Join me today for Episode 1022 of Bitcoin And . . .
Topics for today:
- Now Let's #FreeSnowden
- Ledger Co-Founder Kidnapped?
- 'Protected' Bitcoin ETFs
- Rumble Buys Bitcoin
- Bull Bitcoin Now in Europe
#Bitcoin #BitcoinAnd
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[00:00:02]
David Bennett:
It is 10:19 AM Pacific Daylight Time. It is the 22nd day of January 2025, and this is episode 1020 2 of Bitcoin, and it's a good day. Yesterday was a good day. Today is a good day. Other people don't seem to understand that it's a good day because we got a little bit of red in the, charts, as a slow bleed off has been occurring in the price of Bitcoin, but whatever. Davos, I guess, is in full swing, and all the fat cats are skiing over there in Europe. Oh, my god. It's just amazing. But and we'll get into it. We'll we'll talk about Ross Ulbricht. But first, I will say that I was, you know, little harsh on president Trump.
I was little a little harsh on president Trump, but honestly, he came through, didn't he? And not only did he come through, he really, really came through, in a much bigger way than than I suspected when it came to Ross, and we'll get into that. We got we got a flash alert, on Ledger. You guys are gonna any of you Ledger users out there, you're gonna wanna be real, real careful. The tornado cash sanction case is in the news yet again. Something to do with the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals yet again. This is slightly different than what I was bringing to you yesterday, but we'll we'll talk about it. Something called protected Bitcoin ETFs is I'm going to just flat out give you a warning about this.
If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true. Rumble is in the news, Utah is in the news, Domus has an update, Bold Bitcoin does as well as Breeze and BTC pay server. So let's start at the top with this flash alert from Flash on nostr says, from France, alert at least 1 of Ledger's founders has reportedly been kidnapped for a BTC ransom. Police and GIGN, and I don't know what that is. I guess that's a French investigatory body or something like that, are investigating in Versailles, France around Eric Lechikav's estate.
And sources close to Ledger tell us that searches are underway, but nothing has been confirmed yet. Eric regularly holds conferences and meetings at his estate in Vireson, France. So one of the founders of Ledger, which is a hardware wallet for Bitcoin and well, shit coins as well, has been kidnapped. And that's this is not good because these are the people these are the, you know, these are the kinds of people that hold the keys to the kingdom in so far as having user data. And we've already determined that Ledger is not a safe place to use as a Bitcoin or Shitcoin repository.
They've not only not only have they been hacked on multiple occasions, but it seems that, well, it seems that we've got a situation where Ledger has been it it it seems that for at least a couple of times, the news has had it that keys can be taken from a ledger directly. Now, as to whether or not that really does affect this gentleman's, ability to be able to rifle through private keys and get a whole bunch of other people's private keys and give them to the kidnappers? I do not know. So, take everything that I say about this with a grain of salt. But if you were using a ledger, don't you think it's about time to get a different hardware wallet?
Maybe maybe get a cold card. I mean, as far as I know, they cost about the same amount of money. And one of the things that, CoinKite and Novak are famous for is their absolute paranoia when it comes to security. If you are using a ledger, it is time to stop using that ledger. Okay? This cannot go on. You just can't wake up every damn day and be wondering how has Ledger screwed up today? And while I wish this guy well because this is a horrible thing to have happen. You need to get off your ledger. So, let's let's keep this guy in our prayers. I hope that Eric, Larchovec gets back home safe.
I hope everything's okay, but man, this is this is not going to end. Like, there will be other kidnappings. Again, heed my warnings. If you go to Bitcoin conferences, or even if you don't, even if you're just walking around your hometown and you're wearing the Bitcoin swag, stop. Don't do that. You just make yourself a target. Okay? Just please don't do that kind of stuff. Alright. Let's get on to the news of the day. This is the big news. Ross Ulbricht has been freed. He not only had his sentence commuted, he actually got pardoned. And there is a difference and we'll talk about it after this from The Block and James Hunt writing, Coinbase exec claims to identify I know, hold bear with me. Coinbase executive claims to identify 430 Bitcoin associated with Ross Ulbricht, and it's been untouched for 13 years. And this leads us believe me, this is gonna lead us into the into the pardon thing.
Coinbase director of product strategy and business operations, Connor Grogan, claims to have identified approximately 430 Bitcoin across dozens of wallets associated with Silk Road creator, Ross Ulbricht, who has received a full and unconditional pardon from President Donald Trump on Tuesday. Grogan stated on Twitter that the funds are not part of the approximate 100 and 74,000 Bitcoin seized from Silk Road linked wallets by US authorities following the platform shutdown back in 2013 and have been untouched for over 13 years. The Coinbase director included a screenshot displaying 1 of Ulbrich's potential Bitcoin addresses.
That address has a balance of 88.77 BTC, according to the blockchain explorer mempool. Back then, these were probably dust wallets. Now, collectively, they are worth about, oh, $47,000,000 Grogan wrote. Welcome back, Ross. However, Grogan acknowledged that it was unlikely that Olbrich still had the private keys stored anywhere. Quote, I guess we will know soon enough, he said. And we come to the presidential pardon. President Donald Trump officially officially signed a full and unconditional pardon for Ross Ulbricht late Tuesday, leading to celebrations and relief across the community after more than ten years of incarceration for the Silk Road creator, integrally tied to Bitcoin's early history. Quote, I just called the mother of Ross William Ulbricht to let her know that in honor of her and the libertarian movement, which supported me so strongly, it was my pleasure to have just signed a full and unconditional pardon of her son, Ross, Trump wrote in a truth social post on Tuesday announcing the news, quote, words cannot express how grateful we are. The family's free Ross campaign account responded on Twitter.
President Trump is a man of his word, and he just saved Ross's life. Ross is a free man. Umbricht was serving 2 life sentences, plus 40 years. If you didn't catch that, he was serving not one life sentence, but 2 life sentences and another additional 40 year sentence on top of that for his role in operating Silk Road, a darknet market that facilitated the sale of narcotics and other illegal products and services using Bitcoin. The FBI arrested him in October of 2013 before being convicted in 2015 for engaging in a continual criminal enterprise, distributing narcotics, conspiring to distribute narcotics, conspiring to commit money laundering, conspiring to traffic and false identity documents, and other charges.
Alright. So that's the end of the article. So here there's 2 things that are important. 1, Ross got freed. But he got freed by a presidential pardon and not a commutation of his sentence. Now here's the difference. We expected we expected Trump to commute Ross Ulbrich's sentence, and that was would've that is, like, the lesser of what could've happened. And all it meant if he if it had just been a commutation of his sentence, Ross would walk free from federal penitentiary, and he would never be tried on those charges again, and everything was gonna be fine. Right? But but he would still have all the federal convictions and his sentencing on his record.
With a full and unconditional presidential pardon, that is now wiped away. We expected him to have his sentence commuted, but he got pardoned instead. Now, yesterday, I was really tough on on orange man. It took somebody on Noster to say, hey, did you notice something? And I I I am remiss. I cannot remember the person's name on Noster that brought it to everybody's attention, but he did. And what he said was, did anybody notice that President Trump waited until 21st to pardon Ross Ulbricht? And 21 is an important number in Bitcoin because of 21,000,000. I mean, the number 21 is all over the place when it comes to Bitcoin.
And honestly, it's, you know, it's it made me stop and think. Is it possible that Donald Trump did it on purpose, that he didn't free Ross on day 1 because it would be more poignant to free him the next day, which would be day number 21? I'm telling you, numerology is is rather important to the human species. For some reason, important numbers mean things, especially when we acknowledge them publicly. Now I have no idea whether or not Trump waited on purpose for a full day so that he could get this done on 21st. I would still have much rather it happened on 20th, the day that he said that he was going to do it. He said he was gonna do it on day 1. I know. I sound like I'm bitching. I promise you I'm not. I'm just happy that Ross is free. But I can't just let it, you know, completely let it go without saying the final thing. He promised that he was gonna do a thing on a certain day, and he didn't do that thing on that certain day.
And that just kinda rankles me. I would have much rather Ross been already home instead of having to wait a day because of some special number. Now, it turns out that yesterday was, well, yesterday was my birthday. So Ross, on the same day as my birthday, January 21st, got out of prison and it dawned on me, like, when he when he was released that, oh, shit. He got released on my birthday. So now my birthday, which I never equated the fact that the 21st January being my birthday, was that number, 21. So, somehow or another, the numerology is just sort of all over the place, but the important thing is that Ross is free. And, and, here's the second thing.
Is it possible that he really could have 430 Bitcoin available to him? Even if he only gets a couple of those wallets that this, Connor Grogan is talking about, then he doesn't have to worry. And this is this is what I hope, however, I'm I'm a little well, I don't wanna say fearful, but this is what I do worry about. If if somehow or another he accesses any of these wallets that could have ever been associated with his name, will this cause problems with federal charges? Is there something lurking under the surface that we don't see yet? I want him to have this Bitcoin.
I want him to be able to have all of his Bitcoin, but he's not going to get that stuff back from the United States government. The 174,000, that Bitcoin is gone. And I'm talking about 174,000 Bitcoin, not dollars. Alright. That's gone. I don't believe there's a hope in hell that he would ever see any of that money ever again even though he got a pardon. That is now owned by the United States Marshals Service and the United States government. However, this Coinbase stuff that, you know, that Connor is talking about, that does seem to be free and clear.
Will it be? Will it remain so? When Connor Grogan broke this news, is it possible that now the Feds will want to abscond with this Bitcoin as well? We will have to see what happens next. But if he can get at least like 10 or 20 Bitcoin, Ross doesn't have to worry and his mom doesn't have to worry. And hats off to Lynn Ulbricht for holding the fire burning as bright as she has for over a decade for her son and the Free Ross movement. We won. We did it. Lynne did it. Ross won. We won. Bitcoin won. We were winners yesterday. There's no losing yesterday at all.
