Join me today for Episode 1017 of Bitcoin And . . .
Topics for today:
- Tether Moving HQ to El Salvador
- FED Could Hike Rates
- Run Away From THORChain ASAP
- North Dakota Floats SBR
#Bitcoin #BitcoinAnd
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The King Ranch Donation Pages:
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Articles:
https://cointelegraph.com/news/tether-el-salvador-securing-license-property
https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2025/01/13/bitcoin-under-pressure-as-goldman-trims-fed-rate-cut-expectations-bof-a-sees-potential-hike-after-blowout-jobs-report
https://decrypt.co/300615/russian-nationals-indicted-over-blender-io-and-sinbad-io-coin-mixers
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/takes/why-you-should-redeem-your-bitcoin-from-thorchains-lending-service
https://www.theblock.co/post/334222/microstrategy-2530-bitcoin
- https://www.cnbc.com/futures-and-commodities/
- https://dashboard.clarkmoody.com/
- https://mempool.space/
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- https://geyser.fund/project/thebitcoinandpodcast
https://decrypt.co/300499/north-dakota-considers-state-bitcoin-treasury
https://atlas21.com/meta-shareholder-proposal-to-consider-investment-in-bitcoin/
https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/nostur-v1-17-0/
https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/wasabi-wallet-v2-4-0/
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[00:00:02]
David Bennett:
It is 10:49 AM Pacific Standard Time. It is the 13th day of January 2025, that makes it Monday 13th. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's just it's just bad all the way around, man. This Fed decision of possible rate hikes is really messing people up right now. I don't think anybody expected that kind of turnaround. Bank of America is talking about it, and we'll talk about them. We're also going to talk about Tether. They rented a U Haul. They did, and it's a big U Haul. We'll tell you where they're taking it. We'll get we are definitely gonna get into that whole, oh, this b of a and the Fed and stuff like that. In fact, I wanna make sure that I know exactly what I'm talking about. Yeah. Goldman.
Yeah. Goldman has got some things to say about this entire debacle with the strong jobs report, which is a lie. It's a lie. Every single month the jobs report comes out, people are like, oh, see the economy's great. And then they don't see 4 weeks later the revised down of those numbers. It happens all the time and it's not like it's going to be any different this time. But some Russian nationals, the dirty Russkies are in the news as well. Some nationals have been indicted over some Bitcoin mixers. And you might want to consider running as far away from and as fast away as you can from Thorchain.
Their lending service seems to be lying or something like that. And of course, Michael Saylor is in the news. I'll bet you can guess why. But maybe you can't guess why North Dakota is in the news, or maybe you can. And then there's meta. Meta meta meta meta meta. People have been making a great big deal about Mark Zuckerberg's appearance on The Joe Rogan Show, seemingly saying that he is for free speech. And his hands were tied. He had absolutely nothing. It was out of his control, the censorship. He was getting yelled at. Oh my god. His employees were getting yelled at by the Biden administration. Come on, Zuck.
Suck it up, man, or suck it up and and fight for your guys if that's the truth. Just don't let your people get yelled at. It doesn't matter who they're getting yelled at by. You gotta defend your peeps, man. And you didn't defend your peeps. I don't believe a single word you're saying. Nostur has a new release out as does Wasabi Wallet. But first, let's talk about Tether. Like I said, they rented a U Haul. They're moving. They are moving to Beverly. Actually, no, they're not moving to and we're gonna listen to it. Stablecoin issuer Tether has announced that they are going to move the company and all of its subsidiaries to El Salvador after it secured an operating license in the Latin American nation.
In a January 13th notice, Tether said that it had acquired a license to operate in El Salvador as a digital asset service provider and stablecoin issuer. The company said it planned to relocate its headquarters and subsidiaries to El Salvador due to its forward thinking policies, favorable regulatory environment, and growing Bitcoin Savvy community. Quote, dude, this decision is a natural progression for Tether as it allows us to build a new home, foster collaboration, and strengthen our focus on emerging markets, said Tether CEO, Paulo Ardoino, adding, quote, by rooting ourselves in El Salvador, we are not only aligning with a country that shares our vision in terms of financial freedom, innovation, and resilience, but is also reinforcing our commitment to empowering people worldwide through technologies.
Yeah. You need to put a tie on that suit speak there, Paolo. The move followed reports that our doino and tether's chief operating officer, Claudia Ligurio, acquired real estate and became naturalized citizens of the Latin American nation in 2024. Cointelegraph reached out to Tether for comment but did not receive a response. Since Salvadoran President Naiib Bukele announced his intention to have the country adopt Bitcoin as legal tender in 2021, many in the crypto industry have formed ties with the government or local businesses. And in 2023, Tether announced that it would contribute to one of El Salvador's proposed renewable energy products, including geothermal facilities.
Arduino appeared to have met or talked with Bukele several times, posting messages to social media echoing the Salvadoran president's call to bring in new companies and residents. In an August 2024 interview, Bukele claimed BTC adoption had been a net positive for El Salvador, but said he had not seen as many benefits as he had anticipated. The government reported holding more than 6,000 BTC as of December, which is worth more than $550,000,000 at the time of publication. Since taking office in 2019 and getting reelected in 2024, the Salvadoran president, who once branded himself as the world's coolest dictator, has been praised by many for helping reduce the country's murder rate. However, reports have alleged that Bukele has also wrongly detained individuals critical of his administration and committed human rights abuses.
Well, just as a reminder for all the people in the United States who are potentially horrified that Naive Bukele did such a thing, Please, please, please remember that president Abe Lincoln. That's right. Abraham Lincoln. He threw the, chief justice of the supreme court into prison. And if you, are surprised by that, you might wanna go check that shit out. Dictators are everywhere. They're everywhere. They're always going it's like what Jesus said about the poor. The dictators will always be with you. And the poor will also always be with you probably because there's always dictators with your ass. Because we, as a human race, cannot get our collective shit together. But, here's something else that just can't seem to get its collective shit together.
Bitcoin investors or people that buy Bitcoin. Because what do they do? They get weak. They get spineless. They get sackless. They cannot find the sale on spines and ball sacks over there at Walmart. So, therefore, Bitcoin is under pressure. As Goldman trims Fed rate cut expectations and Bank of America sees a potential hike of Fed rates after the blowout jobs report, which I might remind you is complete fabrication of the numbers. Now, by the way, this is Amkar Godbold writing for Coindesk. Let me make sure about that. Yes. It is Amkar Godbold. He is writing for Coindesk, and it says, Bitcoin started the new week on a negative note as major investment banks reassess their expectations for the Federal Reserve rate cuts following Friday's strong jobs report.
You spelled lie wrong, but that's okay. The leading cryptocurrency by market value dipped below 93,000 during the European hours, representing a 1.6% drop on the day according to data source CoinDesk. Prices looked set to test the support zone near 92,000, which has consistently acted as a floor since late November. And we did punch through that. I think we punched down to 91,300, 91,400. And I have no idea where we're at right now, but I'm sure we'll find out. Anyway, the CoinDesk 20 index, a broader market gauge, was down over 3% with major shitcoins like shit coin number 1, 2, and 3 posting even larger losses. In traditional markets, futures tied to the S and P 500 traded 3 no.
0.3 percent lower, pointing to an extension of Friday's 1.5% drop that pushed the index to the lowest since early November. The dollar index neared 110 for the first time since late 2022 with elevated Treasury yields supporting further gains. Why are the Treasury yields rising? Because people are getting rid of their US Treasury bonds. It looks to be that probably the buyer of last resort is indeed going to be Tether. And where are they located? El Salvador. I think this is hilarious. But data released on Friday showed that non farm payrolls increased by 2,000 no.
256,000 in December, the most since March, surpassing expectations for the measly 160,000 job additions and the previous figure of 212,000 by a big, big, big, big margin. The jobless rate declined to 4.1% from 4.2%. And the average hourly earnings came in slightly lower than expected at 0.3% month on month and 3.9% year on year. Well, that prompted Goldman Sachs to push out the next interest rate cut to June from March. Quote, our economists now expect the Fed to cut just twice in 2025 with another rate cut in June of 2026, Goldman's economic research note to clients said on January 10th. If December's FOMAC decision marked a significant shift back towards inflation and the Fed's relative weighting of risks, the December jobs report may have completed the pendulum swing.
The soft average hourly earnings figure kept the print from sending a more alarming reheating signal, but the case for cutting to mitigate risks to the labor market has faded into the background, the note explained. The Fed's rate cutting cycle began in September, if you remember, when the official reduced the benchmark borrowing cost by 50 basis points. The bank delivered quarter point rate cuts in the following months before pausing in December to signal fewer rate cuts in 2025. BTC had surged over 50% since the first rate cut on September 18th, hitting record highs above $108,000 at one point. While Goldman and JPMorgan still expect rate cuts, the Bank of America fears an extended pause, with risks skewed in favor of a rate hike or renewed tightening.
Note that the U. S. 10 year Treasury note yield, which is sensitive to interest rate, growth in inflation expectations has already surged by 100 basis points since the September 18th rate cut. Quote, we think the cutting cycle is over. Our base case has the Fed on an extended hold. But we think we think that the risks for the next move are skewed towards a rate hike, Bank of America analyst said in a note. ING said, the market is right to see the risks of an extended pause from the Fed in light of recent economic reports. Quote, that view will only increase if core inflation comes in at 0.3 month on month for a 5th consecutive month next week, I n g said in a note to clients over the weekend. Yes.
