Join me today for Episode 1024 of Bitcoin And . . .
Topics for today:
- Trump's EO Backlash
- Davos in Disarray
- SEC Says 'BYE' to SAB-121
- BOJ's Rate Hike Didn't Burn the World Down
#Bitcoin #BitcoinAnd
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https://decrypt.co/302490/trump-executive-order-federal-crypto-reserve-no-bitoin
https://primal.net/e/note14fhn3unyaxqly2mkyzxn9sl5dnhyczqqcar7ahdf5f5nyxpzsh5sglrdhj
https://www.theblock.co/post/336850/ecb-pushes-for-digital-euro-in-response-to-trumps-crypto-executive-order-that-could-further-disintermediate-banks
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/sec-rescinds-sab-121-permitting-banks-to-custody-bitcoin
https://cointelegraph.com/news/microstrategy-pay-unrealized-tax-bitcoin-holdings-report
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https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2025/01/24/bitcoin-steady-near-usd104k-after-bank-of-japan-delivers-a-hawkish-rate-hike
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/takes/ethereums-looming-collapse-is-a-lesson-in-blockchain-integrity
https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/breez-raises-5m-to-bring-bitcoin-payments-to-every-app/
https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/us-federal-court-rules-backdoor-searches-of-fisa-section-702-data-unconstitutional-2/
https://www.coindesk.com/business/2025/01/24/real-estate-firm-propy-is-rolling-out-crypto-backed-loans-to-buy-houses
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[00:00:03]
David Bennett:
It is 10:0:2 AM Pacific Standard Time. It's the 24th day of January 2025. This is episode, well, wouldn't you know it? 1,025 of Bitcoin and, well, the Trump executive order came out. Yeah. So we're gonna get into a little bit of that. And Low Elites has a counterargument to most of the arguments that were made yesterday given this executive order. But then we're gonna push on over to the European Central Bank where they are absolutely losing their minds. They are running scared. They are freaking out. And I guess this has to do with the fact that pretty much all of Davos is in some kind of, seems to be in some kind of damage control mood because you got this what are the what are the head honchos out of Spain is talking about complete complete dissolution of any anonymity when it comes to identity online.
He's specifically talking about social media, but that would bleed over into pretty much anything. You wouldn't be able to pay a parking ticket online without proper identity, even though, yeah, I know if you got a parking ticket, your identity is already known. I get it. I'm just saying it's gonna be a lot more than social media. You got another there's another person over at Davos that's talking about the same thing. They just have to do away with any kind of anonymity. And this to me all this all just seems like some kind of absolute losing their minds, hair on fire, running around, trying to do some kind of damage control.
I can't imagine what they're trying to control damage from. Maybe it would be because, well, orange man. But the SEC, the Securities and Exchange Commission has well rescinded a major rule. MicroStrategy may owe some taxes on unrealized gains. This is rather disturbing. We'll get into that one. Bank of Japan is also gonna be in the news. There might be a yen carry trade issue coming. I'm gonna talk a little bit more about this Ethereum mutiny slash collapse slash damage control. They're doing some damage control themselves. Breeze is in the news and the US Federal Court has ruled on something that may be unconstitutional.
We'll we'll get into it. And then we've got a little bit of real estate news. And I wanna begin by saying that CoinDesk looks like they are going over to some kind of subscription model. However, since I discovered that yesterday, the message on coindesk.com seems to have changed as a major news outlet that I use to bring you the news. They are throwing up a banner that says you need an account. But now, either I didn't notice it yesterday or they've changed it. They want you to register for a free account. And, yeah, they don't have any ability to use a Noster ID. They want your email. So no matter how far down this road we travel, it seems to me that nobody is understanding what we have at our fingertips.
And that there is just no way to get these people to understand we're kinda done with all this bullshit identity crap. We don't need it. We don't want it. It's not good for anybody. It ends up being a major honeypot. So I'm just waiting for CoinDesk to figure it out, and I honestly doubt they will. But let's start with the orange man. It's been a it's been a wild week for the Trump administration, doing all kinds of neat stuff, I guess, depending on what you think is neat. It is definitely different. All right? So it is not I mean, a lot of us kind of expected some collateral damage on the left, but I do not think that the left figured out, as quick as they should have just how immense the collateral damage was going to be. But he did the executive order. He did it. He signed it. And it's great. Right? Well, I don't particularly think so because it just sounds like a dumpster fire to me. And let's start it off with Andrew Hayward and Sandra Lutz writing for decrypt.
Trump executive order paves the way for federal crypto reserve, but doesn't mention Bitcoin, like, at all. President Donald Trump signed his first crypto related executive order on Thursday, Formally establishing a presidential working group, oh boy, on digital asset markets and laying the groundwork for exploring some of his campaign promises, including potentially establishing a national reserve for bitcoin and other assets. The presidential working group will advise Trump on matters related to crypto policy and inform his decision making with regards to the industry.
Its day to day operations will be managed by a guy named Beau Hines, nice name, bro, A one time Republican congressional nominee and former college football player. Yay. The group will also include the secretary of the treasury, the SEC, and CFTC heads, and other department and agency leaders. Decrypt previously reported that the council is expected to consist of 20 crypto founders and CEOs, industry donors to Trump's presidential campaign, and perhaps his inaugural fund as well are likely to be prioritized. The group doesn't have any real authority besides the opportunity to advise Trump in congress who will make their own decisions.
The executive order titled Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology further tasked the group with exploring the premise of a strategic national digital asset stockpile following Trump's campaign trail promise to establish a Bitcoin national reserve. Yeah. You see the difference there? Anyway, such an idea has been furthered by the senate via senator Cynthia Lummis Lummis' Bitcoin act, plus several states are now considering their own Bitcoin reserve legislation. However, the executive order does not mention Bitcoin by name, nor does it mention any other specific crypto asset.
Furthermore, the order notes that agencies are blocked from launching central bank digital currencies, which are often referred to as digital dollars. These centralized cryptocurrencies have been widely derided by Republicans due to privacy concerns. It also aims to protect and promote the rights of American companies and citizens to transact in self custody cryptocurrency, mine crypto and validate blockchain transactions, and launch blockchain software. It is also expected that Trump will follow-up his first crypto related executive order with several more. A top priority for the industry has been repealing the SEC's SAB 121 rule, which discourages American banks from holding crypto.
Congress repealed that last spring, but former president Joe Biden vetoed the legislation, leaving the rule in place. Other crypto policies that Trump may address in future executive orders include eliminating the SEC's controversial exchange rule, which targets decentralized financial products and directing federal agencies, including the state department, to make fostering crypto innovation a national priority. With or without executive orders, though, the Trump administration is already off to a running start when it comes to crypto. And on Tuesday, the SEC established a new crypto task force led by Hester Pierce, the emphatically pro industry commissioner.
The last force or task last. The task force will aim to craft sensible disclosure frameworks that will allow crypto projects and companies to register legally if needed. Doing so will end the SEC's long standing effective policy of regulating the industry by enforcement, an approach that brought much uncertainty to the sector and pushed many firms out of the country. They didn't get pushed out. They ran. They ran away from this bullshit. Anyway, so this working group came right before he actually signed a full executive order to establish a national crypto reserve, not a Bitcoin reserve.
And, well, rightfully, everybody's lose kind of, well, not losing their minds about it, but they're not happy. And rightfully so I'm not happy about it because it's just let the shit coining commence because that's all it tells me is that it's just going to be an absolute dumpster fire People are going to lose astounding amounts of their money at the retail level, not just institutional, but at the retail level. It has opened the floodgates for every scammer to just have a heyday. And I I don't think it was the right thing to do. In fact, I would have rather him said, you know what, we're not going to do a strategic Bitcoin reserve. Instead, he should have just said, we're gonna let each individual state of the United States find their own path, forge their own way. Some states will choose Bitcoin only. Some states would choose Bitcoin and a whole basket of shitcoins.
Other states will go shitcoin only. But it should be up to the states to be able to do that because the states that actually do figure it out and start either a full 100% Bitcoin strategic reserve or at least a strategic reserve with Bitcoin as a major player in a basket along with a nest of shit coins would bolster the entirety of the United States. You don't really need when you think about it, if the states are able to do it themselves, then at the federal level, there's not really a need for a strategic Bitcoin Reserve. But that's not the way it went.
We're going to be dealing with Ripple for the rest of our lives. We're going to be dealing with Solana for the rest of our lives, and Tron, and all of the other bullshit. And I wish it wasn't that way. I really do. But here, we have low elites who seems to be taking a different tack on this executive order that allows shitcoinery to go full force in the United States. It's Lol Elites, and she has a note here on Nostra that says, so the Trump's crypto executive order is out, and I'm seeing lots of weak bitches cry that it's a shitcoin reserve. See she's talking directly about me although I didn't cry I'm still not happy about this but she's talking about me given the fact that the proposed digital asset stockpile would possibly be built on seized coins let me give you a quick introduction to forfeiture law and why crying for daddy to please, please make its pile of flying horseshit Bitcoin only, literally, the most retarded thing you could be wishing for ever.
I'm gonna pause there because when she says seized coins, in the executive order, there's language that expressly says building this stockpile, this national crypto reserve stockpile off of coins that have already been legally seized by the United States. Right? So that's what she's referring to when she says seized coins. And they were, in fact, forfeited by the person or persons or institutions or whatever that got in trouble with the US government, they were it was a civil asset forfeiture. That's the way this thing works, and she's gonna talk about it right here. Forfeiture law or civil asset forfeiture to be so precise is this fun little game the government plays in which it does not have to accuse you of a crime to confiscate your property.
Instead of accusing you of a crime, the government claims that the asset itself has facilitated a crime and can therefore be seized by the government. In civil asset forfeiture, there is no innocent until proven guilty. To get your property back, you have to prove that the government is wrong, which turns out pretty complicated seeing how it's impossible to prove a negative. Civil asset forfeiture results in cases that are not filed against a person but filed against the property itself. This results in fun little cases like the US versus Binance account XYZ or US versus 123 Binance account XYZ or US versus 123 Wilmington Drive.
To extend this idea to Bitcoin, in a civil forfeiture case, the US government is, in theory, able to seize any Bitcoin that has ever come out of a criminal transaction. Made some Bitcoin by selling a service? Bought some Bitcoin on a P2P exchange? Unless you check that the UTXO you received has never touched a criminal transaction in its entire history, your coins can be confiscated. And there's pretty much nothing you can do about it. Yeah. I got something to say about that. You'll you'll hear it in a sec. As Cato Institute points out in its piece on civil forfeiture reform, forfeiture laws routinely misused to enrich the government. Philadelphia, for example, seized over 1,000 homes, 3,000 vehicles, and over $44,000,000 in cash over an 11 year period.
In 2010, the city tried to seize an entire fucking house because a woman's grandson sold less than $200 of weed out of the basement. If you think taxes are bad, civil asset forfeiture is straight up evil. It doesn't matter whether you participated in a crime. It doesn't matter whether you know that someone else participated in a crime. If it involved your property, even if said property was fully legally acquired, the government will come and take it. Civil asset forfeiture is the most insane government funding technique that is out there. And you most definitely do not want this declared as a strategic means to pump the government's Bitcoin bags.
You are literally asking the government to steal your coins with a practice that every libertarian advocate wants to see abolished. Okay. That's the end of the note from Lol Elites. She's got a point, but she's not entirely wrong. I think that she kinda deviated from the original, from her original outset view of this note where she was saying that we shouldn't be crying about a a crypto reserve, you know, or it's a shitcoin reserve. I I I'm having, like, a little bit of problems parsing out exactly what what she means. If if Lola is saying that there shouldn't be any kind of reserve whatsoever with this language that includes the possibility of civil asset forfeiture, then I have to agree.