So, take the win, put it in your back pocket, let's now get snowed in out of that thing. Free snowed in. Free snowed in. Free Snowden. Let's move over to Zoltan Vardy, who's writing for Cointelegraph. The United States court has overturned the tornado cash sanctions in a pivotal case for crypto. Here we go again. What is it this time? Well, a US court has overturned the sanctions against the Tornado Cash cryptocurrency mixing protocol in a decision that could signal a shift in or a significant shift towards more innovative, friendly regulations for privacy preserving technologies.
The United States Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, also known as OFAC, originally sanctioned Tornado Cash in August of 2022. OFAC accused it of facilitating money laundering by the North Korean Lazarus Group. The group was alleged to have laundered more than $455,000,000 in stolen digital assets through the Tornado Cash Protocol. Those sanctions led to the arrest of Tornado Cash developer, Alexei Pertsev, who was found guilty of money laundering by Dutch judges in the S. Hertogenbosch Court of Appeal on May 14, 2024. Pertsev was sentenced to 5 years 4 months in prison for laundering 1 point $2,000,000,000 in illicit assets through the platform.
In a significant legal development, the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas has reversed that OFAC sanction. According to a January 21st court filing, the court ruled, quote, it is ordered and adjudged that the judgment of the district court is reversed and the cause is remanded to the district court for further proceedings in accordance with the opinions of this court. Alright. Well, so now despite the victory, and it is a victory for Tornado Cash, Pertsev remains in custody on money laundering charges. During his trial in March of 2024, Pertsev argued that he can't be held liable for the actions of users who use the tornado cash protocol for illegal activities.
The court rejected this defense, stating that Pertsev and the other co founders of Tornado Cash could have implemented additional measures to prevent misuse of the protocol. I'm pausing there to say, how would the court know that? Does the court know how to program computers? Does the court know how to wrangle protocols? Does the court know how to do any of the things that they suggested? I could go, you know what the court could do? And I could list off a laundry list of all manner of shit the DOJ could do. That doesn't make me at all credible, not in the least bit.
So I reject anything coming out of what's being said here that the court said that, well, you could have done something about this. You know what? You do it. If you think it could be done, then you prove how it could be done so that we know that your statement that you could have done something is actually not only true and viable, but implementable. Just saying. Let let's let's continue here. The court ruling comes after 6 Tornado Cash users filed an appeal against OFAX sanctions. The appeal, issued on November 6, 2024, argued that OFAC overstepped its statutory authority by blacklisting Tornado Cash in 2022.
And the filing stated, we hold that Tornado Cash's immutable smart contracts, the lines of privacy embedded software code, are not the property of a foreign national or entity, meaning that one, they cannot be blocked under IEEPA and 2, OFAC overstepped its congressionally defined authority. The 6 plaintiffs argued that blockchain transactions can be traceable which is why some crypto users want additional options to keep their transactions private. The Tornado Cash Sanctions raised significant concerns for developers of privacy preserving technologies, Offering privacy preserving features in legally compliant manners will be essential for future privacy protocols, Matthew Niemerg, co founder and president of AlphaZero Tollcoin Telegraph.
In the interim, industry insiders are hoping to see more developments in Pertsev's own legal case after the OFAC sanctions have been reversed. Okay. So the the very thing that this guy, this Pertsev dude and and clear you know, clearly some of the other guy or the other guy, I think, Roman was it Roman Storm? Anyway, anyway, the whole reason that he was convicted, all the charges had to do with the fact that this was not that that OFAC's sanctions were sound, that this was the correct move by OFAC to make these sanctions. But now that a 5th Circuit tech, which is the Texas, you know, essentially the Texas region, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned and said OFAC sanctions were not permissible.
But that's a Dutch court. See, this is where shit gets really really confusing about ceding any kind of authority to any for any country to cede any kind of authority to anything outside of their own country, like FATF, f a t f. This is one of the these are one of the biggest ones, but OFAC having a Dutch court convict one of their own citizens oh, I guess I don't know if Perzep is actually one of the is a Dutch citizen or not, but this court convicted him on this OFAC thing and now a 5th circuit and OFAC is United States based. It's falls under the the department of treasury.
Now the 5th circuit court of appeal said, no. You can't do that. So what does the Dutch court do? Well, it looks like they haven't done shit, but do they have to? That's the real question here. Everything is too muddled. You if you are in somebody's country and you break you violate that country's law legals or laws or legal constitution mandates or something like that, then that country has the right to do whatever they want to do with you, unless somehow or another the state department of your own country works out a deal and somehow gets your ass back. But with without that happening, you break a law in in, like, you know, the Netherlands, then you should probably and you're found guilty and it's proved?
You're probably going to jail in the Netherlands. But if you break a law that is, like, somehow or another guided by the United States, like in the like the office of foreign asset control under the United States Treasury Department, but you're in France? France should have literally nothing to do with that. France should look at the United States and says, this is not our law. Like, if he break breaks a French law, then, yeah, we're gonna, you know, we're gonna try and we're gonna put him in jail. But this has become so muddy because of things like OFAC and things like countries in the European Union looking at things like OFAC and saying, well, we'll use their guidance.
Man, that this this is not good. So we don't know what's going to happen now because we've already got the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has basically been bitch slapping this entire case for the last 3 days, and nothing seems to have changed. So, we will as we move forward, we will, like, look at people like Lola Leads, who has a little bit more of an ear on what's going on. And if she says something about it, God knows, I will bring it to you here on the Bitcoin and podcast. But before we do, we're gonna do decrypt.co and Andrei Beganski who's writing this one. Oh, and watch out for this one, guys.
Protected Bitcoin ETFs are hitting the market. Here's what that means. Before we even read it, it means stay away. I wouldn't even buy a regular ETF. Get just stop believing shit like, oh, you're protected. You'll know what I mean here in a minute. Bitcoin's price has been a roller coaster ride for investors for 15 years, but a new batch, a brand spanking new batch of Bitcoin ETFs will seek to replace the asset stomach churning free falls with relatively modest declines or not at all. Yeah. No declines, guys. What you should already be running for the hills. Calamos is the name of the company and Calamos' first protected Bitcoin ETF will hit the market Wednesday, that's today, offering investors 100% downside protection against Bitcoin's price with limited upside potential.
From retail investors to financial advisors, Bitcoin's risk profile has deterred a notable number of market participants who may be wary of Bitcoin's steep draw downs despite its growing adoption, Calamos head of ETFs, Matt Kaufman, told Decrypt. Quote, Calamos has built Bitcoin exposure with a safety net, and you can choose how low that safety net goes, he said. Quote, Bitcoin is a historically extremely volatile asset, and so a lot of people have been on the sidelines watching this experiment turn into an institutional reality, end quote. The ETFs will be listed on the Chicago Board of Exchange or the CBOE with its 100% protected Bitcoin ETF set to debut at a price of $25 on Wednesday.
The product's so called cap range, expected to be anywhere between 10% 11.5%, will be struck at the end of the day. From that point on, the ETF will aim to offer 100% downside protection against Bitcoin's price with a cap range struck again next year. Spot Bitcoin ETFs debuted in the US last year, notching $36,200,000,000 worth of net inflows. But since then, Bitcoin's prices climbed a 133 percent from 46 k to 107 k. Yet some analysts that registered investment advisers and wire houses are still warming up to such products, they say, anyway. Among institutional investors, 48% of those surveyed in 2023 said that digital assets price volatility was a considerable obstacle from an investment standpoint, citing that that factor more than anything else according to a Fidelity Digital Assets report.
Meanwhile, 22% of respondents pointed to self In 2 weeks, Calamos, which was founded in 1977, will launch additional ETFs with 80 90% downside protection against Bitcoin. These products will have an estimated cap range of 28% to 31% and 50% to 55%, respectively. The product's risk management framework will be achieved through a combination of US Treasuries and flex options on the CBOE Bitcoin US ETF index. According to Calamos' website, flex options are essentially customizable exchange listed options, which can have 1 year period outcomes as opposed to expiring on the final Friday of each month, Kaufman said.
Kalamos, which has $40,000,000,000 in assets under management, launched similar products covering the S and P 500 and Nasdaq 100 last year. Though the products could find use among a professional investment crowd, Kaufman posited that the products could also cater to investors beyond the typical age of your typical crypto bro. Quote, the adoption for Bitcoin has been on the individual or the retail level, And it's largely been people younger than myself, the 45 year old Kaufman said. We haven't seen too much of the adoption curve from those older investors largely because of the risk tolerance that they just can't take. Alright. So this doesn't sound as bad as I as I initially, nailed it.
But this is a product that guarantees that you will not see all of the upside of Bitcoin while telling you that there will be 100% downside risk, which means that whatever price you bought, you know, bought into what like on like okay. You start out on a Monday and you buy $10,000 worth of this no downside risk ETF from Calamos. And then a week later, the price of Bitcoin has gone up another $1,000 and you buy another 10, you know, another $10,000 worth. You're only as far as I can tell, you're only protected from the times where you get in. So if you're if you bought $10,000 worth of Bitcoin on the 1st day, the 1st week, like, today, like, this is the 1st week that's gonna be offered. You buy it today. And a week later, Bitcoin drops to $90,000.
Your $10,000 investment is completely protected. However, if it goes the other way, and according to this, it it says something like 10% to 13 point or 11.5% upside. If bitcoin goes to a price that is more than 10% to the upside or 11% to the upside, anything after that, you don't get. So if it goes up 15%, you're going to not get 4.5 percent of that upside potential because that is going to be taken by Calamos to ensure that if they do go to the downside, that they've got enough bitcoin or at least enough cash, depending on what they do with it, to actually cover that quote unquote downside risk. So you're buying an insurance contract directly into the retail product of a Bitcoin spot ETF.