The CPI is coming out this week. In fact, in fact hold on, ladies. Hold on to your butts, ladies and gentlemen, and I'll tell you exactly when that stuff is supposed to come out. Doop doop doop doop doop. Let's see. Is it here? No. That's PPI. Okay. Core inflation, and the CPI stuff is going to is set to come out January 15th. So today is Monday, so Wednesday, expect those numbers to drop. And it looks like they're probably gonna drop at 5:30 AM Eastern Standard Time in case you're keeping track. Anyway, the December consumer price index report, oh, here it is. It's scheduled for release on January 15th. And some observers are worried that base effects could accelerate the headline CPI and the core CPI adding to the hawkish Fed narrative.
People are dumping their bonds. It doesn't matter what the Fed has been doing. Everybody knows that the fiat game is pretty much just jacked beyond all manner of recognition at this point. And they don't want it. What they want are dollars. Why? Because the dollar is really, really, really, really strong. So they're dumping treasury bonds, $4, along with a whole bunch of other stuff, by the way, but it's the treasury bonds that that this is causing the fed a headache. Usually, the fed can keep the bonds and their yields on a leash by simply throwing the only lever that they haven't broken in the world's economy, and that is the rate, the federal reserve rate. Okay?
They've been lowering it. The 10 year bond is not playing ball. And the only reason that it's not playing ball is that people have given up. They don't it's a toxic asset. That's right. I've been saying this all through last year, especially when the Silvergate and all those guys started fold after those guys started folding up, it became evident that banks holding treasury bonds as part of their asset reserve, that what they're holding is poison. Because at any given time, Jerome Powell could, I don't know, sneeze in the wrong direction and wear a blue tie instead of a purple tie, and everybody just shits the bed. That's how fragile this system is. So people are dumping their bonds. And when they dump their bonds to print they they need to sell their bonds and they they bought it for a $100. Let's say, bought a 10 year for a $100. And they say, I need out of this thing. Will you will you pay me a $100 for this bond? And the guy looking on the other side of the table says, no.
I'll give you I'll give you $95 for it. Okay. So they got basically 95¢ on the dollar. So that pulls the principle of the bill down. That what you pay for the bill, the the the the the what a cash that you give the guy to buy this thing, that's the principle. That's going down. The only equalization is for the yield on that bond to go up. That that that's it. That that's the only I'm not paying you $95 for your $100 bond if I'm not going to get a better rate on it. This is market sentiment. And it's it's all it's worldwide. Right now, Tether seems to be the 16th largest purchaser of United States treasuries.
By the end of this year, I expect them to well to be well within the top 10, if not the top 5. The only it it actually looks like the only bonds that are doing well are Chinese bonds. They're actually doing what they're supposed to be doing. But I don't wanna hold that crap either because that that economy is just totally screwed. People just don't realize it yet. It's sort of like the the the how can I get where can I get screwed the least is what people are looking for? Not they're not looking for alpha anymore. They're looking for how they cannot lose as much money.
Ridiculous. But on to Russia. Russian nationals have been indicted over Blender and Sinbad Bitcoin mixers. Adrian Zmudsky is riding for decrypt. 4, count them, 1234, Russian nationals behind cryptocurrency mixing services blender.io and sinbad.io were charged with money laundering and, of course, operating unlicensed money transmitter businesses. The news followed sanctioned cryptomixerblender.io relaunching as sinbad.io in late November of 2023, and the move was quickly followed by United States authorities going after the new entity as well. I guess they're gonna double double the charges.
The January 10th indictment charges Alexander Evenovich, Olyank, Roman Valyevlichy, Olyank, and Anton Tarasov for operating crypto mixers, blender.a blender.i0 and synbad.i0. The charge charge charges allege they are responsible for laundering funds from illegal activities. Of course, they were. Of course. Of course. The court case highlights multiple high profile transactions involving crypto mixing services in question. The early in early November of 2021, a transfer of about 0.38 Bitcoin worth a mere $24,000 US at the time of ransomware proceeds went through blender. Io. In early June of 2023, 5 and a half Bitcoin worth a 147,000 made its way through sendbad dot io.
And according to the indictment, the funds were tied to wire fraud and illegal transactions involving access device fraud. In a recent post, Eric Rosen, partner at Boston law firm, Dynamis, claimed that the document provides virtually no clue as to how the charged defendants are guilty of money laundering. Instead, he argued, quote, it is guilt by association, tainted money went through the mixers, and therefore, the defendants are guilty of money laundering, end quote. According to Rosen, the Department of Justice, quote, withheld all actual criminal allegations and instead presumes knowledge of the underlying frauds by the defendants, end quote. Furthermore, he noted that there are few, if any, concrete allegations tying the underlying criminal activity to the United States, which then raises jurisdictional issues and extraterritorality.
Nico Demchuck, head of legal at crypto compliance firm AMLbot, told Decrypt that the charges are the consequence of the precedent set when the founders of the Tornado Cash Mixer were charged with money laundering. That case paved the way for any Mixer founder to be charged with money laundering in the USA. The case follows 2024 being widely recognized as the year of war on digital privacy and cryptocurrencies. Privacy serves as the very foundation of the movement with the crypto anarchist manifesto by cypherpunk Timothy May, which predates Bitcoin itself, predicting scenarios now made possible with crypto.
He expected that technology was about to allow individuals and groups to communicate and interact with each other in a totally anonymous manner. Then, quote, 2 persons may exchange messages, conduct business, and negotiate electronic contracts without ever knowing the true name or legal identity of the other, end quote. May himself admitted that anonymous computerized markets will even make possible abhorrent markets for assassinations and extortion and that various criminal and foreign elements will be active users of such networks. Still, he claimed that, quote, this will not halt the spread of crypto anarchy, and it surely will be both a social and economic revolution, end quote.
Much of crypto is toned down this early version, and many view know your customer and anti money laundering measures positively. Oh, fuck. Or at least as necessary evils. Despite this, many view some government actions against crypto mixers as overreaching. For example, United States sanctions on Tornado Cash were legal do it again. US sanctions on Tornado Cash were later deemed illegal because the decentralized crypto mixer had no central person or group in charge of it. The dropped sanctions led to the project's developer, Roman Storm, initiating a motion to dismiss the charges against him. So what does it mean? It means all mixers are illegal. And if you use them if you use them, it's possible that you could get into trouble and you need to weigh the pros and cons of what you're doing versus what can happen.
Okay? So just be careful. And be even further careful because you could probably get into even more trouble, at least financially, with this next story from Bitcoin Magazine written by Frank Korva, why you may want to redeem your Bitcoin from Thorchain's lending service. That's Thorchain. You know, like God of Thunder. Anyway, 2 days ago, the 8 bytes Twitter account pointed out that Thorchain's lending service, yeah, currently has nowhere near enough Bitcoin to repay all of its creditors. As of the time of the post, the total amount of Bitcoin to be repaid to depositors was one 1,604 Bitcoin, but the lending pool only had 592 Bitcoin in it.
There you go. Rehypothecation strikes. As lava founder, Shizen Marita, explained on a post on Twitter, when you borrow on Thorchain, they sell the bit Bitcoin you put up as collateral for their own token, Rune. When you repay your loan, they sell the Rune for Bitcoin to give you back your collateral. The actual mechanics of how this work are a bit more complex and are detailed on Thorchain's website. See screenshots from the website below, and I I'm not going to read them. You need to stay away from this shit. It's a shitcoin and it and it's specifically a shitcoin wrapped around a lending service that takes in your BTC.
It's don't do this. Anyway, the primary issue of the scenario is that half of the value borrowed in US dollar denominations was borrowed when Bitcoin traded at significantly lower prices than that at which Bitcoin trades today according to 8 Bytes. This means that for Thorchain to meet its current demands, it will need to mint upwards of 24,000,000 RUNE as of January 8th. While this would be about 8% of the circulating supply of RUNE, it would lead to a reduction in the price of the asset, which would give Thorchain even less purchasing power as they try to buy Bitcoin back on behalf of the creditors. If traders were to start shorting RUNE on top of this, Thorchain's ability to purchase the required amount of Bitcoin to redeem its creditors would diminish even further. And this could lead to something akin to the Terra Luna death spiral that we saw in 2022.
That said, prominent supporter of the project, our good friend Eric Voorhees, who I might remind you before we continue, was one of the signers of the New York agreement and has yet to apologize. And if you don't know what the New York agreement is, they tried to change Bitcoin. We told them no. Eric Voorhees was part of it. Anyway, just I just wanna make sure that you know about all this. Anyway, Eric Voorhees shared that Thorchain's lending service is operating as it was intended and that there's no foreseeable danger. I'm sure. A core developer for Thorchain that goes by the name 9 Realms on Twitter also made the case that Thorchain is resilient.
Well, with all this said, if you're still feeling a little skittish about having linthor chain your Bitcoin as collateral for a loan, yeah, you might wanna redeem it. If I were using the service, I would. Okay. That's what Frank says about it. Here's what I say about it. Stop doing this. It's not Thorchain's fault that they started this lending service. They're a shitcoin company. This it's like that whole, hey, I'm a scorpion. I don't suppose you, mister Bullfrog, would be able to swim me across the river? Bullfrog says, no you're gonna sting me and kill me if I do. And then the scorpion says, no no no. If I sting you we both die. And the frog says, oh, that's yeah. Okay. Well, hop on there, little buddy.
