 6 month free trial. Developers interested in building apps on KeyOS can learn more on Foundation's website and sign up for updates as the team prepares to release the KeyOS developer kit. The device itself, the phone thing that looks like a phone, is priced at $300 and shipping is set to begin in the Q1 of 2025, the first one thousand customers can preorder the device through Foundation's early access program.
Passport Prime is the first device of its kind. A personal security platform that is fit for the future of decentralized economies, making it simple to safeguard all of your private keys in one offline device and sign every kind of transaction or contract with complete peace of mind. Okay. This I'm gonna I think we should probably be digging into, into this device pretty hardcore because it looks like they've done a lot of work. It's slick as shit, which means that they probably have a hell of a design team, and that generally means that they're not doing it because out of their, you know, kindness of their heart, they're going to market this thing and it's going to be out in the wild. So I suspect that their marketing team is probably well funded.
That means that people are going to buy this. And I think that that means that we should be looking really hard at this device to make sure that it's, you know, that it's I'm sure it's above board, but there was a couple of things in the description of this that made me kind of, not standoffish, but guarded. Let's just say guarded. I think we should take a good long look at this device because if it does what it says, this is gonna be a killer device. So if anybody has any more information than what has been released, if you have experience with foundation devices, get a hold of me. Let me know about your, experiences because I kinda like I kinda like what I'm seeing even though I'm a little guarded about it. We'll just leave it at that.
To end it ending the day with this one, Samurais wallet pretrial hearing has been moved to March 12th. The trial is set for November 3, 2025. They're just taking forever to do this shit. A memo filed on December 11th postpones Samurais Wallet's next pretrial hearing from December 17th to March 12th, delaying it by 90 days. The filing reveals that an FBI team is reviewing 45 is reviewing 45 total devices seized from developers Keanu Rodriguez or sorry. Keon Rodriguez and William Longarian Hill for privileged material aiming to release the remaining data by early 2025.
To date, 17 terabytes of discovery, over half the total has been shared with additional data forthcoming. Quote, the government has completed its privileged review of approximately 16 electronic devices so far, and it will be providing identified data to the defendants on a rolling basis moving forward as it completes review of the remaining, 29 devices. That's a lot of electronic devices. In the latest hearing, Samurai Walt's defense compared discovery to 75% of the Library of Congress and printed out papers reaching to the moon and back 22 times. Today, Zach Cohen of the Bitcoin Policy Institute has also published a policy brief examining the DOJ's alarming legal theory and its implications for samurai wallet and Bitcoin self custody.
Okay. So they're not done in discovery is what this sounds like. They they have either found new devices or for some reason or another decided to have another go at devices they already had in their possession and it's causing them to move this entire thing back 90 days. It's this okay. How how to say this? Your right to trial in the United States is not a right to trial if they basically keep moving your trial and you're continuously under house arrest or you're just continuously cooling your heels in jail. Not everything about this is wrong.
I'm hoping that the incoming administration just scuttles this entire thing. But, again, we'll have to see. But 17 terabytes of data? Really? Seriously? I I don't know, man. A lot of me is calling bullshit on all this. But that is the end of the show. It's a little shorter today. But, hey, you know, news is as news comes. So I will just leave it there, and I will see you on the other side. This has been Bitcoin and and I'm your host, David Bennett. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and hope to see you again real soon. Have a great day.
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