I still don't think that this is a good idea for your general Joe. Why? Because you have every ability to buy bitcoin yourself. You can do it through Swan Bitcoin. You can do it through strike. You can do it through what? Cash App. You there's all manner of places that you can buy Bitcoin directly and transfer it into your own possession. You do not need a spot Bitcoin ETF even with downside protection. However, this is probably going to be this is probably going to be a well subscribed product line. Just because people cannot handle the ups and downs of this market. And speaking of, let's run the numbers.
Wow. It's really messy out there this morning, ladies and gentlemen. Trump is threatening Russia with sanctions and tariffs if Putin doesn't end the Ukraine war immediately. And according to CNBC, has ordered all federal diversity, equity, and inclusion employees to be placed on paid leave starting immediately. Holy shit. This is gonna be a shit show, man. I'm telling you, Apex Cloud World is all in front of our faces right now, but oil is down a half point to 75.46 a barrel. Brent Norsey, likewise, down a third. 7902.
Natural gas is up 5 full percentage points to $3.94 per 1,000 cubic feet. Gasoline is down 1.2 percent just over $2 a barrel. We got gold up 0.4 percent to $27.70.20. Silver is down 0.16. Platinum is up a quarter. Copper is down almost a full point, and palladium is in the other direction, 3 points to the upside. Biggest winner in ag today is coffee. Yeah? 4.61% to the upside. Biggest loser looks to be lumber. 1 and a half to the downside. Live cattle is up a full point. Lean hogs are up over a half point and feeder cattle up 2.15 percentage points. The Dow is up a third and the S and P is up 3 quarters of a point, but the Nasdaq blowing through the ceiling 1 and a half percent to the upside today.
And Bitcoin is, well, bouncing around because these idiots keep waiting for Trump to say SBR. And, like I said, it seems that there may be a little bit of weirdness going on with the SBR, at least according to NewsBTC. I'll give you the skinny. United States Bitcoin Reserve. Eric Trump's deleted tweet raises eyebrows. So an entire market's value right now hangs in the balance because one guy deleted a tweet. Let me just get into it here. Okay. I'm sorry. I I just I think it's the whole thing is freaking stupid. Anyway, while the Bitcoin price is hovering just below the old all time high of December 17th, US senators Cynthia Lummis and Eric Trump reportedly convened at the Capitol yesterday to discuss the notion of creating the American Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.
Bloomberg's Stephen Dennis broke the news while SWAN, a crypto focused platform, spotlighted Eric Trump's now deleted retweet about the meeting. Almost as soon as Eric Trump retweeted Swan's post, referencing talks with Senator Lummis on the SBR, he deleted it without explanation. Quote, what's brewing behind the scenes? Swan queried in a subsequent tweet suggesting the swift deletion could indicate high level caution possibly to avoid front running unofficial announcement. That's all that honestly, there's a whole much board of that story. We don't need to read it. This is this is this is the kind of shit that makes markets move. Janet Yellen wore a purple dress, Eric treat Trump deleted a tweet. Are you serious?
I mean, it's like we're all 4 years old. And, like, you know, like, we're just, like, we you know, our our pacifier is being held in front of our face by our dad and he keeps pulling it away from us and every time he does it makes us cry and then when he shoves it back and, you know, close to us, we start grinning again and it's like dad playing with his little baby. And it's just freaking juvenile and embarrassing, ladies and gentlemen. Just because this dude deleted a tweet, doesn't mean that everybody needs to just get their panties all in an uproar. Whatever. We're at a $103,820.
That is a $2,060,000,000,000 market cap. You can now only purchase 70 no. 70, my ass. 37.7 ounces of shiny metal rocks with your 1 Bitcoin of which there are 19,000,000 813,473.16 of. Average fees per block stand at 0.06 BTC taken in fees on a per block basis. And there are 54 blocks carrying a 127,000 unconfirmed transactions waiting to clear at high priority rates of 8 satoshis per v byte. Low priority is gonna get you in at 6. Hash rate on a 1 week rolling average is 70 7 no. 773.7 exahashes per second. So do with that what you will. From yesterday's episode of Bitcoin and the Apex clown world, I got Kern 88 with 47100 sat says bitcoin miners in Texas on demand response contracts get incentives and rebates for turning off when demand is high. They also operate with direct hour ahead pricing.
When demand is high, their electricity price is high and the miner shuts off. No king or country needed. Just cold hard profits and the alchemy of Bitcoin. Happy birthday, sir. Thank you, Hearn. I appreciate that. He's reminding us that they're shutting it off not out of the goodness of their heart. They're shutting it off because they're in the market, and it's in their best interest to actually shut off the mining because they can sell that electricity at those high prices back to the grid. It is he's right to to make sure that that I bring that to you. It's not out of the goodness of their hearts. They are market driven and because they are allowed to actually operate as a free market, at least for now, they're doing what a free market does.
Adjust themselves to all the variables that they can actually look at and discover that impact them. And if they don't want to be impacted negatively, then they're going to shift gears. That's the way a market works. Anonymous with 3,333 SAT says, boozed. Augee Chute with 2222 says, your favorite project did not reapply for the open SATS grant. They didn't. They did your favorite project did not reapply for the open SATS grant. This is he's talking about project Alexandria, and it is one of my absolute favorite projects in Noster right now. And if anybody from those guys are listening, please reapply.
Please please please reapply. Mark from 21 with or Mark with with 21 100 Sat says happy birthday. Dude, thank you. I appreciate that. Cole McCormick probably gonna lambast me here, but he does give me some sats. He gives me a 1,111 of them. It's a nice row of sticks. Says two thoughts on Trump's crypto games. One, he has decades of history branding his name on easy to market products. The meme coins are no different. So business as usual, I'd say. 2 a, government and monetary policy are going through their own little ICO phase. History proves it all leads back to Bitcoin. 2 b every other shitcoin being valued by the government has zero impact on either inflation worsening or Bitcoin in general.
If pricing infinite money is increasing debt is a problem, I can easily see why pro crypto Trump world wants these other coins. The creation of more crypto does not negatively affect the US. The continued creation and hence devaluation of the dollar does. Trump made a joke about writing a crypto check to cover national debt. If the US legitimizes crypto and uses that as a path to cover debt, that only helps Bitcoinization. Am I crazy? No, probably not. However, none of us really know how this is really going to roll out. I mean, I can see what you're saying, but I'm always going to be locked into this thought of and I am unapologetic about it. If you touch a shit coin, you're a shit coiner.
It means you have no ethics, and it means that you don't really know what's going on. That's my issue. Now, just because they don't really understand Bitcoin doesn't mean that they don't understand the shitcoin market enough to say, hey, we can use this to our advantage. Well, yeah. That's all shitcoiners say that. And then they get either rug pulled or their hair catches on fire and they burn down to ash because Arthur Hayes is grinning at them at a 100x leverage. I'm telling you, this shit never works out the way these people think it's going to work out, whether it's Trump or some dipshit in his mom's basement day trading shit coins. That's what I'm saying. I'm certainly not saying that you're crazy.
If they really have their shit together over there at the government or this new administration, then maybe in the short to medium term they can actually do something with the shitcoin field that somehow or another benefits the United States dollar and therefore I guess the United States citizenry. But, honestly, man, that they might as well go for me and my money. I'd rather go to Vegas and take odds on roulette on getting that shit right. That's my 2¢ there. Bag of sats 21 with 1,021 sats. That sounds like January 21st to me. It says, happy birthday, my dear friend. Thank you, sir. FOMO chronic with 1,001 sats says nothing.
At with 1,000 literally, it's just the at symbols with 1,000 sats says nothing. Zplbzx with a 1,000 says happy birthday, man. Dude, thank you. Anonymous with a 1,000 says happy birthday, man. Thank you. I appreciate that. God's death of 537. Thank you, sir. Thank you. No. I did that wrong. Thank you, sir. No. Thank you. HBH Gardens with 500 says nothing. And he literally writes says nothing. BTC master with a 121 says all sats matter at allsatsmatter.com. Nostra Gang with a 100 says, happy birthday. Thank you for your precious time and energy. And thank you Nostra Gang for your precious sats.
Anything else? I think that's it. And that's the weather report. Welcome to part 2 of the news that you can use. Well, let's get into this one from Yoshua Gola from Cointelegraph. Buy Bitcoin. Stock price goes up 80%. Rumble follows MicroStrategy's strategy. It's like one of the worst headlines ever, dude. Oh my god. Let's find out what it actually means. Rumble Incorporated, a video sharing platform revealed that it has indeed purchased its very first Bitcoin just ahead of Donald Trump's inauguration event on January 20th, noting that it won't be the last Bitcoin purchase for the company. And indeed, Chris Pavlovsky from Rumble said, on January 20th at 6:12 PM On Friday, Rumble made its first ever purchase of Bitcoin and it won't be the last.
The announcement appeared nearly 2 months after Rumble confirmed its plans to allocate $20,000,000 from its excess cash reserves to purchase Bitcoin. The company said that their purchase will depend primarily on the wider crypto market conditions, including BTC's price and their platform's cash needs. Bitcoin established a new record high of over a 109,000 dollars on January 20th, just ahead of Trump swearing in as the 47th president of the United States. Rumble's foray into Bitcoin appears to be motivated by a combination of financial and strategic factors mentioned in MicroStrategy's playbook, namely using Bitcoin as a hedge against inflation and dollar devaluation.
So, yeah. Rumble has bought Bitcoin and their stock has gone up by what what did it say? 80%. Oh my god. That's just insane. I think honestly, I I think there's a little bit of overheat on this and we should probably be very careful going into the future as to how much credence we give the stability of any Bitcoin price because companies like Rumble and are all started. Now we've got states that want to start buying bitcoin or well they're probably also going to shit coin as well they'll they'll learn their lesson but Utah apparently is also getting into it so with all these companies buying bitcoin more companies are on the way to buy Bitcoin.
It's going to cause short squeezes along the way. It's just, I mean, it's not intentional short squeezes. It's just, like, at one point or another, there's going to be a little bit of liquidity squeeze because people are like wanting to buy bitcoin and other people don't want to sell it at that price so the price is naturally going to increase but what happens if they stop buying That's an easy question to answer. But at least in the short to mid term, this is the trend, right? And like I said, Utah is getting into it as well, according to Atlas21 dotcom.