And the frog's about halfway across the river when what happens? Scorpion stings his ass. And, of course, the frog gets paralyzed. And both the frog and the scorpion are swimming around because the scorpion has fallen off the back of the frog because the frog can't keep upright. He's probably on his belly, but has enough air in his lungs to say, why did you sting me? I thought you said you weren't going to sting me. And the scorpion says, I'm a scorpion. That's my nature. Right? That's an Aesop fable. And the moral of the story is Tiger can't change its stripes.
This Thorchain is a shitcoin company. Of course, they were going to steal your Bitcoin. Ether is a shitcoin company. Don't think it's decentralized. It's not. The Ethereum Foundation, Consensus, they all control that. It's a shitcoin company. When you give them your money, you're going to lose it. I was looking at I mean, even though Bitcoin's, like, sucking swamp water today, you know who's sucking swamp water well worse? It's Ethereum. Stop giving people your Bitcoin. If you're gonna buy Bitcoin, then buy the thing, hold the thing, and self custody the thing. It's not that hard and anybody who offers you alpha is probably going to end up with your Bitcoin and you're going to end up with nothing.
Unless your MicroStrategy, which acquired another 2,530 BTC for a $243,000,000 and it's taken its holdings to exactly 450,000 BTC. Business intelligence firm and corporate Bitcoin holder, MicroStrategy, acquired an additional 2530 Bitcoin for 243,000,000 at an average price of $95,972 per Bitcoin between January 6th January 12th according to an 8 k filing with the SEC on Monday. That would be today. It follows the sale of a further, yet more, 710,425 MicroStrategy shares during the exact same period for the same amount. As of January 12th, the company said approximately $6,530,000,000 worth of shares remained available for sale as part of its planned $21,000,000,000 equity offering and $21,000,000,000 in fixed income security capital raise targeting the total of 42,000,000,000 for further Bitcoin acquisitions. This is all part of the 21/21 plan. Earlier in the month, the company expanded the 21/21 plan, announcing a potential 2,000,000,000 with a b dollar preferred stock offering in a strategy that could, quote, unlock an institutional gold mine according to benchmark equity analyst Mark Palmer.
By turning to perpetual preferred stock, MicroStrategy could attract institutional investors such as insurance companies, pension funds, and banks, Palmer said. Okay, so there you go. Yes, Michael Saylor bought more Bitcoin. Yes, MicroStrategy has 450,000 Bitcoin. And, yes, it already looks like the whole 21/21 plan is going to be expanded, probably because they already see that every time that they sell, they print stock to sell. Like I said, a long time ago, Michael Saylor is one hell of an alchemist. This is a man that can sell nothing for Bitcoin. I I can't sell nothing for Bitcoin, but Mike can do it. And Mike's been doing it. Mike's going to continue to do it, and he's been very very successful at it. Whether you love him or hate him, it doesn't matter. You have to admit the fact.
The product that he's selling, even though it's thin air to buy Bitcoin with, is wildly successful amongst the investment class. And, honestly, the investment class that is actually buying the stock is what do we call them, certified investors? Where they're certified. They know what they're doing. They've been vetted by, I guess, their guy at Goldman Sachs to say, yeah, you're not an idiot. We'll let you in because you've got more than $1,000,000 and you're we think you're smart. I I get the feeling that that's what being a certified investor means. There's actually another preferred no. Not preferred. There's another word for it, but it essentially means that you know what you're doing. And these guys, quote, who know what they're doing are literally buying a promise. They're buying a promise and they're giving fiat money to buy that promise with, and that fiat money is being instantly converted into Bitcoin.
It is the most amazing alchemical formula I've ever seen, and I took chemistry. I took it. I actually did fairly well in it. And even I can't explain how this is actually working. It's just well, I mean, I can, but I there's a there's a big kernel inside my gut that says this is stupid. I don't hate Mike. I don't love Mike. I don't hate MicroStrategy. I don't love MicroStrategy. I'm simply like a weather guy saying, hey, rain's coming. Alright? So don't get mad at me. I have I'm trying to remain as neutral on this guy as I possibly can, yet there's something in my gut that is looking at this saying, he's selling nothing for fiat and he's converting fiat into Bitcoin. So therefore, he's selling nothing for Bitcoin, and he's getting it. And it's wildly successful.
And I have to ask myself the question, just how certified are these investors? Let's run the numbers. CNBC Futures and Commodities as if the federal rate, yield rate, and and the treasury bond market, and the the the false jobs report that will definitely be revised down after the the this whole shit show is blown over. As if that wasn't enough to make deadly sure that we were never going to see any rate drops from the Fed ever again. Now, the Biden administration decided to slap some more sanctions on Russia. This time, they're oil specific. And what did that do?
Well, West Texas Intermediate is up by almost 3 points today. After Friday's rise, it's trading now at $78.80 a barrel. Brent Norsee is back over $80 a barrel to almost 81 after a 1 and a half percent rise. Natural gas is down 2 and a half percent, but still trading at the highest it's traded in, like, I don't know, months, dude. Like, $3.89 per 1,000 cubic feet. And gasoline, well, you're gonna be paying about $2.10 a gallon now after a point and a third rise. Gold not doing well. It's also sucking swamp water like Bitcoin is. 1 and a half percent of the downside brings it to $26.75.90. Silver is down 3 and a half points and platinum is down 2 and a half, but copper is up a third. And then, palladium is down 2 and 1 quarter. Ag is mostly in the green today. Biggest winner is Cocoa.
3.4 percent to the upside. Biggest loser is sugar. Almost 2 points to the downside. And live cattle is down a half. Lean hogs, however, up 3 quarters of a point. Feeder cattle are down a half. Now the Dow seems to be okay today. Point 6 percent to the upside. S and p, however, is down a quarter of a point, but the Nasdaq is down even worse. It is point 8% to the downside. S and P mini is up a 3rd. And let's check out Bitcoin. Oh, $91,890. Oh my god. What are we gonna do? That is a mere $1,820,000,000,000 market cap, and we can only purchase 34.6 ounces of shiny metal rocks with our 1 bitcoin of which there are.
19,809,479 and a half of. Average fees per block remain low at 0.05 BTC. In fees on a per block basis of which there are 47 blocks, and they are carrying a 158,000 unconfirmed transactions, waiting to clear at high priority rates, double digits today. 11 satoshis per v byte, low priorities, gonna get you in at 9. Now we had a, I think it was the 10th straight, difficulty adjustment to the upside. 0.61 percent has taken us to a difficulty of 110.45 trillion. That's the largest difficulty that the, Bitcoin blockchain has ever seen. Ever.
And it's been that way. It's like every single time, like, 10 weeks ago, it was a 101, then 8 weeks ago, it was a 102, then a 103, then a 108, then a 109, and now a 110. Difficulty just keeps going up, which is telling me that people keep putting hashing machines on the network. Okay. From Cheez It, it's the fuzz. That was Friday's Bitcoin and show. Only got, you know, a smattering of sats for, that little one, but, you know, I still love people like Hash and coin who did give me a 1,000 satoshis and says, thank you, sir. No. Thank you. And then there's God's death.
As always, with 537 says, thank you, sir. No. Thank you. Wartime with 333 with cheers. Thank you, sir. I appreciate that. Another 333 from Wartime is also saying cheers. Mark with 210 says, thank you, sir. No, thank you. And then let's see who else is here. Oh, Pyez, my favorite person. Well, you're all my favorite people. But Pies is always, always there. I can always depend on Pies depleb to at least throw me a 100 Satoshi Bill and say, thank you, sir. No, thank you. God's death with another thank you, sir. No. Thank you. And that's the weather report. Welcome to part 2 of the news you can use where North Dakota is considering a crypto reserve as state Bitcoin treasuries gain momentum, Jason Nelson writing from decrypt.co.
North Dakota is the latest US state to consider including Bitcoin in its balance sheets. On Friday, the North Dakota state legislature introduced a resolution aimed at investing, quote, select state funds in digital assets and precious metals. Resolution 3,001 aims to curb the impact of inflation on North Dakota's finances by diversifying the asset the state invests in. North Dakota representatives Nathan Toman, Matthew Heilman, Jared Hendricks, Daniel Johnston, Sue Ann Olson, and Ted Porter, along with senators Jeff Barta and Bob Paulson, introduced the resolution.
Quote, Whereas changing economic conditions and emerging investment opportunities require prudent investment of the state's financial resources, the resolution read. If passed, the North Dakota legislature or legislative assembly would direct the state's treasurer and investment board to allocate portions of key state funds to invest in digital assets. Notably, however, while encouraging digital asset investments, the resolution did not name Bitcoin specifically. Oh, god. Please, North Dakota, tell me you're not going to shitcoin. Also, Friday, legislation for a state Bitcoin reserve was introduced in the state of New Hampshire.
And while that proposed bill also didn't mention Bitcoin by name, Bitcoin would be the only coin eligible for the New Hampshire Reserve based on market cap stipulations. The North Dakota resolution does not carry the same criteria, however. Quote, the resolution is simply encouraging the state treasurer and the state investment board to look at investing in different types of assets rather than what we currently do. North Dakota legislative council director John Bjornson pulled the crypt, quote, it doesn't hold the force of law, so it doesn't include definitions about what those may include that would be something that would be more appropriate for a bill, end quote. Resolution 3,001 is expected to be voted on tomorrow, Tuesday.