If she's saying if she's not saying that, then I'm kinda not sure what she's getting at. So I'm going to just make the assumption so that I can move on that she's talking about this shouldn't actually exist in the first damn place. If it's going to include civil asset forfeiture. And again, I agree. However, where she says that the government can come take my coins and there's nothing that I can do about it, that's where she's wrong, but it doesn't mean that I wouldn't pay a price. This is what I mean. The government comes to my door and in my house, I have literally no ability for them to be able to get my Bitcoin, I. E. I don't keep my passphrase anywhere on my premises. I keep it somewhere else. Maybe I buried it in a public park somewhere.
I know that's stupid, but just just bear with me. Let's say that I physically do not possess any means upon me to be able to turn over my coins to the government if they decided to, oh, I don't know, torture me in my house. They can't get my coins. It's impossible for them to get my coins. Now let's say that that actually occurs and they say, mister Bennett, if you don't hand over your passphrase right now, you're going to jail. Okay. Yeah. I probably will. I very will might. I could do the whole I don't have control over it anymore. I lost the keys. Whatever. But that there's that's gonna be a little weak in the face of a bunch of FBI guys.
Right? It just is. No matter how much we want to say that it isn't, it is. It's weak. Yeah. And I'm probably gonna end up in jail, but that still doesn't mean that they get my coins. So would they be able to put me in jail for life? I I don't know. So here we come to something that I've been thinking about for a a good long while. And that's this this notion of us remaining civilized as a citizenry of the United States, and you can just expand that to the rest of the world if you want. Given what people in the it over at the economic forum in Davos are saying over the course of this week, it has become clear to me and it all well, actually, it always has. But, I mean, it it's even more clear to me now that they don't like us. They don't really care about us. And they will do whatever it is that they need to do to make sure that we remain poor and they remain rich.
And when when people start threatening my ability to be able to say something, and they're not even from my own country, and somehow or another they're going to impact my they could possibly impact my ability to say something, at one point or another, we start have to asking the question, why are we not dragging these people out into the street? And literally putting upon them that which scares them to within an inch of their life, so that they are traumatized forever. And therefore, never ever want to serve in public service ever again. And will dissuade their children and their grandchildren from ever serving in public service.
Why do we essentially keep saying, but that's not a civilized society? Does this look like a civilized society? Where the US government can just come take your shit because your shit was involved in a crime that you had no clue was going on? That's not civilized. That's violence. And at one point or another, I feel that the citizenry of the world, not just any particular country, but the citizenry of the world will get their fill, and they will be forced to do something that actually looks like violence to the rest of the world. That's that's what I'm worried about. Is and and that it will break free. There was a movie something about, like, where one night every year, there was no laws and you could do whatever the hell you wanted. I can't remember the name of it. If somebody remembers, please, you know, make sure that that that you, boost the show and and tell me what the name of that movie is. I I I I'm I'm worried that that kind of shit is gonna happen because it is that's what's happening to us. Ross Ulbrich got free after essentially being dragged into the street and beaten to within inch of his life, even though not physically, but legally beaten to within inch of his life.
And now he he may very well not actually ever want to say anything ever again because of fear of going back in the hole. So how how is it these people are able to do violence to us and they just get away scot free and they have no pushback at all? It's because of this notion of but that's not the way a civilized society runs you can't do that. You've got to protest. You've got to hold up a sign and walk around in a circle for about an hour, and then maybe, just maybe, they'll actually listen to you. No. This is this is untenable.
And it's going to break free in a way that nobody wants it to break free. But I get the feeling that these people cannot stop the way that they're acting. So when we go back to what Lol Elites is saying about civil asset forfeiture, I, at this point, am kind of in agreement. If it's going to contain stolen property, then I would rather we not have any kind of strategic reserve at all. It's not good for us. It's not good for the United States. It's not good for the world. But what is good for the world is the Circle p, which is open for business right now. And today, I'm bringing you plebeian.market. That's plebeian or plebeian, depending on how you actually wanna pronounce it, dot market. If you have not been over there, it is based on Noster, which is flying in the face of all the people at Davos right now. And it's a market. You can go buy stuff. You can go buy a shirt with a great big old BTC smile on it. And, yes, it's a happy face and the eyes are the Bitcoin symbol. Please don't wear that because it makes you a target, as I've said. But there's also oh, let's see. There's a, a handwritten or a hand drawn drawing of fuck the fucking fuckers.
There is a hand drawn, ashtray or a rolling tray, if you, like to, you know, smoke pot and whatnot like that, of a skeleton. There's all kinds of neat stuff, and you buy them all for Bitcoin. Here's here's a cold card queue for 250,000 sats or 0.003 BTC, and there are 4 in stock. And you can buy all of this. You can buy kombucha. You can buy, block clock. You can buy, wow, a Ross Perot ball cap. Holy crap, dude. I haven't seen a Ross Perot hat in a long time. You can buy hot chili jam and scotch bonnets on plebeian market. Plebeian.marketplebeian.
You can use whatever wallet you want. But here's here's one of the things that I want to make sure that you know about. One of the people that is, on the Plebeian market is one of my favorite artists on Nostar which is isolabel. I think that's how you pronounce it. Isolabel.art. He's running a massive sale on his art and if you haven't seen his art it's absolutely wonderful and he's just that's what he does that's what Isobel art does is just paint paintings and they're wonderful paintings and he has just for just passed 30,000 followers on Noster So all of his paintings purchased within the next 24 hours will be sent with free shipping and that's worldwide.
That is worldwide guys. So if you love his art and if you haven't seen his art you can go to isolabelle isolabel.art. That's his website and you can view it all. I bought one of his pieces for my sister for Christmas. Absolutely love it. But there's all kinds of stuff on plebianmarket and if plebian.market and if you want a circular economy to occur, then make sure that you go check out plebian.market. You can log in with your nostril credentials. It's amazing. And then once you're there, go look for Isobelle Art and you will find some great pieces there. Now, on to the European Union, where the, well, the European Central Bank is pushing for a digital euro in response to Trump's crypto executive orders that could further disintermediate banks.
And Brian MacLean is writing this one for the block. Eurozone banks need a digital euro to counter United States president Donald Trump's efforts to promote worldwide United States backed stablecoins according to European Central Bank board member, Piero Cipollone. Speaking at a policy meeting in Frankfurt, not Davos, but in Frankfurt on Friday, Cipollone highlighted the potential impact of Trump's latest initiative on global finance. Because on Thursday, Trump signed the executive order aimed at bolstering US leadership in digital financial technology, emphasizing the protection and promotion of the United States dollars' sovereignty.
The order includes provisions to support, quote, the sovereignty of the United States dollar, including through actions to promote the development and growth of lawful and legitimate dollar backed stablecoins worldwide. What have I been telling you over the last, like, 6 weeks? The stablecoins are going to be linked to the dollar through the United States Treasury bond market. That's that's the way this shit is going to work. Anyway, at the Institute For Law and Finance's 13th conference on the future of financial sectors, Cipollone cautioned that Trump that the Trump administration could move could further attract customers away from traditional banks, amplifying the need for the ECB to accelerate its digital currency plans, quote, I guess the keyword here in Trump's executive order is worldwide, Gip Leoni told a conference in Frankfurt on Friday, according to Reuters.
Quote, this solution, you all know, further disintermediates banks as they lose fees. They lose clients. That's why we need a digital euro. See what I mean by the hair on fire running around like they have to do damage control? This is this is not going to have the effect that they want. It's going to be it's going to make it worse for them. I guarantee it. But to finish off, a digital euro would function as an online wallet guaranteed by the ECB ECB but operated by private entities such as banks. This system would enable users, including those with a bank account, to make payments. However, individual holdings would likely be capped at a few €1,000 and would not earn interest.
The ECB is currently testing how a digital euro might work in practice, but will defer a final decision on its launch until the bloc's lawmakers pass the necessary legislation. In contrast, US president Donald Trump's recent executive order explicitly prohibits the Federal Reserve from issuing its own central bank digital currency, underscoring his administration's focus on promoting private dollar backed stablecoins instead. We thought the dollar was weaponized before. Oh, baby. You ain't seen nothing yet. This is this is how to put this.
I'm trying to to figure out a way to incorporate dollar milkshake theory here, but this this is like dollar milkshake theory on steroids with a nuclear generator attached to it. This is absolutely 100% the United States' last attack on the rest of the world. And I don't necessarily, you know, mean that well, I I don't think it's a good idea. But I also I mean, it's like if I was living in any other country than the United States, I'd be really pissed. I'd be absolutely horrified if if if I knew as a person living in something like, you know, if I was a Frenchman or an Englishman or something like that, and if I knew what I actually know, I would be more than horrified because this is a complete weaponization of the dollar.
And it's probably going to work. That's that's what I'm getting at is that he's prob it's probably going to work. It's probably going to just decimate, if not utterly annihilate, every single fiat currency over the next 4 to 8 years. If the next administration that gets in continues this particular thought process, you can kiss any other currency other than the dollar and bitcoin goodbye. Well, and tather Tether and USDC and and stuff like that because the stablecoins are here to stay. And this is what I was warning have been warning about over the last 6 weeks. There's going to be stablecoin scams out the wazoo.
They're coming. People will literally spin up a coin, say it's a stablecoin, tell you that it's backed by the United States dollar, and lickety split, you will lose any money that you put into that system. It's gonna be just like an altcoin scam, just like a shitcoin scam, like just like the ICOs of old. It's gonna be the exact same thing, and they will have absolutely no intention of being an actual stablecoin. They will exist primarily to get your money and then rug pull your ass and leave you with nothing. Just because they say it's a stablecoin does not mean it's actually anything other than a scam.
You will need to be aware of this because otherwise, you're going to lose all of your money. Now, we had mentioned the SAB 121. Turns out that the Securities and Exchange Commission has rescinded SAB 121, permitting banks to custody Bitcoin. The SEC did it themselves. Trump didn't do it. Well, I'm sure he had I'm sure he made a phone call, but it was the SEC themselves that did it. Because, remember, Congress had passed a law or wanted to pass a law that rescinded this thing from the congressional side. Biden vetoed it. This is the SEC themselves doing it, and it's from Bitcoin Magazine written by Vivek Sin. In a landmark decision, the SEC has officially rescinded staff accounting bulletin number 121, a rule that had long hindered banks from offering Bitcoin and crypto custody services.
The move, announced on Thursday, signaled a significant shift in the SEC's approach to regulating Bitcoin and crypto and paves the way for greater financial integration. Introduced in March of 2022 under the former SEC chair Gary Gensler, SAB 121 required institutions holding bitcoin bitcoin and crypto assets for customers to record those holdings as liabilities on their own bank balance sheet. And that was the problem. This accounting standard created significant operational and financial burdens for banks and custodians, effectively discouraging them from providing Bitcoin related services.
The rule was widely criticized by the crypto industry and lawmakers, with SEC commissioner Hester Pierce famously calling it a pernicious weed. Quote, bye bye, s a b 121. It's not been fun, Hester Pierce wrote in a post on Twitter on Thursday following the SEC's issuance of staff accounting bulletin number 122, which formally rescinds the guidance. The SEC's move to rescind this comes just days after Gensler's resignation and marks a start of a new era under Republican leadership in according to SEC chair Mark Ulleda, who assumed the role on Monday, he quickly announced the formation of a crypto task force led by Hester Pierce to craft clearer and more practical regulatory frameworks for the industry. Quote, to date, the SEC has relied primarily on enforcement actions to regulate crypto retroactively and reactively, often adopting novel and untested legal interpretations along the way, end quote. With the removal of SAB 121, major banks are now expected to move swiftly to integrate Bitcoin and crypto custody services into their offerings.