Utah embraces Bitcoin and has proposed a law to invest public funds. Ah, but wait. There's more. On January 20th, that was yesterday, Utah no. Day before yesterday. Utah representative Jordan Tusher introduced the Blockchain and Digital Innovation Amendments or House Bill 230, which authorizes Utah, to invest a portion of public funds in digital assets. Quote, This bill reflects our commitment to embracing cutting edge technology and preparing for the future of finance while ensuring fiscal sovereignty. The proposed legislation allows for the investment of up to 10% of several state accounts including the state disaster recovery restricted account, the general fund budget reserve account, income tax fund budget reserve account, and the Medicaid growth reduction and Budget Stabilization account.
To qualify as an eligible investment, digital assets must maintain a market capitalization exceeding $500,000,000,000 and that's calculated over a 12 month average or comply with stablecoin regulations. This requirement makes Bitcoin the only cryptocurrency available for investment. The bill mandates that the state store private keys in an encrypted environment accessible only through end to end encrypted channels. Additionally, the hardware containing the private keys must be kept in at least 2 geographically diversified secured data centers.
The legislation also protects individual self custody rights prohibiting any state or local government entity from restricting the use of software or hardware wallets. This is actually better than I thought. Utah's initiative is part of a larger national movement towards digital asset adoption also fueled by President Donald Trump's support for a strategic Bitcoin reserve. If it is passed, Utah's law will take effect on May 7th of this year, 2025. You know, there's a lot of language in this story that suggests that the Bitcoin Policy Institute has probably got their hands all over this. And I'm talking about the, the hardware containing the private keys must be kept in 2 geographically diversified data centers.
And the legislation protects individual self custody rights prohibiting any state or local government entity from restricting the use of the software or hardware wallets. This is actually good news. And the fact that the way that they structured the what they were would be legally able to invest in this whole has the market cap has to exceed $500,000,000,000 over a 12 month average, makes Bitcoin making Bitcoin the only cryptocurrency available for investment is is kinda nice at start, but I guarantee you, and it's not because I want it to be this way, but when one of these other idiot shit coins reaches that level, I can almost guarantee you that Utah will start buying it and then they will lose money because it's a shit coin and they don't understand what Bitcoin actually is. We got a long way to go ladies and gentlemen and we might as well start educating people to get over to Noster.
And speaking of Nostr, Domus version 1.12 has been released and I downloaded it today and it has definitely fixed some of my little red wagon. There are user experience improvements and fixes available and Domus, if you did not know, is a Twitter like Nostra client for the iPhone, iPad, and macOS. Sorry. It is not available on Android. Quote, it's app store release day for Domus. Thanks again to our loyal purple subscribers for helping us continue to improve the UX and pointing out important changes and fixes, announce the project, end quote.
Well, well, actually, end quote, announce the project. This update introduces the rendering of GIFs and video files while you're composing posts. It gives you the ability to paste GIF images like JPEG and PNG files along with some other UX improvements and bug fixes. Let's see if there's anything else here. It says on what's new, not only the whole rendering of GIFs and whatnot, but add profile into text in stretchable banner with follow button. I don't know what that means and I I looked at my domus after I updated it and I'm not seeing stretchable banner stuff with follow buttons on on my profile, but whatever.
There's improved accessibility support on some of the elements and improved UX around the label for searching words. So there you go. If you're you if you're a Domus user, make sure that you update to the newest version today. Bull Bitcoin expands into Europe. Finally, thank God. Bull Bitcoin is a regulated non custodial Bitcoin exchange and payments service. Quote, Bull Bitcoin is now available on the old continent to help Europeans reclaim their sovereignty, use our platform to buy, sell, and pay any bank account with Bitcoin today, end quote, announce the project. See, I got that right. According to the terms and conditions of the service, it is now available in the following countries. Listen up. Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden.
That's a mouthful. Quote, we arrive in Europe with a brand new platform, the culmination of nearly 3 years of rigorous development. This third version of bull bitcoin is designed to deliver a superior bitcoin experience to European users combining speed, security, efficiency, and an unwavering commitment to sovereignty, added the project. So key features, lightning network support. You can make fast, low cost bitcoin payments. It's ideal for small amounts in high fee areas and times or near instant transactions. It has instant SEPA or SEPA transfers. You can buy and sell bitcoin in under 5 minutes with SEPA or SEPA instant transfers.
And 3rd, self custody and transparency. With Bull Bitcoin, users hold their own keys. That's important. And maintain full Bitcoin custody. There are no hidden fees and withdrawal costs are covered. Every transaction is blockchain time stamped for transparency. Future updates to the platform include plans to implement third party payments, auto buy and dollar cost averaging features, real estate transactions, that should be interesting, and business to business bitcoin solutions and more. So there you go. If you're a bull bitcoin user or wanted to you're European and you've been wanting to use bull Bitcoin, now is your chance because it looks like that announcement covers most of the European Union. So Breeze SDK also has an update.
Excuse me. Nodeless version 0.6.2, real time sync, pay to BIP353 addresses, and more. Breeze SDK and Nodeless, the liquid implementation, is a nodeless lightning integration that provides a self custodial end to end solution for incorporating Lightning payments. It utilizes the Liquid network for on chain interoperability and supports third party fiat onramps. Holy shit, they integrated Liquid. The Breeze software development kit, or SDK, provides developers with an end to end solution for integrating self custodial lightning payments into their apps and services. Developers can work with Breeze SDK greenlight and liquid implementations.
Version 0.6.2 of Breeze SKD, I think they did that wrong. S probably sdk because the software development kit. Liquid brings real time synchronization of payment metadata and swap information for a better multi device experience and the ability to pay BIP353 addresses and the ability to receive bitcoin without specifying any amounts. It also enables external input parser integration including out of the box support for pick and pay QR codes and adds payment expiration information for pending payments. Nice. Nice. This man, see, Breeze has been around for a long time, and they keep knocking it out of the park. And this Breeze is old, dude.
It's like 5 years old. It's probably old. Actually, it's gotta be older than that. I started using Breeze. God, it's gotta be 6 or 7 years now. Holy shit. And they integrated liquid. That's gonna be an interesting play. BTC pay server version 2.0.6 has been released. There is a fix to prevent duplicate payouts in certain on chain configurations. If you're a b t c pay server user, you need to probably get this. Essentially, it's just a bunch of fixes, but it's that real the real one is that security fix to fix, that fix to prevent duplicate payouts in certain on chain configurations.
There's also some looks like search engine optimization stuff going on in there, and then there's a whole bunch of like migration stuff. I'm not gonna read the list because that is it for the day. So, ladies and gentlemen, the takeaway today is that Ross is free. Trump made good. I mean, even though he didn't do it on day 1, I honestly I'm just gonna let it go. Whatever. Ross is out. Ross Olbricht is out. He's out of prison. There was a picture posted last night of him walking across the parking lot. I can only assume it was the Tucson Penitentiary at night holding a little plant. He looked happy and he looks young, and he's 40 years old. I mean, he that is young. I'm just saying that, you know, he he lost 10 years of his life. Actually, you know what?
I don't think Ross did lose 10 years of his life. Ross ended up being one of the inmates in that prison that is the kind of inmate you read about. He was teaching other inmates how to program. And I guarantee you, he taught other inmates how to use Bitcoin and probably the lightning network and probably e cash. But he was teaching other inmates skills while he was there. He wasn't just sitting on his ass, you know, in his little cell crying like, you know, crying like a little girl. Now he went through he gave a I think he gave a, a speech where he was thrown in a hole for a very very long time, and I don't know if he stayed in that hole the entire time, and we're talking solitary confinement. He gave a speech at, like, a Bitcoin Miami conference, I think. It was either Miami. I'm pretty sure it was Miami. It was it was it should have been a while back, and he got into a lot of trouble for giving that speech. And he got thrown into solitary confinement.
I don't know the particulars. I do know that during the time that Ross was not in solitary confinement, either before and or after he got out of solitary confinement if he did get out of solitary confinement, like I said, I don't know. But there was a time that he was not in solitary. He was in general population, and he was helping other inmates learn things about computers, whether it's programming, how to use and god only knows what else he taught them, like I said. But he's like one of those inmates that will teach another inmate how to read. He'll make you know, like, will actually do something while they're there, like write a book or take up art. And they're they're not just like some kind of shitbag just waiting to get out to go do, you know, horrendous things.
He was that guy. For the 10 years that he was in prison, he was that guy. He remained one of the best people that we have to offer from humanity, and he remained that way for 10 years. His mom, while on the outside, did nothing but advocate for her son. She never quit, He never quit. We never quit, and we won yesterday. There was no loss. It was 100% winning all day long. Now we need to focus on getting Snowden out of his little situation. My only problem with Snowden is that if for whatever reason he does get pardoned, he pissed so many people off at the CIA, I'd be scared for him to come back.
I mean, I wanted to get pardoned, but I'd I'd honestly, like, fear for his life if he stepped anywhere close to outside of Russia where he's at right now. Or at least that's what last I heard he was in Russia. Simply because there's so many people in the CIA that I think just absolutely want him dead. But that's for Snowden to work out. All we can really do is start rattling the cage of, I guess, hashtag free Snowden and let's start that one up and see if we can get Trump to free yet another innocent person. Anyway, with all that said, have a good day.
And when Ross comes back, don't ask him to come on your podcast. Why don't we give him a little rest? Why don't we do that? Let's let him and his family bond. Let's not immediately start going I'm going to be the first one to get him on our on the podcast or on the YouTube channel or write an article about. Okay? Leave him alone. Let him heal. Give him 6 months. Give him a year. Or, in fact, just wait until he wants to talk to somebody. Just be respectful. He's been in hell for 10 years, and it's not fair for us to just walk all up and down his ass the second that he gets out even if we're happy about it. Right? And that's gonna be hard for a lot of people to do. But if he does come back, just say hello.