But until then, the move is mostly symbolic. Other states considering strategic Bitcoin reserves include Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New Hampshire. In September, Louisiana began accepting payments for services with Bitcoin and the USDC stablecoin, quote, the state that is last to build Bitcoin reserves will lose. New Hampshire representative Keith Allman told decrypt earlier Friday, quote, it's urgent that states act sooner than later and that takes some education on the part of state officials. Oh, god. Could you imagine sitting in a room with a bunch of these guys trying to get them to understand how Bitcoin works instead of telling them and describing to to them in detail how the fiat system is fake?
You're you're between a rock and a hard place. It's it's it's not that it's impossible. It's just that I don't envy the people that take on that job, but God knows. I I I really do appreciate that they're trying. Because that has got to be a thankless job. That's got to be the job that by the time you go to lunch, you're probably wanting to put your head through a couple of sheets of sheetrock here. Let's see here. Now, Meta. Oh, god. Shareholder proposal to consider investment in Bitcoin. You can probably guess who this is. Let's just go read through it. This is out of Atlas 21.
Ethan Peck, an employee of the National Center For Public Policy Research, has submitted a formal proposal to Meta shareholders to allocate part of its $72,000,000,000 in cash, that's billion with a b, and short term cash equivalents to Bitcoin as a treasury asset. The initiative, made public through a post on Twitter by consultant Tim Jotsman is part of a broader strategy by the Washington think tank which in recent months has promoted similar proposals to other tech giants like Microsoft as well as Amazon. The document presented to Meta shareholders highlights how Bitcoin can serve as an effective hedge against inflation citing the emblematic case of MicroStrategy.
The company, led by Michael Saylor, has recorded a market beating performance of 2,191 percent over the past 5 years, and the proposal states, quote, Meta has the opportunity to lead the corporate adoption of Bitcoin, demonstrating its commitment to innovation and financial resilience, end quote. If adopted, this strategy by Meta would further solidify Bitcoin's position as a strategic asset for corporate treasuries. Okay. So at this point okay. I'm I'm gonna say it in a probably gonna give backlash for it. Honestly, this is a little bit embarrassing because it's it's almost as if this guy is just shooting out a form letter. And it's it's not that I don't appreciate him. He's doing more. He's doing I'll I'll admit it. He's probably doing more for Bitcoin than I am. I get it. But it just seems like this is the same letter that he sent to Amazon, that he sent to Microsoft, and now he's sending it to Meta.
I I presume that he will send this letter to more and more and more companies. And I'm wondering, is he changing up the language in these letters? Or is it at this point is it just a form letter? Is there is there reasoning in these letters that go out that suggest that because I've done the research let's say that I'm writing a letter and I've done the research and I'm looking at your balance sheets and here's here's how bitcoin fits for you. Instead of saying, hey, you're a company. You're a corporate guy. You need to you need to allocate into bitcoin, you've got money. This is what it sounds like. The latter is what it sounds like to me. It sounds like this is now becoming a form letter. And I don't think that form letters have a lot of traction.
If somebody who knows better about this Ethan Peck from the National Center For Public Policy Research has, like, details that, yes, like, this is what I wanna hear. If you guys know and please tell me because what I wanna hear is that, yes, Ethan Peck is actually modifying these letters and showing how Bitcoin fits into that particular corporate structure's balance sheet. Not just as you should own it because it's a thing. I I don't like that. That that's not that's not persuasive. What's persuasive for me is somebody who's like, look, I've torn apart all of your balance sheets, and here's exactly why Bitcoin works for you in your particular balance sheet situation.
That's what I wanna see. And I I I'm not getting that. I'm getting what I'm getting is it's the same proposal to all these companies and I think it's going to lose steam if if it's if that's what it really is. If it's nothing more than that, it's just going to start boring these people, and then it's just going to fall flat. Okay. Let's talk about Nostr. For the end of the show, Nostur, n o s t u r, Nostur with a u, version 1.17.0, sync read notes across devices, and OLAS image viewing and more. Because Nostur, n o s t u r, is a Nostur client for Apple devices, and it's available on Ios, macOS, and iPad OS.
The latest version of the Nostur client now syncs, already seen and read notes across multiple devices supporting the viewing of Olas pictures, which is a kind twenty event. And Olas is, if you didn't know, it's an Instagram type Nostril client written by our good friend and sleepless warrior, Pablo f seven z, because the guy just does nothing but ships. He doesn't sleep. He just ships. Anyway, it also implements support for Frost as well as multisig login, adds an undelete button for deleted posts, as well as many other improvements and bug fixes.
And for those of you who thought that you could delete notes off of Nostra, that sentence right there should tell you, no. Not really. You can do if if your client that your your Nostra client that you're using offers a delete, sure, that client may remember and, like, you know, blacklist that particular note event for you and your client because you wrote it. But that note, once you blast it out, that song, bitch, goes to all the relays. I mean, any relay you're connected to, and any relays that those are connected to, and any relays that somebody re notes that note is connected to, they all get a copy of that note. And the the the whole notion of deleting a note on Nostra, I thought we put that to bed, but I'm starting to see people ask questions about it. The answer is you can delete it for you on clients that allow you to delete.
And, yes, they might even delete it or try to send out a delete message to other relays. But once you send that note out, it's too late. And no, you will not be able to delete every instance of the note that you sent on Nostr, and it's a feature, not a bug. Okay? We're not we're not here to censor ourselves or each other. Alright? Whatever it is you have to say, just go ahead and say it. And if somebody gets pissed, I don't know, go eat a fudgsicle or something. It doesn't really matter. Now for the last up today, we got Wasabi Wallet version 2.4.0. Send to silent payment addresses.
Wasabi Wallet, if you did not know, is a free and open source wallet for your desktop. Wasabi Wallet version 2.4.0 introduces support for sending to silent payment addresses and adds donate button, implements testnet for support, provides release notes in the client, and includes bug fixes, of course. Quote, Wasabi is now one of the first wallets to support send to silent payment addresses, and we hope that more wallets will join. We are working on allowing receiving, please bear with us, stated in the release notes. The project developers also said that they are evaluating potential privacy risks from sophisticated coordinator attacks and will soon publish a detailed statement along with a plan of action if necessary.
So this whole send to silent payment addresses, what what the hell? Well, this says that silent payments are privately reusable static addresses that allow Bitcoin transfers like regular addresses but prevent observers from linking multiple payments to the same addresses. A list of wallets supporting silent payments is available here. Let's see what let's see where that is. Let's see what who's supporting silent payments. It looks to be Cake Wallet, Blue Wallet, Selenium. I've never heard of Selenium. The Dana Wallet, BitBox, and the ShakeShakesco Wallet seem to all have silent payment support. So there you go. Other changes, there's a donation button that supports Wasabi Wallet's maintenance and development and has been added to the main screen.
It uses the silent payments feature, test net 4. Instead of test net 3, Wasabi now uses test net 4. And then there's release notes in the client and, of course, the other bug fixes as was mentioned before. So that is the end of it today, ladies and gentlemen. We have all manner of economic news coming up. Tomorrow, January 14th, the PPI month over month readings come out. It is forecast to be 0.3. We have corn on the next day, 15th. We got the core inflation rate year over year, the inflation rate year over year, and both of those in the month over month, and they look to see, year over year looks to be 3.3%, and the previous was 3.3.
The inflation rate the the inflation okay. That's the core inflation rate. The general inflation rate year over year is set to be 2.8%, which is 0.1% up from the previous of 2.7. If that's true, if that forecast comes in at 2.8% or above, you can bet your bottom dollar we're gonna see blood in the streets again because it's going to be less likely that the Federal Reserve will lower interest rates. And it won't matter if they did or did not anyway because the 10 year treasury bond, people are dumping it. They're dumping US treasuries and that's causing the yield to rise on the treasury bonds even though the Federal Reserve is trying to lower those rates.
But the market isn't having any of it. People want out of this toxic asset. Guys, 2025, if you thought 2024, you were just gonna be able to escape it and get out of it and it's gonna be a brand new year, it's just it's just the same clown show. You're under the same big top. You're eating the same popcorn. You're watching the same guys tame the same lions. It's just it's just a show, man. The only way out of the show is to buy the ticket to the big game. Buy bitcoin, hold bitcoin yourself. Sales, retail sales month over month, those numbers will be released January 16th and those look to be going down.
Forecast 0.5, previous was 0.7. And if retail sales goes down, then that's another feather in the cap for the Federal Reserve to not lower interest rates, which means people don't have the free and cheap money that they want to make risky investments, and then they get a strong dollar. And that's why people punch out of all this shit so they can get into a strong dollar, because they don't know what the hell's coming next, except for us. And next, for the ending the week, January 17th, we will get what housing starts did, and we will get what building permits did.
And housing starts, they're going the forecast is going to be well above the previous of 1,280,000. They're forecasting 1,320,000. If there's that many houses starting, that's going to be yet a final feather in the cap for the federal reserve to not lower interest rates because they're building houses. The economy looks great. We don't need to do a damn thing. This week is going to be a hard week for Bitcoiners. It's also going to be a very hard week for any holders of risk assets. Understand that. And this shit doesn't end until we find out what orange man does when he sits down in the chair on January 20th.
It's going to be ugly all the way up until 20th. Doesn't mean that it's gonna be pristine after that. I'm just saying that as far as the near term is concerned, all you have to do is look forward to the 20th January. That's going to be our demarcator. That's what's going to tell us when we cross the Rubicon yet one more time. But up until 20th, these are the four reports that we got coming in for the United States economic landscape. And they all look like they're going to be banger reports. It's going to make our economy look so good. They're so strong. The US dollar is very very strong, and it's going to put risk assets in a hole. And it's not just Bitcoin, guys.