This is a significant milestone in the financialization of Bitcoin, bringing it closer to mainstream adoption. So you might ask yourself that's the end of the article, by the way. You might ask yourself, why did it matter if they you know, what exactly did this do? Okay. So here's the here's the the nutshelling it. I'm a bank. I wanna offer crypto custody services under the standing SAB 121. Be like, let's say before it was repealed. And they say, sure, you can do that. You gotta put, all the Bitcoin that you hold for your customers on the balance sheet. I say sure fine let's do that along with my United States Treasury bonds because I have to list that as liabilities as well, right? Okay. So now bitcoin goes up and I I have to get up I'm I'm recording that on my books. I'm saying, hey, look, you know, we we actually have more money than we we did in in terms of US dollars. But let's say the US Treasury bond market just shits the bed and the principal value of all the bonds that I hold just fall through the floor by, like, let's say, 50%.
Well, all of a sudden, my bank's insolvent, just like Silvergate and all the rest of the banks that happened in, what was it, 2022, 2021. I can't remember when those 3 banks went under. But, essentially, what happened is the treasury bills or treasury bond values shit the bed. And all these banks, not actually, not all of them. 2 of the 3 actually did not have the money to pay back all of the people that they needed to pay back if all of the people demanded their money at once. So they were effectively insolvent and the world saw it. All banks are insolvent.
But these banks, the whole world saw that they were insolvent. And then they were basically taken over, liquidated, and then given over to other banks. Okay. That's what happens with the US Treasury bond. Now, let's do the exact same experiment except the bonds are fine, but Bitcoin shits the bed by an 80% drop and I've got it listed on my books as a liability. All of a sudden, same thing. I don't have the money to be able to pay back all the creditors if all the creditors come to my door and demand their money all at once. Therefore, I've got to liquidate the bank. The FDIC takes it over. And then next thing you know, I'm owned by Jamie Dimon.
And that's why nobody wanted to do this. And the the fact of the matter was is that the difference between the treasury bond on their liability sheet versus the Bitcoin on their liability sheet is that the bonds are actually owned by the bank and not by the creditors. The bonds are there and all the a lot of the other things that a bank holds are there to be able to liquidate just in case they need to actually come up with ready cash because there is a run on the bank. The Bitcoin in this particular issue is directly owned by the customers, yet would have to be listed like bonds as a liability on the bank's balance sheet. And that is one of the reasons why none of the banks would touch it.
And, honestly, I wouldn't touch it either because of that particular issue. But now that SAB 121 is gone as replaced by SAB 122 rescinding that matter, Now all the banks in the United States will be able to custody and not have to list those assets on their balance sheet. We'll have to see what that actually does, but it could be a free for all. Who knows? But MicroStrategy is not out of the woods. In fact, they might have they might have dug themselves a little bit of a hole according to this report that says MicroStrategy may owe taxes on $19,000,000,000 of unrealized Bitcoin gains Despite never selling any Bitcoin, MicroStrategy may have to pay taxes on unrealized gains.
The largest corporate Bitcoin holder may have to pay federal income taxes on its unrealized gains, according to something called the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. The act established a corporate alternative minimum tax under which MicroStrategy would qualify for a 15% tax rate based on the adjusted version of the company's earnings, according to a January 24 report in the Wall Street Journal. Still, the US Internal Revenue Service may create an exemption for BTC under President Donald Trump's more crypto friendly administration. MicroStrategy's holdings have surpassed 461,000 bitcoin worth more than $48,000,000,000 after the company bought $243,000,000 of Bitcoin on January 13th.
According to MicroStrategy's portfolio tracker, the company's Bitcoin holdings have an unrealized gain of 3rd oh, sorry. $19,300,000,000 The report comes 6 months after MicroStrategy agreed on June 3, 2024 to pay $40,000,000 to settle a tax fraud lawsuit that had accused it and Sailor of tax evasion. The attorney general of Washington DC sued Sailor and MicroStrategy in August of 2022 alleging that the executive executive had paid no income taxes in the district for at least 10 years while he lived there. Well, MicroStrategy and cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase have pushed back against the corporate alternative minimum tax regulation.
The two firms requested that the U. S. Treasury and the IRS adjust the final rule to exclude unrealized crypto gains from the adjusted financial statement income statement to avoid serious unintended consequences to U. S. Corporations holding substantial cryptocurrencies. The two firms wrote in a joint letter to lawmakers on January 3rd, quote, the unforeseen combination of the CAMT, the corporate annual minimum tax or whatever, and a newly promulgated accounting standard are creating unjust and unintended tax consequences. CAMT imposes a 15% minimum tax on the AFSI of any corporation whose AFSI averages at least $1,000,000,000 in the prior 3 year period.
Because the standard affects the corporation's AFSI, corporations that own enough appreciated crypto to be subject to CAMT must now pay tax on the unrealized gains in the value of that cryptocurrency, the letter stated. The tax laws increased investor interest in June of 2024 after the IRS issued a new crypto regulation which will make US crypto transactions subject to third party tax reporting requirements for the first time. Starting in 2025, centralized crypto exchanges and other brokers will start reporting the sales and exchanges of digital assets including cryptocurrencies. According to the IRS, the decision aims to help investors file accurate tax returns with respect to digital asset transactions.
Oh, that's bullshit. That's not what they're doing. They don't care if we file accurate accurate tax returns. In fact, they don't want that. They just want the money. That's all that shit is. Anyway, the decision could push crypto investors to decentralized platforms in a paradoxical situation that could make tax revenue harder to track. Andy Lian, author and intergovernmental blockchain expert, told CoinTelegraph. Showcasing the crypto industry's black backlash, the Blockchain Association filed a lawsuit against the IRS back in December of last year, arguing that the rules are unconstitutional because they include decentralized exchanges under the broker term extending data collection requirements to them.
So by MicroStrategy, it's gonna be interesting to see how they react. And I'm really surprised that this is the first that I'm hearing about this because this whole letter was written by Coinbase and MicroStrategy and sent on January 3rd. The letter itself is actually, dated January 2nd. So who knows how the hell this is gonna go? But one thing if you missed it, as of this year, all brokerages in the United States are going to report anything that you do on their exchange to the United States government, specifically the Internal Revenue Service.
So if you go buy something from coin if you go buy Bitcoin from Coinbase, that gets reported. If you send that Bitcoin to a different wallet, that will probably be reported to Coinbase or to to the IRS. If you sell Bitcoin on Coinbase, you can bet your bottom dollar that's going to be reported to the United States IRS. And and that's not just Coinbase or Kraken or whatever. Like, Cash App is probably going to have to do that too. In fact, I just make the assumption that they are going to be a broker and that they are going to have to report this stuff. So if I buy and sell or whatever on Cash App, you can bet your bottom dollar the IRS is gonna get a report from Cash App that says exactly what I did and exactly what time of day I did it on exactly what day.
So just be aware. Meanwhile, let's run the numbers. CNBC Futures and Commodities. West Texas Intermediate Oil seems to be holding steady at $74.71 after a point 12% rise. Brent Norsee, likewise, it's up a quarter to $78.52. Gas is up, well, 1 a quarter to $3.99 per 1,000 cubic feet, while gasoline fell half a point to $2.5 a gallon. Gold is up a half to 27.80.6 $0. Silver is up 1.1%. Platinum is up 0.15. But copper is down a quarter as is palladium. Agricultural futures, the biggest winner is sugar, 2.03% to the upside. Biggest loser is wheat, 1.8% to the downside. And then I got live cattle, which is up 1 a quarter percent. Lean hogs are up 1 a third. And feeder cattle also up just under a full point.
But the Dow is down a quarter, as is the S and P. Nasdaq is really sucking swamp water. It's down a full half point, and the S and P mini is down 0.13%. Bitcoin did okay. Not bad. 106,600 puts us at a $2,111,000,000,000 market cap, and we can get 38.6 ounces of the shiny metal rocks with our 1 Bitcoin of which there are. 19,814,366.89 of, and average fees per block remain fairly low. Nice and subdued at 0.05 BTC on a per block basis. And there are only 45 blocks carrying a scant 112,000 unconfirmed transactions waiting to clear at high priority rates of 2, count them 1, 2 satoshis per v byte. Low priority is the same at 2 satoshis per v byte. Hash rate over a 1 week rolling average, and that is the security of the Bitcoin network, that's what it represents anyway, is 781.2 exahashes per second, which is pretty damn high From yesterday's episode of Bitcoin and entitled wartime scammer, Kaz Pieland with a 1,000 says, oh, no.
My modem was down, so I did not stream sats through AlbyHub Podverse. Let's boost boost boost. I appreciate that, Kaz. God's death 537. Thank you, sir. Happy belated birthday, brother. Oh, dude. I appreciate that, man. Mark with 210 says, thank you, sir. No, thank you. BTC master with 121 says, all sats matter at allsatsmatter.com. Pies with a 100 says, thank you, sir. No. Thank you. And then there's my friend, Birobela, who if you're not following b I r o b e l a over on Noster, you're missing out because he just brings all kinds of neat stuff like interesting baseball swings, with a baseball bat came out today. And it was I was it was actually rather mesmerizing.
He's got great content on Noster. If you're looking for somebody that's got great content, follow my friend, Birobela, b I r o b e l a. He says, none of your business is pissed in this one. First time I hear him pissed. Yeah. It's because I was going off about, the, murder for hire charges that people keep, bouncing around with, Ross Ulbricht. I'm tired of listening to it. Please stop it. Please stop. That's the weather report. Welcome to the news you can use. This is, actually the second part of the news you can use. Bitcoin is steady near a 104,000 after the Bank of Japan delivers a hawkish rate hike. Now, if you remember what happened last July when the Bank of Japan did this, it caused all manner of problems, but it doesn't seem to be doing it this time. So what gives? Let's find out from CoinDesk's, OMCAR God Bowl.
BTC held steady during Friday's Asian hours after the BOJ lifted the benchmark borrowing cost to the highest in 17 years while raising inflation forecast, quote, if the outlook presented in the January outlook report will be realized, the bank will accordingly continue to raise the policy interest rate and adjust the degree of monetary accommodation, the policy statement said, citing positive outlook on wages and maintaining guidance to keep rising rates according to forex live. The anti risk Japanese yen rose over 0.6% to 155.12 against the US dollar following the rate decision.
Still, risk assets remained resilient. Bitcoin showed no signs of stress, trading little changed on the day above 104,000. The futures tied to the S and P 500 also traded flat. And as we just saw, the Dow, the Nasdaq, the S and P, all of them are not really they're not really that affected. It's it's it's interesting because that this whole thing boils down to the yin carry trade, which is people borrowing in to buy assets, a lot of risky assets because borrowing in is cheap when you have interest rates at 0.25% or whatever or these these historically low interest rates that the that the Bank of Japan has had.
You go and you buy this stuff and then all of a sudden you now owe a shit ton more interest on the loan of yen because the Bank of Japan raised the rates and you've borrowed the yen. So now your rates on that borrowed yen go up. So the next thing you know, you gotta sell some of these assets which are, generally speaking, riskier assets to be able to cover the loan that you borrowed in yen. See how that works? That's the yen carry trade. Well, the rates just went up and it doesn't look like everything shit the bed. So what gives? Well, the resilience in risk assets suggest that the market attention is increasingly centered on potential policy developments under Donald Trump.