We love you. We're glad that you're free. Thank God. Thank you, Trump. I'll see you on the other side.
It is 10:19 AM Pacific Daylight Time. It is the 22nd day of January 2025, and this is episode 1020 2 of Bitcoin, and it's a good day. Yesterday was a good day. Today is a good day. Other people don't seem to understand that it's a good day because we got a little bit of red in the, charts, as a slow bleed off has been occurring in the price of Bitcoin, but whatever. Davos, I guess, is in full swing, and all the fat cats are skiing over there in Europe. Oh, my god. It's just amazing. But and we'll get into it. We'll we'll talk about Ross Ulbricht. But first, I will say that I was, you know, little harsh on president Trump.
I was little a little harsh on president Trump, but honestly, he came through, didn't he? And not only did he come through, he really, really came through, in a much bigger way than than I suspected when it came to Ross, and we'll get into that. We got we got a flash alert, on Ledger. You guys are gonna any of you Ledger users out there, you're gonna wanna be real, real careful. The tornado cash sanction case is in the news yet again. Something to do with the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals yet again. This is slightly different than what I was bringing to you yesterday, but we'll we'll talk about it. Something called protected Bitcoin ETFs is I'm going to just flat out give you a warning about this.
If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true. Rumble is in the news, Utah is in the news, Domus has an update, Bold Bitcoin does as well as Breeze and BTC pay server. So let's start at the top with this flash alert from Flash on nostr says, from France, alert at least 1 of Ledger's founders has reportedly been kidnapped for a BTC ransom. Police and GIGN, and I don't know what that is. I guess that's a French investigatory body or something like that, are investigating in Versailles, France around Eric Lechikav's estate.
And sources close to Ledger tell us that searches are underway, but nothing has been confirmed yet. Eric regularly holds conferences and meetings at his estate in Vireson, France. So one of the founders of Ledger, which is a hardware wallet for Bitcoin and well, shit coins as well, has been kidnapped. And that's this is not good because these are the people these are the, you know, these are the kinds of people that hold the keys to the kingdom in so far as having user data. And we've already determined that Ledger is not a safe place to use as a Bitcoin or Shitcoin repository.
They've not only not only have they been hacked on multiple occasions, but it seems that, well, it seems that we've got a situation where Ledger has been it it it seems that for at least a couple of times, the news has had it that keys can be taken from a ledger directly. Now, as to whether or not that really does affect this gentleman's, ability to be able to rifle through private keys and get a whole bunch of other people's private keys and give them to the kidnappers? I do not know. So, take everything that I say about this with a grain of salt. But if you were using a ledger, don't you think it's about time to get a different hardware wallet?
Maybe maybe get a cold card. I mean, as far as I know, they cost about the same amount of money. And one of the things that, CoinKite and Novak are famous for is their absolute paranoia when it comes to security. If you are using a ledger, it is time to stop using that ledger. Okay? This cannot go on. You just can't wake up every damn day and be wondering how has Ledger screwed up today? And while I wish this guy well because this is a horrible thing to have happen. You need to get off your ledger. So, let's let's keep this guy in our prayers. I hope that Eric, Larchovec gets back home safe.
I hope everything's okay, but man, this is this is not going to end. Like, there will be other kidnappings. Again, heed my warnings. If you go to Bitcoin conferences, or even if you don't, even if you're just walking around your hometown and you're wearing the Bitcoin swag, stop. Don't do that. You just make yourself a target. Okay? Just please don't do that kind of stuff. Alright. Let's get on to the news of the day. This is the big news. Ross Ulbricht has been freed. He not only had his sentence commuted, he actually got pardoned. And there is a difference and we'll talk about it after this from The Block and James Hunt writing, Coinbase exec claims to identify I know, hold bear with me. Coinbase executive claims to identify 430 Bitcoin associated with Ross Ulbricht, and it's been untouched for 13 years. And this leads us believe me, this is gonna lead us into the into the pardon thing.
Coinbase director of product strategy and business operations, Connor Grogan, claims to have identified approximately 430 Bitcoin across dozens of wallets associated with Silk Road creator, Ross Ulbricht, who has received a full and unconditional pardon from President Donald Trump on Tuesday. Grogan stated on Twitter that the funds are not part of the approximate 100 and 74,000 Bitcoin seized from Silk Road linked wallets by US authorities following the platform shutdown back in 2013 and have been untouched for over 13 years. The Coinbase director included a screenshot displaying 1 of Ulbrich's potential Bitcoin addresses.
That address has a balance of 88.77 BTC, according to the blockchain explorer mempool. Back then, these were probably dust wallets. Now, collectively, they are worth about, oh, $47,000,000 Grogan wrote. Welcome back, Ross. However, Grogan acknowledged that it was unlikely that Olbrich still had the private keys stored anywhere. Quote, I guess we will know soon enough, he said. And we come to the presidential pardon. President Donald Trump officially officially signed a full and unconditional pardon for Ross Ulbricht late Tuesday, leading to celebrations and relief across the community after more than ten years of incarceration for the Silk Road creator, integrally tied to Bitcoin's early history. Quote, I just called the mother of Ross William Ulbricht to let her know that in honor of her and the libertarian movement, which supported me so strongly, it was my pleasure to have just signed a full and unconditional pardon of her son, Ross, Trump wrote in a truth social post on Tuesday announcing the news, quote, words cannot express how grateful we are. The family's free Ross campaign account responded on Twitter.
President Trump is a man of his word, and he just saved Ross's life. Ross is a free man. Umbricht was serving 2 life sentences, plus 40 years. If you didn't catch that, he was serving not one life sentence, but 2 life sentences and another additional 40 year sentence on top of that for his role in operating Silk Road, a darknet market that facilitated the sale of narcotics and other illegal products and services using Bitcoin. The FBI arrested him in October of 2013 before being convicted in 2015 for engaging in a continual criminal enterprise, distributing narcotics, conspiring to distribute narcotics, conspiring to commit money laundering, conspiring to traffic and false identity documents, and other charges.
Alright. So that's the end of the article. So here there's 2 things that are important. 1, Ross got freed. But he got freed by a presidential pardon and not a commutation of his sentence. Now here's the difference. We expected we expected Trump to commute Ross Ulbrich's sentence, and that was would've that is, like, the lesser of what could've happened. And all it meant if he if it had just been a commutation of his sentence, Ross would walk free from federal penitentiary, and he would never be tried on those charges again, and everything was gonna be fine. Right? But but he would still have all the federal convictions and his sentencing on his record.
With a full and unconditional presidential pardon, that is now wiped away. We expected him to have his sentence commuted, but he got pardoned instead. Now, yesterday, I was really tough on on orange man. It took somebody on Noster to say, hey, did you notice something? And I I I am remiss. I cannot remember the person's name on Noster that brought it to everybody's attention, but he did. And what he said was, did anybody notice that President Trump waited until 21st to pardon Ross Ulbricht? And 21 is an important number in Bitcoin because of 21,000,000. I mean, the number 21 is all over the place when it comes to Bitcoin.
And honestly, it's, you know, it's it made me stop and think. Is it possible that Donald Trump did it on purpose, that he didn't free Ross on day 1 because it would be more poignant to free him the next day, which would be day number 21? I'm telling you, numerology is is rather important to the human species. For some reason, important numbers mean things, especially when we acknowledge them publicly. Now I have no idea whether or not Trump waited on purpose for a full day so that he could get this done on 21st. I would still have much rather it happened on 20th, the day that he said that he was going to do it. He said he was gonna do it on day 1. I know. I sound like I'm bitching. I promise you I'm not. I'm just happy that Ross is free. But I can't just let it, you know, completely let it go without saying the final thing. He promised that he was gonna do a thing on a certain day, and he didn't do that thing on that certain day.
And that just kinda rankles me. I would have much rather Ross been already home instead of having to wait a day because of some special number. Now, it turns out that yesterday was, well, yesterday was my birthday. So Ross, on the same day as my birthday, January 21st, got out of prison and it dawned on me, like, when he when he was released that, oh, shit. He got released on my birthday. So now my birthday, which I never equated the fact that the 21st January being my birthday, was that number, 21. So, somehow or another, the numerology is just sort of all over the place, but the important thing is that Ross is free. And, and, here's the second thing.
Is it possible that he really could have 430 Bitcoin available to him? Even if he only gets a couple of those wallets that this, Connor Grogan is talking about, then he doesn't have to worry. And this is this is what I hope, however, I'm I'm a little well, I don't wanna say fearful, but this is what I do worry about. If if somehow or another he accesses any of these wallets that could have ever been associated with his name, will this cause problems with federal charges? Is there something lurking under the surface that we don't see yet? I want him to have this Bitcoin.
I want him to be able to have all of his Bitcoin, but he's not going to get that stuff back from the United States government. The 174,000, that Bitcoin is gone. And I'm talking about 174,000 Bitcoin, not dollars. Alright. That's gone. I don't believe there's a hope in hell that he would ever see any of that money ever again even though he got a pardon. That is now owned by the United States Marshals Service and the United States government. However, this Coinbase stuff that, you know, that Connor is talking about, that does seem to be free and clear.
Will it be? Will it remain so? When Connor Grogan broke this news, is it possible that now the Feds will want to abscond with this Bitcoin as well? We will have to see what happens next. But if he can get at least like 10 or 20 Bitcoin, Ross doesn't have to worry and his mom doesn't have to worry. And hats off to Lynn Ulbricht for holding the fire burning as bright as she has for over a decade for her son and the Free Ross movement. We won. We did it. Lynne did it. Ross won. We won. Bitcoin won. We were winners yesterday. There's no losing yesterday at all.