Gold, silver, what else? What else? Oh, AI. That could be considered a risk asset as far as equities are concerned. Anything that's risky. Anything that's risky is going to basically have its feet cut off from it for the rest of this week and halfway into next week so just understand that be strong Hoddle strong. I don't know what to tell you. It's what Tone Vase used to say. I don't know what to tell you. Buy the fucking dip. I just just do that. And he was always right when I was listening to those guys back in 2015. If he's saying that today, he's still right. I'll 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.
It is 10:49 AM Pacific Standard Time. It is the 13th day of January 2025, that makes it Monday 13th. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's just it's just bad all the way around, man. This Fed decision of possible rate hikes is really messing people up right now. I don't think anybody expected that kind of turnaround. Bank of America is talking about it, and we'll talk about them. We're also going to talk about Tether. They rented a U Haul. They did, and it's a big U Haul. We'll tell you where they're taking it. We'll get we are definitely gonna get into that whole, oh, this b of a and the Fed and stuff like that. In fact, I wanna make sure that I know exactly what I'm talking about. Yeah. Goldman.
Yeah. Goldman has got some things to say about this entire debacle with the strong jobs report, which is a lie. It's a lie. Every single month the jobs report comes out, people are like, oh, see the economy's great. And then they don't see 4 weeks later the revised down of those numbers. It happens all the time and it's not like it's going to be any different this time. But some Russian nationals, the dirty Russkies are in the news as well. Some nationals have been indicted over some Bitcoin mixers. And you might want to consider running as far away from and as fast away as you can from Thorchain.
Their lending service seems to be lying or something like that. And of course, Michael Saylor is in the news. I'll bet you can guess why. But maybe you can't guess why North Dakota is in the news, or maybe you can. And then there's meta. Meta meta meta meta meta. People have been making a great big deal about Mark Zuckerberg's appearance on The Joe Rogan Show, seemingly saying that he is for free speech. And his hands were tied. He had absolutely nothing. It was out of his control, the censorship. He was getting yelled at. Oh my god. His employees were getting yelled at by the Biden administration. Come on, Zuck.
Suck it up, man, or suck it up and and fight for your guys if that's the truth. Just don't let your people get yelled at. It doesn't matter who they're getting yelled at by. You gotta defend your peeps, man. And you didn't defend your peeps. I don't believe a single word you're saying. Nostur has a new release out as does Wasabi Wallet. But first, let's talk about Tether. Like I said, they rented a U Haul. They're moving. They are moving to Beverly. Actually, no, they're not moving to and we're gonna listen to it. Stablecoin issuer Tether has announced that they are going to move the company and all of its subsidiaries to El Salvador after it secured an operating license in the Latin American nation.
In a January 13th notice, Tether said that it had acquired a license to operate in El Salvador as a digital asset service provider and stablecoin issuer. The company said it planned to relocate its headquarters and subsidiaries to El Salvador due to its forward thinking policies, favorable regulatory environment, and growing Bitcoin Savvy community. Quote, dude, this decision is a natural progression for Tether as it allows us to build a new home, foster collaboration, and strengthen our focus on emerging markets, said Tether CEO, Paulo Ardoino, adding, quote, by rooting ourselves in El Salvador, we are not only aligning with a country that shares our vision in terms of financial freedom, innovation, and resilience, but is also reinforcing our commitment to empowering people worldwide through technologies.
Yeah. You need to put a tie on that suit speak there, Paolo. The move followed reports that our doino and tether's chief operating officer, Claudia Ligurio, acquired real estate and became naturalized citizens of the Latin American nation in 2024. Cointelegraph reached out to Tether for comment but did not receive a response. Since Salvadoran President Naiib Bukele announced his intention to have the country adopt Bitcoin as legal tender in 2021, many in the crypto industry have formed ties with the government or local businesses. And in 2023, Tether announced that it would contribute to one of El Salvador's proposed renewable energy products, including geothermal facilities.
Arduino appeared to have met or talked with Bukele several times, posting messages to social media echoing the Salvadoran president's call to bring in new companies and residents. In an August 2024 interview, Bukele claimed BTC adoption had been a net positive for El Salvador, but said he had not seen as many benefits as he had anticipated. The government reported holding more than 6,000 BTC as of December, which is worth more than $550,000,000 at the time of publication. Since taking office in 2019 and getting reelected in 2024, the Salvadoran president, who once branded himself as the world's coolest dictator, has been praised by many for helping reduce the country's murder rate. However, reports have alleged that Bukele has also wrongly detained individuals critical of his administration and committed human rights abuses.
Well, just as a reminder for all the people in the United States who are potentially horrified that Naive Bukele did such a thing, Please, please, please remember that president Abe Lincoln. That's right. Abraham Lincoln. He threw the, chief justice of the supreme court into prison. And if you, are surprised by that, you might wanna go check that shit out. Dictators are everywhere. They're everywhere. They're always going it's like what Jesus said about the poor. The dictators will always be with you. And the poor will also always be with you probably because there's always dictators with your ass. Because we, as a human race, cannot get our collective shit together. But, here's something else that just can't seem to get its collective shit together.
Bitcoin investors or people that buy Bitcoin. Because what do they do? They get weak. They get spineless. They get sackless. They cannot find the sale on spines and ball sacks over there at Walmart. So, therefore, Bitcoin is under pressure. As Goldman trims Fed rate cut expectations and Bank of America sees a potential hike of Fed rates after the blowout jobs report, which I might remind you is complete fabrication of the numbers. Now, by the way, this is Amkar Godbold writing for Coindesk. Let me make sure about that. Yes. It is Amkar Godbold. He is writing for Coindesk, and it says, Bitcoin started the new week on a negative note as major investment banks reassess their expectations for the Federal Reserve rate cuts following Friday's strong jobs report.
You spelled lie wrong, but that's okay. The leading cryptocurrency by market value dipped below 93,000 during the European hours, representing a 1.6% drop on the day according to data source CoinDesk. Prices looked set to test the support zone near 92,000, which has consistently acted as a floor since late November. And we did punch through that. I think we punched down to 91,300, 91,400. And I have no idea where we're at right now, but I'm sure we'll find out. Anyway, the CoinDesk 20 index, a broader market gauge, was down over 3% with major shitcoins like shit coin number 1, 2, and 3 posting even larger losses. In traditional markets, futures tied to the S and P 500 traded 3 no.
0.3 percent lower, pointing to an extension of Friday's 1.5% drop that pushed the index to the lowest since early November. The dollar index neared 110 for the first time since late 2022 with elevated Treasury yields supporting further gains. Why are the Treasury yields rising? Because people are getting rid of their US Treasury bonds. It looks to be that probably the buyer of last resort is indeed going to be Tether. And where are they located? El Salvador. I think this is hilarious. But data released on Friday showed that non farm payrolls increased by 2,000 no.
256,000 in December, the most since March, surpassing expectations for the measly 160,000 job additions and the previous figure of 212,000 by a big, big, big, big margin. The jobless rate declined to 4.1% from 4.2%. And the average hourly earnings came in slightly lower than expected at 0.3% month on month and 3.9% year on year. Well, that prompted Goldman Sachs to push out the next interest rate cut to June from March. Quote, our economists now expect the Fed to cut just twice in 2025 with another rate cut in June of 2026, Goldman's economic research note to clients said on January 10th. If December's FOMAC decision marked a significant shift back towards inflation and the Fed's relative weighting of risks, the December jobs report may have completed the pendulum swing.
The soft average hourly earnings figure kept the print from sending a more alarming reheating signal, but the case for cutting to mitigate risks to the labor market has faded into the background, the note explained. The Fed's rate cutting cycle began in September, if you remember, when the official reduced the benchmark borrowing cost by 50 basis points. The bank delivered quarter point rate cuts in the following months before pausing in December to signal fewer rate cuts in 2025. BTC had surged over 50% since the first rate cut on September 18th, hitting record highs above $108,000 at one point. While Goldman and JPMorgan still expect rate cuts, the Bank of America fears an extended pause, with risks skewed in favor of a rate hike or renewed tightening.
Note that the U. S. 10 year Treasury note yield, which is sensitive to interest rate, growth in inflation expectations has already surged by 100 basis points since the September 18th rate cut. Quote, we think the cutting cycle is over. Our base case has the Fed on an extended hold. But we think we think that the risks for the next move are skewed towards a rate hike, Bank of America analyst said in a note. ING said, the market is right to see the risks of an extended pause from the Fed in light of recent economic reports. Quote, that view will only increase if core inflation comes in at 0.3 month on month for a 5th consecutive month next week, I n g said in a note to clients over the weekend. Yes.
The CPI is coming out this week. In fact, in fact hold on, ladies. Hold on to your butts, ladies and gentlemen, and I'll tell you exactly when that stuff is supposed to come out. Doop doop doop doop doop. Let's see. Is it here? No. That's PPI. Okay. Core inflation, and the CPI stuff is going to is set to come out January 15th. So today is Monday, so Wednesday, expect those numbers to drop. And it looks like they're probably gonna drop at 5:30 AM Eastern Standard Time in case you're keeping track. Anyway, the December consumer price index report, oh, here it is. It's scheduled for release on January 15th. And some observers are worried that base effects could accelerate the headline CPI and the core CPI adding to the hawkish Fed narrative.