In comparison, the Bank of Japan's rate hike in late July had previously shaken risk assets, including cryptocurrencies. On Thursday, president Trump signed an executive order to ban digital dollars and promote that's the CBDCs. And promote crypto and AI innovation in the United States. Meanwhile, the US data released recently showed all tenant rent index, which leads shelter inflation in the CPI rising at a slower pace last quarter. That has raised hopes that the Fed will walk back on its hawkish December rates forecast. They're hoping in the United States that we continue to lower rates.
I still don't see that happening more than twice this year. I'm just giving my forecast there. Alright. So Ethereum's looming collapse is a lesson in blockchain integrity. If your founder is not pivoting to a Bronze Age mindset in 2025, you're not going to make it. This is Bitcoin Magazine written by Guillermo Guerard. In the world of decentralized networks, the battle lines are drawn not just between different blockchains but within the communities that they spawn. Bitcoin, having weathered its own civil war, has emerged stronger, proving its resilience and commitment to the principles of decentralization, freedom and truth.
Ethereum, on the other hand, is currently embroiled in internal strife, revealing a stark contrast in community ethos and leadership philosophy. Vitalik Buterin's recent tweets concerning the Ethereum Foundation's drama are a testament to this. They expose a community that seems to prioritize perception over substance, a hallmark of the bureaucratic and woke culture that has infiltrated society at large. Ethereum's approach under Buterin's guidance reflects a refusal to adopt the Bronze Age mindset that has been pivotal in Bitcoin's success. This mentality, often derided as toxic maximalism by outsiders, champions unapologetic truths and a fierce defense of core values like decentralization and security.
Toxicity, in this context, becomes a virtue. It favors those willing to speak uncomfortable truths and maintain the integrity of a blockchain's original vision. Choosing the path of bureaucratic, human resource friendly discussion leads to a landscape where managing perceptions overshadows achieving actual results. Ethereum's current predicament is not just a long time coming, but perhaps a necessary wake up call for those who have strayed from the path of what blockchain technology was meant to achieve. In contrast, Ethereum's current turmoil showcases a leadership that is cracking under pressure, revealing Buterin's true colors. And it's not the first time.
Bitcoin, unlike Ethereum, does not have a foundation. And this is by design. Does this make our governance process a 100 times harder? Absolutely. And that's precisely the point. Even though I might not always agree with the criticism level to Bitcoin Core, I recognize the value of knowing that they can be replaced at any given moment. The Ethereum Foundation has always been a magnet for centralized control, and the power vacuum its collapse would leave would sow chaos. Bitcoin's governance might be organized chaos, but Ethereum is now facing a spell of unorganized chaos that could further tarnish its reputation.
Good luck. I'd love to see Vitalik return to Bitcoin. He's undeniably intelligent. Yet his current role as the man in control is exactly why Bitcoin avoids having a public figurehead. The plebs, the node runners, are in control. And that's the better way. The dotETH community's apparent lack of commitment to these foundational blockchain principles suggest a future where Ethereum might not just suffer greatly from its civil war, but could also lose relevance. The irony here is palpable. While Ethereum struggles, other platforms like Solana stand to gain. But it seems like those making this migration do not learn from their mistakes.
They recognize the ugly side of Ethereum and Vitalik, but instead of seeking the true axioms of a good network, they move to an even more centralized alternative. However, this shift is likely temporary. The so called on chain refugees fleeing the chaos of Ethereum will eventually find their way back to Bitcoin, the original and only cryptocurrency that has consistently delivered on its promises, without the drama. They need one more rug pull on the Solana side before they finally end their journey. Like all of us, Bitcoin only.
This drama within Ethereum has been brewing for years. And while it might be late in coming, it's not soon enough for humanity. The time wasted building upon what some might argue is a fundamentally flawed system could have been better spent advancing technologies that genuinely uphold the ideals of decentralized freedom. As Ethereum continues to navigate these internal conflicts, it serves as a cautionary tale. It underscores the importance of a community that values truth over narrative, freedom over control, and decentralization over centralized decision making, Bitcoin emerging stronger from its own civil war wasn't just about survival.
It was about proving the soundness of its principles. Ethereum's ongoing struggle might just be the catalyst needed for the blockchain community to return to those roots, recognizing that in the realm of digital currencies, only those built on genuine, unyielding principles will stand the test of time. Okay. So it's just gets worse over at Ethereum. It doesn't look like it's gonna clear up anytime soon. And Ethereum continues to lose ground against Bitcoin. It dipped below 0.00 3. Is that what it was? Let me check. Just just for shits and giggles over here.
Come on. Come on, baby. You can do it. Come on. TradingView. Alright. Right now it's at oh, okay. 0.031 is what it stands at right now. However, at roughly around 12 o'clock AM last night Pacific Standard Time, this song bitch hit a low of, wow, 0.0314. It was way down there. I mean, it was really about to hit Yeah. It was really really about to go, and hit well, actually, wait. Hold on. Make sure make sure about this just so that I'm absolutely certain of what's going on. Yeah. Low of 0.030 BTC on a per Ethereum or Eth coin basis. It's just and and it it spiked back up. It got all the way up to 0.032, but now it's just drifting back down again.
And it just it this internal strife that they're suffering over there just doesn't look like it's gonna go away. But here here's the thing. There's a couple things in this article that I want to that I kinda want to address here about this civil war. It's this notion that they're going to learn their lesson, that the people that are escaping from, from Ethereum and going to blockchains like Solana are somehow or another going to get rug pulled by Solana and therefore just end up at Bitcoin. And I don't think this is true. I've been in this game for way too long. I've seen people just lie to themselves again and again and again and again, and they just don't learn.
There's going to be plenty of people to rug pull from here until the day all of the people that are listening to my voice are firmly planted in the ground. Because greed is part of human nature and because greed is part of human nature, you will always always find somebody who is willingly going to give up their money because they think it's going to make them rich. These people are never going to learn. They're gonna go over to Solana, they're gonna stay over in Solana. If they get rug pulled of Solana, they're gonna go to Tron. If they get rug pulled out of Tron, they're gonna go back to Sushiswap.
They're never ever going to come back to Bitcoin. It's just going to be too painful for them to admit that they were wrong. That's the other part of human nature that works in tandem with greed. It's just an the inability to admit you're wrong and just do the right thing. No. No. No. No. That's just not going to happen here. So I feel bad for the people out of out there at, Ethereum. I mean, I don't feel that bad about it, but I do feel bad about the people that don't understand Ethereum the way that most most of us probably in this audience understand what Ethereum actually is. And if you don't understand what Ethereum actually is, I can only try to dissuade you from even coming close to to figuring it out. Just don't buy it. Stay away from it.
It's it is a dumpster fire and you don't wanna have any part of it. Now, Breeze is in the news. They've raised $5,000,000 to bring bitcoin payments to every app. Okay? Bitcoin payments startup Breeze has announced raising this funding round from Entre Capital, Ego Death Capital, Plan B Fund, and Time Chain. Quote, we're happy to share that we've raised this $5,000,000 to bring payment Bitcoin payments to every app. Well, what does that mean, dude? The firm said that in the 18 months since its launch, over 40 apps have implemented Breeze SDK in production or beta, providing approximately 1,500,000 users with access to self custodial peer to peer bitcoin payments.
Breeze SDK partners range from well known names in the Bitcoin and crypto space to emerging companies including Relay, Cake Wallet, Clever, Yopaki, and Elysium Lab. And in 2024, those apps collectively processed over $4,500,000 in gross transaction volume. The company is also preparing to launch Misty Breeze, a reference app demonstrating the user friendly Lightning UX via their nodeless implementation and SDK. Additionally, the company is exploring new technologies to enhance the SDK and establish new standards for peer to peer payments. If you haven't tried Breeze and you want to just like, if if you're just experimental, go check it out, man. Breeze has actually been the SDK has been around since what it what it say?
God. It was just here. It was just here. Good lord. 18 months since its launch. Yeah. That's the Breeze SDK, but Breeze itself has been around for a lot longer. They're old school, so go check out Breeze that's spelled b r e e z. Go check out their SDK if you're a developer or some of their, wall or their wallet if you are not. Now, US Federal Court rules that backdoor searches of FISA section 702 data is unconstitutional. So it sounds like a federal judge did the right thing. Let's find out more. A landmark ruling comes from the criminal case United States versus Hasbar Jarami following more than, god, a decade of litigation.
And the case involves a US resident arrested in New York JFK's airport in 2011 en route to Pakistan, charged with providing material support to terrorists. After his original conviction, the government revealed that the case relied partly on warrantless emails between this gentleman and an unnamed foreigner linked to terrorist groups. These emails were collected using section 702 programs stored in a database and later searched without a warrant using terms related to the defendant. Quote, to countenance this practice would convert section 702 into precisely what defendant has labeled it, a tool for law enforcement to run backdoor searches that circumvent the 4th amendment, United States district judge Lashawn D'Arcy, said in the ruling released on January 21st. God, it's my birthday again. Oh. The district court found that regardless of the government's ability to collect communications between foreigners and Americans without a warrant under section 702, it cannot typically involve a foreign intelligence exception to the 4th Amendment's warrant clause when searching these communications, which is standard FBI practice.
Quote, while communications of US persons may nonetheless be intercepted, incidentally or inadvertently, it would be paradoxical to permit warrantless searches of the same information that section 702 is specifically dot designed to avoid collecting, the judge said, adding that, quote, public interest alone does not justify warrantless querying, end quote. Furthermore, even if such an exception were applicable, the court determined that the privacy intrusion caused by reading sensitive communications made these searches unreasonable under the 4th Amendment.
So hats off to the federal this federal judge who basically just told the DOJ that they can just go pound sand. Nice. It's a win for the 4th amendment which has been under attack since the war on drugs. And if you didn't understand what the war on drugs was, if you were my age, or you don't understand what the war on drugs is because you weren't around in the eighties when Ronald Reagan was president and that shit came out, it had nothing to do with drugs. That's what they said. That's what they told us. And like good Americans, we bought it hook, line, and sinker and raised the American flag and said, rah rah, let's go get them.
No. What it was, was to undermine the 4th Amendment. It was the ability for the government to start this long this decades long run of just being able to say, well, we can put a tracker on your vehicle and we don't have to tell you. We don't need a really a warrant for this and we don't need a warrant for that. And then that the war on the the the war that was instead of being the war on drugs was the war on the 4th amendment. When that really accelerated was with the addition of the Patriot Act. So you've got a you've got a a double whammy. In the 19 eighties, you had the the war on drugs. Right? Nancy Reagan and Ronald Reagan singing kumbaya with the rest of the country while our 4th amendment rights to privacy were eroded, and then the idiots flew the planes into the towers or whatever it is that you wanna say happened. I'm not even gonna go there right now. But the Patriot Act did happen. There's no conspiracy there as far as whether or not that shit happened.
The Patriot Act happened, and it put it through gasoline on what they were trying to do with the war on drugs, and it worked. So now, you can't go anywhere in the United States without face scanning or if you wanna fly on a plane, you gotta get your your body irradiated, but by God knows what that will cause God knows what, God knows when. You can't you can't do any of the things that we used to do because we're not citizens anymore, we're chattel. And if you don't think we're chattel, I can't help you because we are we have been turned into chattel. We we are cows in a field and we are being fattened and we are either being milked or taken to slaughter later on. But there is no privacy.