So, take the win, put it in your back pocket, let's now get snowed in out of that thing. Free snowed in. Free snowed in. Free Snowden. Let's move over to Zoltan Vardy, who's writing for Cointelegraph. The United States court has overturned the tornado cash sanctions in a pivotal case for crypto. Here we go again. What is it this time? Well, a US court has overturned the sanctions against the Tornado Cash cryptocurrency mixing protocol in a decision that could signal a shift in or a significant shift towards more innovative, friendly regulations for privacy preserving technologies.
The United States Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, also known as OFAC, originally sanctioned Tornado Cash in August of 2022. OFAC accused it of facilitating money laundering by the North Korean Lazarus Group. The group was alleged to have laundered more than $455,000,000 in stolen digital assets through the Tornado Cash Protocol. Those sanctions led to the arrest of Tornado Cash developer, Alexei Pertsev, who was found guilty of money laundering by Dutch judges in the S. Hertogenbosch Court of Appeal on May 14, 2024. Pertsev was sentenced to 5 years 4 months in prison for laundering 1 point $2,000,000,000 in illicit assets through the platform.
In a significant legal development, the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas has reversed that OFAC sanction. According to a January 21st court filing, the court ruled, quote, it is ordered and adjudged that the judgment of the district court is reversed and the cause is remanded to the district court for further proceedings in accordance with the opinions of this court. Alright. Well, so now despite the victory, and it is a victory for Tornado Cash, Pertsev remains in custody on money laundering charges. During his trial in March of 2024, Pertsev argued that he can't be held liable for the actions of users who use the tornado cash protocol for illegal activities.
The court rejected this defense, stating that Pertsev and the other co founders of Tornado Cash could have implemented additional measures to prevent misuse of the protocol. I'm pausing there to say, how would the court know that? Does the court know how to program computers? Does the court know how to wrangle protocols? Does the court know how to do any of the things that they suggested? I could go, you know what the court could do? And I could list off a laundry list of all manner of shit the DOJ could do. That doesn't make me at all credible, not in the least bit.
So I reject anything coming out of what's being said here that the court said that, well, you could have done something about this. You know what? You do it. If you think it could be done, then you prove how it could be done so that we know that your statement that you could have done something is actually not only true and viable, but implementable. Just saying. Let let's let's continue here. The court ruling comes after 6 Tornado Cash users filed an appeal against OFAX sanctions. The appeal, issued on November 6, 2024, argued that OFAC overstepped its statutory authority by blacklisting Tornado Cash in 2022.
And the filing stated, we hold that Tornado Cash's immutable smart contracts, the lines of privacy embedded software code, are not the property of a foreign national or entity, meaning that one, they cannot be blocked under IEEPA and 2, OFAC overstepped its congressionally defined authority. The 6 plaintiffs argued that blockchain transactions can be traceable which is why some crypto users want additional options to keep their transactions private. The Tornado Cash Sanctions raised significant concerns for developers of privacy preserving technologies, Offering privacy preserving features in legally compliant manners will be essential for future privacy protocols, Matthew Niemerg, co founder and president of AlphaZero Tollcoin Telegraph.
In the interim, industry insiders are hoping to see more developments in Pertsev's own legal case after the OFAC sanctions have been reversed. Okay. So the the very thing that this guy, this Pertsev dude and and clear you know, clearly some of the other guy or the other guy, I think, Roman was it Roman Storm? Anyway, anyway, the whole reason that he was convicted, all the charges had to do with the fact that this was not that that OFAC's sanctions were sound, that this was the correct move by OFAC to make these sanctions. But now that a 5th Circuit tech, which is the Texas, you know, essentially the Texas region, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned and said OFAC sanctions were not permissible.
But that's a Dutch court. See, this is where shit gets really really confusing about ceding any kind of authority to any for any country to cede any kind of authority to anything outside of their own country, like FATF, f a t f. This is one of the these are one of the biggest ones, but OFAC having a Dutch court convict one of their own citizens oh, I guess I don't know if Perzep is actually one of the is a Dutch citizen or not, but this court convicted him on this OFAC thing and now a 5th circuit and OFAC is United States based. It's falls under the the department of treasury.
Now the 5th circuit court of appeal said, no. You can't do that. So what does the Dutch court do? Well, it looks like they haven't done shit, but do they have to? That's the real question here. Everything is too muddled. You if you are in somebody's country and you break you violate that country's law legals or laws or legal constitution mandates or something like that, then that country has the right to do whatever they want to do with you, unless somehow or another the state department of your own country works out a deal and somehow gets your ass back. But with without that happening, you break a law in in, like, you know, the Netherlands, then you should probably and you're found guilty and it's proved?
You're probably going to jail in the Netherlands. But if you break a law that is, like, somehow or another guided by the United States, like in the like the office of foreign asset control under the United States Treasury Department, but you're in France? France should have literally nothing to do with that. France should look at the United States and says, this is not our law. Like, if he break breaks a French law, then, yeah, we're gonna, you know, we're gonna try and we're gonna put him in jail. But this has become so muddy because of things like OFAC and things like countries in the European Union looking at things like OFAC and saying, well, we'll use their guidance.
Man, that this this is not good. So we don't know what's going to happen now because we've already got the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has basically been bitch slapping this entire case for the last 3 days, and nothing seems to have changed. So, we will as we move forward, we will, like, look at people like Lola Leads, who has a little bit more of an ear on what's going on. And if she says something about it, God knows, I will bring it to you here on the Bitcoin and podcast. But before we do, we're gonna do decrypt.co and Andrei Beganski who's writing this one. Oh, and watch out for this one, guys.
Protected Bitcoin ETFs are hitting the market. Here's what that means. Before we even read it, it means stay away. I wouldn't even buy a regular ETF. Get just stop believing shit like, oh, you're protected. You'll know what I mean here in a minute. Bitcoin's price has been a roller coaster ride for investors for 15 years, but a new batch, a brand spanking new batch of Bitcoin ETFs will seek to replace the asset stomach churning free falls with relatively modest declines or not at all. Yeah. No declines, guys. What you should already be running for the hills. Calamos is the name of the company and Calamos' first protected Bitcoin ETF will hit the market Wednesday, that's today, offering investors 100% downside protection against Bitcoin's price with limited upside potential.
From retail investors to financial advisors, Bitcoin's risk profile has deterred a notable number of market participants who may be wary of Bitcoin's steep draw downs despite its growing adoption, Calamos head of ETFs, Matt Kaufman, told Decrypt. Quote, Calamos has built Bitcoin exposure with a safety net, and you can choose how low that safety net goes, he said. Quote, Bitcoin is a historically extremely volatile asset, and so a lot of people have been on the sidelines watching this experiment turn into an institutional reality, end quote. The ETFs will be listed on the Chicago Board of Exchange or the CBOE with its 100% protected Bitcoin ETF set to debut at a price of $25 on Wednesday.
The product's so called cap range, expected to be anywhere between 10% 11.5%, will be struck at the end of the day. From that point on, the ETF will aim to offer 100% downside protection against Bitcoin's price with a cap range struck again next year. Spot Bitcoin ETFs debuted in the US last year, notching $36,200,000,000 worth of net inflows. But since then, Bitcoin's prices climbed a 133 percent from 46 k to 107 k. Yet some analysts that registered investment advisers and wire houses are still warming up to such products, they say, anyway. Among institutional investors, 48% of those surveyed in 2023 said that digital assets price volatility was a considerable obstacle from an investment standpoint, citing that that factor more than anything else according to a Fidelity Digital Assets report.
Meanwhile, 22% of respondents pointed to self In 2 weeks, Calamos, which was founded in 1977, will launch additional ETFs with 80 90% downside protection against Bitcoin. These products will have an estimated cap range of 28% to 31% and 50% to 55%, respectively. The product's risk management framework will be achieved through a combination of US Treasuries and flex options on the CBOE Bitcoin US ETF index. According to Calamos' website, flex options are essentially customizable exchange listed options, which can have 1 year period outcomes as opposed to expiring on the final Friday of each month, Kaufman said.
Kalamos, which has $40,000,000,000 in assets under management, launched similar products covering the S and P 500 and Nasdaq 100 last year. Though the products could find use among a professional investment crowd, Kaufman posited that the products could also cater to investors beyond the typical age of your typical crypto bro. Quote, the adoption for Bitcoin has been on the individual or the retail level, And it's largely been people younger than myself, the 45 year old Kaufman said. We haven't seen too much of the adoption curve from those older investors largely because of the risk tolerance that they just can't take. Alright. So this doesn't sound as bad as I as I initially, nailed it.
But this is a product that guarantees that you will not see all of the upside of Bitcoin while telling you that there will be 100% downside risk, which means that whatever price you bought, you know, bought into what like on like okay. You start out on a Monday and you buy $10,000 worth of this no downside risk ETF from Calamos. And then a week later, the price of Bitcoin has gone up another $1,000 and you buy another 10, you know, another $10,000 worth. You're only as far as I can tell, you're only protected from the times where you get in. So if you're if you bought $10,000 worth of Bitcoin on the 1st day, the 1st week, like, today, like, this is the 1st week that's gonna be offered. You buy it today. And a week later, Bitcoin drops to $90,000.
Your $10,000 investment is completely protected. However, if it goes the other way, and according to this, it it says something like 10% to 13 point or 11.5% upside. If bitcoin goes to a price that is more than 10% to the upside or 11% to the upside, anything after that, you don't get. So if it goes up 15%, you're going to not get 4.5 percent of that upside potential because that is going to be taken by Calamos to ensure that if they do go to the downside, that they've got enough bitcoin or at least enough cash, depending on what they do with it, to actually cover that quote unquote downside risk. So you're buying an insurance contract directly into the retail product of a Bitcoin spot ETF.
I still don't think that this is a good idea for your general Joe. Why? Because you have every ability to buy bitcoin yourself. You can do it through Swan Bitcoin. You can do it through strike. You can do it through what? Cash App. You there's all manner of places that you can buy Bitcoin directly and transfer it into your own possession. You do not need a spot Bitcoin ETF even with downside protection. However, this is probably going to be this is probably going to be a well subscribed product line. Just because people cannot handle the ups and downs of this market. And speaking of, let's run the numbers.