People are dumping their bonds. It doesn't matter what the Fed has been doing. Everybody knows that the fiat game is pretty much just jacked beyond all manner of recognition at this point. And they don't want it. What they want are dollars. Why? Because the dollar is really, really, really, really strong. So they're dumping treasury bonds, $4, along with a whole bunch of other stuff, by the way, but it's the treasury bonds that that this is causing the fed a headache. Usually, the fed can keep the bonds and their yields on a leash by simply throwing the only lever that they haven't broken in the world's economy, and that is the rate, the federal reserve rate. Okay?
They've been lowering it. The 10 year bond is not playing ball. And the only reason that it's not playing ball is that people have given up. They don't it's a toxic asset. That's right. I've been saying this all through last year, especially when the Silvergate and all those guys started fold after those guys started folding up, it became evident that banks holding treasury bonds as part of their asset reserve, that what they're holding is poison. Because at any given time, Jerome Powell could, I don't know, sneeze in the wrong direction and wear a blue tie instead of a purple tie, and everybody just shits the bed. That's how fragile this system is. So people are dumping their bonds. And when they dump their bonds to print they they need to sell their bonds and they they bought it for a $100. Let's say, bought a 10 year for a $100. And they say, I need out of this thing. Will you will you pay me a $100 for this bond? And the guy looking on the other side of the table says, no.
I'll give you I'll give you $95 for it. Okay. So they got basically 95¢ on the dollar. So that pulls the principle of the bill down. That what you pay for the bill, the the the the the what a cash that you give the guy to buy this thing, that's the principle. That's going down. The only equalization is for the yield on that bond to go up. That that that's it. That that's the only I'm not paying you $95 for your $100 bond if I'm not going to get a better rate on it. This is market sentiment. And it's it's all it's worldwide. Right now, Tether seems to be the 16th largest purchaser of United States treasuries.
By the end of this year, I expect them to well to be well within the top 10, if not the top 5. The only it it actually looks like the only bonds that are doing well are Chinese bonds. They're actually doing what they're supposed to be doing. But I don't wanna hold that crap either because that that economy is just totally screwed. People just don't realize it yet. It's sort of like the the the how can I get where can I get screwed the least is what people are looking for? Not they're not looking for alpha anymore. They're looking for how they cannot lose as much money.
Ridiculous. But on to Russia. Russian nationals have been indicted over Blender and Sinbad Bitcoin mixers. Adrian Zmudsky is riding for decrypt. 4, count them, 1234, Russian nationals behind cryptocurrency mixing services blender.io and sinbad.io were charged with money laundering and, of course, operating unlicensed money transmitter businesses. The news followed sanctioned cryptomixerblender.io relaunching as sinbad.io in late November of 2023, and the move was quickly followed by United States authorities going after the new entity as well. I guess they're gonna double double the charges.
The January 10th indictment charges Alexander Evenovich, Olyank, Roman Valyevlichy, Olyank, and Anton Tarasov for operating crypto mixers, blender.a blender.i0 and synbad.i0. The charge charge charges allege they are responsible for laundering funds from illegal activities. Of course, they were. Of course. Of course. The court case highlights multiple high profile transactions involving crypto mixing services in question. The early in early November of 2021, a transfer of about 0.38 Bitcoin worth a mere $24,000 US at the time of ransomware proceeds went through blender. Io. In early June of 2023, 5 and a half Bitcoin worth a 147,000 made its way through sendbad dot io.
And according to the indictment, the funds were tied to wire fraud and illegal transactions involving access device fraud. In a recent post, Eric Rosen, partner at Boston law firm, Dynamis, claimed that the document provides virtually no clue as to how the charged defendants are guilty of money laundering. Instead, he argued, quote, it is guilt by association, tainted money went through the mixers, and therefore, the defendants are guilty of money laundering, end quote. According to Rosen, the Department of Justice, quote, withheld all actual criminal allegations and instead presumes knowledge of the underlying frauds by the defendants, end quote. Furthermore, he noted that there are few, if any, concrete allegations tying the underlying criminal activity to the United States, which then raises jurisdictional issues and extraterritorality.
Nico Demchuck, head of legal at crypto compliance firm AMLbot, told Decrypt that the charges are the consequence of the precedent set when the founders of the Tornado Cash Mixer were charged with money laundering. That case paved the way for any Mixer founder to be charged with money laundering in the USA. The case follows 2024 being widely recognized as the year of war on digital privacy and cryptocurrencies. Privacy serves as the very foundation of the movement with the crypto anarchist manifesto by cypherpunk Timothy May, which predates Bitcoin itself, predicting scenarios now made possible with crypto.
He expected that technology was about to allow individuals and groups to communicate and interact with each other in a totally anonymous manner. Then, quote, 2 persons may exchange messages, conduct business, and negotiate electronic contracts without ever knowing the true name or legal identity of the other, end quote. May himself admitted that anonymous computerized markets will even make possible abhorrent markets for assassinations and extortion and that various criminal and foreign elements will be active users of such networks. Still, he claimed that, quote, this will not halt the spread of crypto anarchy, and it surely will be both a social and economic revolution, end quote.
Much of crypto is toned down this early version, and many view know your customer and anti money laundering measures positively. Oh, fuck. Or at least as necessary evils. Despite this, many view some government actions against crypto mixers as overreaching. For example, United States sanctions on Tornado Cash were legal do it again. US sanctions on Tornado Cash were later deemed illegal because the decentralized crypto mixer had no central person or group in charge of it. The dropped sanctions led to the project's developer, Roman Storm, initiating a motion to dismiss the charges against him. So what does it mean? It means all mixers are illegal. And if you use them if you use them, it's possible that you could get into trouble and you need to weigh the pros and cons of what you're doing versus what can happen.
Okay? So just be careful. And be even further careful because you could probably get into even more trouble, at least financially, with this next story from Bitcoin Magazine written by Frank Korva, why you may want to redeem your Bitcoin from Thorchain's lending service. That's Thorchain. You know, like God of Thunder. Anyway, 2 days ago, the 8 bytes Twitter account pointed out that Thorchain's lending service, yeah, currently has nowhere near enough Bitcoin to repay all of its creditors. As of the time of the post, the total amount of Bitcoin to be repaid to depositors was one 1,604 Bitcoin, but the lending pool only had 592 Bitcoin in it.
There you go. Rehypothecation strikes. As lava founder, Shizen Marita, explained on a post on Twitter, when you borrow on Thorchain, they sell the bit Bitcoin you put up as collateral for their own token, Rune. When you repay your loan, they sell the Rune for Bitcoin to give you back your collateral. The actual mechanics of how this work are a bit more complex and are detailed on Thorchain's website. See screenshots from the website below, and I I'm not going to read them. You need to stay away from this shit. It's a shitcoin and it and it's specifically a shitcoin wrapped around a lending service that takes in your BTC.
It's don't do this. Anyway, the primary issue of the scenario is that half of the value borrowed in US dollar denominations was borrowed when Bitcoin traded at significantly lower prices than that at which Bitcoin trades today according to 8 Bytes. This means that for Thorchain to meet its current demands, it will need to mint upwards of 24,000,000 RUNE as of January 8th. While this would be about 8% of the circulating supply of RUNE, it would lead to a reduction in the price of the asset, which would give Thorchain even less purchasing power as they try to buy Bitcoin back on behalf of the creditors. If traders were to start shorting RUNE on top of this, Thorchain's ability to purchase the required amount of Bitcoin to redeem its creditors would diminish even further. And this could lead to something akin to the Terra Luna death spiral that we saw in 2022.
That said, prominent supporter of the project, our good friend Eric Voorhees, who I might remind you before we continue, was one of the signers of the New York agreement and has yet to apologize. And if you don't know what the New York agreement is, they tried to change Bitcoin. We told them no. Eric Voorhees was part of it. Anyway, just I just wanna make sure that you know about all this. Anyway, Eric Voorhees shared that Thorchain's lending service is operating as it was intended and that there's no foreseeable danger. I'm sure. A core developer for Thorchain that goes by the name 9 Realms on Twitter also made the case that Thorchain is resilient.
Well, with all this said, if you're still feeling a little skittish about having linthor chain your Bitcoin as collateral for a loan, yeah, you might wanna redeem it. If I were using the service, I would. Okay. That's what Frank says about it. Here's what I say about it. Stop doing this. It's not Thorchain's fault that they started this lending service. They're a shitcoin company. This it's like that whole, hey, I'm a scorpion. I don't suppose you, mister Bullfrog, would be able to swim me across the river? Bullfrog says, no you're gonna sting me and kill me if I do. And then the scorpion says, no no no. If I sting you we both die. And the frog says, oh, that's yeah. Okay. Well, hop on there, little buddy.
And the frog's about halfway across the river when what happens? Scorpion stings his ass. And, of course, the frog gets paralyzed. And both the frog and the scorpion are swimming around because the scorpion has fallen off the back of the frog because the frog can't keep upright. He's probably on his belly, but has enough air in his lungs to say, why did you sting me? I thought you said you weren't going to sting me. And the scorpion says, I'm a scorpion. That's my nature. Right? That's an Aesop fable. And the moral of the story is Tiger can't change its stripes.