And the 4th Amendment of the United States Constitution or the Bill of Rights, which is part of the Constitution of the United States, was supposed to be there to make sure that all citizens of the United States felt secure and were in fact secure in their persons and their papers. You can't just bust into my house and start rifling through my crap to find something that you can pin on me probably to get civil asset forfeiture going on like little elites was saying. So there's a win. We we we have a win. So take the win, ladies and gentlemen, for the 4th amendment, and I will see you on the other side.
[01:07:44] Unknown:
This has been Bitcoin and and I'm your host, David Bennett. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and hope to see you again real soon. Have a great day.
It is 10:0:2 AM Pacific Standard Time. It's the 24th day of January 2025. This is episode, well, wouldn't you know it? 1,025 of Bitcoin and, well, the Trump executive order came out. Yeah. So we're gonna get into a little bit of that. And Low Elites has a counterargument to most of the arguments that were made yesterday given this executive order. But then we're gonna push on over to the European Central Bank where they are absolutely losing their minds. They are running scared. They are freaking out. And I guess this has to do with the fact that pretty much all of Davos is in some kind of, seems to be in some kind of damage control mood because you got this what are the what are the head honchos out of Spain is talking about complete complete dissolution of any anonymity when it comes to identity online.
He's specifically talking about social media, but that would bleed over into pretty much anything. You wouldn't be able to pay a parking ticket online without proper identity, even though, yeah, I know if you got a parking ticket, your identity is already known. I get it. I'm just saying it's gonna be a lot more than social media. You got another there's another person over at Davos that's talking about the same thing. They just have to do away with any kind of anonymity. And this to me all this all just seems like some kind of absolute losing their minds, hair on fire, running around, trying to do some kind of damage control.
I can't imagine what they're trying to control damage from. Maybe it would be because, well, orange man. But the SEC, the Securities and Exchange Commission has well rescinded a major rule. MicroStrategy may owe some taxes on unrealized gains. This is rather disturbing. We'll get into that one. Bank of Japan is also gonna be in the news. There might be a yen carry trade issue coming. I'm gonna talk a little bit more about this Ethereum mutiny slash collapse slash damage control. They're doing some damage control themselves. Breeze is in the news and the US Federal Court has ruled on something that may be unconstitutional.
We'll we'll get into it. And then we've got a little bit of real estate news. And I wanna begin by saying that CoinDesk looks like they are going over to some kind of subscription model. However, since I discovered that yesterday, the message on coindesk.com seems to have changed as a major news outlet that I use to bring you the news. They are throwing up a banner that says you need an account. But now, either I didn't notice it yesterday or they've changed it. They want you to register for a free account. And, yeah, they don't have any ability to use a Noster ID. They want your email. So no matter how far down this road we travel, it seems to me that nobody is understanding what we have at our fingertips.
And that there is just no way to get these people to understand we're kinda done with all this bullshit identity crap. We don't need it. We don't want it. It's not good for anybody. It ends up being a major honeypot. So I'm just waiting for CoinDesk to figure it out, and I honestly doubt they will. But let's start with the orange man. It's been a it's been a wild week for the Trump administration, doing all kinds of neat stuff, I guess, depending on what you think is neat. It is definitely different. All right? So it is not I mean, a lot of us kind of expected some collateral damage on the left, but I do not think that the left figured out, as quick as they should have just how immense the collateral damage was going to be. But he did the executive order. He did it. He signed it. And it's great. Right? Well, I don't particularly think so because it just sounds like a dumpster fire to me. And let's start it off with Andrew Hayward and Sandra Lutz writing for decrypt.
Trump executive order paves the way for federal crypto reserve, but doesn't mention Bitcoin, like, at all. President Donald Trump signed his first crypto related executive order on Thursday, Formally establishing a presidential working group, oh boy, on digital asset markets and laying the groundwork for exploring some of his campaign promises, including potentially establishing a national reserve for bitcoin and other assets. The presidential working group will advise Trump on matters related to crypto policy and inform his decision making with regards to the industry.
Its day to day operations will be managed by a guy named Beau Hines, nice name, bro, A one time Republican congressional nominee and former college football player. Yay. The group will also include the secretary of the treasury, the SEC, and CFTC heads, and other department and agency leaders. Decrypt previously reported that the council is expected to consist of 20 crypto founders and CEOs, industry donors to Trump's presidential campaign, and perhaps his inaugural fund as well are likely to be prioritized. The group doesn't have any real authority besides the opportunity to advise Trump in congress who will make their own decisions.
The executive order titled Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology further tasked the group with exploring the premise of a strategic national digital asset stockpile following Trump's campaign trail promise to establish a Bitcoin national reserve. Yeah. You see the difference there? Anyway, such an idea has been furthered by the senate via senator Cynthia Lummis Lummis' Bitcoin act, plus several states are now considering their own Bitcoin reserve legislation. However, the executive order does not mention Bitcoin by name, nor does it mention any other specific crypto asset.
Furthermore, the order notes that agencies are blocked from launching central bank digital currencies, which are often referred to as digital dollars. These centralized cryptocurrencies have been widely derided by Republicans due to privacy concerns. It also aims to protect and promote the rights of American companies and citizens to transact in self custody cryptocurrency, mine crypto and validate blockchain transactions, and launch blockchain software. It is also expected that Trump will follow-up his first crypto related executive order with several more. A top priority for the industry has been repealing the SEC's SAB 121 rule, which discourages American banks from holding crypto.
Congress repealed that last spring, but former president Joe Biden vetoed the legislation, leaving the rule in place. Other crypto policies that Trump may address in future executive orders include eliminating the SEC's controversial exchange rule, which targets decentralized financial products and directing federal agencies, including the state department, to make fostering crypto innovation a national priority. With or without executive orders, though, the Trump administration is already off to a running start when it comes to crypto. And on Tuesday, the SEC established a new crypto task force led by Hester Pierce, the emphatically pro industry commissioner.
The last force or task last. The task force will aim to craft sensible disclosure frameworks that will allow crypto projects and companies to register legally if needed. Doing so will end the SEC's long standing effective policy of regulating the industry by enforcement, an approach that brought much uncertainty to the sector and pushed many firms out of the country. They didn't get pushed out. They ran. They ran away from this bullshit. Anyway, so this working group came right before he actually signed a full executive order to establish a national crypto reserve, not a Bitcoin reserve.
And, well, rightfully, everybody's lose kind of, well, not losing their minds about it, but they're not happy. And rightfully so I'm not happy about it because it's just let the shit coining commence because that's all it tells me is that it's just going to be an absolute dumpster fire People are going to lose astounding amounts of their money at the retail level, not just institutional, but at the retail level. It has opened the floodgates for every scammer to just have a heyday. And I I don't think it was the right thing to do. In fact, I would have rather him said, you know what, we're not going to do a strategic Bitcoin reserve. Instead, he should have just said, we're gonna let each individual state of the United States find their own path, forge their own way. Some states will choose Bitcoin only. Some states would choose Bitcoin and a whole basket of shitcoins.
Other states will go shitcoin only. But it should be up to the states to be able to do that because the states that actually do figure it out and start either a full 100% Bitcoin strategic reserve or at least a strategic reserve with Bitcoin as a major player in a basket along with a nest of shit coins would bolster the entirety of the United States. You don't really need when you think about it, if the states are able to do it themselves, then at the federal level, there's not really a need for a strategic Bitcoin Reserve. But that's not the way it went.
We're going to be dealing with Ripple for the rest of our lives. We're going to be dealing with Solana for the rest of our lives, and Tron, and all of the other bullshit. And I wish it wasn't that way. I really do. But here, we have low elites who seems to be taking a different tack on this executive order that allows shitcoinery to go full force in the United States. It's Lol Elites, and she has a note here on Nostra that says, so the Trump's crypto executive order is out, and I'm seeing lots of weak bitches cry that it's a shitcoin reserve. See she's talking directly about me although I didn't cry I'm still not happy about this but she's talking about me given the fact that the proposed digital asset stockpile would possibly be built on seized coins let me give you a quick introduction to forfeiture law and why crying for daddy to please, please make its pile of flying horseshit Bitcoin only, literally, the most retarded thing you could be wishing for ever.
I'm gonna pause there because when she says seized coins, in the executive order, there's language that expressly says building this stockpile, this national crypto reserve stockpile off of coins that have already been legally seized by the United States. Right? So that's what she's referring to when she says seized coins. And they were, in fact, forfeited by the person or persons or institutions or whatever that got in trouble with the US government, they were it was a civil asset forfeiture. That's the way this thing works, and she's gonna talk about it right here. Forfeiture law or civil asset forfeiture to be so precise is this fun little game the government plays in which it does not have to accuse you of a crime to confiscate your property.
Instead of accusing you of a crime, the government claims that the asset itself has facilitated a crime and can therefore be seized by the government. In civil asset forfeiture, there is no innocent until proven guilty. To get your property back, you have to prove that the government is wrong, which turns out pretty complicated seeing how it's impossible to prove a negative. Civil asset forfeiture results in cases that are not filed against a person but filed against the property itself. This results in fun little cases like the US versus Binance account XYZ or US versus 123 Binance account XYZ or US versus 123 Wilmington Drive.
To extend this idea to Bitcoin, in a civil forfeiture case, the US government is, in theory, able to seize any Bitcoin that has ever come out of a criminal transaction. Made some Bitcoin by selling a service? Bought some Bitcoin on a P2P exchange? Unless you check that the UTXO you received has never touched a criminal transaction in its entire history, your coins can be confiscated. And there's pretty much nothing you can do about it. Yeah. I got something to say about that. You'll you'll hear it in a sec. As Cato Institute points out in its piece on civil forfeiture reform, forfeiture laws routinely misused to enrich the government. Philadelphia, for example, seized over 1,000 homes, 3,000 vehicles, and over $44,000,000 in cash over an 11 year period.
In 2010, the city tried to seize an entire fucking house because a woman's grandson sold less than $200 of weed out of the basement. If you think taxes are bad, civil asset forfeiture is straight up evil. It doesn't matter whether you participated in a crime. It doesn't matter whether you know that someone else participated in a crime. If it involved your property, even if said property was fully legally acquired, the government will come and take it. Civil asset forfeiture is the most insane government funding technique that is out there. And you most definitely do not want this declared as a strategic means to pump the government's Bitcoin bags.
You are literally asking the government to steal your coins with a practice that every libertarian advocate wants to see abolished. Okay. That's the end of the note from Lol Elites. She's got a point, but she's not entirely wrong. I think that she kinda deviated from the original, from her original outset view of this note where she was saying that we shouldn't be crying about a a crypto reserve, you know, or it's a shitcoin reserve. I I I'm having, like, a little bit of problems parsing out exactly what what she means. If if Lola is saying that there shouldn't be any kind of reserve whatsoever with this language that includes the possibility of civil asset forfeiture, then I have to agree.
If she's saying if she's not saying that, then I'm kinda not sure what she's getting at. So I'm going to just make the assumption so that I can move on that she's talking about this shouldn't actually exist in the first damn place. If it's going to include civil asset forfeiture. And again, I agree. However, where she says that the government can come take my coins and there's nothing that I can do about it, that's where she's wrong, but it doesn't mean that I wouldn't pay a price. This is what I mean. The government comes to my door and in my house, I have literally no ability for them to be able to get my Bitcoin, I. E. I don't keep my passphrase anywhere on my premises. I keep it somewhere else. Maybe I buried it in a public park somewhere.