Wow. It's really messy out there this morning, ladies and gentlemen. Trump is threatening Russia with sanctions and tariffs if Putin doesn't end the Ukraine war immediately. And according to CNBC, has ordered all federal diversity, equity, and inclusion employees to be placed on paid leave starting immediately. Holy shit. This is gonna be a shit show, man. I'm telling you, Apex Cloud World is all in front of our faces right now, but oil is down a half point to 75.46 a barrel. Brent Norsey, likewise, down a third. 7902.
Natural gas is up 5 full percentage points to $3.94 per 1,000 cubic feet. Gasoline is down 1.2 percent just over $2 a barrel. We got gold up 0.4 percent to $27.70.20. Silver is down 0.16. Platinum is up a quarter. Copper is down almost a full point, and palladium is in the other direction, 3 points to the upside. Biggest winner in ag today is coffee. Yeah? 4.61% to the upside. Biggest loser looks to be lumber. 1 and a half to the downside. Live cattle is up a full point. Lean hogs are up over a half point and feeder cattle up 2.15 percentage points. The Dow is up a third and the S and P is up 3 quarters of a point, but the Nasdaq blowing through the ceiling 1 and a half percent to the upside today.
And Bitcoin is, well, bouncing around because these idiots keep waiting for Trump to say SBR. And, like I said, it seems that there may be a little bit of weirdness going on with the SBR, at least according to NewsBTC. I'll give you the skinny. United States Bitcoin Reserve. Eric Trump's deleted tweet raises eyebrows. So an entire market's value right now hangs in the balance because one guy deleted a tweet. Let me just get into it here. Okay. I'm sorry. I I just I think it's the whole thing is freaking stupid. Anyway, while the Bitcoin price is hovering just below the old all time high of December 17th, US senators Cynthia Lummis and Eric Trump reportedly convened at the Capitol yesterday to discuss the notion of creating the American Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.
Bloomberg's Stephen Dennis broke the news while SWAN, a crypto focused platform, spotlighted Eric Trump's now deleted retweet about the meeting. Almost as soon as Eric Trump retweeted Swan's post, referencing talks with Senator Lummis on the SBR, he deleted it without explanation. Quote, what's brewing behind the scenes? Swan queried in a subsequent tweet suggesting the swift deletion could indicate high level caution possibly to avoid front running unofficial announcement. That's all that honestly, there's a whole much board of that story. We don't need to read it. This is this is this is the kind of shit that makes markets move. Janet Yellen wore a purple dress, Eric treat Trump deleted a tweet. Are you serious?
I mean, it's like we're all 4 years old. And, like, you know, like, we're just, like, we you know, our our pacifier is being held in front of our face by our dad and he keeps pulling it away from us and every time he does it makes us cry and then when he shoves it back and, you know, close to us, we start grinning again and it's like dad playing with his little baby. And it's just freaking juvenile and embarrassing, ladies and gentlemen. Just because this dude deleted a tweet, doesn't mean that everybody needs to just get their panties all in an uproar. Whatever. We're at a $103,820.
That is a $2,060,000,000,000 market cap. You can now only purchase 70 no. 70, my ass. 37.7 ounces of shiny metal rocks with your 1 Bitcoin of which there are 19,000,000 813,473.16 of. Average fees per block stand at 0.06 BTC taken in fees on a per block basis. And there are 54 blocks carrying a 127,000 unconfirmed transactions waiting to clear at high priority rates of 8 satoshis per v byte. Low priority is gonna get you in at 6. Hash rate on a 1 week rolling average is 70 7 no. 773.7 exahashes per second. So do with that what you will. From yesterday's episode of Bitcoin and the Apex clown world, I got Kern 88 with 47100 sat says bitcoin miners in Texas on demand response contracts get incentives and rebates for turning off when demand is high. They also operate with direct hour ahead pricing.
When demand is high, their electricity price is high and the miner shuts off. No king or country needed. Just cold hard profits and the alchemy of Bitcoin. Happy birthday, sir. Thank you, Hearn. I appreciate that. He's reminding us that they're shutting it off not out of the goodness of their heart. They're shutting it off because they're in the market, and it's in their best interest to actually shut off the mining because they can sell that electricity at those high prices back to the grid. It is he's right to to make sure that that I bring that to you. It's not out of the goodness of their hearts. They are market driven and because they are allowed to actually operate as a free market, at least for now, they're doing what a free market does.
Adjust themselves to all the variables that they can actually look at and discover that impact them. And if they don't want to be impacted negatively, then they're going to shift gears. That's the way a market works. Anonymous with 3,333 SAT says, boozed. Augee Chute with 2222 says, your favorite project did not reapply for the open SATS grant. They didn't. They did your favorite project did not reapply for the open SATS grant. This is he's talking about project Alexandria, and it is one of my absolute favorite projects in Noster right now. And if anybody from those guys are listening, please reapply.
Please please please reapply. Mark from 21 with or Mark with with 21 100 Sat says happy birthday. Dude, thank you. I appreciate that. Cole McCormick probably gonna lambast me here, but he does give me some sats. He gives me a 1,111 of them. It's a nice row of sticks. Says two thoughts on Trump's crypto games. One, he has decades of history branding his name on easy to market products. The meme coins are no different. So business as usual, I'd say. 2 a, government and monetary policy are going through their own little ICO phase. History proves it all leads back to Bitcoin. 2 b every other shitcoin being valued by the government has zero impact on either inflation worsening or Bitcoin in general.
If pricing infinite money is increasing debt is a problem, I can easily see why pro crypto Trump world wants these other coins. The creation of more crypto does not negatively affect the US. The continued creation and hence devaluation of the dollar does. Trump made a joke about writing a crypto check to cover national debt. If the US legitimizes crypto and uses that as a path to cover debt, that only helps Bitcoinization. Am I crazy? No, probably not. However, none of us really know how this is really going to roll out. I mean, I can see what you're saying, but I'm always going to be locked into this thought of and I am unapologetic about it. If you touch a shit coin, you're a shit coiner.
It means you have no ethics, and it means that you don't really know what's going on. That's my issue. Now, just because they don't really understand Bitcoin doesn't mean that they don't understand the shitcoin market enough to say, hey, we can use this to our advantage. Well, yeah. That's all shitcoiners say that. And then they get either rug pulled or their hair catches on fire and they burn down to ash because Arthur Hayes is grinning at them at a 100x leverage. I'm telling you, this shit never works out the way these people think it's going to work out, whether it's Trump or some dipshit in his mom's basement day trading shit coins. That's what I'm saying. I'm certainly not saying that you're crazy.
If they really have their shit together over there at the government or this new administration, then maybe in the short to medium term they can actually do something with the shitcoin field that somehow or another benefits the United States dollar and therefore I guess the United States citizenry. But, honestly, man, that they might as well go for me and my money. I'd rather go to Vegas and take odds on roulette on getting that shit right. That's my 2¢ there. Bag of sats 21 with 1,021 sats. That sounds like January 21st to me. It says, happy birthday, my dear friend. Thank you, sir. FOMO chronic with 1,001 sats says nothing.
At with 1,000 literally, it's just the at symbols with 1,000 sats says nothing. Zplbzx with a 1,000 says happy birthday, man. Dude, thank you. Anonymous with a 1,000 says happy birthday, man. Thank you. I appreciate that. God's death of 537. Thank you, sir. Thank you. No. I did that wrong. Thank you, sir. No. Thank you. HBH Gardens with 500 says nothing. And he literally writes says nothing. BTC master with a 121 says all sats matter at allsatsmatter.com. Nostra Gang with a 100 says, happy birthday. Thank you for your precious time and energy. And thank you Nostra Gang for your precious sats.
Anything else? I think that's it. And that's the weather report. Welcome to part 2 of the news that you can use. Well, let's get into this one from Yoshua Gola from Cointelegraph. Buy Bitcoin. Stock price goes up 80%. Rumble follows MicroStrategy's strategy. It's like one of the worst headlines ever, dude. Oh my god. Let's find out what it actually means. Rumble Incorporated, a video sharing platform revealed that it has indeed purchased its very first Bitcoin just ahead of Donald Trump's inauguration event on January 20th, noting that it won't be the last Bitcoin purchase for the company. And indeed, Chris Pavlovsky from Rumble said, on January 20th at 6:12 PM On Friday, Rumble made its first ever purchase of Bitcoin and it won't be the last.
The announcement appeared nearly 2 months after Rumble confirmed its plans to allocate $20,000,000 from its excess cash reserves to purchase Bitcoin. The company said that their purchase will depend primarily on the wider crypto market conditions, including BTC's price and their platform's cash needs. Bitcoin established a new record high of over a 109,000 dollars on January 20th, just ahead of Trump swearing in as the 47th president of the United States. Rumble's foray into Bitcoin appears to be motivated by a combination of financial and strategic factors mentioned in MicroStrategy's playbook, namely using Bitcoin as a hedge against inflation and dollar devaluation.
So, yeah. Rumble has bought Bitcoin and their stock has gone up by what what did it say? 80%. Oh my god. That's just insane. I think honestly, I I think there's a little bit of overheat on this and we should probably be very careful going into the future as to how much credence we give the stability of any Bitcoin price because companies like Rumble and are all started. Now we've got states that want to start buying bitcoin or well they're probably also going to shit coin as well they'll they'll learn their lesson but Utah apparently is also getting into it so with all these companies buying bitcoin more companies are on the way to buy Bitcoin.
It's going to cause short squeezes along the way. It's just, I mean, it's not intentional short squeezes. It's just, like, at one point or another, there's going to be a little bit of liquidity squeeze because people are like wanting to buy bitcoin and other people don't want to sell it at that price so the price is naturally going to increase but what happens if they stop buying That's an easy question to answer. But at least in the short to mid term, this is the trend, right? And like I said, Utah is getting into it as well, according to Atlas21 dotcom.