This Thorchain is a shitcoin company. Of course, they were going to steal your Bitcoin. Ether is a shitcoin company. Don't think it's decentralized. It's not. The Ethereum Foundation, Consensus, they all control that. It's a shitcoin company. When you give them your money, you're going to lose it. I was looking at I mean, even though Bitcoin's, like, sucking swamp water today, you know who's sucking swamp water well worse? It's Ethereum. Stop giving people your Bitcoin. If you're gonna buy Bitcoin, then buy the thing, hold the thing, and self custody the thing. It's not that hard and anybody who offers you alpha is probably going to end up with your Bitcoin and you're going to end up with nothing.
Unless your MicroStrategy, which acquired another 2,530 BTC for a $243,000,000 and it's taken its holdings to exactly 450,000 BTC. Business intelligence firm and corporate Bitcoin holder, MicroStrategy, acquired an additional 2530 Bitcoin for 243,000,000 at an average price of $95,972 per Bitcoin between January 6th January 12th according to an 8 k filing with the SEC on Monday. That would be today. It follows the sale of a further, yet more, 710,425 MicroStrategy shares during the exact same period for the same amount. As of January 12th, the company said approximately $6,530,000,000 worth of shares remained available for sale as part of its planned $21,000,000,000 equity offering and $21,000,000,000 in fixed income security capital raise targeting the total of 42,000,000,000 for further Bitcoin acquisitions. This is all part of the 21/21 plan. Earlier in the month, the company expanded the 21/21 plan, announcing a potential 2,000,000,000 with a b dollar preferred stock offering in a strategy that could, quote, unlock an institutional gold mine according to benchmark equity analyst Mark Palmer.
By turning to perpetual preferred stock, MicroStrategy could attract institutional investors such as insurance companies, pension funds, and banks, Palmer said. Okay, so there you go. Yes, Michael Saylor bought more Bitcoin. Yes, MicroStrategy has 450,000 Bitcoin. And, yes, it already looks like the whole 21/21 plan is going to be expanded, probably because they already see that every time that they sell, they print stock to sell. Like I said, a long time ago, Michael Saylor is one hell of an alchemist. This is a man that can sell nothing for Bitcoin. I I can't sell nothing for Bitcoin, but Mike can do it. And Mike's been doing it. Mike's going to continue to do it, and he's been very very successful at it. Whether you love him or hate him, it doesn't matter. You have to admit the fact.
The product that he's selling, even though it's thin air to buy Bitcoin with, is wildly successful amongst the investment class. And, honestly, the investment class that is actually buying the stock is what do we call them, certified investors? Where they're certified. They know what they're doing. They've been vetted by, I guess, their guy at Goldman Sachs to say, yeah, you're not an idiot. We'll let you in because you've got more than $1,000,000 and you're we think you're smart. I I get the feeling that that's what being a certified investor means. There's actually another preferred no. Not preferred. There's another word for it, but it essentially means that you know what you're doing. And these guys, quote, who know what they're doing are literally buying a promise. They're buying a promise and they're giving fiat money to buy that promise with, and that fiat money is being instantly converted into Bitcoin.
It is the most amazing alchemical formula I've ever seen, and I took chemistry. I took it. I actually did fairly well in it. And even I can't explain how this is actually working. It's just well, I mean, I can, but I there's a there's a big kernel inside my gut that says this is stupid. I don't hate Mike. I don't love Mike. I don't hate MicroStrategy. I don't love MicroStrategy. I'm simply like a weather guy saying, hey, rain's coming. Alright? So don't get mad at me. I have I'm trying to remain as neutral on this guy as I possibly can, yet there's something in my gut that is looking at this saying, he's selling nothing for fiat and he's converting fiat into Bitcoin. So therefore, he's selling nothing for Bitcoin, and he's getting it. And it's wildly successful.
And I have to ask myself the question, just how certified are these investors? Let's run the numbers. CNBC Futures and Commodities as if the federal rate, yield rate, and and the treasury bond market, and the the the false jobs report that will definitely be revised down after the the this whole shit show is blown over. As if that wasn't enough to make deadly sure that we were never going to see any rate drops from the Fed ever again. Now, the Biden administration decided to slap some more sanctions on Russia. This time, they're oil specific. And what did that do?
Well, West Texas Intermediate is up by almost 3 points today. After Friday's rise, it's trading now at $78.80 a barrel. Brent Norsee is back over $80 a barrel to almost 81 after a 1 and a half percent rise. Natural gas is down 2 and a half percent, but still trading at the highest it's traded in, like, I don't know, months, dude. Like, $3.89 per 1,000 cubic feet. And gasoline, well, you're gonna be paying about $2.10 a gallon now after a point and a third rise. Gold not doing well. It's also sucking swamp water like Bitcoin is. 1 and a half percent of the downside brings it to $26.75.90. Silver is down 3 and a half points and platinum is down 2 and a half, but copper is up a third. And then, palladium is down 2 and 1 quarter. Ag is mostly in the green today. Biggest winner is Cocoa.
3.4 percent to the upside. Biggest loser is sugar. Almost 2 points to the downside. And live cattle is down a half. Lean hogs, however, up 3 quarters of a point. Feeder cattle are down a half. Now the Dow seems to be okay today. Point 6 percent to the upside. S and p, however, is down a quarter of a point, but the Nasdaq is down even worse. It is point 8% to the downside. S and P mini is up a 3rd. And let's check out Bitcoin. Oh, $91,890. Oh my god. What are we gonna do? That is a mere $1,820,000,000,000 market cap, and we can only purchase 34.6 ounces of shiny metal rocks with our 1 bitcoin of which there are.
19,809,479 and a half of. Average fees per block remain low at 0.05 BTC. In fees on a per block basis of which there are 47 blocks, and they are carrying a 158,000 unconfirmed transactions, waiting to clear at high priority rates, double digits today. 11 satoshis per v byte, low priorities, gonna get you in at 9. Now we had a, I think it was the 10th straight, difficulty adjustment to the upside. 0.61 percent has taken us to a difficulty of 110.45 trillion. That's the largest difficulty that the, Bitcoin blockchain has ever seen. Ever.
And it's been that way. It's like every single time, like, 10 weeks ago, it was a 101, then 8 weeks ago, it was a 102, then a 103, then a 108, then a 109, and now a 110. Difficulty just keeps going up, which is telling me that people keep putting hashing machines on the network. Okay. From Cheez It, it's the fuzz. That was Friday's Bitcoin and show. Only got, you know, a smattering of sats for, that little one, but, you know, I still love people like Hash and coin who did give me a 1,000 satoshis and says, thank you, sir. No. Thank you. And then there's God's death.
As always, with 537 says, thank you, sir. No. Thank you. Wartime with 333 with cheers. Thank you, sir. I appreciate that. Another 333 from Wartime is also saying cheers. Mark with 210 says, thank you, sir. No, thank you. And then let's see who else is here. Oh, Pyez, my favorite person. Well, you're all my favorite people. But Pies is always, always there. I can always depend on Pies depleb to at least throw me a 100 Satoshi Bill and say, thank you, sir. No, thank you. God's death with another thank you, sir. No. Thank you. And that's the weather report. Welcome to part 2 of the news you can use where North Dakota is considering a crypto reserve as state Bitcoin treasuries gain momentum, Jason Nelson writing from decrypt.co.
North Dakota is the latest US state to consider including Bitcoin in its balance sheets. On Friday, the North Dakota state legislature introduced a resolution aimed at investing, quote, select state funds in digital assets and precious metals. Resolution 3,001 aims to curb the impact of inflation on North Dakota's finances by diversifying the asset the state invests in. North Dakota representatives Nathan Toman, Matthew Heilman, Jared Hendricks, Daniel Johnston, Sue Ann Olson, and Ted Porter, along with senators Jeff Barta and Bob Paulson, introduced the resolution.
Quote, Whereas changing economic conditions and emerging investment opportunities require prudent investment of the state's financial resources, the resolution read. If passed, the North Dakota legislature or legislative assembly would direct the state's treasurer and investment board to allocate portions of key state funds to invest in digital assets. Notably, however, while encouraging digital asset investments, the resolution did not name Bitcoin specifically. Oh, god. Please, North Dakota, tell me you're not going to shitcoin. Also, Friday, legislation for a state Bitcoin reserve was introduced in the state of New Hampshire.
And while that proposed bill also didn't mention Bitcoin by name, Bitcoin would be the only coin eligible for the New Hampshire Reserve based on market cap stipulations. The North Dakota resolution does not carry the same criteria, however. Quote, the resolution is simply encouraging the state treasurer and the state investment board to look at investing in different types of assets rather than what we currently do. North Dakota legislative council director John Bjornson pulled the crypt, quote, it doesn't hold the force of law, so it doesn't include definitions about what those may include that would be something that would be more appropriate for a bill, end quote. Resolution 3,001 is expected to be voted on tomorrow, Tuesday.
But until then, the move is mostly symbolic. Other states considering strategic Bitcoin reserves include Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New Hampshire. In September, Louisiana began accepting payments for services with Bitcoin and the USDC stablecoin, quote, the state that is last to build Bitcoin reserves will lose. New Hampshire representative Keith Allman told decrypt earlier Friday, quote, it's urgent that states act sooner than later and that takes some education on the part of state officials. Oh, god. Could you imagine sitting in a room with a bunch of these guys trying to get them to understand how Bitcoin works instead of telling them and describing to to them in detail how the fiat system is fake?
You're you're between a rock and a hard place. It's it's it's not that it's impossible. It's just that I don't envy the people that take on that job, but God knows. I I I really do appreciate that they're trying. Because that has got to be a thankless job. That's got to be the job that by the time you go to lunch, you're probably wanting to put your head through a couple of sheets of sheetrock here. Let's see here. Now, Meta. Oh, god. Shareholder proposal to consider investment in Bitcoin. You can probably guess who this is. Let's just go read through it. This is out of Atlas 21.