I know that's stupid, but just just bear with me. Let's say that I physically do not possess any means upon me to be able to turn over my coins to the government if they decided to, oh, I don't know, torture me in my house. They can't get my coins. It's impossible for them to get my coins. Now let's say that that actually occurs and they say, mister Bennett, if you don't hand over your passphrase right now, you're going to jail. Okay. Yeah. I probably will. I very will might. I could do the whole I don't have control over it anymore. I lost the keys. Whatever. But that there's that's gonna be a little weak in the face of a bunch of FBI guys.
Right? It just is. No matter how much we want to say that it isn't, it is. It's weak. Yeah. And I'm probably gonna end up in jail, but that still doesn't mean that they get my coins. So would they be able to put me in jail for life? I I don't know. So here we come to something that I've been thinking about for a a good long while. And that's this this notion of us remaining civilized as a citizenry of the United States, and you can just expand that to the rest of the world if you want. Given what people in the it over at the economic forum in Davos are saying over the course of this week, it has become clear to me and it all well, actually, it always has. But, I mean, it it's even more clear to me now that they don't like us. They don't really care about us. And they will do whatever it is that they need to do to make sure that we remain poor and they remain rich.
And when when people start threatening my ability to be able to say something, and they're not even from my own country, and somehow or another they're going to impact my they could possibly impact my ability to say something, at one point or another, we start have to asking the question, why are we not dragging these people out into the street? And literally putting upon them that which scares them to within an inch of their life, so that they are traumatized forever. And therefore, never ever want to serve in public service ever again. And will dissuade their children and their grandchildren from ever serving in public service.
Why do we essentially keep saying, but that's not a civilized society? Does this look like a civilized society? Where the US government can just come take your shit because your shit was involved in a crime that you had no clue was going on? That's not civilized. That's violence. And at one point or another, I feel that the citizenry of the world, not just any particular country, but the citizenry of the world will get their fill, and they will be forced to do something that actually looks like violence to the rest of the world. That's that's what I'm worried about. Is and and that it will break free. There was a movie something about, like, where one night every year, there was no laws and you could do whatever the hell you wanted. I can't remember the name of it. If somebody remembers, please, you know, make sure that that that you, boost the show and and tell me what the name of that movie is. I I I I'm I'm worried that that kind of shit is gonna happen because it is that's what's happening to us. Ross Ulbrich got free after essentially being dragged into the street and beaten to within inch of his life, even though not physically, but legally beaten to within inch of his life.
And now he he may very well not actually ever want to say anything ever again because of fear of going back in the hole. So how how is it these people are able to do violence to us and they just get away scot free and they have no pushback at all? It's because of this notion of but that's not the way a civilized society runs you can't do that. You've got to protest. You've got to hold up a sign and walk around in a circle for about an hour, and then maybe, just maybe, they'll actually listen to you. No. This is this is untenable.
And it's going to break free in a way that nobody wants it to break free. But I get the feeling that these people cannot stop the way that they're acting. So when we go back to what Lol Elites is saying about civil asset forfeiture, I, at this point, am kind of in agreement. If it's going to contain stolen property, then I would rather we not have any kind of strategic reserve at all. It's not good for us. It's not good for the United States. It's not good for the world. But what is good for the world is the Circle p, which is open for business right now. And today, I'm bringing you plebeian.market. That's plebeian or plebeian, depending on how you actually wanna pronounce it, dot market. If you have not been over there, it is based on Noster, which is flying in the face of all the people at Davos right now. And it's a market. You can go buy stuff. You can go buy a shirt with a great big old BTC smile on it. And, yes, it's a happy face and the eyes are the Bitcoin symbol. Please don't wear that because it makes you a target, as I've said. But there's also oh, let's see. There's a, a handwritten or a hand drawn drawing of fuck the fucking fuckers.
There is a hand drawn, ashtray or a rolling tray, if you, like to, you know, smoke pot and whatnot like that, of a skeleton. There's all kinds of neat stuff, and you buy them all for Bitcoin. Here's here's a cold card queue for 250,000 sats or 0.003 BTC, and there are 4 in stock. And you can buy all of this. You can buy kombucha. You can buy, block clock. You can buy, wow, a Ross Perot ball cap. Holy crap, dude. I haven't seen a Ross Perot hat in a long time. You can buy hot chili jam and scotch bonnets on plebeian market. Plebeian.marketplebeian.
You can use whatever wallet you want. But here's here's one of the things that I want to make sure that you know about. One of the people that is, on the Plebeian market is one of my favorite artists on Nostar which is isolabel. I think that's how you pronounce it. Isolabel.art. He's running a massive sale on his art and if you haven't seen his art it's absolutely wonderful and he's just that's what he does that's what Isobel art does is just paint paintings and they're wonderful paintings and he has just for just passed 30,000 followers on Noster So all of his paintings purchased within the next 24 hours will be sent with free shipping and that's worldwide.
That is worldwide guys. So if you love his art and if you haven't seen his art you can go to isolabelle isolabel.art. That's his website and you can view it all. I bought one of his pieces for my sister for Christmas. Absolutely love it. But there's all kinds of stuff on plebianmarket and if plebian.market and if you want a circular economy to occur, then make sure that you go check out plebian.market. You can log in with your nostril credentials. It's amazing. And then once you're there, go look for Isobelle Art and you will find some great pieces there. Now, on to the European Union, where the, well, the European Central Bank is pushing for a digital euro in response to Trump's crypto executive orders that could further disintermediate banks.
And Brian MacLean is writing this one for the block. Eurozone banks need a digital euro to counter United States president Donald Trump's efforts to promote worldwide United States backed stablecoins according to European Central Bank board member, Piero Cipollone. Speaking at a policy meeting in Frankfurt, not Davos, but in Frankfurt on Friday, Cipollone highlighted the potential impact of Trump's latest initiative on global finance. Because on Thursday, Trump signed the executive order aimed at bolstering US leadership in digital financial technology, emphasizing the protection and promotion of the United States dollars' sovereignty.
The order includes provisions to support, quote, the sovereignty of the United States dollar, including through actions to promote the development and growth of lawful and legitimate dollar backed stablecoins worldwide. What have I been telling you over the last, like, 6 weeks? The stablecoins are going to be linked to the dollar through the United States Treasury bond market. That's that's the way this shit is going to work. Anyway, at the Institute For Law and Finance's 13th conference on the future of financial sectors, Cipollone cautioned that Trump that the Trump administration could move could further attract customers away from traditional banks, amplifying the need for the ECB to accelerate its digital currency plans, quote, I guess the keyword here in Trump's executive order is worldwide, Gip Leoni told a conference in Frankfurt on Friday, according to Reuters.
Quote, this solution, you all know, further disintermediates banks as they lose fees. They lose clients. That's why we need a digital euro. See what I mean by the hair on fire running around like they have to do damage control? This is this is not going to have the effect that they want. It's going to be it's going to make it worse for them. I guarantee it. But to finish off, a digital euro would function as an online wallet guaranteed by the ECB ECB but operated by private entities such as banks. This system would enable users, including those with a bank account, to make payments. However, individual holdings would likely be capped at a few €1,000 and would not earn interest.
The ECB is currently testing how a digital euro might work in practice, but will defer a final decision on its launch until the bloc's lawmakers pass the necessary legislation. In contrast, US president Donald Trump's recent executive order explicitly prohibits the Federal Reserve from issuing its own central bank digital currency, underscoring his administration's focus on promoting private dollar backed stablecoins instead. We thought the dollar was weaponized before. Oh, baby. You ain't seen nothing yet. This is this is how to put this.
I'm trying to to figure out a way to incorporate dollar milkshake theory here, but this this is like dollar milkshake theory on steroids with a nuclear generator attached to it. This is absolutely 100% the United States' last attack on the rest of the world. And I don't necessarily, you know, mean that well, I I don't think it's a good idea. But I also I mean, it's like if I was living in any other country than the United States, I'd be really pissed. I'd be absolutely horrified if if if I knew as a person living in something like, you know, if I was a Frenchman or an Englishman or something like that, and if I knew what I actually know, I would be more than horrified because this is a complete weaponization of the dollar.
And it's probably going to work. That's that's what I'm getting at is that he's prob it's probably going to work. It's probably going to just decimate, if not utterly annihilate, every single fiat currency over the next 4 to 8 years. If the next administration that gets in continues this particular thought process, you can kiss any other currency other than the dollar and bitcoin goodbye. Well, and tather Tether and USDC and and stuff like that because the stablecoins are here to stay. And this is what I was warning have been warning about over the last 6 weeks. There's going to be stablecoin scams out the wazoo.
They're coming. People will literally spin up a coin, say it's a stablecoin, tell you that it's backed by the United States dollar, and lickety split, you will lose any money that you put into that system. It's gonna be just like an altcoin scam, just like a shitcoin scam, like just like the ICOs of old. It's gonna be the exact same thing, and they will have absolutely no intention of being an actual stablecoin. They will exist primarily to get your money and then rug pull your ass and leave you with nothing. Just because they say it's a stablecoin does not mean it's actually anything other than a scam.
You will need to be aware of this because otherwise, you're going to lose all of your money. Now, we had mentioned the SAB 121. Turns out that the Securities and Exchange Commission has rescinded SAB 121, permitting banks to custody Bitcoin. The SEC did it themselves. Trump didn't do it. Well, I'm sure he had I'm sure he made a phone call, but it was the SEC themselves that did it. Because, remember, Congress had passed a law or wanted to pass a law that rescinded this thing from the congressional side. Biden vetoed it. This is the SEC themselves doing it, and it's from Bitcoin Magazine written by Vivek Sin. In a landmark decision, the SEC has officially rescinded staff accounting bulletin number 121, a rule that had long hindered banks from offering Bitcoin and crypto custody services.
The move, announced on Thursday, signaled a significant shift in the SEC's approach to regulating Bitcoin and crypto and paves the way for greater financial integration. Introduced in March of 2022 under the former SEC chair Gary Gensler, SAB 121 required institutions holding bitcoin bitcoin and crypto assets for customers to record those holdings as liabilities on their own bank balance sheet. And that was the problem. This accounting standard created significant operational and financial burdens for banks and custodians, effectively discouraging them from providing Bitcoin related services.
The rule was widely criticized by the crypto industry and lawmakers, with SEC commissioner Hester Pierce famously calling it a pernicious weed. Quote, bye bye, s a b 121. It's not been fun, Hester Pierce wrote in a post on Twitter on Thursday following the SEC's issuance of staff accounting bulletin number 122, which formally rescinds the guidance. The SEC's move to rescind this comes just days after Gensler's resignation and marks a start of a new era under Republican leadership in according to SEC chair Mark Ulleda, who assumed the role on Monday, he quickly announced the formation of a crypto task force led by Hester Pierce to craft clearer and more practical regulatory frameworks for the industry. Quote, to date, the SEC has relied primarily on enforcement actions to regulate crypto retroactively and reactively, often adopting novel and untested legal interpretations along the way, end quote. With the removal of SAB 121, major banks are now expected to move swiftly to integrate Bitcoin and crypto custody services into their offerings.
This is a significant milestone in the financialization of Bitcoin, bringing it closer to mainstream adoption. So you might ask yourself that's the end of the article, by the way. You might ask yourself, why did it matter if they you know, what exactly did this do? Okay. So here's the here's the the nutshelling it. I'm a bank. I wanna offer crypto custody services under the standing SAB 121. Be like, let's say before it was repealed. And they say, sure, you can do that. You gotta put, all the Bitcoin that you hold for your customers on the balance sheet. I say sure fine let's do that along with my United States Treasury bonds because I have to list that as liabilities as well, right? Okay. So now bitcoin goes up and I I have to get up I'm I'm recording that on my books. I'm saying, hey, look, you know, we we actually have more money than we we did in in terms of US dollars. But let's say the US Treasury bond market just shits the bed and the principal value of all the bonds that I hold just fall through the floor by, like, let's say, 50%.