Utah embraces Bitcoin and has proposed a law to invest public funds. Ah, but wait. There's more. On January 20th, that was yesterday, Utah no. Day before yesterday. Utah representative Jordan Tusher introduced the Blockchain and Digital Innovation Amendments or House Bill 230, which authorizes Utah, to invest a portion of public funds in digital assets. Quote, This bill reflects our commitment to embracing cutting edge technology and preparing for the future of finance while ensuring fiscal sovereignty. The proposed legislation allows for the investment of up to 10% of several state accounts including the state disaster recovery restricted account, the general fund budget reserve account, income tax fund budget reserve account, and the Medicaid growth reduction and Budget Stabilization account.
To qualify as an eligible investment, digital assets must maintain a market capitalization exceeding $500,000,000,000 and that's calculated over a 12 month average or comply with stablecoin regulations. This requirement makes Bitcoin the only cryptocurrency available for investment. The bill mandates that the state store private keys in an encrypted environment accessible only through end to end encrypted channels. Additionally, the hardware containing the private keys must be kept in at least 2 geographically diversified secured data centers.
The legislation also protects individual self custody rights prohibiting any state or local government entity from restricting the use of software or hardware wallets. This is actually better than I thought. Utah's initiative is part of a larger national movement towards digital asset adoption also fueled by President Donald Trump's support for a strategic Bitcoin reserve. If it is passed, Utah's law will take effect on May 7th of this year, 2025. You know, there's a lot of language in this story that suggests that the Bitcoin Policy Institute has probably got their hands all over this. And I'm talking about the, the hardware containing the private keys must be kept in 2 geographically diversified data centers.
And the legislation protects individual self custody rights prohibiting any state or local government entity from restricting the use of the software or hardware wallets. This is actually good news. And the fact that the way that they structured the what they were would be legally able to invest in this whole has the market cap has to exceed $500,000,000,000 over a 12 month average, makes Bitcoin making Bitcoin the only cryptocurrency available for investment is is kinda nice at start, but I guarantee you, and it's not because I want it to be this way, but when one of these other idiot shit coins reaches that level, I can almost guarantee you that Utah will start buying it and then they will lose money because it's a shit coin and they don't understand what Bitcoin actually is. We got a long way to go ladies and gentlemen and we might as well start educating people to get over to Noster.
And speaking of Nostr, Domus version 1.12 has been released and I downloaded it today and it has definitely fixed some of my little red wagon. There are user experience improvements and fixes available and Domus, if you did not know, is a Twitter like Nostra client for the iPhone, iPad, and macOS. Sorry. It is not available on Android. Quote, it's app store release day for Domus. Thanks again to our loyal purple subscribers for helping us continue to improve the UX and pointing out important changes and fixes, announce the project, end quote.
Well, well, actually, end quote, announce the project. This update introduces the rendering of GIFs and video files while you're composing posts. It gives you the ability to paste GIF images like JPEG and PNG files along with some other UX improvements and bug fixes. Let's see if there's anything else here. It says on what's new, not only the whole rendering of GIFs and whatnot, but add profile into text in stretchable banner with follow button. I don't know what that means and I I looked at my domus after I updated it and I'm not seeing stretchable banner stuff with follow buttons on on my profile, but whatever.
There's improved accessibility support on some of the elements and improved UX around the label for searching words. So there you go. If you're you if you're a Domus user, make sure that you update to the newest version today. Bull Bitcoin expands into Europe. Finally, thank God. Bull Bitcoin is a regulated non custodial Bitcoin exchange and payments service. Quote, Bull Bitcoin is now available on the old continent to help Europeans reclaim their sovereignty, use our platform to buy, sell, and pay any bank account with Bitcoin today, end quote, announce the project. See, I got that right. According to the terms and conditions of the service, it is now available in the following countries. Listen up. Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden.
That's a mouthful. Quote, we arrive in Europe with a brand new platform, the culmination of nearly 3 years of rigorous development. This third version of bull bitcoin is designed to deliver a superior bitcoin experience to European users combining speed, security, efficiency, and an unwavering commitment to sovereignty, added the project. So key features, lightning network support. You can make fast, low cost bitcoin payments. It's ideal for small amounts in high fee areas and times or near instant transactions. It has instant SEPA or SEPA transfers. You can buy and sell bitcoin in under 5 minutes with SEPA or SEPA instant transfers.
And 3rd, self custody and transparency. With Bull Bitcoin, users hold their own keys. That's important. And maintain full Bitcoin custody. There are no hidden fees and withdrawal costs are covered. Every transaction is blockchain time stamped for transparency. Future updates to the platform include plans to implement third party payments, auto buy and dollar cost averaging features, real estate transactions, that should be interesting, and business to business bitcoin solutions and more. So there you go. If you're a bull bitcoin user or wanted to you're European and you've been wanting to use bull Bitcoin, now is your chance because it looks like that announcement covers most of the European Union. So Breeze SDK also has an update.
Excuse me. Nodeless version 0.6.2, real time sync, pay to BIP353 addresses, and more. Breeze SDK and Nodeless, the liquid implementation, is a nodeless lightning integration that provides a self custodial end to end solution for incorporating Lightning payments. It utilizes the Liquid network for on chain interoperability and supports third party fiat onramps. Holy shit, they integrated Liquid. The Breeze software development kit, or SDK, provides developers with an end to end solution for integrating self custodial lightning payments into their apps and services. Developers can work with Breeze SDK greenlight and liquid implementations.
Version 0.6.2 of Breeze SKD, I think they did that wrong. S probably sdk because the software development kit. Liquid brings real time synchronization of payment metadata and swap information for a better multi device experience and the ability to pay BIP353 addresses and the ability to receive bitcoin without specifying any amounts. It also enables external input parser integration including out of the box support for pick and pay QR codes and adds payment expiration information for pending payments. Nice. Nice. This man, see, Breeze has been around for a long time, and they keep knocking it out of the park. And this Breeze is old, dude.
It's like 5 years old. It's probably old. Actually, it's gotta be older than that. I started using Breeze. God, it's gotta be 6 or 7 years now. Holy shit. And they integrated liquid. That's gonna be an interesting play. BTC pay server version 2.0.6 has been released. There is a fix to prevent duplicate payouts in certain on chain configurations. If you're a b t c pay server user, you need to probably get this. Essentially, it's just a bunch of fixes, but it's that real the real one is that security fix to fix, that fix to prevent duplicate payouts in certain on chain configurations.
There's also some looks like search engine optimization stuff going on in there, and then there's a whole bunch of like migration stuff. I'm not gonna read the list because that is it for the day. So, ladies and gentlemen, the takeaway today is that Ross is free. Trump made good. I mean, even though he didn't do it on day 1, I honestly I'm just gonna let it go. Whatever. Ross is out. Ross Olbricht is out. He's out of prison. There was a picture posted last night of him walking across the parking lot. I can only assume it was the Tucson Penitentiary at night holding a little plant. He looked happy and he looks young, and he's 40 years old. I mean, he that is young. I'm just saying that, you know, he he lost 10 years of his life. Actually, you know what?
I don't think Ross did lose 10 years of his life. Ross ended up being one of the inmates in that prison that is the kind of inmate you read about. He was teaching other inmates how to program. And I guarantee you, he taught other inmates how to use Bitcoin and probably the lightning network and probably e cash. But he was teaching other inmates skills while he was there. He wasn't just sitting on his ass, you know, in his little cell crying like, you know, crying like a little girl. Now he went through he gave a I think he gave a, a speech where he was thrown in a hole for a very very long time, and I don't know if he stayed in that hole the entire time, and we're talking solitary confinement. He gave a speech at, like, a Bitcoin Miami conference, I think. It was either Miami. I'm pretty sure it was Miami. It was it was it should have been a while back, and he got into a lot of trouble for giving that speech. And he got thrown into solitary confinement.
I don't know the particulars. I do know that during the time that Ross was not in solitary confinement, either before and or after he got out of solitary confinement if he did get out of solitary confinement, like I said, I don't know. But there was a time that he was not in solitary. He was in general population, and he was helping other inmates learn things about computers, whether it's programming, how to use and god only knows what else he taught them, like I said. But he's like one of those inmates that will teach another inmate how to read. He'll make you know, like, will actually do something while they're there, like write a book or take up art. And they're they're not just like some kind of shitbag just waiting to get out to go do, you know, horrendous things.
He was that guy. For the 10 years that he was in prison, he was that guy. He remained one of the best people that we have to offer from humanity, and he remained that way for 10 years. His mom, while on the outside, did nothing but advocate for her son. She never quit, He never quit. We never quit, and we won yesterday. There was no loss. It was 100% winning all day long. Now we need to focus on getting Snowden out of his little situation. My only problem with Snowden is that if for whatever reason he does get pardoned, he pissed so many people off at the CIA, I'd be scared for him to come back.
I mean, I wanted to get pardoned, but I'd I'd honestly, like, fear for his life if he stepped anywhere close to outside of Russia where he's at right now. Or at least that's what last I heard he was in Russia. Simply because there's so many people in the CIA that I think just absolutely want him dead. But that's for Snowden to work out. All we can really do is start rattling the cage of, I guess, hashtag free Snowden and let's start that one up and see if we can get Trump to free yet another innocent person. Anyway, with all that said, have a good day.
And when Ross comes back, don't ask him to come on your podcast. Why don't we give him a little rest? Why don't we do that? Let's let him and his family bond. Let's not immediately start going I'm going to be the first one to get him on our on the podcast or on the YouTube channel or write an article about. Okay? Leave him alone. Let him heal. Give him 6 months. Give him a year. Or, in fact, just wait until he wants to talk to somebody. Just be respectful. He's been in hell for 10 years, and it's not fair for us to just walk all up and down his ass the second that he gets out even if we're happy about it. Right? And that's gonna be hard for a lot of people to do. But if he does come back, just say hello.
We love you. We're glad that you're free. Thank God. Thank you, Trump. I'll see you on the other side.
Introduction and Market Overview