Ethan Peck, an employee of the National Center For Public Policy Research, has submitted a formal proposal to Meta shareholders to allocate part of its $72,000,000,000 in cash, that's billion with a b, and short term cash equivalents to Bitcoin as a treasury asset. The initiative, made public through a post on Twitter by consultant Tim Jotsman is part of a broader strategy by the Washington think tank which in recent months has promoted similar proposals to other tech giants like Microsoft as well as Amazon. The document presented to Meta shareholders highlights how Bitcoin can serve as an effective hedge against inflation citing the emblematic case of MicroStrategy.
The company, led by Michael Saylor, has recorded a market beating performance of 2,191 percent over the past 5 years, and the proposal states, quote, Meta has the opportunity to lead the corporate adoption of Bitcoin, demonstrating its commitment to innovation and financial resilience, end quote. If adopted, this strategy by Meta would further solidify Bitcoin's position as a strategic asset for corporate treasuries. Okay. So at this point okay. I'm I'm gonna say it in a probably gonna give backlash for it. Honestly, this is a little bit embarrassing because it's it's almost as if this guy is just shooting out a form letter. And it's it's not that I don't appreciate him. He's doing more. He's doing I'll I'll admit it. He's probably doing more for Bitcoin than I am. I get it. But it just seems like this is the same letter that he sent to Amazon, that he sent to Microsoft, and now he's sending it to Meta.
I I presume that he will send this letter to more and more and more companies. And I'm wondering, is he changing up the language in these letters? Or is it at this point is it just a form letter? Is there is there reasoning in these letters that go out that suggest that because I've done the research let's say that I'm writing a letter and I've done the research and I'm looking at your balance sheets and here's here's how bitcoin fits for you. Instead of saying, hey, you're a company. You're a corporate guy. You need to you need to allocate into bitcoin, you've got money. This is what it sounds like. The latter is what it sounds like to me. It sounds like this is now becoming a form letter. And I don't think that form letters have a lot of traction.
If somebody who knows better about this Ethan Peck from the National Center For Public Policy Research has, like, details that, yes, like, this is what I wanna hear. If you guys know and please tell me because what I wanna hear is that, yes, Ethan Peck is actually modifying these letters and showing how Bitcoin fits into that particular corporate structure's balance sheet. Not just as you should own it because it's a thing. I I don't like that. That that's not that's not persuasive. What's persuasive for me is somebody who's like, look, I've torn apart all of your balance sheets, and here's exactly why Bitcoin works for you in your particular balance sheet situation.
That's what I wanna see. And I I I'm not getting that. I'm getting what I'm getting is it's the same proposal to all these companies and I think it's going to lose steam if if it's if that's what it really is. If it's nothing more than that, it's just going to start boring these people, and then it's just going to fall flat. Okay. Let's talk about Nostr. For the end of the show, Nostur, n o s t u r, Nostur with a u, version 1.17.0, sync read notes across devices, and OLAS image viewing and more. Because Nostur, n o s t u r, is a Nostur client for Apple devices, and it's available on Ios, macOS, and iPad OS.
The latest version of the Nostur client now syncs, already seen and read notes across multiple devices supporting the viewing of Olas pictures, which is a kind twenty event. And Olas is, if you didn't know, it's an Instagram type Nostril client written by our good friend and sleepless warrior, Pablo f seven z, because the guy just does nothing but ships. He doesn't sleep. He just ships. Anyway, it also implements support for Frost as well as multisig login, adds an undelete button for deleted posts, as well as many other improvements and bug fixes.
And for those of you who thought that you could delete notes off of Nostra, that sentence right there should tell you, no. Not really. You can do if if your client that your your Nostra client that you're using offers a delete, sure, that client may remember and, like, you know, blacklist that particular note event for you and your client because you wrote it. But that note, once you blast it out, that song, bitch, goes to all the relays. I mean, any relay you're connected to, and any relays that those are connected to, and any relays that somebody re notes that note is connected to, they all get a copy of that note. And the the the whole notion of deleting a note on Nostra, I thought we put that to bed, but I'm starting to see people ask questions about it. The answer is you can delete it for you on clients that allow you to delete.
And, yes, they might even delete it or try to send out a delete message to other relays. But once you send that note out, it's too late. And no, you will not be able to delete every instance of the note that you sent on Nostr, and it's a feature, not a bug. Okay? We're not we're not here to censor ourselves or each other. Alright? Whatever it is you have to say, just go ahead and say it. And if somebody gets pissed, I don't know, go eat a fudgsicle or something. It doesn't really matter. Now for the last up today, we got Wasabi Wallet version 2.4.0. Send to silent payment addresses.
Wasabi Wallet, if you did not know, is a free and open source wallet for your desktop. Wasabi Wallet version 2.4.0 introduces support for sending to silent payment addresses and adds donate button, implements testnet for support, provides release notes in the client, and includes bug fixes, of course. Quote, Wasabi is now one of the first wallets to support send to silent payment addresses, and we hope that more wallets will join. We are working on allowing receiving, please bear with us, stated in the release notes. The project developers also said that they are evaluating potential privacy risks from sophisticated coordinator attacks and will soon publish a detailed statement along with a plan of action if necessary.
So this whole send to silent payment addresses, what what the hell? Well, this says that silent payments are privately reusable static addresses that allow Bitcoin transfers like regular addresses but prevent observers from linking multiple payments to the same addresses. A list of wallets supporting silent payments is available here. Let's see what let's see where that is. Let's see what who's supporting silent payments. It looks to be Cake Wallet, Blue Wallet, Selenium. I've never heard of Selenium. The Dana Wallet, BitBox, and the ShakeShakesco Wallet seem to all have silent payment support. So there you go. Other changes, there's a donation button that supports Wasabi Wallet's maintenance and development and has been added to the main screen.
It uses the silent payments feature, test net 4. Instead of test net 3, Wasabi now uses test net 4. And then there's release notes in the client and, of course, the other bug fixes as was mentioned before. So that is the end of it today, ladies and gentlemen. We have all manner of economic news coming up. Tomorrow, January 14th, the PPI month over month readings come out. It is forecast to be 0.3. We have corn on the next day, 15th. We got the core inflation rate year over year, the inflation rate year over year, and both of those in the month over month, and they look to see, year over year looks to be 3.3%, and the previous was 3.3.
The inflation rate the the inflation okay. That's the core inflation rate. The general inflation rate year over year is set to be 2.8%, which is 0.1% up from the previous of 2.7. If that's true, if that forecast comes in at 2.8% or above, you can bet your bottom dollar we're gonna see blood in the streets again because it's going to be less likely that the Federal Reserve will lower interest rates. And it won't matter if they did or did not anyway because the 10 year treasury bond, people are dumping it. They're dumping US treasuries and that's causing the yield to rise on the treasury bonds even though the Federal Reserve is trying to lower those rates.
But the market isn't having any of it. People want out of this toxic asset. Guys, 2025, if you thought 2024, you were just gonna be able to escape it and get out of it and it's gonna be a brand new year, it's just it's just the same clown show. You're under the same big top. You're eating the same popcorn. You're watching the same guys tame the same lions. It's just it's just a show, man. The only way out of the show is to buy the ticket to the big game. Buy bitcoin, hold bitcoin yourself. Sales, retail sales month over month, those numbers will be released January 16th and those look to be going down.
Forecast 0.5, previous was 0.7. And if retail sales goes down, then that's another feather in the cap for the Federal Reserve to not lower interest rates, which means people don't have the free and cheap money that they want to make risky investments, and then they get a strong dollar. And that's why people punch out of all this shit so they can get into a strong dollar, because they don't know what the hell's coming next, except for us. And next, for the ending the week, January 17th, we will get what housing starts did, and we will get what building permits did.
And housing starts, they're going the forecast is going to be well above the previous of 1,280,000. They're forecasting 1,320,000. If there's that many houses starting, that's going to be yet a final feather in the cap for the federal reserve to not lower interest rates because they're building houses. The economy looks great. We don't need to do a damn thing. This week is going to be a hard week for Bitcoiners. It's also going to be a very hard week for any holders of risk assets. Understand that. And this shit doesn't end until we find out what orange man does when he sits down in the chair on January 20th.
It's going to be ugly all the way up until 20th. Doesn't mean that it's gonna be pristine after that. I'm just saying that as far as the near term is concerned, all you have to do is look forward to the 20th January. That's going to be our demarcator. That's what's going to tell us when we cross the Rubicon yet one more time. But up until 20th, these are the four reports that we got coming in for the United States economic landscape. And they all look like they're going to be banger reports. It's going to make our economy look so good. They're so strong. The US dollar is very very strong, and it's going to put risk assets in a hole. And it's not just Bitcoin, guys.
Gold, silver, what else? What else? Oh, AI. That could be considered a risk asset as far as equities are concerned. Anything that's risky. Anything that's risky is going to basically have its feet cut off from it for the rest of this week and halfway into next week so just understand that be strong Hoddle strong. I don't know what to tell you. It's what Tone Vase used to say. I don't know what to tell you. Buy the fucking dip. I just just do that. And he was always right when I was listening to those guys back in 2015. If he's saying that today, he's still right. I'll 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.
Fed Rate Hikes and Economic Impact