Well, all of a sudden, my bank's insolvent, just like Silvergate and all the rest of the banks that happened in, what was it, 2022, 2021. I can't remember when those 3 banks went under. But, essentially, what happened is the treasury bills or treasury bond values shit the bed. And all these banks, not actually, not all of them. 2 of the 3 actually did not have the money to pay back all of the people that they needed to pay back if all of the people demanded their money at once. So they were effectively insolvent and the world saw it. All banks are insolvent.
But these banks, the whole world saw that they were insolvent. And then they were basically taken over, liquidated, and then given over to other banks. Okay. That's what happens with the US Treasury bond. Now, let's do the exact same experiment except the bonds are fine, but Bitcoin shits the bed by an 80% drop and I've got it listed on my books as a liability. All of a sudden, same thing. I don't have the money to be able to pay back all the creditors if all the creditors come to my door and demand their money all at once. Therefore, I've got to liquidate the bank. The FDIC takes it over. And then next thing you know, I'm owned by Jamie Dimon.
And that's why nobody wanted to do this. And the the fact of the matter was is that the difference between the treasury bond on their liability sheet versus the Bitcoin on their liability sheet is that the bonds are actually owned by the bank and not by the creditors. The bonds are there and all the a lot of the other things that a bank holds are there to be able to liquidate just in case they need to actually come up with ready cash because there is a run on the bank. The Bitcoin in this particular issue is directly owned by the customers, yet would have to be listed like bonds as a liability on the bank's balance sheet. And that is one of the reasons why none of the banks would touch it.
And, honestly, I wouldn't touch it either because of that particular issue. But now that SAB 121 is gone as replaced by SAB 122 rescinding that matter, Now all the banks in the United States will be able to custody and not have to list those assets on their balance sheet. We'll have to see what that actually does, but it could be a free for all. Who knows? But MicroStrategy is not out of the woods. In fact, they might have they might have dug themselves a little bit of a hole according to this report that says MicroStrategy may owe taxes on $19,000,000,000 of unrealized Bitcoin gains Despite never selling any Bitcoin, MicroStrategy may have to pay taxes on unrealized gains.
The largest corporate Bitcoin holder may have to pay federal income taxes on its unrealized gains, according to something called the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. The act established a corporate alternative minimum tax under which MicroStrategy would qualify for a 15% tax rate based on the adjusted version of the company's earnings, according to a January 24 report in the Wall Street Journal. Still, the US Internal Revenue Service may create an exemption for BTC under President Donald Trump's more crypto friendly administration. MicroStrategy's holdings have surpassed 461,000 bitcoin worth more than $48,000,000,000 after the company bought $243,000,000 of Bitcoin on January 13th.
According to MicroStrategy's portfolio tracker, the company's Bitcoin holdings have an unrealized gain of 3rd oh, sorry. $19,300,000,000 The report comes 6 months after MicroStrategy agreed on June 3, 2024 to pay $40,000,000 to settle a tax fraud lawsuit that had accused it and Sailor of tax evasion. The attorney general of Washington DC sued Sailor and MicroStrategy in August of 2022 alleging that the executive executive had paid no income taxes in the district for at least 10 years while he lived there. Well, MicroStrategy and cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase have pushed back against the corporate alternative minimum tax regulation.
The two firms requested that the U. S. Treasury and the IRS adjust the final rule to exclude unrealized crypto gains from the adjusted financial statement income statement to avoid serious unintended consequences to U. S. Corporations holding substantial cryptocurrencies. The two firms wrote in a joint letter to lawmakers on January 3rd, quote, the unforeseen combination of the CAMT, the corporate annual minimum tax or whatever, and a newly promulgated accounting standard are creating unjust and unintended tax consequences. CAMT imposes a 15% minimum tax on the AFSI of any corporation whose AFSI averages at least $1,000,000,000 in the prior 3 year period.
Because the standard affects the corporation's AFSI, corporations that own enough appreciated crypto to be subject to CAMT must now pay tax on the unrealized gains in the value of that cryptocurrency, the letter stated. The tax laws increased investor interest in June of 2024 after the IRS issued a new crypto regulation which will make US crypto transactions subject to third party tax reporting requirements for the first time. Starting in 2025, centralized crypto exchanges and other brokers will start reporting the sales and exchanges of digital assets including cryptocurrencies. According to the IRS, the decision aims to help investors file accurate tax returns with respect to digital asset transactions.
Oh, that's bullshit. That's not what they're doing. They don't care if we file accurate accurate tax returns. In fact, they don't want that. They just want the money. That's all that shit is. Anyway, the decision could push crypto investors to decentralized platforms in a paradoxical situation that could make tax revenue harder to track. Andy Lian, author and intergovernmental blockchain expert, told CoinTelegraph. Showcasing the crypto industry's black backlash, the Blockchain Association filed a lawsuit against the IRS back in December of last year, arguing that the rules are unconstitutional because they include decentralized exchanges under the broker term extending data collection requirements to them.
So by MicroStrategy, it's gonna be interesting to see how they react. And I'm really surprised that this is the first that I'm hearing about this because this whole letter was written by Coinbase and MicroStrategy and sent on January 3rd. The letter itself is actually, dated January 2nd. So who knows how the hell this is gonna go? But one thing if you missed it, as of this year, all brokerages in the United States are going to report anything that you do on their exchange to the United States government, specifically the Internal Revenue Service.
So if you go buy something from coin if you go buy Bitcoin from Coinbase, that gets reported. If you send that Bitcoin to a different wallet, that will probably be reported to Coinbase or to to the IRS. If you sell Bitcoin on Coinbase, you can bet your bottom dollar that's going to be reported to the United States IRS. And and that's not just Coinbase or Kraken or whatever. Like, Cash App is probably going to have to do that too. In fact, I just make the assumption that they are going to be a broker and that they are going to have to report this stuff. So if I buy and sell or whatever on Cash App, you can bet your bottom dollar the IRS is gonna get a report from Cash App that says exactly what I did and exactly what time of day I did it on exactly what day.
So just be aware. Meanwhile, let's run the numbers. CNBC Futures and Commodities. West Texas Intermediate Oil seems to be holding steady at $74.71 after a point 12% rise. Brent Norsee, likewise, it's up a quarter to $78.52. Gas is up, well, 1 a quarter to $3.99 per 1,000 cubic feet, while gasoline fell half a point to $2.5 a gallon. Gold is up a half to 27.80.6 $0. Silver is up 1.1%. Platinum is up 0.15. But copper is down a quarter as is palladium. Agricultural futures, the biggest winner is sugar, 2.03% to the upside. Biggest loser is wheat, 1.8% to the downside. And then I got live cattle, which is up 1 a quarter percent. Lean hogs are up 1 a third. And feeder cattle also up just under a full point.
But the Dow is down a quarter, as is the S and P. Nasdaq is really sucking swamp water. It's down a full half point, and the S and P mini is down 0.13%. Bitcoin did okay. Not bad. 106,600 puts us at a $2,111,000,000,000 market cap, and we can get 38.6 ounces of the shiny metal rocks with our 1 Bitcoin of which there are. 19,814,366.89 of, and average fees per block remain fairly low. Nice and subdued at 0.05 BTC on a per block basis. And there are only 45 blocks carrying a scant 112,000 unconfirmed transactions waiting to clear at high priority rates of 2, count them 1, 2 satoshis per v byte. Low priority is the same at 2 satoshis per v byte. Hash rate over a 1 week rolling average, and that is the security of the Bitcoin network, that's what it represents anyway, is 781.2 exahashes per second, which is pretty damn high From yesterday's episode of Bitcoin and entitled wartime scammer, Kaz Pieland with a 1,000 says, oh, no.
My modem was down, so I did not stream sats through AlbyHub Podverse. Let's boost boost boost. I appreciate that, Kaz. God's death 537. Thank you, sir. Happy belated birthday, brother. Oh, dude. I appreciate that, man. Mark with 210 says, thank you, sir. No, thank you. BTC master with 121 says, all sats matter at allsatsmatter.com. Pies with a 100 says, thank you, sir. No. Thank you. And then there's my friend, Birobela, who if you're not following b I r o b e l a over on Noster, you're missing out because he just brings all kinds of neat stuff like interesting baseball swings, with a baseball bat came out today. And it was I was it was actually rather mesmerizing.
He's got great content on Noster. If you're looking for somebody that's got great content, follow my friend, Birobela, b I r o b e l a. He says, none of your business is pissed in this one. First time I hear him pissed. Yeah. It's because I was going off about, the, murder for hire charges that people keep, bouncing around with, Ross Ulbricht. I'm tired of listening to it. Please stop it. Please stop. That's the weather report. Welcome to the news you can use. This is, actually the second part of the news you can use. Bitcoin is steady near a 104,000 after the Bank of Japan delivers a hawkish rate hike. Now, if you remember what happened last July when the Bank of Japan did this, it caused all manner of problems, but it doesn't seem to be doing it this time. So what gives? Let's find out from CoinDesk's, OMCAR God Bowl.
BTC held steady during Friday's Asian hours after the BOJ lifted the benchmark borrowing cost to the highest in 17 years while raising inflation forecast, quote, if the outlook presented in the January outlook report will be realized, the bank will accordingly continue to raise the policy interest rate and adjust the degree of monetary accommodation, the policy statement said, citing positive outlook on wages and maintaining guidance to keep rising rates according to forex live. The anti risk Japanese yen rose over 0.6% to 155.12 against the US dollar following the rate decision.
Still, risk assets remained resilient. Bitcoin showed no signs of stress, trading little changed on the day above 104,000. The futures tied to the S and P 500 also traded flat. And as we just saw, the Dow, the Nasdaq, the S and P, all of them are not really they're not really that affected. It's it's it's interesting because that this whole thing boils down to the yin carry trade, which is people borrowing in to buy assets, a lot of risky assets because borrowing in is cheap when you have interest rates at 0.25% or whatever or these these historically low interest rates that the that the Bank of Japan has had.
You go and you buy this stuff and then all of a sudden you now owe a shit ton more interest on the loan of yen because the Bank of Japan raised the rates and you've borrowed the yen. So now your rates on that borrowed yen go up. So the next thing you know, you gotta sell some of these assets which are, generally speaking, riskier assets to be able to cover the loan that you borrowed in yen. See how that works? That's the yen carry trade. Well, the rates just went up and it doesn't look like everything shit the bed. So what gives? Well, the resilience in risk assets suggest that the market attention is increasingly centered on potential policy developments under Donald Trump.
In comparison, the Bank of Japan's rate hike in late July had previously shaken risk assets, including cryptocurrencies. On Thursday, president Trump signed an executive order to ban digital dollars and promote that's the CBDCs. And promote crypto and AI innovation in the United States. Meanwhile, the US data released recently showed all tenant rent index, which leads shelter inflation in the CPI rising at a slower pace last quarter. That has raised hopes that the Fed will walk back on its hawkish December rates forecast. They're hoping in the United States that we continue to lower rates.
I still don't see that happening more than twice this year. I'm just giving my forecast there. Alright. So Ethereum's looming collapse is a lesson in blockchain integrity. If your founder is not pivoting to a Bronze Age mindset in 2025, you're not going to make it. This is Bitcoin Magazine written by Guillermo Guerard. In the world of decentralized networks, the battle lines are drawn not just between different blockchains but within the communities that they spawn. Bitcoin, having weathered its own civil war, has emerged stronger, proving its resilience and commitment to the principles of decentralization, freedom and truth.
Ethereum, on the other hand, is currently embroiled in internal strife, revealing a stark contrast in community ethos and leadership philosophy. Vitalik Buterin's recent tweets concerning the Ethereum Foundation's drama are a testament to this. They expose a community that seems to prioritize perception over substance, a hallmark of the bureaucratic and woke culture that has infiltrated society at large. Ethereum's approach under Buterin's guidance reflects a refusal to adopt the Bronze Age mindset that has been pivotal in Bitcoin's success. This mentality, often derided as toxic maximalism by outsiders, champions unapologetic truths and a fierce defense of core values like decentralization and security.
Toxicity, in this context, becomes a virtue. It favors those willing to speak uncomfortable truths and maintain the integrity of a blockchain's original vision. Choosing the path of bureaucratic, human resource friendly discussion leads to a landscape where managing perceptions overshadows achieving actual results. Ethereum's current predicament is not just a long time coming, but perhaps a necessary wake up call for those who have strayed from the path of what blockchain technology was meant to achieve. In contrast, Ethereum's current turmoil showcases a leadership that is cracking under pressure, revealing Buterin's true colors. And it's not the first time.
Bitcoin, unlike Ethereum, does not have a foundation. And this is by design. Does this make our governance process a 100 times harder? Absolutely. And that's precisely the point. Even though I might not always agree with the criticism level to Bitcoin Core, I recognize the value of knowing that they can be replaced at any given moment. The Ethereum Foundation has always been a magnet for centralized control, and the power vacuum its collapse would leave would sow chaos. Bitcoin's governance might be organized chaos, but Ethereum is now facing a spell of unorganized chaos that could further tarnish its reputation.
Good luck. I'd love to see Vitalik return to Bitcoin. He's undeniably intelligent. Yet his current role as the man in control is exactly why Bitcoin avoids having a public figurehead. The plebs, the node runners, are in control. And that's the better way. The dotETH community's apparent lack of commitment to these foundational blockchain principles suggest a future where Ethereum might not just suffer greatly from its civil war, but could also lose relevance. The irony here is palpable. While Ethereum struggles, other platforms like Solana stand to gain. But it seems like those making this migration do not learn from their mistakes.
They recognize the ugly side of Ethereum and Vitalik, but instead of seeking the true axioms of a good network, they move to an even more centralized alternative. However, this shift is likely temporary. The so called on chain refugees fleeing the chaos of Ethereum will eventually find their way back to Bitcoin, the original and only cryptocurrency that has consistently delivered on its promises, without the drama. They need one more rug pull on the Solana side before they finally end their journey. Like all of us, Bitcoin only.
This drama within Ethereum has been brewing for years. And while it might be late in coming, it's not soon enough for humanity. The time wasted building upon what some might argue is a fundamentally flawed system could have been better spent advancing technologies that genuinely uphold the ideals of decentralized freedom. As Ethereum continues to navigate these internal conflicts, it serves as a cautionary tale. It underscores the importance of a community that values truth over narrative, freedom over control, and decentralization over centralized decision making, Bitcoin emerging stronger from its own civil war wasn't just about survival.
It was about proving the soundness of its principles. Ethereum's ongoing struggle might just be the catalyst needed for the blockchain community to return to those roots, recognizing that in the realm of digital currencies, only those built on genuine, unyielding principles will stand the test of time. Okay. So it's just gets worse over at Ethereum. It doesn't look like it's gonna clear up anytime soon. And Ethereum continues to lose ground against Bitcoin. It dipped below 0.00 3. Is that what it was? Let me check. Just just for shits and giggles over here.
Come on. Come on, baby. You can do it. Come on. TradingView. Alright. Right now it's at oh, okay. 0.031 is what it stands at right now. However, at roughly around 12 o'clock AM last night Pacific Standard Time, this song bitch hit a low of, wow, 0.0314. It was way down there. I mean, it was really about to hit Yeah. It was really really about to go, and hit well, actually, wait. Hold on. Make sure make sure about this just so that I'm absolutely certain of what's going on. Yeah. Low of 0.030 BTC on a per Ethereum or Eth coin basis. It's just and and it it spiked back up. It got all the way up to 0.032, but now it's just drifting back down again.
And it just it this internal strife that they're suffering over there just doesn't look like it's gonna go away. But here here's the thing. There's a couple things in this article that I want to that I kinda want to address here about this civil war. It's this notion that they're going to learn their lesson, that the people that are escaping from, from Ethereum and going to blockchains like Solana are somehow or another going to get rug pulled by Solana and therefore just end up at Bitcoin. And I don't think this is true. I've been in this game for way too long. I've seen people just lie to themselves again and again and again and again, and they just don't learn.
There's going to be plenty of people to rug pull from here until the day all of the people that are listening to my voice are firmly planted in the ground. Because greed is part of human nature and because greed is part of human nature, you will always always find somebody who is willingly going to give up their money because they think it's going to make them rich. These people are never going to learn. They're gonna go over to Solana, they're gonna stay over in Solana. If they get rug pulled of Solana, they're gonna go to Tron. If they get rug pulled out of Tron, they're gonna go back to Sushiswap.
They're never ever going to come back to Bitcoin. It's just going to be too painful for them to admit that they were wrong. That's the other part of human nature that works in tandem with greed. It's just an the inability to admit you're wrong and just do the right thing. No. No. No. No. That's just not going to happen here. So I feel bad for the people out of out there at, Ethereum. I mean, I don't feel that bad about it, but I do feel bad about the people that don't understand Ethereum the way that most most of us probably in this audience understand what Ethereum actually is. And if you don't understand what Ethereum actually is, I can only try to dissuade you from even coming close to to figuring it out. Just don't buy it. Stay away from it.
It's it is a dumpster fire and you don't wanna have any part of it. Now, Breeze is in the news. They've raised $5,000,000 to bring bitcoin payments to every app. Okay? Bitcoin payments startup Breeze has announced raising this funding round from Entre Capital, Ego Death Capital, Plan B Fund, and Time Chain. Quote, we're happy to share that we've raised this $5,000,000 to bring payment Bitcoin payments to every app. Well, what does that mean, dude? The firm said that in the 18 months since its launch, over 40 apps have implemented Breeze SDK in production or beta, providing approximately 1,500,000 users with access to self custodial peer to peer bitcoin payments.
Breeze SDK partners range from well known names in the Bitcoin and crypto space to emerging companies including Relay, Cake Wallet, Clever, Yopaki, and Elysium Lab. And in 2024, those apps collectively processed over $4,500,000 in gross transaction volume. The company is also preparing to launch Misty Breeze, a reference app demonstrating the user friendly Lightning UX via their nodeless implementation and SDK. Additionally, the company is exploring new technologies to enhance the SDK and establish new standards for peer to peer payments. If you haven't tried Breeze and you want to just like, if if you're just experimental, go check it out, man. Breeze has actually been the SDK has been around since what it what it say?
God. It was just here. It was just here. Good lord. 18 months since its launch. Yeah. That's the Breeze SDK, but Breeze itself has been around for a lot longer. They're old school, so go check out Breeze that's spelled b r e e z. Go check out their SDK if you're a developer or some of their, wall or their wallet if you are not. Now, US Federal Court rules that backdoor searches of FISA section 702 data is unconstitutional. So it sounds like a federal judge did the right thing. Let's find out more. A landmark ruling comes from the criminal case United States versus Hasbar Jarami following more than, god, a decade of litigation.
And the case involves a US resident arrested in New York JFK's airport in 2011 en route to Pakistan, charged with providing material support to terrorists. After his original conviction, the government revealed that the case relied partly on warrantless emails between this gentleman and an unnamed foreigner linked to terrorist groups. These emails were collected using section 702 programs stored in a database and later searched without a warrant using terms related to the defendant. Quote, to countenance this practice would convert section 702 into precisely what defendant has labeled it, a tool for law enforcement to run backdoor searches that circumvent the 4th amendment, United States district judge Lashawn D'Arcy, said in the ruling released on January 21st. God, it's my birthday again. Oh. The district court found that regardless of the government's ability to collect communications between foreigners and Americans without a warrant under section 702, it cannot typically involve a foreign intelligence exception to the 4th Amendment's warrant clause when searching these communications, which is standard FBI practice.
Quote, while communications of US persons may nonetheless be intercepted, incidentally or inadvertently, it would be paradoxical to permit warrantless searches of the same information that section 702 is specifically dot designed to avoid collecting, the judge said, adding that, quote, public interest alone does not justify warrantless querying, end quote. Furthermore, even if such an exception were applicable, the court determined that the privacy intrusion caused by reading sensitive communications made these searches unreasonable under the 4th Amendment.
So hats off to the federal this federal judge who basically just told the DOJ that they can just go pound sand. Nice. It's a win for the 4th amendment which has been under attack since the war on drugs. And if you didn't understand what the war on drugs was, if you were my age, or you don't understand what the war on drugs is because you weren't around in the eighties when Ronald Reagan was president and that shit came out, it had nothing to do with drugs. That's what they said. That's what they told us. And like good Americans, we bought it hook, line, and sinker and raised the American flag and said, rah rah, let's go get them.
No. What it was, was to undermine the 4th Amendment. It was the ability for the government to start this long this decades long run of just being able to say, well, we can put a tracker on your vehicle and we don't have to tell you. We don't need a really a warrant for this and we don't need a warrant for that. And then that the war on the the the war that was instead of being the war on drugs was the war on the 4th amendment. When that really accelerated was with the addition of the Patriot Act. So you've got a you've got a a double whammy. In the 19 eighties, you had the the war on drugs. Right? Nancy Reagan and Ronald Reagan singing kumbaya with the rest of the country while our 4th amendment rights to privacy were eroded, and then the idiots flew the planes into the towers or whatever it is that you wanna say happened. I'm not even gonna go there right now. But the Patriot Act did happen. There's no conspiracy there as far as whether or not that shit happened.
The Patriot Act happened, and it put it through gasoline on what they were trying to do with the war on drugs, and it worked. So now, you can't go anywhere in the United States without face scanning or if you wanna fly on a plane, you gotta get your your body irradiated, but by God knows what that will cause God knows what, God knows when. You can't you can't do any of the things that we used to do because we're not citizens anymore, we're chattel. And if you don't think we're chattel, I can't help you because we are we have been turned into chattel. We we are cows in a field and we are being fattened and we are either being milked or taken to slaughter later on. But there is no privacy.
And the 4th Amendment of the United States Constitution or the Bill of Rights, which is part of the Constitution of the United States, was supposed to be there to make sure that all citizens of the United States felt secure and were in fact secure in their persons and their papers. You can't just bust into my house and start rifling through my crap to find something that you can pin on me probably to get civil asset forfeiture going on like little elites was saying. So there's a win. We we we have a win. So take the win, ladies and gentlemen, for the 4th amendment, and I will see you on the other side.
[01:07:44] Unknown:
This has been Bitcoin and and I'm your host, David Bennett. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and hope to see you again real soon. Have a great day.
Introduction and Overview
Trump's Executive Order on Crypto
SEC Rescinds Major Rule
CoinDesk's Subscription Model
State-Level Crypto Strategies
Seized Coins and Forfeiture Law
Civilized Society and Government Overreach
Stablecoins and Dollar Weaponization
Bitcoin's Market Position
